After he kicked me in the gut and the brass button on my patched corduroys flew open. Without even a cartoon lightning bolt, I transformed from a shy, grinning, thoughtful kid into an animal that reacted on a level that surprised and delighted and scared me. Time slowed as I processed sights and sounds and sensations efficiently, ruthlessly. Pain was there but it was a side issue, a prod to action more than a reminder of mortality.
So I charged at the source of the pain with a speed that didn't belong to the poor kid that got good grades. I caught his next kick. It hurt to absorb the impact, I think. It would probably leave a bruise but that was in a future that was inconsequential to the now. And now I had him, the bully with the crew cut hopping on one leg as I kept coming and brought him to the mowed grass of the front yard. He pushed at my face with his hands, a jagged nail scratching me under the eye and I kept coming until my hand was on his throat. I jerked his head forward and back, the soft thud of a fifth grade skull in the whisper brittle late fall grass barely heard. His eyes closed with the pain. When his face pinched and reddened from the strain of trying to breathe, trying to get away from defeat, get away from me, I felt a vicious joy. I would have growled or howled from the abandon of the victory but I'm not an animal.
A hard shove from a bystander knocked me off of him and I started to come down from the competitive high. I was winning a game that I hadn't ever won before. I knew I'd be chasing that transformation again. All I had to do was stick my nose in, pay the pain booth a toll of a bruise or two, and I would be a winner again.
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