I sat back, watching "Concussion". That was the first time I noticed that threateners had a point; the way they got to the point with their sentence long trollings that took up the five seconds it took Will Smith to nod gravelly, told me something. Not just that one if not all of them were wrong when and because a threatenor had said to Smith, or Mr. Omalu, that he was trying to "pussify" America.

* * *

"Angel, mom had told you to do the dishes today."

I pressed the remote into the couch after looking back at him: Andrew, 15 years old. "Are you trying to vaginize me, Andy?"

With a screwed up face, Andy moved away from me and ran back into my mother's room, saying, "Mom, Angel is corrupting me with her porn talk, again."

When did I ever talk to you about porn? I thought, before I suppressed my beckoning urge to actually spill his PC history to her. I just couldn't get "Concussion"'s various lines out of my head, honestly, is all. 

He'd already understand what would come out of my mouth if I did talk to him about porn, anyway, I thought as I returned to my TV. A normal basketball game, but nevertheless addicting. Then I noticed what I could be watching better than the basketball game.

I turned the channel. The Sky.

I oohed at the quality and quantity of their 3-pointers and the wiseness of their throws. Not that a normal, testosterone-infected basketball game I was watching before this did not have that...? (Well, obviously, it didn't.)

But before I could continue to marvel at their skill, my brain shocked me with a late response to my mom's smacking me on the neck. I raised my arms and turned around me, and then my mom kept pummeling me in the face.

My bro was snickering, and it wasn't even funny, but she did what she does to anyone under a bad mood. And she'd claim to be the soberest person in my family and maybe in Atlanta, however she was so darn wrong and could not be wronger. Literally.

I mean in the way she acted. If God only judged her on the way she followed all the major Commandments and not even on her attitude, she'd get into heaven. But her attitude stank so much I believed they would want to hire a bottle of Listerine at the gate to emancipate her spirit first from the stinky evilness that lurked within before admitting her. But maybe the Listerine would be so offended by her spiritual stench that it wouldn't even want to bathe it away. It would probably just exorcise her whole spirit, instead, away from the gates.

And indefinitely, I blacked out...and it was surprisingly hours after watching Concussion and a minute before cheering on the Sky, because I can remember that 3 pointer I was waiting on, a similar one to what they accomplish like clockwork every game, before her arm had touched my face. I wanted to yell as loud as possible afterwards, once I was awake, but instead I ended up being silent. When I met her in the morning I whispered....when I exited the car for school in my slacks, I mumbled a thanks and a bye to her, my Mother Chauffeur, and when I sat and participated in my classes, I kept my hand glued to the side of the desk, playing with chips and ridges that it had, and even, oftentimes from frustration of not being able to answer questions via speaking,  its rubbery gum.

And my head drummed – wherever a metallic object like a desk was bumped into, whenever a board was scraped on, whenever paper was torn from a notebook...so my speechlessness grew, and more, its inspiration from.

Thankfully, when I entered my home, I saw the brat, and not that I was not expecting it, but it was indeed a relief to see him. And when I did, I held him up against the dim, faded and cracked ivory wall. An entire neck and arm hold. He struggled from me, but not before I spoke, the loudest I had all day. "I'm gonna kill you, you freak."

"Leave me alone." He squirmed and almost got free from my grip. "You see," I pushed him up against the wall, further, and my knee into his back, "what mom did to me?" I pressed my nose into the wall his was pressed into so he could see the long profile of me. Busted lip, sore cheek of red, multiple thin yet crusted lines of scab. "It's all your fault you jerk." At the last word I jabbed my knee into his back even harder.

"Get off," he shuffled beneath my weight.

"I'll get something off, alright. Your head from your freakin' shoulders."

"Creep. Said you're gonna get me off. I knew you were talking dirty yesterday -"

"Lies. You're freaking lying. Shut the fudge up. My freaking mom abused me yesterday because of you. You don't know how 'humiliating' that is!" I slammed the boy into the wall so I heard him breathe harder. The toll of tiredness I was giving him was letting up his resistance.

"What do you want...if you don't get off, I'll-"

At that point I knew already what he was going to tell mom, so I let up. His arms made a cracking sound as he whipped them back into position, and I just knew if he was going to tell mom again, at this point, I was gonna bring him into the barrage of hits with me. I wasn't battling this alone, especially when it wasn't my fault. I wouldn't be so lenient with my suddenly heightened self-esteem right now if I hadn't wrestling the next day. Today, it was an okay skip, an easy skip. I forgot I had it, and in fact, maybe I was in theory asking my mom if I could go, giving her the information. And getting a nice confirming kiss on the cheek that said she believed in me. The next day, which was tomorrow, I'd go, though. And it would not warrant a flurry of smacks to my face, or spitting or anything demeaning. I'd actually get a congratulations in the form of "good job" or "crazy, sport!" or whatever, because the wrestling coach would raise my hand. And I would raise hell.

And surprisingly, yes, I would be congratulated for raising hell, not beat unfairly for it, not forced to unfairly beat someone else, but rules: rules would control the battle. However I would have to learn them, I would be gracious to. An occurrence such as this (well a re-occurrence of such battery), and what I would consider my expounded jail record (as I'd like to call my getting off for murder yet never, quite literally, going to jail) would be a little much a reason to join such a sport of 'play fighting', I thought. But nevertheless, I could join nothing else right now at this moment.

I had nothing else to do, and the factor of violence intimidated me even more as I took every punch... and dished out none. Ever since that one fatal one, of course.