A Pair of Boxing Gloves

     I was 13 when my dad caught my sister and me smoking in her bedroom.  It's a very clear memory, because it was the first time I stood up against being slapped/spanked/beaten/mauled by my dad.  Look, in the '50's, if you screwed up, you got "the belt," or "the paddle," or any of a hundred other things.  My dad would experiment, settling on the small bamboo shoots used to prop up a garden plant, like tomatoes.  A handful of them not only hurt like a mo-fo, but sounded even worse, and didn't leave welts.

     He didn't have time to get his weapon of choice, when he walked in on a room full of cigarette smoke, Pat and I sitting with cigarettes hanging out of our mouths, Dad went nuts.  He pushed Pat against the wall, and proceeded to slap my face, repeatedly, hurling profanities the whole time.  Suddenly, at 13, I'd had enough of that crap, balled up my fist, and punched my dad in the nose, causing it to bleed.  The only evidence was a small blood stain on Pat's drapes (on the bed-side of the room).

     You know how time can go all slow-motion, whenever you are at a near-death event?  The following all happened in the next 10 seconds:  As soon as I threw the punch, I regretted it.  I mean, it was my dad, even if the jerk was slapping me, but I was done with corporal punishment.  In that moment, I knew that I wasn't going to be physically disciplined anymore; Dad took the punch, and stepped back, wiping at his nose, a look of utter shock on his face, Pat was crawling along the wall, trying her best to get out of Dad's line-of-sight, and I saw the blood from Dad's nose, come off the finger he wiped his nose with, and land on the drape; the shocked look turns to something akin to murderous rage, but Dad wipes at his nose again; said something I couldn't hear; stomped out through the kitchen to the front door; got in his car; and drove off.

     Pat gave her condolences, knowing that when Dad got home, he was going to kill me, but I wasn't so certain.  He was wrong to repeatedly slap my face, if for no other reason than all he did to Pat was rudely shove her out of his way so he could get a clear shot at me.  To this day, I cannot stand being patted on the cheek, or anything close to being slapped.  Slap me, it doesn't matter who, or how you identify, you're going to get punched.  I've made it a habit not to punch a woman, but slap me, and you've just grown a set of testicles...

     Obviously, Dad came home and killed me, that's how I'm getting to write this... DUH!  He didn't, but  he brought something with him when he came home... a pair of boxing gloves...

     These weren't "competitive" gloves, they were more like pillows that you could make a fist in.  Dad's theory was, if we got to one of those moments where either I felt "used and abused," or he got to where he wanted to "knock my dumb-arse out," the offended person would place one pair of gloves on the other's bed, and we'd meet in the back yard to "fight it out".  It was a joke, with those gloves, I couldn't swing hard enough to hurt anyone, and the "fights" usually turned into a laugh-fest, as a result.  By the time either of us got to more than a dozen or so punches, the goofiness would get to one of us, and we'd start laughing.  It worked, oddly enough, because it gave us an opportunity to work off some of the steam generated in father-son relationships, but it also gave us a chance to talk, and say why we felt a certain way.  Afterwards, we'd sit on the patio, and work out the difficulties, compromising on both sides, to achieve an equitable solution.

     That was, until I "took a swing" at my mom.

     I really didn't.  I was mad, and slammed the wood paneling on the back of the oven, and the heel of my had broke the wood.  Mom started dancing around, like she'd achieved some goal, talking about how I was "in for it now..."  She told my dad that I tried to punch her.  I was sitting in my room, contemplating how I was going to get along when Dad threw me out of the house, and the door opened.  There was my dad, with a pair of boxing gloves in his hands.  He tossed them on my bed, and said, "Five minutes."

     I picked up the gloves, and headed for the back yard.  I was pulling up the glove, when my dad came out, gloves on, that look of rage on his face.  I put my palms out, trying to get him to listen to my side, and I never saw the punch he threw.  I remember Mom, kneeling over me, saying, "Scott, you might have hurt him."  But that was like a flash, and I was down for the count.  I'd thought that it was impossible to hit hard enough to hurt anyone in those gloves, but apparently, if you aim a sucker-punch at the chin and connect, you can cause blackouts.  Mine lasted three minutes.

     The gloves went away after that.  What had once been a joke, an opportunity to sweat and work out a conflict had become another dominance thing.  When I was a teenager, he was in his forties, 5'10", 210 pounds of Corrections Officer.  He could whip my butt, and there wasn't anything I could do about it... Except wait... 40 years later, when he was in his 80's, I could have... But by that time, I understood him a whole lot better.  Everyone can be an example, and even a bad example is still an example...