By this time, twenty party celebrants
had now made their way outside to see what the commotion was about. Among them were four or five of Ron's frat buddies. His friends were of all shapes and sizes, none of them remotely intimidating. They walked over to us, eager to get in on the fun.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" one guy chanted. Oh shit, but fighting was fun.
Sometimes too much fun. Others egged on Ron by joining in the chant.
Anyway, now they stood next to him in a display of solidarity. Ron shouted
to them, "This guy thinks he's going to kick my ass."
Ron had no idea what he was up against. If he had any street smarts, he would take in how I was holding myself. How I was prepared, at a
moment's notice to strike and strike hard. Any fighter worth his salt knew
immediately what he was up against, by the way, his opponent held himself. Ron wasn't a fighter. He wasn't anything.
And he's not worth getting suspended over.
I took in a lot of air. I had sized up my opponent and knew immediately what I was up against it. Ron was doughy and out of shape. I could knock him out in seconds. His friends, on the other hand, might cause some problems if they decided to make this a group affair. I didn't shy away from group affairs. I shied away, in fact, from very little. I looked at his friends. Some looked cocky. Some looked confused. Most looked drunk. One or two of them were yelling for Ron to kick my ass. My best guess was that his friends were probably not going to jump and that they were going
to allow this to be a fair fight, so I put all my attention on Ron.
Fair? I thought. You're a trained fighter. There's nothing fair about it.
Ron rubbed his soft-looking knuckles, sizing me up as I squared off in my
stance. He didn't like what he saw. Now, I saw the fear in his eyes. Ron and I both knew he wasn't tough. He was just big. A guy like this got through life barely fighting because he was usually bullying people into thinking he was tougher than he was. He couldn't bully me, and he knew it. Tonight, he was about to be exposed for the fraud he was.
As he continued to stare at me, I said, "Look, Ron, I'm not falling in love
looking at you this long. If you're going to do something, do it. Otherwise, I'd like to make it home in time." I knew this would piss him off.
Ron continued rubbing his knuckles. He also continued not doing anything.
I gripped the girl, Dera's, hand tighter. "All right," I said. "Let's go, Dera.
Ron is a nice guy and is going to let us leave." I turned around and let go of Dera's hand, knowing Ron would push me in the back, and sure enough, Ronny boy didn't disappoint.
As I said, when I get into a fight, things always go in slow motion for me-- and they did so now. The moment I felt Ron's hand on my back, I whirled around and grabbed his hand. Ron wasn't prepared for me to turn. I've been told my reflexes are off the charts, my anticipatory skills are unrivaled. I credit it all to the slow-motion thing. How it works, I don't know, but the world seems to
slow down around me while I go to normal speed. So, while Ron's eyes widened in fear as he saw me spin around, he was helpless to do much about it. I grabbed his right hand and pulled him forward using his momentum. Ron stumbled
forward and hit the side of an oversized SUV parked on the street near us. He bounced off the door and fell straight to his ass. I heard chuckling from the Otello.
Ron got to his feet slowly, watching me. People were still laughing behind us, and I could tell that their laughter was making Ronny-Boy increasingly angrier.
There was a red mark on his forehead where it had bounced off the side of the SUV.
And that's when he charged at me in a clumsy, uncoordinated motion. I
wasn't sure if he would try to punch me or grab me. Regardless, I turned my body to the left and got into it to throw a vicious uppercut with my right hand. And that's what I did. My punch landed directly on his chin, and Ron flew onto the sidewalk, landing hard on his ass and back, his
head bouncing off the concrete like a basketball. To my utter surprise, he
scrambled quickly back to his feet, where he stared at me unsteadily. I think his eyes might have crossed a little. He staggered once, twice, and then fell backward.
I looked over at Deras and their mouth was wide open. I couldn't tell if
she was scared or excited. Then she pointed, and I turned quickly and saw four of Ron's frat buddies surrounding me. I've been jumped before. Being jumped isn't a big deal if you know how to fight, and there are no weapons involved. As far as I could tell, these guys were packing nothing but their soft fists. And since the crowd was composed of a lot of women, the guys would be less inclined to fight dirty. At least, that has been my experience. Then again, these were the same scumbags who had just tried to hurt Dera, so all bets were off.
The group backed up a little. And once again, I marveled at my propensity to
get into fights. Some guys attract money and girls. I attract fists.
The guys were staring at each other, trying to decide. They were
waiting for a signal. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them nod, and I thought: Here they cost-ups they did, all four charging me at pt, of course, they charged at me in slow motion, my brain once again slowing things down like it always did.
The guys tried to throw punches in the direction of my head. I easily
ducked and sidestepped and gave a sharp left cross to the guy on the right--and broke his nose on contact. Blood spurted down his face and over his shirt, and he screamed and fell away. One down. Three to go.
Nearly simultaneously, I gave the second guy, coming up behind me, a back kick that hit nothing but manhood. He fell to the ground, holding his gooseberries. Two down. Two to go. The next guy jumped on my back. I threw him over my shoulder, and he
clipped on the guy with a bloody nose. Three down. One to go.
The last guy just charged me like a football player. I took a step back and
gave him a high kick to the chin that made him stagger back. He came at me again and I gave him a four-punch combination, with my last hit breaking his nose. All were down.
My adrenaline was pumping, and I felt as if I could do this all night. By the looks of it, these four couldn't. They were done. Unfortunately, the Gamma Phi Betas brothers weren't. The whole fraternity-or at least what was left of them - surrounded me. There must have been twenty-five guys out there. I was good, but I wasn't that good.