My First Fight: Canadian-style (796 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.6 on 46 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Jack McCallum (View user info) at 2008-04-30 17:36:01 EDT
[Excerpted from a rough draft of 'The Tree Fort,' an incredibly long story I've been playing with for a while now (intended for my brother's kids), one of the few biographical things I've ever written.]
==
The Hockey Stick of Death Episode
It was in the middle of February, late on a Saturday afternoon. Eddy, Mark and Paul and I were farting around in the cul-de-sac parking lot in front of our homes playing hockey. There were no rules or scoring. It was just three guys with beat to hell hockey sticks shooting like mad at a goalie and an imaginary net. When you are eleven, this kind of arrangement makes perfect sense.
This was Canada. This was winter. This was the worst part of winter, the bitter ass end of winter, when even little kids were sick of the snow and the cold.
Worse yet, this was winter in Petawawa, where there was nothing but woods and, well, more woods. There was one library. One movie theatre. The theatre showed flicks years out of date. This was before home computers and the internet and only a few people in the area had cable TV. Affordable VCRs and video rentals were a few years away. If you didn't have a good imagination you could go insane.
My friends and I had it easy. We all made up an endless number of stories and games. When the ideas ran out, there was always street hockey.
Kids who had no imagination generally turned mean and destructive out of boredom. They'd break things and set stuff on fire. They were bored, and wanted a cheap thrill. That's an adult perspective, by the way, the way I see things now, looking back. Back then I just thought some kids were born dicks.
None of us had any money for a movie, it was too cold to play war in the woods, we couldn't build snow forts because the snow was frozen, so we were playing hockey.
Instead of a puck, we were using a cheap plastic ball. We were using a cheap plastic ball because the parking lot was a frozen sea of churned ice, humps and ridges marked by the treads of our dad's cars. There were also bowls of ice that looked like ragged-edged craters, bowls of ice holding a thick and filthy gray slush. A puck would stop dead in that mess. A ball would bounce and rebound all over the place. It was actually like playing hockey in a giant pinball machine.
I was goalie, and Paul had just hooked a wicked wrist-shot past me. Actually Paul's flick of the wrist wasn't all that spectacular. But the plastic ball was frozen solid. The sun was already low in the sky, having given all the warmth it was going to give that day, and the temperature was dropping back below zero. Once you've been hit in the testicles with a piece of ice-hard plastic, you make that extra effort to get your goods out of the way.
Our goals didn't have nets or frames. Our goals were usually random markers. That bit of gray ice there and that frozen dog turd over there, for instance. If a shot got past me, it could really travel. The ball went skipping across the parking lot and halfway down the street.
I ran down the street after the ball, and grabbed it. There were a lot of other kids playing at this end of the street, and I heard an explosion of laughter from most of them when Dwaine Cummings ran past me like a blur and pulled off my touque.
I hate Dwaine Cummings. My friends hated Dwaine Cummings. I sometimes suspected that even Dwaine Cummings' friends hated Dwaine Cummings, because he could be an unbelievable prick, even if he had owned the best comic book collection on the block for years and years, passed down to him by his older brothers; and I'm talking every Legion of Superheroes comic with Ferro Lad in it, every single one.
I couldn't get enough of Ferro Lad. I thought he was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, even more so after he got killed off battling against the Sun-Eater in a storyline that also included the Fatal Five, which increased the cool factor of the whole thing by a million or so. Cut me some slack here. I was eleven.
Dwaine had eventually, grudgingly, traded those coveted issues to me earlier that year for a shitload of G.I Joe stuff I had. He had signed his name on the front covers of some of those comics, something I hadn't noticed until after the trade was done. Back then comic collecting was nowhere near the fanatical obsession it is today, but even as a kid I understood that signing your own name to the front of a comic book was fundamentally wrong. Not only did it deface the comic, but it was right up there with having your mom write your name in your underwear with a black magic marker.
Dwaine picked on me a lot. Maybe it was the red hair that made me a target. Maybe he was just an asshole. He picked on quite a few kids, but he still had a lot of friends because he had a lot of cool stuff. Thanks to guys like Dwaine I learned a valuable lesson early on; guys who have a lot of stuff have a lot of friends, but the friends that really count are the ones that hang around even if you haven't got any stuff at all.
I wasn't in any mood for Dwaine's kind of farting around. I reached for the touque and Dwaine swept up a handful of dirty parking-lot sludge and threw it in my face.
My glasses were knocked off and I fell to my knees. I would have fallen on my face if not for the support of my hockey stick. I could taste salt and dirt and car exhaust. I inhaled that crap; foul droplets that made me want to puke. I gagged and rubbed my eyes. If I hadn't had slush sloshing in my ears I would have heard Dwaine mocking me.
My pals at the other end of the street still had no idea what was happening. They were calmly waiting for me to return with the ball.
Dwaine continued to make fun of me while I shook the shit out of my ears, kicking snow and slush in my face and dangling my hat in front of my eyes, only to dance away when I reached for it.
I noticed that all the other kids were cheering Dwaine. I wasn't surprised. Lots of kids thought Dwaine was pretty cool, even if he was just a piece of shit who liked to pick on other kids.
For one brief moment, I thought I was going to cry. Then I got angry, and I heard my dad's voice, as clear as day, repeating a piece of advice he had given me a year or two before. "If you're ever being pushed around by another guy, don't be afraid. Give him one good hit, and he'll think twice about bothering you again."
The other kids were cheering now, and Dwaine danced around, waving my hat in my face and chanting, "Cry-baby, cry-baby, gonna cry about his hat!"
I stood up. In the distance behind me I heard Paul call out, "Jack? You okay?" Mark said something like "Come on, let's get him!" and Eddy let out a bullish roar. I could hear them running towards me.
"Need your friends to help you, huh cry-baby?" Dwaine asked, turning away from me.
I raised the hockey stick and said quietly, "No, Dwaine, I can do this myself."
Dwaine was in mid-step, running away from me, my touque in his right hand, grinning over one shoulder. I can see him now, frozen in time, showing that that big white grin, looking like the Joker in a panel from an old Batman comic.
I swung the hockey stick around in a vicious arc.
The kids cheering Dwaine were suddenly silent. I heard my friends skid to a stop behind me.
A moment before the stick made contact, I saw Dwaine's grin turn to a look of horror. I smiled, and that's what a lot of the kids who saw what happened would remember afterwards; my stick slamming into Dwaine's right knee and hooking back, snapping his leg out from under him and ripping a cry of pain out of a face that splashed down and disappeared into a puddle of sludge while I smiled contentedly.
A lot of kids thought I was nuts after that winter.
I walked up to Dwaine, plucked my touque out of his jittering fingers and walked away. I was shaking. Angry and scared. I still felt like I was going to puke, but now it was nerves making my stomach cramp, not dirty slush.
"I'LL GET YOU!" Dwaine howled as the other kids ran to help him up, his face slick and black with dirty slush. "I'LL GET YOU GOOD ON MONDAY MORNING YOU CHEATING SHIT!!!"
Eddy slapped me on the back and Paul asked me if I was all right while Mark laughed madly at Dwaine and told him to beware the Hockey Stick of Death.
We returned to our hockey game, but I couldn't stop worrying about Dwaine's threat.
I worried through Sunday, and on Monday morning I walked to school slowly, sure I was going to be slaughtered in the playground.
It was like something out of a Hollywood western. I stood on the verge of the play area, and there was Dwaine about a hundred feet away, by the school doors.
We began walking towards each other slowly. I was struggling to appear calm, but I was as scared as hell. Dwaine was limping like he had a broken leg. Even at that distance I could see that his right knee had swelled up so big that his jeans were pulled taut.
I sensed someone behind me and took a quick look. Paul, Mark and Eddy had appeared out of nowhere. That was good.
Dwaine kept coming, and then kids began to appear from the school's far side, about twenty of them, all kids that hung around with Dwaine. That was bad.
When Dwaine and I were a few yards from each other, my friends and his friends stopped and watched as he and I approached each other. We stood nose to nose for a minute or so. Dwaine looked pissed, and I was sure he was going to beat the shit out of me. Then he made a noise, a hurt noise, and turned away.
Nothing else happened.
Dwaine did mess with me again of course, most memorably during the Hard Mud Skirmish, a mudball fight of epic proportions, but he never did it alone, he always had his buddies back him up.
The kids who thought I was weird didn't change their minds. But my friends Paul, Mark and Eddy stuck by me always.
==
Dwaine, if you're out there, peace, buddy.
If you still have a limp, I'm sorry, man.
User Reviews
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2008-05-04 19:36:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:37:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:22:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Worse yet, this was winter in Petawawa, where there was nothing but woods and, well, more woods. There was one library. One movie theatre. The theatre showed flicks years out of date. This was before home computers and the internet and only a few people in the area had cable TV. Affordable VCRs and video rentals were a few years away. If you didn't have a good imagination you could go insane.
_____
+2.... Petawawa IS shit. I've been once and I vow to never go again.
Military brat, are you?
--
Yup.
Saw most of continental Europe by the time I was 10. The Hitler Tour, so to speak.
When we got back to Canada I went from school trips to France and Switzerland to... Petawawa, and those damned woods. My brothers were older, teenagers then. They lost their fucking minds and smoked a shitload of pot. I played in the woods with my buddies and watched a lot of old movies. Looking back, I realize it was a gift, actually, and one of the best times of my life, a taste of small town life with no bullshit distractions.
________________
True, but you can get the small town life elsewhere. But Petawawa is JUST militray, that's the downside. I have beenw ith a military guy from a military family for a while and his sister is based in Petawawa and from a small town in quebec and she absolutely hates it.
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2008-05-03 02:50:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You should write one "distinct kicking motion of death."
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2008-05-03 02:46:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:37:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Petawawa, and those damned woods. My brothers were older, teenagers then. They lost their fucking minds and smoked a shitload of pot. I played in the woods with my buddies and watched a lot of old movies. Looking back, I realize it was a gift, actually, and one of the best times of my life, a taste of small town life with no bullshit distractions.
===
Translation: "I played in the woods with my buddies...i'm not that much of a pussy you know?"
SHUT THE FUCK UP!
I come from a town like that. I've worked in the woods for quite some time as well.
So?
I STILL MOISTURIZE ANYWAY!
and you still own more cats than heterosexual males are allowed to.
Submitted by Caulaincourt (user info) at 2008-05-03 02:39:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Jack likes to forget he's canadian when he pretends to be american-born and flexes the collective american bicep in his great political essays.
But sometimes, every now and then, he'll remind us that he's canadian when he recalls being a borned and raised canadian boy from the countryside of the great northern wild.
Basically, Jack really wants to sound tough.
http://www.ubersite.com/m/113787
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2008-05-02 21:34:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/116454
I'm interested in your opinion on this Jack.
...care to share it?
Submitted by jimboruckus (user info) at 2008-05-02 20:43:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-05-02 20:42:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fewer than 600.
Submitted by odin (user info) at 2008-05-02 08:50:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you're still a dick
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2008-05-02 08:41:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2008-05-01 22:45:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
PLUS TWO FOR FUCKING FERRO LAD!!
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-05-01 20:12:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-05-01 18:31:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
what's wrong with them, anyway?
they're derivative, filled with cliches and outdated stereotypes, and half the plots are stolen.
oh.
LOL
=========
OK, Texas Head, show me ANY fiction you have done that is not "derived" from the work of others. What? You can't do it any more than HotWillie? That's what I thought.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-05-01 18:31:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
what's wrong with them, anyway?
they're derivative, filled with cliches and outdated stereotypes, and half the plots are stolen.
oh.
LOL
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 18:24:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HellRazer (user info) at 2008-05-01 18:16:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for Ferro Lad and his Hockey stick of death.
--
Thanks. I photoshopped the stick in there pretty good and didn't pay attention to that shitty, hazy font. Oh well...
Submitted by HellRazer (user info) at 2008-05-01 18:16:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 for Ferro Lad and his Hockey stick of death.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-05-01 17:56:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HotWillie is a moron who probably doesn't understand the meaning of the word derivative.
Show me any story and I can show you how it was probably derived from something someone did previously. Circe accused Kaos_King of the same thing. People don't read enough to know there is nothing 100% original, and there are five or six basic story lines.
In short: Willie, give us a sample of your writing and stfu.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:58:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:01:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
<crosses fingers>
please be GTA IV....please be GTA IV! <squeezes eyes shut>please be GTA IV....
--
Buy GTA? I'm living 20 minutes from Oakland. Every once in a while I drive up there, roll down my window, shout, "Whyn't y'all do a l'il niggah dance for The Man now, boys!" and then videotape the real thing and send them that.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:51:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:42:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
*the usual uninspired unoriginal bullshit*
--
Stop being such a petty little bitch. If you aren't gay, you ought to be, cause after 15 years living in San Francisco I can honestly say you're as spiteful and catty as an aging queen who got stood up on a Saturday night.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:42:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
daddy?
yes, timmy?
is uncle jack coming for christmas?
uh-huh.
oh.
what's the matter, tim?
well...he always gives me those crummy stories.
timmy!
danny's uncle next door gives him really cool stuff, and-
timmy, we've talked about this before. your uncle jack is-
a cheapskate!
timmy, your uncle jack works hard on those stories.
yeah, but-
what's wrong with them, anyway?
they're derivative, filled with cliches and outdated stereotypes, and half the plots are stolen.
oh.
plus his breath could knock a buzzard off a shithouse.
well...just try not to sit next to him.
gee, thanks dad.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-05-01 12:01:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
<crosses fingers>
please be GTA IV....please be GTA IV! <squeezes eyes shut>please be GTA IV....
Uhhh. Thanks, Uncle Jack..a story.
Again?
Thanks.
<bursts into tears>
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:37:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:22:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Worse yet, this was winter in Petawawa, where there was nothing but woods and, well, more woods. There was one library. One movie theatre. The theatre showed flicks years out of date. This was before home computers and the internet and only a few people in the area had cable TV. Affordable VCRs and video rentals were a few years away. If you didn't have a good imagination you could go insane.
_____
+2.... Petawawa IS shit. I've been once and I vow to never go again.
Military brat, are you?
--
Yup.
Saw most of continental Europe by the time I was 10. The Hitler Tour, so to speak.
When we got back to Canada I went from school trips to France and Switzerland to... Petawawa, and those damned woods. My brothers were older, teenagers then. They lost their fucking minds and smoked a shitload of pot. I played in the woods with my buddies and watched a lot of old movies. Looking back, I realize it was a gift, actually, and one of the best times of my life, a taste of small town life with no bullshit distractions.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:32:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-01 02:06:58 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'd also like to point out that most of the kids who got fed that "if you get shit off someone you should batter them" advice off their dads ended up getting serious injuries off of crazy people.
The crazy people ended up crippling each other or themselves, but not before hurting all the people who considered themselves their mates. Violence really is for pussies.
=====
Violence is awesome when it's in self defense. You're just jealous you've never had the joy of mauling someone with a half frozen hockey stick.
Submitted by GnarlsBarkley (user info) at 2008-05-01 11:22:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Worse yet, this was winter in Petawawa, where there was nothing but woods and, well, more woods. There was one library. One movie theatre. The theatre showed flicks years out of date. This was before home computers and the internet and only a few people in the area had cable TV. Affordable VCRs and video rentals were a few years away. If you didn't have a good imagination you could go insane.
_____
+2.... Petawawa IS shit. I've been once and I vow to never go again.
Military brat, are you?
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-05-01 08:58:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My favorite was when invisible kid met and fell in love with this girl from an invisible world. but he could only be with her when he himself was invisible.
Validus broke into the clubhouse and wound up killing Invisible Kid because the only other Legionaire around was Superboy.
No way Superboy could beat Validus on his own.
As it turns out the girl was actualy from a GHOST world and her and Invisible Kid were together in the afterlife.
AWWWW.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-05-01 08:41:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-05-01 05:13:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Petawawa is SMALL (I love Google Earth)
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-01 05:06:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'd also like to point out that most of the kids who got fed that "if you get shit off someone you should batter them" advice off their dads ended up getting serious injuries off of crazy people.
The crazy people ended up crippling each other or themselves, but not before hurting all the people who considered themselves their mates. Violence really is for pussies.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-05-01 04:55:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Eddy, Mark and Paul and I were farting around
---------------
"Farting around" is so '80s.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2008-05-01 04:18:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Frozen dog-turds must a be a genuine multi-use item in Canada because I've even seen them hanging off the rearview mirror of most cars up there.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2008-05-01 00:25:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-04-30 23:03:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
haha just kidding you cheap bastard
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-04-30 23:02:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you're right jack i've seen the error of my ways thank you for opening my eyes
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-04-30 22:40:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-04-30 22:08:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too cheap to buy them video games i see
perhaps you could at least buy them a 'cola' and something else off the dollar menu
--
There are kids in my family who are adults now. They still have the birthday and Christmas stories I did just for them, in which they are the protagonist and the setting is everything the know. Sure, a video game is fun, for a while. But like you, those simple things come and go. They still have the stories. In fact, I'm now writing them for one nephew's son these days. Spanning the generations, man.
Of course a gift like that is something beyond your understanding. Or are you just jealous? Why don't you use whatever meager talents you have to create something for a kid in your life? Then again, a card that says HAHA YOU LOSER YOUR PARENTS SUCK AND SO DO YOU probably won't make for a lasting gift.
Stop being such a petty little bitch. If you aren't gay, you ought to be, cause after 15 years living in San Francisco I can honestly say you're as spiteful and catty as an aging queen who got stood up on a Saturday night.
Submitted by Glenn. (user info) at 2008-04-30 22:39:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2008-04-30 22:08:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
too cheap to buy them video games i see
perhaps you could at least buy them a 'cola' and something else off the dollar menu
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:45:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
He shoots, he scores!!!
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:35:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wait, did he say "What's all this hitting aboot?" when he fell over, becasue i imagine he did.
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:32:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good enuff
Submitted by stone8946 (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:25:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah, at that age bad language isn't really a problem. Nice story by the way.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:20:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by stone8946 (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:12:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
How old are your brother's kids?
--
10-ish.
I try to water things down.
I did some pretty rough stuff for my other bro's kids when they were little, kinda blew their minds and pissed off their parents.
Submitted by Hookhand (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:16:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My name is Dwaine Cummings, and you, sir, are an asshole
Submitted by stone8946 (user info) at 2008-04-30 21:12:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
How old are your brother's kids?
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2008-04-30 18:47:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent read
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-04-30 18:44:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good thank you.
This just makes me feel old:
This was before home computers and the internet and only a few people in the area had cable TV. Affordable VCRs and video rentals were a few years away.
VCR CABLE TV WOW
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2008-04-30 18:01:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm having difficulties focusing today.
bored, bored, bored, but can't even bring myself to read.
sigh.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2008-04-30 18:00:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Kind of a Ralphie Parker/Scut Farkus deal going on in this one...
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2008-04-30 17:42:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ok then.
the stick was still mental though. mentalist.