Matt and I Fight to the Burger


My brother Matt and I engaged in glorious combat all the time growing up. Sometimes it was because we antagonized each other, sometimes for fun, sometimes we were just bored. I think it was so we got in less trouble that punches to the face were generally considered taboo but we did a lot of body punching, choking, wrestling and kicking. Somewhere between eighth and ninth grade we started in with just a regular fight, about what I cannot remember, and it quickly spun out of control into a full-blown fight. I know I had tried choking him into unconsciousness at some point and that Matt punched me in the face and then we were into the no man's land of the punishment heavy no-holds-barred fighting. We were both pretty roughed up and bleeding when my mom got upset at the level of violence she was seeing and she tried to break us up. She had just been yelling and then tried to get in between us the whole time calling us savages and barbarians. She got us separated in the hallway of our mobile home and was telling us both to knock it off while holing us at arms length. I said something about Matt and he reached around my mom and punched me square in the nose and bloodies it and made my eyes water and we were back in the thick of it as we pushed my mom out of the way. Matt was bleeding from his face holes quite a bit and at one point he gathered a mouthful of blood and saliva and spit right in my face while I was trying to hold him down. I don't exactly remember why or how we stopped but we were both pretty battered and my mom was furious at us and wanted my dad to lower the boom on us. The boom was surely lowered but I don't remember exactly it landed on but I am sure it was unpleasant. The real fallout of our first really real fight was that we both lost the taste for it and since then I don't think we have fought either physically or even yelling one more time. I think by the time we were both big and strong enough to cause some real damage and pain we didn't need anymore of that and we hung up the gloves, or I guess the bare knuckles in this case, for good.