It was a house party.  I was twenty-one years old with a few pints of beer sloshing around in my stomach.  Loud music and dim lights dulled the senses further.  I recognized a handful of familiar faces.  The rest of them were sweaty around the edges and jabbering to one another. Small packs coagulated in the kitchen, living room, and spilled out into the back yard.  Upstairs was off-limits.  That’s usually the case.  No one wants their parents’ bed defiled by horny, inebriated college kids.  Beer sweat and regret – those are two smells that linger in bed linen.

I knew the kid who lived at the house. Well, I knew him in a ‘friend of a friend’ kind of way.  I didn’t know the tall kid in the kitchen who was striking matches and flicking them into the family’s garbage can.  It seemed like a bad I idea, but I wasn’t the party police.  Not my house, not my problem.  I carried on with my beer while the kid continued to practice his aim with lit matches.  He had a head that was one size too big for his shoulders.  His hair was spiked rebelliously, a gesture to society, or a stern message to his mother who hadn’t delivered enough affection.  He had a shit eating grin on his teeth and booze behind his blue eyes.  Still, he wasn’t my problem.

The owner of the house approached me, with a bit of worry.  I don’t know why he sought me out.  This is what he said, “There’s a guy in the kitchen throwing matches into the garbage can.  We have to kick him out.”

Great.  I didn’t know how to politely decline such offers in those days.  Now, the kid with the spiked hair was my problem.  He stood with a pack of friends.  I could smell the teen spirit wafting from across the room.  A small garbage fire illuminated their faces.  The smoke made the ceilings feel lower.  Something was playing through the speakers.  Something without any words, only a dun-dun-dun-dun beat that elevated everyone’s heart rate.

I didn’t recognize trouble as early as I should have.  Lighting interior fires seemed like an international party foul.  An obvious rule that had clearly been broken.  The kid that lived at the house, grabbed the smoldering can of trash and carried it outside.   For a moment, I thought that maybe it was enough to sooth the situation.  Instead, it did the opposite.  It was like chumming the waters.  The same way an abandoned building with one broken window, will entice people to break more windows – that’s the way a garbage fire works at a house party.

The group of kids, led by the lanky blue-eyed character, migrated to the back patio.  This is where we confronted them.  “You have to go.  I saw you throwing lit matches in my house.”  These weren’t my words.  I was there as a supporting role, doing my best to appear intimidating, maintaining eye contact with ol’ blue eyes and his buds.

This is where it escalated.  The fire-starter wasn’t interested in leaving.  With the flames still licking along the top layer of garbage, smoke signals were being sent to the rest of the partygoers.  What started as a kid, ‘not my problem’, throwing matches at a trash bin, was now the main event of the evening.

I hadn’t said a word, but I could tell I was failing in my supporting role, so I spoke.  “It’s his house, if he wants you to leave – you guys have to go.”  I was heard, but vaguely acknowledged.  My beer was in my hand, getting warm.  The little concern I had was dwindling.  Something distracted me.  I looked away.

Not a moment too soon.  The arsonist took notice of my waning attention span.  To reintegrate me back into the argument, he threw a flaccid right hand that landed with his knuckles on my ear.  It wasn’t my house.  It wasn’t my party.  But now I was standing at the epicenter of controversy.  I’d been sucker-punched, of all places, in the ear.

Once a punch is thrown, generally, there’s very little time to rectify the situation.  Out of instinctual rage, I threw the hardest punch I’ve ever thrown in my life.  An overhand right like I was trying to win something at the fair.  The beer can crumpled in my left hand.  My teeth were gritted, chin tucked, eyes locked on the target.  I was more or less an innocent bystander up until his sucker punch.  Now, I was unapologetically trying to maim my attacker.

The best punch of my life.  A tight fist, driving from the hips, initiated by the perfect spark of fury.  I watched that punch sail through the air like a firework on the way up.  It soared like a comet with a tail of vaporizing ice.  With the garbage still ablaze, I got caught in the heat of the moment.  My feet were set hard.  I braced for impact.

Somewhere in those few milliseconds, the blue-eyed fire-starter must have moved a few inches one way or the other.  My punch missed its mark.  The momentum of the strike, combined with the uncoordinating effects of alcohol and a number of other micro-factors, prevented the punch from landing. 

I fell down.  I threw a good punch with some mustard behind it – and I fell down.  My fist was the first thing to hit the ground.  Without missing a beat, chaos.  A full brawl, the fire-starter’s friends vs. the party thrower’s friends.  And there I was, on the ground beneath it all.

I know ol’ blue eyes got snuffed somewhere in the process because he ended up on the ground with me.  I could see him through the forest of legs and shoes.  My punch hadn’t gone as planned, and you wouldn’t necessarily think that being on the ground could be advantageous, but at least I was on my stomach where I could use my arms to push myself up.  The arsonist was a turtle flipped on his shell.

Amongst the pandemonium, I tried to fight my way over to him.  I might have landed a few cheap shots at the bottom of the scrum, but nothing that nullified the ringing in my ear.  The bedlam settled quickly.  At the end of it, ol’ blue eyes was cupping a bloody nose, I’d lost my shirt and hearing, both temporarily, and the burning garbage was scattered across the lawn.

I’ve heard so many fight stories where the storyteller paints himself the hero.  Fighting hordes of men with little to no training – and prevailing.  Dodging blows, delivering counters, disarming, concussing, embarrassing, slapping, popping, and plucking the adversaries from their consciousness.  Unfortunately, the truth is often less glamorous.  Sucker-punches, whiffing misses, incoordination, general panic and confusion. 

The moral of the story; don’t be a dick at house parties – and always exaggerate your fight stories.