Flirting and Brawling

By kiki

One late night back around 1960, Connie was dozing off as we drove down Whittier Blvd in East Los Angeles. Right before I had to turn north on Ford Ave to make our way home, a car with two young guys and their girls pulled alongside our car. Riding in the back seat of the car was one young dude and his girl. Like Connie, he, too, was dozing off. As we drove side by side, the girl looked at me and smiled; I looked back at her and smiled back; as we were smiling back and forth, the dude woke up and seen his girl flirting with me, but instead of getting pissed at her he rolled the window down and started cursing me out, I cursed him back. He yelled at me to pull over; I yelled back at him to tell the driver to pull over on the next side street, they did, and so did I. As we got out of the car, they went to the trunk and pulled some tire irons out, “oh shit” I thought. But luck was with me because coming down the side street was a car that I recognized as a friend’s car, my friend with 3 other guys pulled over and asked me what was going on, as they were getting out of the car, I told them I needed some help. They said okay…I then told my friend to just keep an eye on the driver “don’t let him butt in,” I said. “He won’t,” my friend and his buddies replied. At that, I grabbed the cursing dude by the shirt and slammed him against a building, and went to work on him. I hit him downstairs and upstairs. First, with body shots to both sides, and when he tried to cover his sides, I went upstairs with left hooks and right crosses, and in between with some jabs and uppercuts. I didn’t give him a chance to throw one punch at me; after what seemed like forever, my friend grabbed me and told me that that was enough and that the cops were on their way. The dude went down on his knees as my friend pulled me away. As I walked away to my car, I saw his friends picking him off the ground. With the adrenaline still pumping, I got in my car and drove home. Connie, who never got out of the car, didn’t talk to me till the next day when she asked me, “are you all right?” other than bruised hands, I told her I was okay.