Back in the 1980s in Baltimore Jimmy worked for the city Public Works Department as a tree trimmer. This was before the high level of federalized structure and law-suit proofing that came in with the converging drug war and ambulance chasing trends in the late 1980s. The type of behavior he is discussing is only seen today in private small scale construction and landscaping, organizations that break tax and employment laws by their very nature.

“We used to work all day in crews, and then come back to the yard for a couple of beers. This was before the huge drunk driving campaign, which really was a good thing. Drunk driving is just so immensely stupid it’s hard to believe that it was routine back in the seventies.

“Well, we used to have fights. Two guys that had a beef for some reason or another, on Friday afternoon, they could settle it, and we’d all stand there and watch with a beer in our hand. So Ed and Joe are about to go at it. There is a circle of people all around. This is one of those absolutely avoidable, mutually agreed upon, acts of stupidity which I hope none of my students ever engage in.

“Really, the days of fighting another person for any reason, should all be behind us with all of the straight up criminal violence that we have to worry about out there. I tell this story as a cautionary tale, because it illustrates the kind of things that can go wrong that you have no control over once you have agreed to be stupid for a few minutes.

“So, Joe and Ed are about to fight—not a punch has been thrown—and one of the onlookers throws a beer bottle and hits Joe right in the eye. He lost his eye. Of course he won his law suit with the City and moved to Hawaii and has been retired with a beautiful wife for his whole life. So there is a happy ending. But still, I’d rather have my eye.”

That is an example of a mutual combat which escalates from the outside. Mutual combats are now almost non-existent in urban areas, and when they do happen, generally do result in an outside escalation in the case of men and an outside de-escalation in the case of women.