The Fight

   "O.K., let's go over to the Plaid Pantry parking lot and we'll find out who has balls!"
   The tiny office was feeling even more close the past few minutes. Greg Elmo wanted to fight me. A week previous I had sold him my 1981 Chevy Caprice wagon for $300. The car had worked fine at the time, but as is often the case when a 20 year-old vehicle changes owners, he had had nothing but trouble with it. Greg had consumed some alcohol to get his courage up before coming into work.
   "My buddy said there was no way you could not have known that the alternator bracket was about to fall off; you had all kinds of washers on there and shit!"
   Adding to the tension was the fact that it was 9/11; info on the twin tower attacks had been dribbling in on a small radio pushed into a corner of our shared table. In addition to the used car hassle, Greg had some kind of competitive problem with the job itself. He had to be number one in sales. He was still angry about the fact that our boss, Bill Dooley, had recently given me a $1000.00 tap (phone room term for previous sale) to call that had been his to call the year before.
   Enough was enough.
   "We don't have to go over to the Plaid, we can take care of this shit right here!", I said, raising my voice.
   At this, our boss Bill came quickly into our little office.
   "If you boys are going to fight, take it outside!"
   We both got up and walked out into the parking lot, and over to where the lot met the edge of the sidewalk near Belmont St. I sized up the situation. Greg was 20 years younger and theoretically a lot faster; but he was drunk enough to be thrown off. A fair fight. As we squared off, an older man with white hair who worked in the same office approached us cautiously on his way in to work.
   "You guys shouldn't do that, it's bad for your heart."
   Greg's first move was to aim a kick at my groin. I saw it coming and shifted, allowing the kick to glance harmlessly off my thigh. Immediately, Greg moved in close, swinging, but stumbled a bit and only got two minor left and right punches in to my sides. I punched him directly in the face and blood came out of his nose.
   At this exact moment an earnest looking middle-aged man jumped out of a plumbing truck stuck in traffic on Belmont. He ran up to us.
   "Break it up, it's not worth it!"
   Greg managed one more punch that went wide.
   "Hey!" shouted the plumber, "I'm not kidding. We could be in New York right now!"
   At the time, this seemed like an absurd line, but the fight was over. Greg wiped some blood onto his fingers and tried to flick it at me in a final act of defiance, but the plumber was holding us apart.
   "Ahhhh, that's enough...I got my licks in...", I mumbled.
   Greg walked back into the office; I walked over to my car, got in and started it. I slowly pulled out into the afternoon traffic.