There Was No Fight

The ring of teenagers was 30 feet wide - at least it looked like that to me- and the rain had already soaked through to the skin. On one side, a local girl and two of her friends, on the other a friend of a friend. I still can't say why I ran from the warmth of the youth club to the middle of a rain-slicked park - maybe I had some vague notion that I'd get my knuckles bloody in the same way that any teenager thinks they will when a fight breaks out. I don't remember what I thought, only how daunting the group of people was when I got there. I fancied myself the rough type, and I was wrong.

Intelligence runs in the family, and all the angst, all the muscle built up playing sports, didn't outweigh the few pounds of grey matter that analyzed every face in the crowd. The girl on the other side, I'll call her Stacey because I've never actually known anyone by that name, was using that special voice, half shout half bark, that means violence. And the crowd was urging her on by their presence. The girl I knew, let's call her Helen because I like the name, was cowering, and my body took over. Pushing through the crowd gently, shaking like a leaf and chilled to the bone, I felt half as brave as I did on the journey. Mostly because of the sense that one spark would set the whole place on fire.

If I'm honest, I have the feeling that Stacey was justified in being angry. Helen had a big mouth - she said things she didn't mean, but they were hurtful nonetheless. It was about a boys sister, I think, and something she had said about that sister. Stacey was his girlfriend or had been at one time, at least. I never knew that people saw me as a neutral party, a peace-keeper, until I sidled up to Helen and put my arm around her. She was so cold - hair plastered to her head, shaking violently. Terrified. I never knew I was capable of being so calm. Stacey gave me this blank, surprised look - she was a tall girl, with lovely dark hair and hard eyes. We had never fallen out, but she was capable of hurting me, and Helen, emotionally and physically she was capable. I suppose I was capable, too, but not as willing. She did the last thing I expected - she started to reason with me. She was telling me her story. And Helen shook and the rain fell in those great, hard sheets that make it feel like you'll never be warm or dry again.

Somewhere under the shaking, bowel-quivering fear, there was a small, hard thing. Something like anger, but a little less thorny. Disgust, I think, at the reality of three older girls ganging up on Helen. Disgust at the crowd that had gathered to watch. So, I told her, Stacey, that there would be no fight and we turned around, Helen under my arm like a baby bird, shaking and crying. She kept saying they were going to run up and get her. But the crowd parted - it was so strange that I remember it clearly. The rain was trickling down my scalp and into my eyes because there's next to no hair in my brows, and the crowd parted and we walked through. Just like that. All the way into town. I put my denim jacket around Helen, though it was soaked through, and we walked. Never faster or slower than a steady walk.

I must have looked calm because although they shouted and threatened, none of the girls made a move to grab either of us. They just circled, like they were waiting for a weak spot to show. That was the first lesson in control I remember getting. Certainly the first time I felt that thin line between hostility and aggression.

And then we passed him - the boy. I can see his face, though his name is long gone. We knew each other, of course, which is inevitable in a town this small. His eyes were wide, face red with cold. He was angry, first, then shocked. Then, just like that, Stacey and her girls peeled off to huddle around him and his friends. Telling him what happened, probably, though we didn't stop to find out. Walk, walk, walk - drip, drip, drip.

Step by step I ushered Helen back to the Youth Club and her friends. We weren't friends, you see, not really. Though we were friendly enough. At the time it just seemed like the right thing to do - to be there with her and pull her out of the fire if I could. I was ashamed at the time because I avoided the fight - but now I see worth in that. I know how hard it is to stay the hand in a place where there is overwhelming pressure to lose control. As an adult I've had to grapple with my temper too often - that little girl knew better. She knew how to put the safety of others first, even when it meant putting her head down to walk away while others taunted her.

Of course, I also know that she was afraid - terribly afraid - and that's a part of what prevented her from escalating the situation. But I also know I didn't walk away before I was seen and, more importantly, I didn't join the crowd. I didn't watch a fight, an assault honestly, that I could have stopped - that would have been unforgivable. I stood, at no more than 13 or 14, and looked three older girls in the face, at risk of being caught in violence that wasn't mine. Stood my ground, comforted and protected the outnumbered party (though I suspect not the entirely innocent one, that would be the boys' sister) out of a sense of what is right and fair and just. Because of empathy.

To this day, that is one of the most real, most tangible examples of who I can be when things get down to the wire. I hope I'm still that person today.