French fight

We were at seudah shlishit. When I say we, I mean the whole kibbutz. When I say seudah shlishit, I suppose I should explain that it is a sort of linner on Saturdays. For those who don't know what a linner is, think about the word brunch. Briefly I suppose I should also explain - though it really has nothing to do with anything-that it translates directly to the "Third Meal." First meal is Friday night, you don't really have breakfast, but you do have lunch, ergo this is the third meal...dinner comes after Shabat is over. If any of my gentiles don't understand, but for some reason want to know, go find a Jew, or ask me later. It's of no importance to the story...which as you can see I'm not very eager to tell. OK, the setting is this light meal with the whole kibbutz there, all the groups sitting together...fine.

I'm sitting at my group, enjoying my snack, when I see a French guy, with this ugly blue Navy hat, at another table signaling me. He...wants...me to give him our RC cola. OK, I take the neck of the unopened bottle between my opposingly faced index and middle finger, and walk it over to him. I go back to my seat and sit down.

As soon as I sit back down and start talking I hear a sssssssstttttttttttttthhhhhhh coming from the Frenchman's direction. I look up and see the soda bottle exploding. I hadn't shaken it, I assure you, but he had such a strange look on his face, I chuckled, and then went back to my conversation, forgetting about him, not watching him.

He comes over to the table and I can't really tell his emotion. He says something I can't make out. So I look around the table, and one kid translates for him.

"He asks if you were the one who brought the soda."

"Yeah." The Frenchman says something I still can't understand, walks away and now, my friends around me are chuckling.

"He said that you'd better be careful tonight."

"OK..." ^I was just shaking in my boots,^ "Hey, I didn't know you spoke French."

"What? He was speaking Hebrew." I guess I just don't quite get their accent.

That night I was going to go look in the synagogue for a friend of mine's siddur (prayer book.) As I'm walking to the synagogue, the moron, still wearing the Navy cap calls me out. I still did not really think that this guy was serious. "Ah, you! ���! ��! {Bata! Bo!} (You came! Let's go!) �� ��� ����? {Ma atah medaber?} (What do you speak?) ������? {Sarfatit?} (French) ������? {Sfardit?} (Spanish) �����? Ivreet? (Hebrew) ������?[Ongleet?] (English?)"

"English, if you can," I said dryly.

"So, come. Come you bastard."

"Hold on, I have to find this siddur, after I find it, we can..."

"Gay...you Gay! Come!" Fine. So I follow him. "Hurry, you Gay!" So, I followed him to a place where there was almost no light, but two dogs came towards us, so we moved to another spot. "You..." he said glaring.

"Yes?" My leg was shaking a little, but that's cause it was a new situation.

Commercial break:

He glares at me. Now, if you're ever in a fight with me, DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH ME. I have deep eyes. I will win the staring contest. If I don't, I have this thing I do, where I make my eyes even bigger, which has been known to make little girls scream in terror.

But I didn't do that. I just kept staring at his eyes, waiting for him to tell me why I was there. I hadn't done anything. I didn't shake it up, and I had told him that. Finally, "You see this?" he says, spraying me with his spit. He had a brown splotch, about the size of a quarter, on his otherwise wrinkled, white, polyester dress shirt. "This is coca cola!" It had been a good four, five hours since we ate. He kept staring. So did I, of course, remaining nonchalant, arms folded over my chest.

(I just realized this as typing it. How many of you noticed that he said coca cola, when it was RC? Nevermind, that's the kind of thing I notice in stories, I suppose.)

So, he puts up his dukes. I don't move. I have no reason to hit him. This was getting stupid. "Well, gay? Hmm? Gay? Come on?" I didn't dare move my arms, wanting to see him throw the first punch, without me balking. His arms relax a little. He tries to stare again. He shakes his head from side to side, glares at me, and starts, "Ohh... you should pity me. You Pity me. Pity!"

I'm pretty sure he meant to get those reversed. Anyway. "I should pity you? Ok." He glares harder. I felt a little guilty for that one, it was a cheap shot.

"What do you have to say to me?" he asks, pointing to his caffinated battle wound.

"Nothing, I didn't do anything." So, he started the whole pity thing again. I almost did pity him. He wasn't getting me to understand anything. Except for the fact that his fists were up...

"What about this coca cola?"

"I didn't do anything. I didn't shake it. It's not my fault you are too fucking stupid to open a soda bottle."

"What?" he asks, more lost then angered. I think he caught the keyword though.

"It is not my fault," I said slowly, "that you can't open a fucking soda bottle." He glares a little more.

He tightens up his arms. "Come on!" Meaning I should also get ready to fight.

"I have no reason to hit you," I said with a twinge of disgust.

"Gay! Come on!"

"No," I said with the annoyed and confused face and tone that I would use if I were to be asked if it were true that I had been on a manned voyage to the moon. My arms are still on my chest.

His fist hit my chin.

Now, if you punch somebody in the chin, you can do it three ways. An uppercut, which will daze the guy, as his head goes back, plus draw blood if the tongue, or the cheek gets in the way. You could punch somebody from the side of the chin, and easily dislocate the jaw. Or, you could punch from the front...doing nothing.

He of course, perhaps luckily for both, did the last one. It never even bruised. At the time, I didn't even take a step back. I just stood there, not wanting to change my expression, and at the same time deciding that if he tries it again, Jerry Lewis might lose a fan.

Commercial break:

He takes a step back, however, puts his arms down, and sneers. "Go away, go home. I don't want to hurt you anymore. Go!"

"OK," I start to walk away.

"Gay! American! Stupid American! Stupid American bastard!" I considered turning around, but, really, why?

So I walked to my group, who had just then given up looking for the siddur, and so playfully, I announce, "Hey, I just got punched in the face by a French guy."

I assured them that I was fine, and we left. I assumed it was more or less over. Then, I'm walking with two of my Norwegian friends; they were with me when I announced when I had been hit. We're walking along the path, a good hour and a half later, and the French guy, still wearing the same clothes, (He has more, don't give him pity for being poor- he ain't.) walks past us. Chaptooee!

He spat on my pants. Again, I thought about fighting back, but he wanted to get a rise out of me. So, I snorted out a chuckle. My two friends, I guess they felt that if they laughed, it could have been interpreted as laughing at me, so, they turned to the guy, who was now a good twenty feet away.

"Merde!" screams Vegard.

"Zut!" screamed Rebekka. Hey, they know two of the few French words I knew.

"Fucking French," we muttered in near unison as we walked away.

I thought that was the end of it. And it sort of was.

Except for the fact that other people put in their two cents. My counselor wanted to know who he was. I said I didn't know. She said to tell her. I told her that even if I knew who he was, which I didn't, I wasn't about to rat on him.

She tells her boss, who comes to me, and I give him an answer in the same vain. "I'm not going to be the guy who tells his Mommy. I can handle my self."

He tells me that this sort of person does not deserve to live on a kibbutz. He doesn't go out and say it, but implies that it will be on my head if he attacks somebody else.

"I'm sure he won't do it again." Is that the end of it? No. The next day, we go on a trip, and I slept on the bus. Apparently, however, I was the center of the discussion due to what the Norwegians had witnessed. So, they woke me up, and groggily explained, that, yes, I was unscathed, no, I wouldn't tell on him, etc.

Then the Mexicans came over. They asked about, and I in slow motion, explained just how the French guy didn't know how to punch, etc.

"Michael, you should have told us, we could have helped you," said Abi, cracking his knuckles.

"That's OK, but thanks, I can take care of myself."

"No, Michael, I think you should tell us, we've been waiting." said Moy, his eyes gleaming. OK. It's nice to have friends, but...

Get me outa here!!!

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Michael Kadish

"I think that the free enterprise system is absolutely too important to be left to the voluntary actions of the marketplace." -- Congressman Richard Kelly (R. Florida)

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