Meet Me at the Pit

At E.T. Richardson Middle School, the proper protocol for declaring a fight was to call someone out. One would do this by saying, "I'm calling you out." Then one would designate the site, which was inevitably the Pit, by saying, "Meet me at the Pit." And I'm not talking about the Peach Pit, where Brandon worked on 90210. I'm talking about the area behind the bar that was right across the trolley tracks from the school property. The lot was so named because its elevation was approximately five feet lower than the surrounding area. A sloping asphalt hill led down on the two sides, while the building itself and a large drainage pipe stemming out of the woods comprised the other two sides.

I was in sixth grade. I was in chorus. I sat by one of my archenemies, who had always made sure to make fun of me. When my fourth-grade teacher couldn't pronounce my nickname the whole year, he capitalized and called me "Mishu the Tissue." Then when someone told me my name in German would be Mikkel (which isn't a name in any language I know of), he called me "Mikkel the Pickle." This was ironic since his name was Nick. He was certainly no more popular than I, which is what gave the courage to stand up for myself once and for all.

He looked at me between verses of "Never-never land" and said, "Only girls wear glasses."

Of course, I looked at him with fury and pushed my frames right up against the bridge of my nose with all the masculinity I could muster. "That's not true."

Nick: Sure it is. Nerdy girls.

I had to defend my honor and the honor of all the other bespectacled men in the world who had to suffer at the hands of the unmyopic.

Me: I'm calling you out.

Nick: What? (In utter disbelief)

Me: Yeah. Meet me at the Pit.

Nick: When?

Me: Today.

I went to the Pit that afternoon, and he was there. Luckily, only one of the smoking slackers that normally hung out there was perched on the drainage pipe. This VJ appointed himself referee and moderator of the fight. He set us in our corners and counted to three. There we were, two overweight unpopular kids ready to duke it out over a ludicrous assertion made during choir practice. At the sound of "Three," Nick came charging at me at full speed. I easily took advantage of his scattered center of balance and tossed him sideways to the ground by his shoulders. He rolled on the ground for a second before hopping up and charging again. I used the same old faux-judo trick twice more before VJ declared me the winner.

Nick: That's not fair. That didn't count. We're fighting again tomorrow.

With that he ran up the hill towards his home, leaving me with a small sense of achievement but a larger sense of dread. What if he beats me tomorrow?

The next day came and went without incident. I walked slowly toward the Pit trying to calm my nerves. As I crossed over the trolley tracks, I was terrified to discover that approximately one hundred middle schoolers had been invited to the fight. VJ was there in the middle, the obvious ringleader and organizer of the event. Nick stood in shock next to VJ. As I approached he backed up and refused to fight, saying that he had to go home. When he ran off, the crowd booed and urged me to follow him home. "I know where he lives!" yelled one of the spectators. "Let's go get him!" screamed another. VJ looked at me and asked, "Aren't you going to go to his house?"

I refused, stating that I knew his mom.

The crowd quickly lost interest and dispersed and I was declared the champion by default. Luckily, no one ever mentioned the fight again, and it faded into the rich tapestry that the history of the Pit has become. And I learned my greatest lesson: only challenge things that are likely to disappear in a large crowd.

The preceding memory was inspired by Cicada's masterful work The Brute Force.