The Boxing Match

Day 80

I had some real good friends in high school and one of my best friends was my neighbor Damond. We would do almost everything together and one of the things we used to do was double date. Our dating planning sessions were almost as fun as the date themselves. One night we were planning our date and we had all of the guys over to help, if I recall it was for Junior Prom. It was me, Damond, Darby, Kelley and Jester. I must have been in a crabby mood (which I was) and Damond got tired of it. I was slamming everyone and being a complete jerk and Damond was tired of it. He suddenly piped in "Who wants to box?" in the middle of our planning session. He thought that would shut me up considering Damond was quite muscular and I was this skinny kid. But it didn't shut me up, I quickly took him up on his offer. So he went off to grab his brother's boxing gloves.


I admit it, I was in the mood to fight. He could only find three boxing gloves but that didn't stop me from wanting to box. I took a pair and we wrapped a towel around his other hand. We pushed and shoved a bit in the small room by the kitchen but it wasn't doing anything. So Kelley suggested we take it outside and so we did. We went outside into his backyard to start the fight. And that is where the fun began.

It was a pretty silly fight, in the beginning that is. Damond would run towards me throwing all these haymakers and barely hitting me. Then he would run away and then I would do the same. Although we did connect on our punches, they didn't hurt or make any sort of impact. That is because we were swinging so wildly and we both had adrenaline pumping in our veins. All these tiny punches did was infuriate each other. The more he hit me, the more bloodthirsty I became, even though these punches that were thrown did not hurt. It was the same for Damond, the more I hit him the more mad he got too.

This lasted for about ten minutes when finally a punch was thrown. For some unknown reason, Damond dropped his guard. So I hit him square in the mouth with a solid right. It jerked his head back violently and when his head came back down he was looking at right in the eyes! I hit him pretty hard and it didn't do anything, oh great, I ticked him right off! And now he was going to kill me. All of my friends that were watching yelled out. They couldn't believe I connected and that Damond was unfazed. So what did I do? I did what any other sane man would do in the face of annhilation! I ran away.

What I didn't see with my back turned (as I was running) was that I did hurt him. His head dropped a bit and he lost his balance. I could have finished it then but I wasn't paying attention. I was only thinking of preserving my life! When he finally came to his senses he took off after me with an insane look in his eye. He started wailing on me (again with haymakers) and I just ducked for cover. I tried to get out and push him away but he backhanded me with his toweled hand. He hit me behind my ear and ripped the skin behind it and I could feel the blood trickle down, it immediately started to bleed. If he would have hit me any harder, he could have tore off my ear. It also knocked out my hearing too.

I jumped back away from Damond and I looked up at him. His guard was up and he was yelling at me but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I read his lips though and they were telling me "C'mon! You started it! So let's finish it!" That was what I thought he was saying. What he really was saying was "Matt? Are you hurt? Are you okay?" The look on his face to me was not concern but anger. But it really was concern. The reason he kept his guard up was in case I would sucker punch him which I admit did cross my mind. But he was bleeding and I was bleeding so we called it off.


The funny thing is that we became better friends because of it and it did lighten my mood. We definitely had something we could talk (and laugh) about in the future. That is probably one of my favorite memories of my friend Damond. He was such a great friend, one that I needed at the time and I am thankful that I am still friends with him. Even though we don't communicate as much as we used to, I can still call him my friend.