GIRL FIGHT

One girl would walk away bleeding from a lip and crying. The other stepped away backwards with a broken heart. 

There were dangerous, armed girl fights at our suburban junior high. There were a few low income Chicano families, but about a third of the students were Black. These kids were so tough we thought they must have been relocated here from the projects in the city, maybe after one of the Section 8 high rises was condemned. I now know that almost all of these hard-ass Black kids were from one single family. I know this because an ex district superintendent is friends with my parents. At the time, there was no apparent way to get to know the family except through sports or direct combat. A wild, mixed-race or Latina chick who we could tell was older but she had to repeat some grades, and who usually seemed tipsy, squared off in a wide corridor with one of the kids from the Black family, a 14-year-old girl with the musculature of an adult-lady body builder and wearing a muslin floral-print halter top. The Latina girl had enough of an afro to have a pick in it, one of the dangerous ones, a stainless comb with long, sharp tines and a long handle. The Black girl had a rolled bandanna at the hair line and braids with some wooden beads in them. She took off her hoop earrings. She was going to beat the other girl's ass with her bare knuckles, afro pick or no afro pick. But she was going to start by kicking, maybe kicking that pick right out of that drunk bitch's little white hand. La Chicana swung her weapon and took some kicks before two guidance counselors came running up in their big sideburns and polyester slacks and seemed to be grabbing both of the girls by the tits in order to pull them apart. Maybe they said afterward hey, it was a dangerous situation, and we made some judgement calls. Luckily no one was hurt. 

My sister was in love with the 12-year-old girl next door, Tara. I know this because I walked in on them perhaps masturbating one another in our guest bedroom in the middle of the day. My sis, Spider, jumped up real quick, and Tara just laid there with her hands across her face, which was very pretty. 

What happened between that and the fight, I don't know. But it was important, because they both announced that it was going to happen and where, right away and on the strip of lawn between the two houses. Were they trying to get someone to stop them? My friend Tom and Tara's big sister were anticipating a satisfying consumer spectacle. I checked with Spider, and she seemed confident and determined. She said, "Yeah, it'll be fine." 

It was uncomfortable rooting for my sister and hearing Tara's big sister rooting for Tara. Did we really want them to hurt one another? It was more about family honor. We had the bigger house on the corner. Tara's dad tried to get our mom to have cocktails with him one afternoon. This event maybe was going to let some steam out of the real estate situation, which can only be solved completely by moving away. 

Tara, who had the face of the aggrieved one, swung wildly at Spider, who was much taller. Spider tried to keep a look of mild bemusement. As it got real, you could tell it was real for her emotionally. Tara's strikes seemed to hurt Spider's feelings while they barely landed physically. When Spider saw the hateful look in Tara's eyes, she realized she had nothing to lose, and poked Tara one in the mouth, on the beautiful pink lips she'd never gotten around to kissing. 

by Jan