Got in a fight. Peed my pants.

Got in a fight. Peed my pants.

Mama called me Benji.
In 1986 I was nine years old. I weighed about sixty pounds if I had rocks in my pocket.

Until the age of eleven you would find me wearing a threadbare Mickey Mouse T-shirt with quarter length sleeves, bright green soccer socks, and running shorts that showed too much of everything.

I had an obsession with Band-Aids. Even if I didn't need them, Band-Aids.
Not that I didn't frequently need Band-Aids back then, with a fresh scrape or a crusty scab on each knee, elbow, joint and phalanges.
I had Band-Aids on top of Band-Aids on top of Band-Aids.

If you see old pictures of me you'll see that I had one or two of my front teeth missing for most of my childhood, but I was too young to care how I looked. With mirth on my mind, you would find me grinning like I had just lit a cherry bomb in the middle of the night.
Mischievous, but soft-spoken. I was Dennis the Menace with a Pig-Pen sort of je ne sais quoi.
Also, I would like to say that my dad never put a bowl on my head to cut my hair.
I would like to say that, but I can't.
Fuck.

I remember the summer of 1986 particularly well because I had saved up enough money from my chores and couch-diving to buy a brand new pair of KangaROOS.
ROOS were the shoe with the little Velcro pocket on the outside. Maybe they're still being made, I don't know. I hope so.
I could never figure what the makers of ROOS meant to be stored in that tiny pocket.
Weed? Stinky shoe-weed?
All I knew was that if I found a quarter, I knew a safe place to put it.

On the radio Madonna begged Papa don't preach, while Peter Gabriel wanted nothing more than to be our Sledgehammer. Whatever that meant.
At the third annual MTV Video Music Awards, three Norwegian boys in a band called A-Ha came close to winning video of the year for Take on me. A Tron-inspired virtual reality dreamscape about computer viruses and sexy pencil-drawn people saving the world with some combination of fervent eye contact and effortless note-holding somewhere above high-C.
Although A-Ha won 8 out of the 11 possible awards, they lost their chance for the most coveted "Moonman" for video of the year to Dire Straits and their working-class-daydream anthem Money for nothing.
Chicks for free, indeed.

That summer I spent most of my waking hours with my brother Jimmy and his friend Scott.
Scott was a lightning rod for shitstorms.
A porno loving super-nerd that was rail-thin and a foot taller than me. He had that hockey-cut blonde hair that hung lanky across his forehead long-before "goth" was a thing in our world.
The ghostly paleness of Scott's skin was directly opposed by his loud mouth and perpetual shit-eating grin. His pinched face was dominated by a thick pair of black framed glasses with coke bottle lenses.
All of that, and I would still be remiss if I failed to document the Most-Scott feature of all; a fat white zit that owned real estate on the tip of his nose in-perpetuity.
I believe now that the Pimple of the Century had in fact been Fetus In Fetu. Not a zit at all, but Scott's womb-twin straining to emerge.
"Hi there, my name is Brian, I am your brother, please don't pop me."

Jimmy was the oldest of us, and so he was our leader. But he wasn't our leader only because he was the oldest. And not because he pulled his tube socks all the way up to his knees either, or for the sake of his white mans afro and that he could play fleur de lis on the piano while lying upside down beneath the keys.
Although to 9-year-old me, these were perfectly reasonable skills and attributes by which a leader should be chosen.
Jimmy was in charge because he was cool-headed where Scott and I were scattered.
When it was time for us to be awesome, we looked to Jimmy for the plan.

We rode BMX bikes with hard plastic seats too-low and shiny chrome handlebars too-high. The sound of our knobby tires and the buzzing-hum of a baseball card ground against the spokes of our wheels drifted on the breeze as we cruised the shrub-lined suburban streets of Pembleton Place and Appletree Drive.

We ate Pop Rocks and drank New! Coke. Grape flavored Big League Chew held a place of power in the pantheon of our sugary delights over Nerds, Charleston Chew and Licorice Ropes.
With ritualized and suicidal regularity we would gulp Slurpee's until our brains froze and panic began to set in. We would turn our faces to the fury of the summer sun with our mouths open wide and a silent prayer in our hearts that we wouldn't freeze to death on a day when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

We were unknowing participants in a childhood science experiment. Every day we were testing Einsteins Theory of Relativity in a summertime petri dish.
Hours in the sun stretched on like eternity as we searched for frogs and snakes, or pretended to be Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, or rode our bikes all over our tiny universe; only to find that summer had passed before the blink of an eye.

On that day we had been catching crawdads in a swampy creek in the middle of a four acre field that five years later would be called Peterson Lane Park. That afternoon we had played too long and denied time it's prize until the sun was nearing the horizon. Each of us would be in three different kinds of trouble if we were home after dark, and while we knew we should have taken the straight shot home on Peterson Lane, the siren song of the The Rolling Stones called for us to continue our adventures.

So we sang loudly and out of key as we peddled all the way down Yardley Street, the long way home.
Time was on our side. Yes it was.

We were only a few minutes of easy coasting and a few lazy pedal strokes from the safety of our own neighborhood when we ran straight into Popeye and his merry band of turd burglars.
Yes, Popeye. His name was Popeye. I shit you not.*

(*Some shitting required)

Popeye, enemy number one.
Popeye because of his lazy and ptotic right eye which made his left eye appear shockingly wide open.
Enemy because he was a bully.

Popeye and his gang lived one block over on Dunaway Drive, and though Dunaway was only one street away it may as well have been a war-torn, third-world country. Only bad things could happen if we were to find ourselves over there on accident.
And here we had done the thing we had always feared we would do. Borders had been crossed, the unspoken rule had been broken. The fight was about to go down and all I could think was how I wished to My Own Personal Jesus that I hadn't drank so much New! Coke that afternoon.

We circled each other on our BMX's and tried to look fiercely tough. More Michael Jackson in BAD than the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story. Way more mean mugging, a lot less finger snapping. The tension hung around us like salty sea air. Inside my mouth it tasted like I had just licked a battery.

The fight started the way that all fights between kids do.
Popeye was the first to say the phrase that pays "What are YOU looking at?"
Scott spat back without missing a beat "We're looking at your freaky popped out eye man!"
Popeye's turds tried a different tack by laughing and pointing at our bikes. "Did you get those banana bikes at a flew market?"
I jumped into the verbal fray while still trying not make eye contact with my enemy "Where'd you get that popped out eye? The junk heap?!"
The turds commented on our fashion sense. We made size estimates on that enormous popped out eye. They glared at us. We glared back with our best imitation of his popped out eye.

Round and round on our bikes, we circled each other trading barbs and stingers, encouraging each other with "Oooohhs" and "Ahhhhs" like we were watching a fireworks show. We paced and circled and waited expectantly for the distant thunder that would end this face off with a vow and a warning, or the lightening strike that would end in bloody noses.

Popeye and his turds rammed our bikes with theirs and in the silence that followed I laughed like a hyena with tears in my eyes and shouted "Your poor mom! Just look at that freakin eye!"

The loudness of my voice in that sudden silence was only overcome by the sound of Popeye throwing his bike to the ground with a metallic crunch. And suddenly he was running straight at us. I looked at Scott assuming that Popeye would fight him because they were about the same size, but Scott was looking right back at me with ever-widening eyes behind his coke-bottle glasses.

I looked back at Popeye's bum-rush just in time to see that the monsters bulk had filled my horizon.
He shoved me hard in the chest, I fell back several steps but somehow managed not to go down on my ass. I looked around in shock and terror. The bastard was ready to fight, and he had chosen me.

I pissed my pants.

In that dilated moment of time I experienced everything around me at once and wondered, not without a sense of humor, if this was the moment of my death. Before me Popeye tensed himself to launch another attack, I looked to Scott and my brother to see they were as shocked as I was. My suddenly released bladder had darkened the fabric of my running shorts and was running down my legs in a multitude of rivers, soaking into my socks and splashing onto my new KangaROOS.

One million thoughts ran through my little dutch-boy-haircut-head in the matter synapse's fart and I pondered to myself what kind of an asshole would pick on a kid half their size. I thought back to every furious wrestling match with Jimmy. Every shoulder punch, pulled ear and forbidden kick to the crotch. Every tangled heap of arms and legs flailing in the hopes of connecting a winning blow,

Reality hit me harder than Popeye had.
I had never been in a real fight before. Maybe I was going to die after all.

A tiny helium-laced voice cried out inside of me "This guy is a MONSTER! And he's singling me out!? NO! Fight Scott! Fight my brother! Fight your mom and dad for giving you that fucking eye! Just leave me alone!"

I wanted to run home and crawl into bed. I wanted to fake my own death and run away to Spain where I would begin my life again and become a Matador. I searched every corner of my mind for some strength to help me not cry in front of this bully and his gang of devils.

I was terrified of getting a beat down, humiliated at emptying my bladder and was now seriously considering disowning my brother for not jumping in front of me to fight off the open maw of a violent appetite before me.
My options were slim to none. I could attempt to run, I could lay down and be pummeled like a sack of apples, or I could fight.

With the mad acceleration of a sports car the moment of silence and slow-motion ended with a sickening quickness as another shove to my chest broke through my very own Fortress of Solitude.
I shook with fear and humiliation. The pungent smell of urine was strong in my nose and I felt the dampness of my shorts and socks grow cold in the cool breeze that blew in and around and through the destiny of this moment. I looked down at my KangaROOS, now soiled and no longer new, then I looked back at my enemy.

And you know what?
I kicked his ass.

I sprang onto Popeye like a demon-cat, screaming at the top of my lungs that I pure, cold, HATED him for making me piss my pants! I shoved him in the chest and kicked at his shins. I punched him in the ear and the throat. I scratched at his eyes and spat at his face and cursed with unholy ability.

I fought like a child possessed, not knowing where my strength came from but relishing every blow I rained down on the bastard. Not knowing how all of a sudden Popeye was on the ground, and I was on top of him with my hands around his neck and my knee jammed into his groin. Not knowing how I got behind him as quickly as a leopard climbs a tree or how his throat was suddenly and unbelievably being crushed between my tiny shaking arms in a rear naked choke-hold.

I saw snatches and glimpses of faces around me, some cheering me on, others cursing Popeye for letting a baby beat him up. I saw my brother with a look of cautious excitement. Scott was pumping his fists in the air and howling like a heathen war-child. But I couldn't hear them yelling, and I couldn't hear Popeye choking and saying "Uncle!"

All around me was chaos but the soundtrack blasting in my head was a solid 100 foot wall of white noise, overwhelming and hot, it rained down around me like glittering dust particles in a beam of sunlight.

I let Popeye go and stood shakily to my feet only to feel the brutal slap of an old broom smack me squarely across the side of my head. My hearing returned suddenly and awfully to the screams of the old woman who's lawn we had appropriated mid-fight "GET THE HELL OFF OF MY LAWN! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

I had won.

We scrambled to run away and left Popeye where he lay, being comforted by his gang of turds.
Scott picked up my small bike and ran along side his own, Jimmy grabbed his bike from off of the ground and before turning to run he grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

It's near dark as we turn onto Pembleton Place, home sweet home.

Scott is near mania with excitement and can barely keep his feet on the ground. He sets my bike down in front of me. Before Scott turns to go home he bows to me, deeply and awkwardly, and in his best Knights of the Round Table voice says "I commend your efforts, good sir. "

My brother has had his arm around me as we've walked home. I step away from him to pick up my bike and we turn to cross the street, almost home. Jimmy is quiet, but he's watching me. I think he knows whatever show of strength I had displayed before had taken it's toll and I was now as weak as a kitten. He's quiet, but I think he's proud of me.

As the moon returns the light of that lost summer day I hear the gentle voice of Freddie Mercury drifting softly through the night. He tells me of a man who has made mistakes, paid his dues, bowed at the close of the curtain, and risen to defy the odds.

Guitar solo.