hugs not fists

hey y'all, just a quick exhortation (big word huh?) to let you know how encouraged i am by all your comments. nice to know you all are really like me, as in you like to talk about yourself.... i know i'm asking you too, but you get the gist. with that said, i want to tell you a little story about a time when someone didn't like me so much....

picture it, laguna junior high 1992. me awkwardly skinny, just pushing 90 lbs. thanks to my last post you have a pretty good mental image of what kind of clothes to expect me in, its a wonder that a boy would even have been interested in me. yet, enter jared bonkowski. jared was one of those fringe types, definitely not a 'soc' but not a nerd, quite possibly in a band (not the school one). with his ponytail and camel light's stolen from his mom, he had a lot to offer for junior high. so we held hands a couple of times, passed a few notes and possibly kissed once or twice behind the portable math buildings. then one monday i came to school and saw none other than my bf holding hands with the dreaded helena quintanar. now, if the name doesn't give it away, i don't know what else will. the whole quintanar family was a force to be reckoned with, with 2 older brothers in and out of juvie, helena was following in their footsteps. she was pretty much the only girl at laguna that had ever been in a fight. i later found out that she had ties to BWA and would talk about getting 'jumped in.' she was one scary tween to say the least. so naturally, when i saw jared with her i knew our time was over and not one bit of me wanted to fight in any way shape or form for him. in fact, i was hoping that she never even knew he had liked me.

fast froward to thursday night. my friend and i decided to head down to farmers market. the last 4 days had been status quo, no rumblings of anything to do with helena or jared and like i said, that was fine by me. so there we are out in front of the cigar shop, probably trying to find a way to buy some nasty cherry tobacco to smoke out of my friends dads cigar pipe... when up walk four of helena's closest cholas. when i saw them approach, my heart started pounding. i knew they were there for me.

as casually as can be, one stepped forward and said, 'hey holly, hey just so you know... helena's looking for you.'

i froze, speechless as they left laughing.

'oh shit!' i said as i turned to my friend. 'what am i going to do?!"

she, like the good friend she was, said- 'lets just keep walking, your going to have to face her sooner or later, you might as well do it when there are lots of people around.'

so off we went, heading up higuera, it wasn't two minutes later that i saw her.

she had on white jeans and red top with her huge raiders bomber over it. her hair was tied back with a black bandanna. her lips were bright red, contrasting her big silver hoop earrings.

as soon as i saw her, i seriously thought i was going to throw up. i have never been as scared as i was right then.

she looked up and saw me. i froze right there in the middle of higuera. she kept walking toward me with a smirk on her face. she got 2 feet in front of me and said with all the authority in the world, 'hey, i been looking for you.'

looking back there's a million things i could have said... in fact i've often rehearsed the scene... i could've been snotty, confident, apologetic or i like to imagine myself just hitting her in the face (just kidding, not really).

but instead, it turns out i did the exact right thing.

i started to cry. real tears.

she looked at me confused, then her face change. it became soft and sweet. she reached out to hug me, and said, 'hey, its okay. its fine. i wasn't gonna hurt you.' and there i was letting the scariest vata in SLO county hold me in the middle of farmers market.

and that's the story of the biggest, baddest, scariest fight i have ever been.

and so with that long, detailed introduction, i wanna know this tuesday...

'have you ever been in a physical fight?'