From the first Manual Publishing release ...

Jailed By My Father

Tales of Tough Love, Bad Haircuts, and O.J.

By J. Matthew Smith

School of Hard Knocks

Holding me in a headlock with a grip so tight it made my ears burn, Robby Schott stood in the middle of Cedar's Lot landing right after right into the bridge of my nose. I lost count after the ninth or tenth. I lost feeling, too. His fist was like a jack hammer, and as it smashed repeatedly into my skull, it was accompanied by a sickening thud, like a sack of potatoes being whacked over and over against a rock. The brutality played on against the backdrop of a symphony of cheers. As was the case with any fight at Cedar's Lot, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered. The cheers, however, were not exclusively for Robby Schott. Rather, the crowd was hailing the violence, the gratuitous entertainment that had saved them all from yet another pathetically boring late spring day in Ebenezer, a hamlet just over the Buffalo city line inhabited by workers from Bethlehem and Republic Steel, Conrail, and Ford. There is nothing quite like some old-fashioned fisticuffs to cure a listless neighborhood of its near-summertime blues. And thirsty for blood, the fans sitting ringside were not disappointed.

It was a lopsided brawl from the start. I knew that Robby was coming after me, since word had been spreading throughout the neighborhood for weeks. And though the reason wasn't exactly clear, it didn't really matter. Hating someone for no reason at all was always in vogue.

Robby lived a few blocks away and finally one May evening, a few guys from his street found me and delivered this message: "Cedar's Lot. 7 pm. Be there!"

A challenge at Cedar's Lot wasn't something that could be ignored. Reputations were built, and legends were made there. Cedar's Lot was our Caesar's Palace—a sandlot venue where kids met to mercilessly pound the shit out of each other for good reasons, stupid reasons, or no reason. And whenever word spread of a fight to be held there, every kid in the neighborhood would make sure they were on hand. Each brawl was the social event of the season, at least until the next one.

My name appeared on the fight card there more than a few times over the years. Once, Stoney Lewis hit me so hard in the stomach that my jean shorts popped open and fell to just above my knees in front of everyone. During another fight, I split Jack Ammerman's lip open and knocked loose one of his teeth. Indeed, I did well in some and not so well in others. And the day I fought Robby Schott, I didn't do very well at all and suffering a beating that was, in a word, legendary.

I had always been a bleeder, particularly from the nose. Merely blowing the damn thing too hard was enough to make it bleed profusely, and once the blood began to flow, stopping it was no easy chore. It had been this way ever since The Great Cherry Pit Incident of'75.

* * *

As an eight-year-old boy, I picked up a cherry pit from the sidewalk one day while walking home from a friend's house. And suddenly, out of nowhere, came a little voice inside my head that said, "Hey, stick the cherry pit up your nose." So naturally, I obeyed. But what I hadn't counted was the pit becoming lodged there.

Panic-stricken, I grabbed a small stick from the ground and shoved it up my nose, hoping that I'd be able to wedge the pit free. Instead, I only made the situation worse. The stick pushed the pit deeper up into my nostril, and I started gagging. My eyes started to water, and I began gasping for air. Scared to death, I raced home as fast as I could, screaming at the top of my lungs while tearing across my neighbors' backyards.

"Help me! Help me!" I shouted in fear. "I'm suffocating! Please, please help me!"

When I finally arrived home, I burst through the front door and hurried into the bathroom, barking along the way like a wounded seal in the throws of a massive asthma attack.

My father, who was in the living room watching television, jumped out of his recliner and ran into the bathroom behind me to see what all the commotion was about.

"What in the hell's going on?” the old man shouted.

"My nose, my nose," I cried.

I tilted my head and pointed up my nostril. "I can't breathe!" I screamed. "I can't breathe!"

My father walked toward me. "Settle down. Just let me see what the hell's so goddamn wrong."

"I got a pit... I got a pit stuck up there... I can't breathe! There's a pit..."

"Just shut the hell up for a minute, damn it," the old man said. "Lemme see what it looks like up there."

"Hurry!" I shouted. "I'm suffocating!"

"You're not goddamn suffocating," my father yelled. "Calm down. Jesus Christ, what the hell is a cherry pit doing up your nose, anyway?"

"C'mon! Just hurry. Get it out!"

The old man reached into the medicine cabinet and pulled out some tweezers. Using the hand that he had on my forehead, he stretched his thumb down to my nostril and started pressing hard against the outside of it in an attempt to push the cherry pit down. Then, he stuck the tweezers up my nose, waiting until the pit was pushed down far enough to grab. This went on for fifteen excruciating minutes. My eyes watered. My nose was bent. I was screaming, gagging, howling and drips of blood started to leak from my nostril down to my lip. Even greater than the pain was the embarrassment. How could I explain shoving a cherry pit up my nose? It was simply a moronic thing to do. Even at the age of eight I realized that much.

When my father finally succeeded in dislodging the pit from my nostril, he walked over to the garbage can, held the tweezers over it and dropped the stone into the trash. Then, he looked back at me and swatted me upside the head.

"Stop shoving shit up your nose," he said.

Shaking his head in disbelief at this oldest son's stupidity, he then walked back into the living room and sat back down in his chair.

* * *

Without question, Robby Schott massacred me that day at Cedar's Lot. When it was all over, my face and shirt were covered in blood, and by the time I walked home, my mouth and chin were coated with a dark crimson crust. The damage from the cherry pit incident made me prone to severe nose bleeds, so I looked worse than I actually felt. Still, I was a bloody mess. And when I walked into the house that day, my mother damn near had a heart attack.

"Oh my God!" she screamed, rising from the kitchen table where she was sitting paying bills. "What happened? Who did this to you?"

"I'm all right, mom," I said with a low, painful sigh as I kept my head down while trying to rush by her.

"Get into the bathroom," she yelled nervously. "My God, Matthew…. What a mess.... Hold your head up, I just cleaned the floor and I don't want blood all over it.... Are you all right? Let me see. Come here, let me take a look at you. What a mess! Goddamn, and I just cleaned the bathroom, too."

"Mom, I'm OK."

"Who did this to you?"

"Mom, stop. I'm fine. Really. I just got into a fight."

"My God, you look awful, just awful...keep that head up, it took me a half hour to clean that floor.... Jesus, Matthew, you probably broke your nose. You'll need X-rays."

"No mom. God, we're not going to the hospital. Would you just relax? I told you, I'm fine."

"Don't you talk to me that way, Mister. You think you look bad now? I'll cream you. Just try me!" the old lady snapped.

I ripped off the remains of my tattered and blood-soaked shirt, and then stood there for a minute, staring at myself in the mirror. Behind me was my mother, standing there with her hand over her mouth and shaking her head.

"My God," she muttered. "Just look at you. There's blood everywhere. And that shirt is ruined."

I grabbed the towel hanging on the ring next to the mirror, but before I could wet it under the faucet, my mother grabbed my arm.

"No, don't use that one," she said. "That's part of a matching set. Here, just hold on, I'll get you an old washcloth from the closet."

I bent over the sink and splashed some warm water on my face, then rubbed some soap on the washcloth that my mother handed me. The bones under my eyes hurt when I rubbed the washcloth against them. I could feel the dried blood breaking away from my face. The warm water against my skin was soothing. Some of the blood from my nose dripped down the back of my throat and I hacked up a big, dark red ball of phlegm. I splashed some more water against my face and then grabbed a towel and patted it against my cheeks. There was some swelling around my left eye and a little above my lip, but for the most part, I didn't look too bad. I left the bathroom and walked back into the kitchen and took a seat at the table. My mother handed me an ice pack—a bag of frozen broccoli, actually—a glass of water, and two aspirin.

"Here," she said. "I have a feeling you're going to need to these, so you might as well take 'em now."

A few minutes later, my father walked through the door. I was still sitting at the table, holding the broccoli against my eye.

The old man took a look at me and chuckled.

"Let me guess: You lost."

I didn't bother answering him.

He pulled up a chair, and sat there across from me for a minute or two.

"How's the other guy look?'

I kept my eyes on the newspaper and shrugged.

"You all right?' the old man asked.

"I'm fine." I answered. "Really. It looks a lot worse than it is."

My father didn't say anything. He looked at my mother who was sitting on a chair in the corner of the kitchen near the telephone. She shook her head and let out a loud sigh that suggested both exasperation and disgust.

"Did you punch him in the nose?' my father asked. From an early age, the old man taught me how to fight, saying a boy needed to know how to defend himself. And included in the advice he gave were instructions to punch the opposing combatant on the bridge of the nose.

"Hit him there, and his eyes will start to water. He'll see stars, and then you'll have the fight won."

Indeed, the bridge of the nose was a target long advocated by not only my old man, but all the men of my family, dating back at least to my great grandfather, who was a featherweight boxer. This advice, in fact, was literally pounded into the Smith men at an early age. All families have traditions. Some have a favorite spot they vacation in, while others might have a favorite activity in which they partake every Christmas. My family had a tradition in which each male, upon turning 14-years old, strapped the gloves on with their father and went a few rounds. My younger brother, luckily, never had to carry on this tradition since my father was too old and too tired from working two full-time jobs by the time he came of age. So, after generations, this fine tradition ended with me, and when my time finally came, I learned first-hand just how effective a punch to the bridge of the nose could be.

"Yeah," I said, answering my father's question. "I hit him in the nose."

"Well, what happened?"

"He hit me there more," I replied.

The old man laughed. "Did your eyes water?"

What kind of goddamn question was that? Here I am a bloody mess and he wants to know what it felt like when I got punched in the head.

"I dunno," I said. "It hurt, I know that."

My father nodded, got up from the table and walked to the refrigerator. After grabbing a can of pop, he sat back down, took a swig of his beverage and fought back a belch.

"Ok, here's what you do. You go back out and fight him again."