Showdown at the Genc Motel: A Tale of Random Youth and Exhuberant Violence

This is the first chapter of the novel; DOPE STORIES that is to be published and available in 2014.

    I was young and certainly naive but I was becoming quickly aware of the strain between two distinct roles within myself. I could see the need for nonviolence of course, and a mutual respect for other human beings. I was also very aware though of an animal inside me; an evolutionary leftover that all my life's socialization had attempted to suppress.  I was compulsively driven by a need deep within myself, a need that had to be quite common among people of a certain age for there were so many others willing to oblige this desire.
  

  As a group, there quickly came a point when the violence was who we were.  The need to fight and to test ourselves dictated all of our other actions. It decided who we hung out with and where we could go.  If you weren't willing to fight at any time, you weren't one of the regulars.  It was what we were known for.  We were admired for it as much as we were hated for it.  Some were just drawn to it.

    On the night at the little rundown motel on the edge of town, all the regulars were there, but for some reason a bunch of people that we never usually hung out with were there too.  They all wanted a piece.  I don't know if these people were looking to prove themselves to our group or if maybe the need for retribution was so electric that the others had caught it.  It didn't matter. It would have been just as bad if there'd only been three of us. Instead there was somewhere around twenty. It was a statement that had to be made.  It said everything about who we were and where we lived.

    We had been drinking our way towards chaos every night for so long.  We had left a wake of so much damage around our town that we were being invited to fewer places every weekend.  It came to a point where if one or a few of us was invited anywhere it was with the strict instruction that the rest of our group could not know about it.  Sometimes we obliged, sometimes we came in throngs and ransacked a place.  We couldn’t even trust ourselves anymore.

    Sid had been invited out though, whisked away by three girls that orbited our group of friends.  They had been invited to a little party at some hotel room by three guys from some other town that nobody knew.  It wasn’t smart of them to go without telling the rest of us but they were smart enough to at least bring Sid along.  The boys at the hotel of course didn’t like the appearance of their uninvited guest though.  They’d probably had big plans and when those came crashing down it was Sid who got the penalty for it.

    When we saw Sid the next day he was more a mess than usual.  One eye was bloody red with a disfigured lump of swollen purple flesh all around it.  The whole other side of his face was swelled up and he showed us the massive bruises on his body.  He’d gotten good and drunk, which was kind of the way of things at the time, so he didn’t really recall how it had all started.  He knew however that these three guys had jumped him and stomped him while he was down until the girls could drag Sid out of there and get back to familiar territory.

    There was of course no way that we could just let that sit. Sid had been my best friend for a long time.  He had never hesitated to include me in anything or to offer me some of anything he ever had.  He’d never questioned or mocked a single thing I’d done and I did tend to do a ton of stupid shit. I think he’d been like that with most people and all kinds of people had been drawn close to him for it.

     The plan just kind of fell together.  The girls, feeling somewhat responsible, were willing to lure these three guys in.  They went to their town to pick them up and brought them right to us.  The story they’d been sold on was that there was a party going on at this trashy little motel.  Everyone in our town knew the motel well.  It was a cheap place to party and it was owned by a Chinese family who didn’t have the command of the English language to bother any of the seedy clientele or bring the police around.  I imagine that all sorts of terrible things took place there over the years.  It was secluded in its own little corner on the edge of town but close enough to our neighborhoods that we could disappear from there quick when we needed to.

    We had people waiting around every corner of the building.  We had people in the bushes.  I remember that one guy that I’d been waiting in the bushes with found a log lying there, and showed it off proudly with a demented grin on his face.

    The girls pulled into the little parking lot with the three guys in the car.  They let the guys out and told them that their other friend was already inside.  They were told to just go on in while the girl’s went to pick up someone else.  The girls were gone again before there could be any questions.  I could see these three guys huddled apprehensively in the center of the parking lot.  Soon they had their courage gathered to walk up to the door of the room that they’d been told the party was in.  As they neared this door, one of the guys who had shown up just for the fight came around the corner like he’d been taking a leak.

    “Hey, you guys here for the party?” He called out.

    One of the guys went over to talk to him while the other two stood close to the door.  This guy from our side started chatting their boy up and as his friends went to knock on the door as the two of them shook hands.  The door was pulled open by some very confused foreigner who had obviously already been in bed.  

    It was as if it all happened in slow motion as the kid in front of the door turned puzzled towards his friend.  Our friend had a hold of his hand.  The kid tried to pull away from what he thought was just an awkward handshake when he was smashed in the side of the face with a left hook just as a horde of us came pouring out of the bushes and around both sides of the building. 

    One of them sprinted off at the first sign of danger like a bolt of lightning.  I don’t think anyone got a single piece of him.  The one in front of the room tried dashing off too but we fell upon him just outside the office.  I was the closest to him and I remember being the first one to him.  As he ran towards the sidewalk just outside the office door I made a jump at him from behind and got the toe of my boot into the back of his knee just as his weight was coming down on that leg.  It brought him sprawling to his hands and knees on the hard concrete.  I could see the terror in his eyes as he looked up to see me standing over him as the rest of the crowd converged on top of him.  Fists and feet, and one proud log came raining down on his body. I dropped the whole weight of myself behind my fist on him, smashing into his cheek with everything I could.  Dull, sickening thuds emanated from him as everyone came pushing each other out of the way, even the women of our group, to get a piece of him.  I got a good angle on him and gave him a punt to the ribs.  

   Somehow he scrambled half way to his feet and pulled the door open, lunging into the office and screaming for someone to call the police as more and more of us squeezed into the tiny office with him to give him the rest.  He tried crawling towards the counter.  People were already running, knowing the police would be there soon.  Some went after his friend who had slipped loose somehow in the melee.  A few of us had just a little bit more to give.  He was crawling for a space where he could get behind the counter.  I brought my boot down on his hand and felt it crunch beneath my foot as his high pitch scream filled the air and he rolled over to clutch his hand to his chest.  The Chinese family who owned the place was all there, watching it happen; too fast and too violent to respond yet.

    It was time to go.  I ran out the door.  People were running in every direction.  Sid was in the street and he yelled for me.  I caught up with him just as another guy did and Sid pointed to a spot along a fence twenty yards off.  Back lit by the highway I saw two silhouettes move suddenly in a dash.  It was them.  They had no idea where they were or where to go.  We had no time to regroup.  The three of us stalked them through the neighborhoods that we’d played games like this in throughout our entire lives.  They got lucky.  They made it to a gas station with a couple of cops inside before we ever got to them.  We could see them begging the cops for help through the large glass windows.  The cops hardly cared, but they were out of our reach then.  We moved on and never saw them again.

    It’s not something I’m especially proud of, but it was something that just had to be done.  I estimate that if things had been meant to be any different the universe wouldn’t have conspired to bring all the pieces so perfectly together for us.  I write about it just to demonstrate the chaos that had become our lives.  This was a fairly savage part of our existence; nearly the bottom of a long running downward spiral for us in those days.  There had been violence before; plenty of it, but not like this. It hadn’t always been like this but we had become addicted to the doom of it all.  I think that Sid and I had it the worst.  This was just before I would finally leave all I knew behind and move far away from all of my friends.  This of course is just how it had to be.  The doom was seeping in hard and we were all losing control.  If the natural course of events hadn’t sent us all on our own way I’m certain now that tragedy would be coming for us all, and for some, on the outskirts of our group, it did come.

Why I Drive with the Doors Locked and the Beating I Took in OKC

THE BEATING:
    For a very long time, I never concerned myself with locking anything, especially if I was inside.  I've always been confident in the rest of the human race that it is only the rare few who find themselves compelled to disrespect the space and property of their fellow man and are willing to risk their own freedom, safety and very lives by invading these boundaries.  I've also always been quite confident in my own ability to repel such diseased individuals by my own means.  I've always felt capable of defending myself against whatever dangers there may be and I've perhaps too often been willing to test myself against the will of other men eager to test themselves against me.  We will say for now just that I have known violence and never have I found myself put off by it.  I have a certain set of skills yada yada yada....
      It doesn't matter.  Here's what happened.  I was driving through the empty, late night streets of downtown Oklahoma City to get my rent into the overnight drop box.  I'd just come from the gym, overheated, brain dead and worn down.  The night was pleasant so I had my windows down to cool myself off.  I rolled to a stop at a yellow light where a woman waited patiently at the corner to cross.  If you've been in downtown OKC any time after dark on a weekday you know that the whole city is pretty much abandoned and that the sighting of a single other soul on the streets is rare and exciting.  The light changed and the woman stepped off the curb, seeming at first to cross the street leisurely. When she got in front of the headlights though, she turned towards the car, spread her hands out at her sides and stared towards the windshield with the wide, dead, shark like eyes of the common southern tweeker.

(Okay that's not her.  That's Ok Gov. Mary Fallin, but I swear she looked like this with red hair)

 She stood there for a long time just waiting to be lifted off to space or whatever.  The light changed and still she stood there.
     In the area where I was living at the time, I came across these types of people pretty commonly.
     "Hi there." I called out, "Do I know you?"
     She stepped towards the car and started coming around to the driver's side.  I settled in for some quality crazy talk and started digging in the nooks and crannys of the door for whatever loose change I could find.  Turned out, she was beyond change though.  She bent down and leaned towards the open window, nearly sticking her pale face into the car with her eyes swirling at me.  I extended my hand to create a little space.  She shook it and I asked her name.  She rattled off about thirty syllables in a second that just didn't even seem to fit together in any natural way.  My other hand crept for the button that could roll up my window but it fell upon the wrong one.  A flurry of words came pouring from her cracked lips as she leaned in close again.
     "I know that you're satanic!" she spouted almost happily.
     She turned towards the empty baby seat in the back.
     "And I know what's been going on with you and that little baby." Her eyes widened towards it.
     I'm not sure if she was seeing a baby or not at this point, but luckily my son was home in bed with mommy.
     Then she reached in with both hands and started to pummel me about the head, neck and arm with her open palms.  Her hands were tiny and the blows unleashed from her emaciated tweeker arms came fast but at roughly the impact of the breeze from the car's vents when I've got them cranked up.  I leaned away, unable to refrain from laughing at the silliness of the situation.  I had my fingers on the door handle and I contemplated just whacking her with the door but I held back.  My not so severe beating lasted about thirty seconds, maybe less.
     She gave me one last furious pat on the shoulder  and growled, "Now you're Catholic!"
     That's funny, I didn't feel any different.
     We said our polite goodbyes and she turned to continue her evening stroll.  She began to talk to herself at an ever quickening pace as she walked away, becoming more animated as she went.  I turned the corner and drove the half a block to drop off my rent.  I watched her pass from the door of the realty office and she seemed completely oblivious to my existence now.  As I was pulling away I could hear her yelling at the traffic light at the next corner and see her aggressively giving the don't walk hand the bird, jumping towards it from the sidewalk as she did.  She stooped down, plucked a bottle off the ground and chucked it at the light.       I dialed up the non-emergency number to my friendly local police just to give them a little heads up.  I wasn't hurt but I was a little nervous that this woman was growing more volatile with every second and was hoping some cop in the area could at least roll her and check things out before she actually became dangerous.  The police dispatcher seemed disappointed that I didn't want to press charges and tried her best to politely give me a "thanks for wasting my time" kind of goodbye.
     I told my wife about it and the next day she texted me a link to the local police report.  The picture was from an old mugshot in which she looked slightly different and a little less crazy, but sure enough, it was my new friend.  She was picked up three or four hours later, halfway across town for whacking some teenagers with a stick as they rode past on their bikes.  Small world I guess.

THE REVELATION:  

     It dawned on me as I was driving back to my house that things have very much changed for me now that I have a family.  I realized instantly that I should not be driving around with my windows down and my doors unlocked anymore.  Had I just had the air cranked and the windows up, this woman may not have even bothered to convert me to Catholicism that night.  I shuddered to think though of how things might have gone had my son actually been with me, strapped into his safety seat where he would be unable to squirm away from the crazy lady.
    It is not my own safety that I am concerned with and really I doubt that this woman could have really injured my son.  I don't even let my mind wander to that prospect.  The reason that now I keep the doors locked and the windows up every second that my son is in the car with me is because I know what would have happened if she had laid a finger upon my son.  Now I've always made it a firm policy to reject violence towards women in any form.  However, I don't know to what extent I would be blinded by the rage that would surely overcome me to hear my son whimper or cry at this or any person's hands.
     I lock my doors and windows to keep the rest of the world safe, to remove the opportunity for someone to do something stupid and make me change their lives for them.  Its just much simpler that way.

Boxing Against the Bieb

  Imagine this: as you are reading this, taking a little moment to relax; somewhere Justin Bieber is possibly choking someone out.  It is very likely in fact that he is facing off against a larger, stronger opponent, and punching that guy in the face... hard.  That's right; Justin Bieber, the tiny pop icon that many of us find so ridiculous and make our jokes about is fighting a motherfucker because  Justin Bieber trains in mixed martial arts.  (no offense to the Bieb, it's just the example that comes to mind)
 

(Training in MMA is no joke.  There is no just-sort-of training.  If you do it even for a short time, you will most likely find yourself in the best shape of your life.)

   Now, I don't personally know if young Mr. Bieber has any intention of ever stepping into the cage.  I like to imagine that he has taken up mixed martial arts for the sake of the intense physical and mental discipline that one can achieve through its practice.  But know that even an ordinary day's practice takes immense physical and mental strength and devotion as well as the capacity to transcend every last limit of the body you have.  MMA takes everything you've got and then requires of you the courage to push forward still when you have absolutely nothing left.  In gyms all over the world, there are people driving themselves beyond their own strength; broken and bloody, sometimes hurt badly, sometimes with consciousness fading or with limbs, bones, joints, ligaments, etc. on the verge of snapping, they reach deep within themselves and find just enough to push for one last move, one sudden strike that can change everything.
   

   Know that and think about it every time that you tell yourself that you would rather stay home and watch tv instead of doing the work; when you make those excuses and you tell yourself that you just can't make yourself better today, know that people you hate, people you think are a joke, the Justin Biebers of the world are doing what you simply cannot begin to achieve. You are less than Beiber; sub-Beiber. Does that sit right with you?

  If there is a single person in this world that you think is being handed more than they deserve; people that you think you're better than, until  you can prove that you've got something more in you than they do, you are just another lazy couch potato running their mouth.  Know that some of those people are putting in more hard work every single day than you may be willing to put in any day. You can change that though and it's easier than you think.  Maybe its time you got started.