I Don't Fight Like a Girl

Mom worked less and drank more and went through innumerable boyfriends and one night stands until she met Jake Zabrowski, then she stopped working. Jake wasn’t the first relationship she tried after my father but he was the first that stuck. He was tall and thick with a balding head and tattoos. He owned and operated a motorcycle repair shop and sales center and he had connections. Within three months, he and my mother were married. He moved us into his house about two miles away in Lincoln Square.
We had to switch schools again, just three months before the end of the school year. We started out in Carl Von Linne School, me in 7th grade and Sophie in 5th. Before my dad died, Sophie and I went to St. Agnes of Bohemia.

Sending us to Catholic school was something that had always been important to him. We transferred from there to St. Benedictine when we moved to Wellington. This was the first time we had been in a Chicago public school and the difference was striking. The kids in my class were at least a year behind me in math, science, and reading. Sophie’s class didn’t even know about the periodic table of elements. It was impossible to make friends, so Sophie and I kept to ourselves, sitting together at lunch everyday and going home right after school. I learned nothing during my time at that school, save perhaps survival skills and what happens when someone picks on my little sister.

A husky girl decided, one morning before school, to push Sophie around and steal her new transformer watch that she had saved up weeks of allowance to buy. I was in the school at the time getting my books for the day from my locker. Sophie came to find me after it happened. She looked terrified.

“What happened?” I asked. Sophie pushed the heal of her palm into her eyes.

“Becca took my trans… former… wa…!” She started crying. I pulled her around the corner where less people could see us.

I stood with my arm around her, a shield from curious eyes, and waited for her to settle down. Sophie collected herself, caught her breath.

“She said she wanted money. I told her I didn’t have any. She shoved me down and took my transformer watch. She said that would do for today but that I better bring her money tomorrow,” she cried. I lifter her chin and took her by the shoulders.

“Don’t worry, Soph. I’ll get it back. I’ll take care of this,” I said.

Becca Moorer was in my gym class. She was bigger than me, taller and meatier, with long, pink-streaked hair and a stern, handsome face. I was intimidated by her, but she would not get away with bullying my sister; I would talk to her myself.

That afternoon, I watched Becca running laps around the perimeter of the gym, raw fear rising in my chest. I was at least three inches shorter than her; my beanpole physique did not serve as well as her ampleness for striking fear into people. I strode confidently in her direction and stepped in front of her as she rounded the corner and lumbered her way up the white line in my direction. Hands on my hips, my face fixed, deadly serious. She stopped about a foot in front of me, taken off guard; for a moment she seemed merely surprised that I was in her way. She perceived that I was threatening her and growled at me to move out of her way.

“If you ever touch my sister again,” I tried hard to keep my voice steady, “I will end you.” I had no idea from where that particular choice in words had come, nor did I expect that I could ever deliver on that promise, but I couldn’t unsay it, so I acted like I meant it. She stood silent, astonished. I didn’t wait for her to regain her composure; I turned and walked into the locker room.

I made it to my locker, trembling with adrenaline. The door exploded open and Becca came barreling in, half the class following to watch what would happen. I faced her squarely. She smashed her hulking frame against me, chest puffed out, still breathing heavily from her run. I looked up at her. Dark eyes flashing under a glistening, flat forehead, stringy pink stands snaking across it like veins.

“What did you say, Bitch?” A spray of spittle landed on my nose. Her teeth and tongue were visible through her slightly open mouth; my guts twisted.

I placed my hands against her chest and extended them out, gently pushing her arms-length away from me. Her face contorted in fury and her fist clenched.
I watched her meaty arm and balled hand arc through the air toward my face and did nothing. I don’t remember feeling the blow when it connected; the adrenaline had extinguished all pain and fear. She grabbed my shirt, swung again, I shoved her hard and her fist whirred centimeters before my face. She came at me; I grabbed her by the hair at the back of her head and yanked down hard. She was bent backwards, face up, hands flailing. I used my free hand to knock against her face with short, sharp blows, like pounding on a door. Over and over again, I smashed my fist against her face: thud, thud, thud.

I felt her skin crack beneath my fist and saw the blood on my hand. I paused, enough time for her to break free and try to immobilize me in a headlock. I hopped out of reach and continued clobbering her blindly; wild, thrashing slugs that met with her stomach, her arm, her face. She screamed for me to stop, crying now, and the gym teacher grabbed us by the backs of our shirts, one in each hand, and tore us apart.
We stood panting and sweating. A purple-maroon bruise circled a wide cut on her cheekbone, beginning to swell one eye shut. She held her elbow gingerly against her.

“I think you broke my arm!” she whined, her livid face stunned.

I couldn’t move. The other kids dispersed. The teacher told us to get dressed and come to her office. I caught my reflection in the mirror as Becca walked away. There was not a single mark on me. I had beaten Becca Moorer. I had actually kicked her ass.

I sat beside Becca in the principal’s office and listened to her version of what happened.

“Listen, we’re actually friends. We were just playing around, pushing each other, and it got a little outta hand, OK? We don’t mean no harm, really! Right, Jane?” She leaned with her elbow on the armrest of the chair, trying to cover her swollen eye casually with her hand. I just stared at her.

“Is that true, Jane?” Mr. Fisher asked me. He was a short, dark man with black eyes. His left arm was too short and it rested limply across his belly. I nodded my head.

“That’s not what I heard,” he said, “sounds to me like it was a real knock ‘em down drag ‘em out fight.”

“No!” said Becca, laughing. I gave a nervous laugh.

“Normally,” he said, and paused, leaning back in his chair and placing his feet up on the corner of his desk, “I give out a week to three weeks at-home suspension for any fights.” We waited for the punishment sentence.

“I appreciate that you’re making peace with each other here and I trust this won’t happen again—” Another pregnant pause.

“So I’m giving you a one day in-school suspension. You can serve it tomorrow.
All of your class work will be delivered to you in the detention room.”

“Aw, come on! Can’t you just give us like seven detentions instead?” Becca whined.

“No!” he barked. “Suspension is mandatory for fighting. This is minimal, believe me; be grateful!”

Walking down the hall to our classes a minute later, Becca slapped my back and said: “We cool, man?”

“I think we’re fine,” I said. “But I want you to give my sister her watch back and apologize to her.” She nodded, smiled, and stuck out her hand. I shook it.

After school, I met Sophie in our usual place to walk home. She stood waiting with her lunch box and stared wonderingly at me as I approached.

“How did you do it, Jane? She looked like someone threw her down the stairs!”
I laughed and threw my arm around her.

We walked home buoyantly, brought to life by the miracle of what had unfolded. I told her the whole story, leaving nothing out. Sophie squealed in pleasure at the description I gave her of knocking on Becca’s face with my fist, and shrieked in laughter when I told her how Becca whined and sniveled that I broke her arm. I surprised myself with the level of detail I recalled. I was drunk with adrenaline, which itself amazed me. How could human beings have a hormone released at the precise moment when they need extraordinary amounts of strength, courage, and fearlessness the most? Such intricate, wondrous creatures we are.

The suspension was the most peaceful day I had at that school.

We didn’t suffer long there because Jake knew some people and got us on a waiting list for the Northside Catholic Acadamy. Within a month, Sophie and I were accepted into the noble aristocracy. I was elated; it was the same school that Stacy attended.