I was a 19-year-old geek who grew up in an 18,000 person former logging town in Washington. The local idea of a fistfight victorys was simply who got a bloodied nose or lip first. Recently transported to Phoenix, AZ to go to school I was the proverbial hick in the big city. I was at the Metrocenter mall down in that big arcade area on the lower floor. It's got this Hugh Jass escalator that runs down into it that is the only way into or out of it that I'm aware of.
I was playing Street Fighter II and some teenage cholo rolls up and pops a token in to play me. I was pretty good back in the day and basically treated him like a $2 whore a few times before he starts talking trash. Not thinking anything about it, I was more than willing to exchange some pleasantries right back while I was upping the smackdown to $1 whore status. The last game, I think I actually hammered him down without looking at the screen once. Just smiled and told him what a punk he was right to his face.
Well, he pushes me and I push him back a lot more. Must have outweighed him by at least 40 pounds. Tells me he's gonna beat my ass and me, being a complete idiot and having no frickin' clue about real life, told him where I'd shove that if he tried.
Two hours later I'm bored and decide to head out into the night air. Now, Metrocenter has a door right by the arcade that runs into a giant parking lot. Plenty of potted plants and benches outside. Scoping the cholas and generally trying to not look like the complete dork I am, I'm not watching the doors behind me.
Out of no where comes this gruff voice like this guy has been gargling with broken lightbulbs and Draino. "You dissin' my little bro, mano?" I look over my shoulder and I'm looking at my first real-life ex-convict. He's got tatted arms as big as my legs, a barrel torso from the crappy diet and a blue rag on his head. He looks at me after I turn, spits on the ground at my feet and is on me like a rabid pitbull on a Milkbone kitten.
I manage to backpedal just out of range of his sloppy first punch, sidestepped and threw a weak left into his jaw. He grunted, turned and charged again with a brutal right hook to the ribs. I would have deftly sidestepped this second punch but that annoying bench poured into the potted garden got in my way. Stars and I'm on my back and not being able the breathe.
This big bastard in on my stomach trying to throttle me and well, he's succeeding admirably. I choke up my shoulders and tense my neck as I try to bar him out with a stiff arm just like in japslapping class but those hands are like hydraulics, I can feel them in either side of my spine digging in between the muscle and sinew there. Red starts to creep into my vision and roaring into my ears, slowly edging in from the outside and I go flippin' berserk. After trying an eye gouge or three I switch tactics completely randomly. Every effort has been out until now so I grab his do-rag and pull him into me. Caught off guard, he falls towards me so I can get a good grip in his left ear. I twist it as hard as I can and pick myself up towards him until I can get within range of the one thing I hope another human being never has to do to save their own life.
I bit into his face.
Not a nip, a nibble or a taste. I bit about 3/4 inch or each side of his nose and dug in like a terrier preparing to shake a rat to death. Blood poured out of his wound and into my mouth and I heard the worst scream I can ever imagine coming from this guy as he starts beating on me to get me off of him. I'm getting kicked by his freinds as I have now basically bearhugged to him while I was trying to gnaw his nose off of his face.
Probably about 20-30 seconds into it I hear a voice amongst the shreiking from the cholo, his buddies shouting at me to let him go and the sound of the crap being kicked out of myself. " Get off of him, you bastards! Mark, you gotta let him go!"
Somehow the voice of my roommate Peter cut through the animal screaming like a banshee in my skull and I relaxed my jaw long enough to flop back onto the sidewalk, my face and neck slicked with blood. "Mark, we need to get the f*ck out of here!" Peter and Raul pick me up and haul me bodily as I stumble trying to keep up with them. They toss me into the back seat bodily and head out back to our apartment just off of Camelback and 7th street.
As we drive they explain how they had checked the arcade and stepped out for a smoke when they saw this whiteboy getting the boot party. They didn't care until Peter noticed my goofy bahama shorts and yelled, "Come on, man! That's Mark!"
I use Raul's t-shirt to wipe up as much blood as I can from my face and just about flipped out again trying to get my clinging to my skin blood-soaked t-shirt off. I started crying and told them to pull over at some random restaurant. I walked inside with blood smears still on my face and neck where the edge of the t-shirt had been and stepped into the men's room.
Looking into the mirror after washing my face off I openned my mouth to see if I had anyhting missing. All my teeth were there and some careful wiggling told me that there weren't any loose. I breathed in deep and turned in a lunge towards the toilet were I must have blown out a good portion of my meals for the last 6 hours of so. I wiped my mouth, checked myself in the mirror and as calmly as I could manage stepped back into the restaurant on my way back to the car and home.
Mark(psycho)Phipps( HAHAHA! )