Breaking 1 and 2

One month ago, I was in bad shape. The world was looking more than usually fucked up. I had no place in it, I had no love for it; I was seriously considering if I should even be in it. All the things that I loved and enjoyed, like writing and school, were turning from deep and challenging to hollow and difficult. I didn’t know who to talk to about it, so I kept my mouth shut about it.

To get out of this funk, I got a new job. It’s a great job, and I love it. I work with really cool, diverse people who I can see becoming my friends; the work itself is autistic-monkey easy; and I am finally interacting with the public in a way that that is not inrusive or rude, like in Hell. A great change happening at a great time.

But it wasn’t enough. I was still off.

Then I got punched.

I was at Lizzie McNeil’s, an Irish pub on the River, and I was hanging with a few of my new co-workers and friends of theirs. I had come initially because it was my first invite to an after-work thing, and I was excited to participate. I was also going because a woman I met on the boats asked what I was doing that night, and said she would meet me there. Smiles all around!

At the pub there is a birthday celebration going on. As per standard, I buy the birthday boy a drink and wish him many happy returns. He is gleeful and gives me a hug. He is very, very drunk.

I have my one drink, and decide to see what is on the jukebox. Since I have only four drinks a month, I have more money to spend on jukeboxes at bars, which is a benefit that I did not expect but enjoy greatly. The juke’s got the new Dropkick Murphy’s album (at this time, it was “The Warrior’s Code”), which I had not heard but wanted to. If you don’t know about the Murphys, you should. Boston Irish Celtic Punk; what could go wrong? So I select three songs, and wait for the wonderful noise.

The second song has barely begun before Birthday Boy screams, “What is that shit?” I yell back, “It’s the Dropkick Murphys!” And he says, “That music fuckin’ sucks, man!” And I say, “Well, it’s punk, so it’ll be over in two minutes. You got two minutes worth of ‘ignore the music’ in you, don’tcha?” He rumbles for five more minutes (three minutes after the songs are over, by the by) about how punk and Irish music both suck. Guess he didn’t read the signs on the walls, above the door, or in the bathroom. I ignore him and enjoy my tunes.

Three hours later, as I am talking to the woman who I spoke to on the boat (totally gonna nail her, it was obvious to everybody there), I see one of my coworkers arguing with Birthday Boy. Another coworker and I go over to break it up. It turns out that Birthday Boy was insulted by the way my buddy wanted to shake his hand, and called him a faggot and an idiot. So I said, “Look pal, clearly the party is over for you and us. So we’ll just go to our corner of the bar, you go to your corner, and never shall our paths meet, okay?” He looks at me in the eyes (by the way he was staring, I must’ve had, like, twenty-three of them) and yells, “Fuck you and your stupid fuckin’ Irish music!” drunk finger providing syllabic punctuation all the way. I say, “Dude, do you even know where you are right now? For your sake, I’d shut up with the Irish bashing.” As I turn away, it happens. Thank God for it.

He punches me in the back of my head.

If you have never been hit, allow me to let you in on a secret; it feels like the shittiest day you’ve ever had. All the rainy days you’ve been dumped just after getting fired from your job have nothing on getting punched. It really, really sucks.

But then, the cobwebs clear, and that euphoria you feel about that day being over and GODDAMMIT YOU ARE STILL HERE! just charges right through you, and it makes you more alive than you ever felt before, including the best fucking of your entire life.

I turn and punch him, and he falls just like a sack of shit should.

Of course, the bouncer grabs me and takes me outside. I don’t resist, I just go. We get outside, and I say, “I’m sorry, but he hit me twice. I know I shouldn’t have hit him back. If you have to call the cops, I understand. I f you want me to go, just let me go inside and get my stuff and say goodbye to my people.” The bouncer looks at me and says, “Dude, don’t worry. We got you out here so we can mop up that sloppy fuck and get him out of there. You can go back in as soon as he leaves.”

The second bouncer comes outside and says that the guy is out cold, and his buddies are saying that I hit him in the face. I am not bragging at this point, because it is nothing to brag about. What follows is a statement of fact and nothing more: I have hit a lot of faces. Punching a face has a distinctive feel to it, like how you can tell corduroy from velvet. It didn’t feel like a face when I hit him; felt more like a neck or upper chest.

The bouncers get the guy and his friends out of the bar, and let me back in. A cute waitress is wiping up his blood. Maybe I did hit him in the face. So I go and wipe up the rest. Hey it’s my mess.

They called me “Drop Punch Murphy” for the rest of the night. And that woman did totally want to sleep with me, but she had a big ring on her left third finger, and Zeepdoggie doesn’t wreck a home unless he lives in it, so I put her in a cab and sent her to her hotel.

But not getting laid didn’t even register. I got in a fight.

I got in a fight.


-Zeepdoggie