Hey - man you talkin' back to me?
Take him out!
Hey - man you disrespecting me?
Take him out! 
You gotta keep 'em separated

Come Out and Play ~ The Offspring.

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The sudden shadow coming out of the sun over my shoulder probably should have set off my stupid spider-sense. But at the moment I was way too distracted by Cherrí' to sense the stranger danger looming up ever-larger behind me. I mean this was the first actual cute girl in Vineville that I had met? Hell, the first girl my age that I had even spoken with for over a month.  

"Hey, asshole? What the hell do you think you are doing?" The malevolent voice like angry thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance behind me.

Unfortunately for me, I was sofa king stupid that at first, that I didn't even realize that "the asshole" in question was directed at me. So of course, I ignored that inquiry as irrelevant noise. But the solid shove on the back of my head that followed did get my full and undivided attention.

"Hey asshole, I'm talking to you!" The massive shadow in the sun seethes down at me malevolently.

"What the hell is your problem?" I slide back away from the next hit headed in my direction.

"I said ...who the hell do you think you are trying to hit on my girl!?!" The monster bellows back.

The monster in question turns out to be a big sunburnt kid with an obvious attitude issue. Just based on the angry bloodshot eyes set deep into his sunburnt freckled face, I can already tell that he is just looking for a fight. Lucky for him, ever since I was a little kid in kindergarten, I have had this weird fight or flight reaction. Namely, I don't do the flight thing. What I do is fight like a cornered rat, or what I call my tooth and claw style of fighting. 

"Oh-my-gawd, Tommy take a chillax." Cherrí rolls her eyes and sighs, all petulantly put out by this sudden display of territorial aggression. "We were just chilling and chitchatting ...so don't get all whatever. Okay, Tommy?"

But whoever this kid Tommy is, he is clearly a not listener. What he is though is a big barrel-chested loud-mouthed lout on the muscular side. He looks about half a head taller than me and twenty pounds heavier. His eyes are freakishly wide with excitement, and he is practically shaking with red rage. This kid isn't just looking for a fight, he looks like he wants to kill me.

"What the fuck are you looking at asshole?" He repeats low and slow, his angry eyes lock right meanly into mine. 

"Not sure yet? So why don't you tell me, what I'm looking at asshole?" I smile slices right back into his twisting up rage face. "Maybe try to use your big boy words this time."

Without uttering another word, he moves in fast and starts wildly swinging at me. I duck the first two punches aimed at the side of my face. But the solid shove to the shoulder, sends me spinning sideways and slipping down on the wet pavement.

He looms over me to smash my skull into the concrete pool deck with his upraised flip flop foot. But I am a split second faster, slipping sideways and kicking out at his pivot foot as hard as possible. While I don't kick him hard enough to knock his ankle out from underneath him, like some cool Kung Fu movie move. I do hit him hard enough to force him to take a stumbling step backwards. Which is all the opening I need to get my mean on and get to work.

I coil back like a snake and launch my shoulder right into his knees, driving him right into the wet cement. Where he lands hard on his back, bouncing his hollow head off the cement with a dull thud. I am on top of him a flash, swinging down on him as hard as I can. I pound in four fast punches into his face, before he is able to recover enough to lock me up with his muscular arms.

He tries to roll over, so he can get on top of me and use his weight against me. Where he can ram my head into the concrete repeatedly, until I can't see straight. But I know that move too, so I don't fight the roll. Instead, I just go with it and keep rolling all the way through the move. At the end of the roll, we both end up sprawled out on the wet concrete dangerously close to the pool edge.

I try to twist out of the headlock hold he has on me, but he ends up getting a lock on my head. He immediately starts squeezing my neck into a vice grip so hard I can barely breathe. All the while I am trying to kick, claw, and punch my way out of this headlock. Before he can choke me out, then casually stomp me to death in his flipflops to his heart's content.

I start throwing punches and elbows into his ribs, in an attempt to break his hold on my head. Everything and anything to escape the choke out he clearly is going for short of trying to rat-scratching his eyes out of his skull. When that doesn't work, I finally sink my teeth into this big bastards bicep and bite down as hard as possible. A nasty little trick I learned from the last bully that tried to headlock me up and choke me out.

"You fucking bit me!?! I'll fucking kill you!!" He rages and keeps trying to squeeze my neck as hard as he can. Which is absolutely the wrong move under the circumstances. Because I bite down even deeper into the meaty muscle tissue, sending him screaming. 

"HEY, YOU TWO!!! BREAK THAT FIGHT UP OVER THERE RIGHT NOW!!" The loud lifeguard bullhorn booms across the pool at us.

But as usual, this kid Tommy is clearly not a listener. He keeps headbutting at the back of my head to loosen my locked jaw. So of course, I return the favor by flailing away at his exposed ribs, combined with some not-so-nice knee shots to the nuts.

Finally, someone with a seriously strong grip grabs Tommy's arms and pries them off my head, which finally lets me breathe again. Before another pair of heavy hands drags me off him and lifts me back up into a big bear hug.

"Stop scrapping son, the fights over." The giant ass lifeguard holding me aloft gives me an extra tight squeeze around my chest to make his point.

"I ain't fighting you ...he attacked me." I wheeze out, spitting out blood splatter with every breath I can steal. I know at this point, I must look absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth insane to them. 

"Yeah, it shows." The giant lifeguard behind me snorts, apparently amused enough to relax his stranglehold a little.

Looking down at the loser that picked this fight with me. I am happy to see this kid Tommy looks a lot worse for wear then when we started this dance. He clearly took the brunt of the damage in the brawl, punched, kicked, clawed, and bleeding from multiple scrapes and scratches. Not to mention, one seriously nasty looking bite mark on his bicep, which is starting to bleed out on the wet cement.   

Of course, this asshole is already up and running his foul mouth, complaining to the older lifeguard hauling him up on his feet.

"That fucking psycho bit me!" He lifts up his arm to show off the bleeding bite mark I left him with. The deep bite mark on his bicep is still showing teeth and bleeding freely down his arm.

"Damn dude really?" The massive muscular guard behind me grunts in apparent appreciation of my handiwork.

"He asked for it. He was trying to strangle me to death." I spit out my justification, still tasting the coppery tang of his bad blood in my mouth.  

"What did I tell you about starting scraps at the pool, Tommy Edgars?" The old lifeguard points his gnarled fingers at the instigator of this fight. 

"That asshole started this shit, not me!" He immediately starts running his lying mouth.

"That a lie and you know it!" I snap back on the attack. "You swung on me first, for no reason at all. All I did was defend myself."

"You disrespected my girl, bitch-boy! What the fuck did you think was gonna happen!?!" He screams back at me like a psycho.

"I talked to that Cherrí chick for like two seconds, you stupid shithead! So no idea who she is or who the hell you think you are? Seeing she never mentioned your dumb ass once? So what does that tell you, asshole?" I smile slices right back into his twisting up rage face.

I look around for a little support on my stance of absolute innocence in this shitstorm of stupidity. But of course, the girl in question is long gone from the scene of the fight. Probably back to wherever shady spot she came from to screw up my summer.

"That's it asshats, I've heard enough form both of you! So not another foul word from either one of you! This is a family-friendly pool, no fighting, no cussing, no drinking, no drugs, and no loud music." The ancient mariner snaps off the local pool rules like a well-worn mantra. "Which means you're both done for the day. So pack your crap and get the hell out of my pool, pronto!"

"That is unless you'd like me to call the cops out, so they can run you both in? Then you can explain yourselves to the local law how you are entitled to start scraps in my pool?" The crusty old lifeguard guy eyes Tommy severely. "That sound like something you're interested in doing today, Edgars?" 

"Not today." Tommy grunts back.

"What about you, kid?" The old lifeguard guy turns his soft stare into me. "You feel like taking a little ride down to the police station?"

"No, sir." I shake off the thought of sitting in the police station. Wasting away until my Aunt Ro can build up the courage to leave her house and come down and bail me out.  

"Lifeguard Leif, you get this other one out of my pool pronto. While I'll see to Edgars injuries ...and a bite?" The ancient mariner shakes his head sadly at the damage my foul mouth has inflicted on Tommy's bicep.    

"Aye-aye, cap'n." Lifeguard Leif grunts behind me, then drops me back down to my feet. But he does keep a heavy hold on the back of my neck, just in case I am thinking to go right back at Tommy for round two.

"You heard the man, kid. Grab your stuff and let's get you going." Mr. Big-Buff-ASF Lifeguard Lief gives me a nudge in the wrong direction.

So with one wet towel, a waterlogged teen vampire book I never really got into, and a smashed brown bag lunch later. I am being summarily escorted to the revolving gate to get gone by the big blonde buff Lifeguard Leif. All the mothers and grandmothers are shaking their heads at me in clear disgust. Even a couple of the brats in the kiddie pee-pool are waggling their snotty little shame-on-you fingers at me.

On the way out of the pool Lifeguard Leif decides to share some of his keen insights.

"What the hell is wrong with you, kid? You really should have known better than to mix it up with that moron." Lifeguard Leif states the obvious.

"Oh yeah, and why's that? He some sort of local psycho crazy kid?" I counter caustically.

"Wait ...so you don't know that Tommy kid?" He nods back to where Mr. Anger-Managment is now being escorted away into the first aid station to get his arm looked at. The murderous glare in Tommy's eyes locked right into mine, silently mouthing his deathwishes at me.

"Not until two seconds ago, just before he tried to jump me." I shrug him off.

"Guess that didn't exactly go according to plan?" Lifeguard Lief snorts, seemingly somewhat amused.

"Nope, guess not." I snort in retort. 

"Then take a word of advice, from me to you? That kid Tommy is trouble with a capital T." He informs me evenly. "He's not the kind of kid who does a one and done, let's shake hands and be buddies again."

"He's the kind of kid that always has to get even ...always." Lifeguard Lief makes a point to emphasize the obvious. "So if you're thinking this thing is over? It's not, it's probably just getting started." 

"And knowing that little crazy kid? He'll be trying to hunt you down just as soon as he leaves here. If not today, then he'll be back at the pool first thing tomorrow morning. Bright and early, with his buddies, looking for you to get even with you."

"Or even worse, waiting to catch you outside the gates, where no one can help you." Lifeguard Lief advises seriously. "So if I was you, I wouldn't come back to the pool for a while? Maybe give it a week or two for things to settle down? Maybe by then, that little monster will find someone else to hate ...besides himself."

"Sounds like some solid advice." I nod along.

"Trust me, it is." He frowns down at me.

When we get to the emergency exit gate, Lifeguard Leif has one final piece of local wisdom to share with me.

"Do yourself a favor, kid. When you get home today, tell your parents about what happened here. Maybe see if they can reach out to Big Tom senior and try to make peace. Then if you're lucky, maybe this can end here?" He scowls out seriously. "But if not? Then I suggest you get ready for a war. Cause that Tommy kid is as crazy as a rabid rattlesnake and twice as mean."

"Awesome." I drone back at the good advice.

"No, not really." He shakes me off.

"Yeah, not really." I have to agree.

"Okay kid, off you go guy and good luck to you." Lifeguard Leif gives me a final friendly shove farewell through the gate and towards the parking lot.

"I figure you got about a fifteen-minute headstart, before Tommy gets that bite you gave him cleaned and bandaged?" Lifeguard Leif starts the count down for me. "So I'd suggest you make the most of it and boogie on back home. Before that little psycho rolls out of here looking for round two."

"Okay, thanks for the thought, and good looking out." I mug back over my shoulder.

"Don't mention it, now get gone." Lifeguard Leif slams shut the pool emergency exit closed with a resounding rattle.

After getting ejected from the pool, I weave across the hot parking lot asphalt over to the bike ranks. Where I left my old piece of crap mountain bike chained up, not that anyone would ever waste the effort to steal The Beast. Once the Beast is unchained, I start slowly peddling through the parking lot and towards the exit out. Heading back to my Aunt's house before the local psycho boy can start chasing me down. 

On the way out the parking lot, I finally spot the girl in the mix again. She is standing up top the aluminum bleachers, just back in the shade of the overhang. Just high enough to look out over the cinder brick wall, watching me ride off. In a rare moment of what I can only call sheer arrogant stupidity, I wave and give her a smiling salute goodbye. Cherrí eyes me cooly from behind her rose-tinted shades, then acknowledges me with the barest of nods back. But if I didn't know better, I think I got a slight sly smirk back for my efforts before she turns away and disappears.

Because regardless of getting kicked out of the pool, two good things came out of today. I got to talk to a cool cute chick. Even better, I beat up her wannabe boyfriend who tried to pick a fight with me. So in my world that was a win-win all the way around. Which just goes to prove how stupid I was back then, when the world was a much more simpler place than it is today.

In retrospect, I probably should have known right then and there that things were not going to go my way. But like that old Dante dude once said: "The descent into hell was easy-peasy dude. It's getting back out again that's the bitch." So the sad truth was that, I was just about to descend into a hell of my own making, more or less. 

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