Beach fighter

BY TOM FITZSIMONS

This story is not going to make me sound very manly. Actually, it will make me sound the opposite - a lily-livered fool. But here goes.

I spent last weekend at a Kapiti beach house with some old school friends. On night one, everything was going great - the weather was clear and still, we had a ripping fire started and our bellies were full of some mean fish we'd cooked up for dinner. Had we caught the fish? No, but I should also say that these friends (all males) are possibly even less manly then me, so this was no surprise.

After the meal, we drank a few beers, talked, considered watching the telethon, decided against it and poked the fire around instead. A couple of people left for the city - the rest of us stayed on.

At a certain point, three of us wandered outside to the porch, beers in hand, and kept the conversation going out there. With the stars clear overhead, it was all very bromantic.

But then everything changed. Two youngsters, boys of about 20, wandered up the drive to the porch and introduced themselves.

For dignity's sake, I should describe them as giants, bodybuilders, rugby players.

In reality, one was small - though he was very energetic and kept making punching motions into the air. The other one was larger, quieter, and more sinister, but hardly All Black material. Both of them were completely wasted.

To begin with, the interaction went well enough. We weren't immediately hostile, and neither were they. I've occasionally enjoyed meeting 'randoms', though I have to admit I wasn't really in the mood this time.

Then the midget P freak said: "Got any booze?" Politely, we said 'No'. But the mood had changed. There was tension. The shadow punching got more rapid.

Then he said something like: "Are you guys gay?" but more abusive. I asked if they had come looking for love. The large one said: "Do you want me to smash your glasses into your face?"

For a moment, I imagined standing up, tearing his still-beating heart from his chest, and shouting "Finish him!" I tried to remember lessons from Fight Club. I tried to remember Ryu's spinning kicks from Street Fighter.

At this point, you might think things would have come to a head, but they didn't. The conversation continued in this discursive vein for another ten minutes, with the tension ebbing and flowing all the time. I asked them why they had come. They asked if we were gay. I asked them to leave. They didn't.

Finally, I shut up and the bigger guy declared in fact that my two friends were actually "good guys". Then he wandered off down the driveway and his wee lackey eventually followed along.

"What the hell?" I turned and said to my friends. "You guys hung me out to dry." One of them said he was poised to tackle the midget. The other one, who is 6'3'' tall, just said: "I didn't want a punch in the face. I didn't want to feel sore."

Both said they were worried that if the interaction ended aggressively, the drunken pair would return and key their cars.

But I thought different. These little bastards had come onto our property and threatened us. That's not acceptable. Sure, I hadn't done anything about it either, but that's because my pals were appeasing these guys worse than Chamberlain at Munich.

As it turned out, appeasement did work. The pair left, we never saw them again, and nothing got mysteriously tagged or broken.

But we did have to endure more than 20 minutes of aggro crap, the worst side of the young boozer, and we may have lost our pride. I think many men would have acted differently.

But what's acceptable? A fight? Really? I've never been in a fight before. Just the thought of it made me pretty uneasy.

What do you think of this wimpish tale? What should we have done? And what's your most memorable fight story?

- © Fairfax NZ News