Most street fights are won by the one who strikes the first blow. Particularly if it’s unexpected. Hit first, hit hard and keep on hitting until your opponent is no longer a threat.
Many of my characters are violent. I know about violence. If there’d been a job description for the work I did for many years it would have mentioned a close association with violent men. I learned from the start how to survive in their world.
I used to box when I was young so when the man wearing a track suit asked me, ‘can you fight?’ I nodded. Once you accept the other person is trying to hurt you and you’re prepared for the pain this brings, you’re most of the way towards doing okay as a boxer.
I’d reported to a scruffy gym in Whitechapel expecting a physical examination. A series of tests. Apart from the man in the track suit I was the only person present. I knew expectations would be high. The agency that had recruited me made great play of their criteria for selection: a high IQ and an equally high level of physical fitness. The ability to think clearly, evaluate situations, was a prerequisite part of the job as I’d be required to work undercover at times, far removed from any outside assistance. Fitness was deemed equally essential. Hence the date at the gym. They already knew I played sport at a decent level, was young, had good coordination, but these abilities were never taken on trust.
The man in the track suit walked towards me, smiling, hand outstretched. I held out my own hand to greet him and as he took my hand he kneed me in the balls.
Doubled over in agony, hands clasping my bruised testicles, I looked up at him.
‘I said, can you fight?’ he repeated. ‘Fight me, then. I’ve already started.’
I learned a great deal in that first session. I was taller, heavier, twenty years younger and he gave me a good hiding. This was real fighting. No Marquis of Queensbury rules here. Street fighting.
When I write about violent characters, I write from experience. Here’s a brief snippet I wrote last night. My main character has been incarcerated in a secure mental hospital for many years. His records state him to be without conscience, violent and extremely dangerous. Assessed as ‘not responsible for his actions,’ he’s a clear menace to society, but there may be more to him than meets the eye. What that is, I haven’t decided yet. Here’s a taste of where this one is going. It’s unedited, exactly as it arrived, and far from the finished article, so make allowances! He still doesn’t have a name. This is deliberate.
The man barring his way was obviously expecting trouble. That was why he was there. A big man with the evidence of his nature plastered across his face in the form of a flattened nose and scared eyebrows. He knew the name of the man bearing the scars of his trade because he’d been told to expect him. The man’s name was Clive Wilson and he’d been the big man’s minder for three years.
He knew Clive Wilson, had seen him before, but the other man would not know him. He was heavier than he used to be and the clothes he wore emphasised his size, but his features had changed radically. The doctor who’d worked his magic on him had claimed, ‘your own mother wouldn’t recognise you now’ and his new face had assured his freedom for almost a year now since he’d escaped from captivity and resumed his life, under his own terms.
It was measure of how standards had declined since he’d been betrayed and forcibly removed from the top job, to be usurped by lesser men, that a man such as Clive Wilson was standing in front of him, barring his way. He’d known many men like Wilson; had even employed some of them. At a lower level. Muscle had its uses in the organisation and the ‘minder with chat,’ a man able to look after himself, but with a degree of intelligence could expect to do well for himself. Clive Wilson was not of that ilk and he’d virtually disregarded him at first sight. Not completely, for Wilson was a big man and no stranger to violence.
There are no rules for this situation, but two possibilities. Fight or flight. He’d never run away from a fight in his life and had no intention of starting now. He walked towards Clive, arms held out in front of him, palms outstretched.
‘What’s the problem, mate?’ he asked.
He hadn’t lost a fight since he was seven years old. That hadn’t been a fair fight as his opponent had been ten years older and almost twice his size, but he still remembered the pain of that defeat long after the agony of his injuries had gone away. The other boy had beaten him insensible, knocking him to the floor and sitting on his chest, punching him until he lost consciousness. The later injuries were far more severe and the report of the police doctors had concluded he’d been kicked in the head at least a dozen times; the absence of defensive wounds on his arms suggesting he’d been unconscious at the time.
He’d never revealed the identity of his attacker, despite numerous attempts to persuade him to do so. It was dark. He didn’t know the man. He couldn’t remember. He stuck to his story and, eventually, they stopped asking. Amnesia, the doctors had said; brought on by severe head injuries and entirely to be expected after a prolonged period of unconsciousness.
He remembered every detail of the incident, right up until it all went black, but he never told anybody. There was the shame of the defeat, his tears and the sexual degradation that had precluded the attack.
Doctors had made the link many times between that incident in childhood, the severe head injuries, his inability to remember any detail of the attack, in mitigation of his irrational behaviour and extreme violence. The severity of the attack and the clear evidence of sexual assault were convenient hooks on which to base an explanation for his psychotic nature.
He took a different view. His assailant, Roger Petrie, his next door neighbour and friend up until that day, had been the catalyst for change in his life. He’d done him a favour.
It would be ten years before he found Roger Petrie again. Having left the younger boy for dead, he’d have been relieved at subsequent developments. The boy remembered nothing. Petrie had joined the navy. Moved away. It was only after he’d returned to civilian life, married with three children and living in Kent that retribution came along.
Petrie hadn’t died quickly. He’d sobbed, begged for mercy and, finally, for release, but to no avail. The day he’d spent perfecting his skills on Roger Petrie had been the best day of his life.
Clive Wilson frowned. His job was a simple one: prevent anyone from getting past the solid oak door that stood between the outside world and his boss. The man before him appeared disarmingly harmless. A man with no aura of threat about him, but he still had to be encouraged to go away.
As Wilson was about to speak, his mouth opening to warn off the intruder, the other man half-turned and elbowed him in the face. The crack of his nose breaking was akin to an eggshell crushed under a careless foot and Wilson reeled back in shock, blood smeared across his face, wiping away the tears that sprung to his eyes.
His opponent was wide open now and he stamped down hard on the stricken man’s instep, the thick leather sole inflicting severe damage.
Of the 206 bones in the adult human body, more than half are in the hands and feet. The hand has 27 bones, the foot has 26 and the face has a mere 14. The small bones in the foot, the metatarsals, have achieved prominence in recent times after a crop of injuries to top footballers.The fracture of a metatarsal bone is seriously debilitating and very painful. Gasping in shock, Clive Wilson’s defenses were obliterated within three seconds and he was wide open for the punch that put him on the floor. Two solid kicks to the temple and he was out of commission.
He stepped over the prone figure and opened the door. Very close now.
