My Last Gang Fight: Okay, It Was My First One, Too!

Music drifted from the garage door that opened out in to the alley. Friends and family members gathered around the keg, sitting just inside the lighted garage, waiting to refill red plastic party cups with their names scribbled on them in permanent black ink. The shoop-shoop of the pump priming the keg, kept the same beat as the Alabama Song by the Doors.

“Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey barrrrr!” sang my oldest son Jay, tenant of the party house and a new father by one week.

His friend, Chris, walked up and stopped directly in front of him. “You didn’t have to tell my old lady that I left the bar with a girl!”

“Well, she asked. What was I supposed to do? Lie?” Jay puffed out his chest and widened his stance as he answered. “If you have to lie about it, don’t do it.”

“I’m outta here!” Chris motioned his hand as if he were shooing away a pest. He walked out of the garage and into the dark alley.

Jay walked to the garage door and watched him stomp away from the house. A moment later, we heard a scream from the yard next door.

“What the hell are you doing?” The woman’s voice sounded panicked.

Jay turned around just as two young men ran past him in the same direction Chris had gone. “What happened?” he asked.

“They grabbed my butt!” his neighbor gasped. “They grabbed my butt, like this!” She reached behind and grabbed a substantial amount of cheek in her meaty hand. She had everyone’s attention. “They tried to put their hands up my ass!”

I looked at her and cocked my head skeptically. She was in her late thirties. She wore no make-up. Her greasy brown hair straggled unevenly to her shoulders. She wore a green polyester shift that clung tightly to the cellulite of her behind. I moved away from the captive crowd and the story she was stretching.

“Hey!” Jay yelled. “They went after Chris!” He grabbed his pepper spray, ran out of the garage and up the alley in the same direction Chris had gone.

His wife, Marie, stepped gingerly out into the alley to see what was going on. She had given birth by cesarean section and was supposed to be taking it easy so she could heal. “Oh, no!” she yelped and ran off in the direction Jay had gone. A moment later I heard her scream.

I ran out of the garage in my mini dress and low heels, adrenaline rushing. I saw the two young men standing over Jay, kicking him in the head. Marie tried to pull them away and they pushed her down. I forgot my small size, and ran directly into the conflict, to protect them both.

“Stop!” I said loudly. I stepped in between the two young men and tried to push them apart and away from my son and daughter-in-law.

I’d done the same thing at work, when students had gotten into fights and they stopped fighting. They stopped because they respected me. These guys didn’t know me, let alone respect me. They pushed me down and started kicking at me, as I huddled over Jay’s head.

Now I’d been trained a little in Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee’s style of martial arts and the muscle memory from the practice of many katas kicked in. They kicked and I parried with the same moves that Mr. Miyagi had taught Daniel Larusso in The Karate Kid. “Wax on. Wax off.” Their parried kicks struck the wooden fence next to Jay.

“Move back!” I demanded, looking at Marie. I didn’t want her stitches to break open. She spiderwalked backwards on all fours and sat there up against the fence in the alley, terrified.

The young men continued to kick. From my knees, huddled over my son’s head I continued to parry their kicks into the fence. Not one kick landed where they aimed it.

The alley echoed with the sharp raps of feet kicking wood. A faint melody drifted from the garage. “Welcome to the Hotel California,” sang Don Henley of the Eagles. I wondered how long I could keep parrying.

Suddenly, I heard feet clamoring over fences and shoes hitting the pavement of the alley. I looked up and saw about fifteen young men holding metal pipes and sticks. They were walking in our direction, fast.

“It’s a good day to die!” I yelled, remembering the line spoken in an old western, by a Native American readying to fight. I didn’t know how we were going to get out of this, but if I was going down, I would go down fighting to the end.

The kicking stopped. The two young men ran down the alley. About ten of the fence hoppers chased after them. The rest of them came over to us.

“Are you okay?” One of them reached down to help me to my feet. Two more were helping Marie up. Another two helped Jay get up and walk back to the garage, where everyone was listening to the evolving story of the neighbor.

“Who are you?” I asked, brushing dirt from my knees and smoothing my mini dress.

“We’re the Georgia Street Boys,” my helper said.

“I thought you were coming after me,” I blurted.

“No ma’am,” he answered. “Those guys were from another gang. They were in the wrong neighborhood. This is our turf. We protect this neighborhood.”

“I’m sure glad you were here.” I said. “Thank you.”

“We’re going after them, now,” he said. “They’re going to learn they can’t come into my neighborhood and cause trouble.”

I was still pumped up from adrenaline and buzzed from the beer. “I’m going with you,” I said.

“Okay,” he answered. “You can fight. I saw you.” He turned towards the garage and yelled, “Come on, guys!”

The six of us began to run in the direction the gangsters and the other Georgia Street Boys had gone. We ran for several blocks, loping around corners, cutting through alleys, hunting for the trouble makers and talking about what we were going to do to them when we caught them.

My adrenaline surged. It felt good to hunt. It felt great to be part of the pack. “This is why they kill each other!” I thought, exhilarated, trapped in the groupthink.

My buzz started wearing off. My feet started hurting from running in low heels. I started thinking of the newspaper headlines the next day.

LOCAL AREA TEACHER ARRESTED FOR PARTICIPATION IN GANGLAND MURDERS

“Guys,” I said. “They’re gone. Let’s go make sure the alley is safe.”

They understood that I couldn’t hunt anymore. They walked me back to the alley and made sure I got back to the garage without harm. Then they left.

Jay was sitting on a chair in the garage. Marie was washing a trail of blood that dripped from his ear. He looked up at me as I entered the garage. “Did you get them?” he asked.

I shook my head. “You guys okay?” I asked.

Marie nodded. “He won’t go to the hospital,” she said pointing to his bloody ear.

I looked at his eyes. The pupils were even. “I think they broke your eardrum,” I said. “You should go to the hospital and get checked out.”

“Naw. I’ll be alright,” he said. “Mom, where did you learn to fight like that?”

I grinned and said, “Wax on. Wax off, Mr. Miyagi.”