Make Mine Mike

What’d I do Christmas Eve? Took a girl out. We thought it’d be quiet, but there were tons of people at the bar, singing, dancing and drinkin’, nog or you-name-it. Somehow I doubt it was an all Chanukah & Kwanzaa crowd.

We first saw Million Dollar Baby. She picked it. I didn’t know much about the flick, ‘cept it starred Hilary Swank as a boxer, trained by Clint Eastwood. Not bad. I loved Girlfight, with Michelle Rodriguez from a few years ago, but this was a bit more serious. That’s why we had to go out for drinks after -- she was crying during the movie and we needed to rehydrate and lighten the mood.

I thought about telling her about how a scene from the movie evoked a memory from my life. Hilary gets her nose broken in a fight, and Clint adjusts back in place -- crack! Yeah, we winced too. Especially with her blood running all over the canvas.

I only got one nose bleed in my life. I was in wrestling practice. You go through some moves, then the coach would say "free wrestle", and then you actually try to pin your opponent. Sometimes you’d be matched against people in your weight class, but you might go up or down a few divisions, depending on which teammates were available. I was paired up with a kid two years and two weight-classes below me. So I was taking it easy on the dude. But then he swung his head up, and bam! accidentally nailed me in the schnozz. It didn’t hurt that much, but -- holy shit -- my nose was gushing.

See, I had gotten in plenty of scuffles as a kid. Me and my friends would get temporarily mad at each other, and duke it out. Or once in a while, I had to be brave against some bully. It’s what boys do; we weighed what? 70 pounds? Hard to do any serious damage when you’re that small. We ruffians rarely got hurt. When I had braces, I might end up with badly-cut lip, and I doled out more than my share of bloody noses. But I never ever got one myself. I took plenty of hits to the honker, but no hemorrhage. Strong capillaries or something...

So you can imagine my surprise to find this red river running down my face. The kid took advantage of the moment and slammed me down to the mat. "Hey, look at this!" He shouted to the other guys on the team. "I’m beating Michael! I’m actually beating him!"

That little punk. I forgot about my contusion and countered my opponent’s moves. With size and experience on my side, it didn’t take long to nearly have him pinned. I grimaced down at the wise-ass. "You’re doin’ what, now?!" It didn’t sound that intimidating, with my voice all nasally. But the crimson droplets in his face surely made my point.

Weird, I hadn’t thought of that in ages. The kid apologized; no hard feelings. It seemed kinda funny to me now. But I looked at the girl as we walked outta the theatre. She was still wiping her eyes.

Nah, maybe I shouldn’t share this one. I was fairly quiet as we went to the bar. Booze beats blood any day.