“… the pot of my native country is coming to the boil.”

-7, Death in the Dark, page 108

Disclaimer

[The evil biographer cannot let go of his violence obsession, and has bullied, lured and inveigled Dan into discussing some childhood and youthful heroics.]

I don’t want to toot my own horn. Most of this sounds self-agrandizing because I come off looking good in most of them. I come off bragging and none of my stories come off as anything compared to a guy like Big Ron. It wasn’t real violence persay. Back when kids were like, “Oh, let’s have a square go,” no one was going to end up dead.

[The writer informs the subject that rating the importance of violent encounters is above his pay grade.]

The First Real Schoolyard Fight, 3rd grade.

I remember this kid George was a really tall kid and we got in a playground fight towards the end of my third grade year. I recall doing well, not the specifics, but it really emboldened me as to fighting is no big deal and it was cool because the word spread around and helped my street cred as it were. Every year after that I got into multiple fights for every grade of school.

When We Moved

We moved to Shorewood. Didn’t know anybody and I was going into sixth grade. It was in the summer before school started. I got in a fight with a kid on the other block. My Sister and the neighbor that we had met, this girl Audrey, came to get me and they were both crying. They had been over on the other block and some kid was swinging a stick and hit them. I went over there and this kid was probably around the same age and grade as me and he got in my face and was posturing up like he was a tough guy. I punched him in the nose as hard as I could—didn’t say a word. He started crying and his nose was bleeding. He slunk off home crying like a little bitch. I felt great, because he was a dick and he was fucking with my sister and her friend.

[VIOLENCE IS GOOD]

My very first day of sixth grade I got a bus detention. The only kids I met in my neighborhood were in 8th grade and I was in sixth. On the way home from school they were teasing some kid and playing keep away; Greg, the paper boy, in 8th grade, and Scott, my neighbor—the only kids I knew and who I hung out with. For lack of anything to do I would ride down to his house and help him sort papers and ride his route with him on our BMX bikes.

There was a radio station that had a little credit card, a membership code and they would give out prizes on the radio based on the number of the card. It was called Fantastic Plastic. He must of had it out and one of those guys had it and was throwing it back and forth and I got involved in this triangle keep away game from this dude. The bus driver came back and wrote us up and got our names. That was the end of my first day of 6th grade.

An Eighth Grade Bully

I was in sixth grade. The kid, Scott who was my neighbor was an eighth grader and we were at the bus stop. This other eighth grade kid that was like a full adult size in eighth grade—he was big—he used to bully Scot. When I started goin’ there I wouldn’t accept it and would fight this dude. I remember on one occasion I took him down with a double leg and tried to mount him and was punching him. It just got broke up because we got on the bus and went to school. Another time he was bullying Scot, who was this really skinny kid, so I took the bully’s lunch. Next to the bus stop this guy used to back out of work and back up and I took this douchebag’s lunch and put it behind the back tire and this guy comes out and backs over his lunch.

Then, so his dad walked the kid over to my house to address the fighting problem. He was talking to my mom first and they pulled me out and said, “What is the problem between you two?”

I told the guy that the kid is constantly bullying and pushing around Scott and Scott did not defend himself and that his kid was the jerk in this situation. His dad made him walk down the block to another bus stop. They did make us shake hands and apologize to one another.

Bullshit Fights

His name was Scott also. He was best friends with this kid I became friends with and he would fuck with me. We would eat lunch together. Before school began we would go hang out in the cafeteria. We would sit together. The other kid’s name was Mark. That was his best friend and lived next to him. And Mark and I became friends and it bothered Scott. I remember one day he threw his milk cartoon at me, splashed milk on me from across the way. I went after him and it got broken up, because there was a lot of teachers in the area.

Later in that same day we passed each other in the hallway and we started going at it. We were throwing punches, almost like hockey fights and we would grab each other and start swinging, because he was a hockey player and that was his move. That got broken up. Each time we got sent to the Vice Principal’s office. Later in the day, it might have been in the hallway, for the third time that day, we get stopped by teachers and brought to the office. The Vice Principal said, “If I catch you guys fighting again I’m kicking you out of school.” We kind of cooled it after that. But we still sat together at the same table.

Just kid’s stuff.