Epiphany - How Fight Club Changed My Life - A Short Story

Epiphany

  Frank Coles

   

  Copyright © 2012 Frank Coles | Riding High Ltd

  All rights reserved.

  www.frankcoles.com | www.ridinghigh.co.uk

   

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

   

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from THE AUTHOR or the Publisher.

   

   

 

  Epiphany

  Ever since I can remember I’ve been straddling the social divides that aren’t supposed to exist anymore. According to the PR consensus mindset there are no rich and no poor in this country, it appears as if we are nothing but consumers and this is probably true.

    I’ve grown up in a country where there is in reality a very distinct ‘us and them’. From an early age I attended schools where your academic performance was measured by how popular or how violent you were rather than your ability to feign an imaginary accent in Latin and make your way to Oxford. As a working class kid of the eighties I was told by my economic peers that I was posh because my mum had books on the shelves rather than the latest VCR or satellite dish. Even though my mum and I, me and my mum, were homeless at times and ended up in hostels with abusive overseers we were still considered a fully paid up member of the chattering classes.

    To my mother’s intellectual peers, her little boy fighting his way through high school was a justification for their liberal social and economic thinking – to my mother's face at least. When I turned up at a friend’s house with holes in the toes of my shoes these same mums would laugh at how ridiculous and how poor we actually were.

    Both of these peer groups were social climbers in their own way, whether it was through the latest electronic status symbols or by their latest radical stance. For little old me both groups were retarded peacocks displaying their feathers for anyone anal enough to take notice.

    What both of these groups' ways of thinking instilled in me was a fear of expression whether verbally or physically for fear of either being beaten physically or emotionally. Look! I’m doing it now, not saying what I really mean.

    I really, really, always wanted to beat ten kinds of Technicolor shit out of somebody.

    I never could though. With the violent fuckers in school or in the streets I felt I was demeaning myself and adding to the greater social ill if I got sucked into a scrap.

    The classic scenario:

    Violent fucker: What the fuck are you looking at?

    Me: Nothing, I…

    Violent fucker: Who said you could you could answer me back, you little prick? Did I could say you could fucking speak?

    At this point Violent fucker’s cronies move in preparing to stamp Me’s face into the ground in an act of outstanding bravery.

    Me: ……….?

    Violent fucker: ‘Ave the cunt!

    Fucker and cronies proceed to dance the night away on the pale Mother’s Pride complexion of Me’s face.

    Although I tried to fight back my heart wasn’t in it because I knew I would have to face the politically sympathetic oohs and aahs of my mother’s peers. As long as I acted like a victim, this was fine. They could blame society and feel in some way that they’d resolved my problems for me. Being caught with a kitchen knife, a bicycle chain and the metal rod from the middle of my dumbbells in school was obviously not met with much empathy by this group, plenty of derision and debate about the male inability to resolve emotional situations without resorting to violence, but nothing that would actually help me decimate the opposition.

    After a few more run-ins of this sort, I pretty much gave up going to school. Instead educating myself in the library and sneaking out from my mum’s to work as a barman in an Indian restaurant at the age of 13 for the incredible sum of £1 an hour. We had a bit of bother from the truant officer about this after I hadn’t appeared in school for four months but once the authorities realised I wasn’t committing any particularly big crimes and we paid a couple of fines they pretty much left us alone.

    This peculiar and annoying background left me and my internal monologue arguing between ourselves until my late twenties. Part of me still wanted to be a bad little boy the other part of me still hankered after being a bookish intellectual with elbow patches on my corduroy jacket. I’d tried both by the age of 27. The life of crime didn’t really work as I was always being distracted by a good book or the latest Jan Svankmeyer animation. I’m kind of more in the semi-intellectual mode these days but there remains the lingering appeal of dressing in smart black suits, smoking fat cigars, snorting lines of coke from naïve young ladies cleavages and being chased by the police.

    The glorious moment occurred three years ago in that 27th year. I still retained all this indecisiveness and schizoid fear. I was in a pseudo intelligent job for a TV company and hating every moment of it. I’d escaped dealing with the everyday shit I put up with by going to a gay couple’s barbecue on a beautiful summer’s day. It was a very pleasant affair that saw me sink something like five bottles of white wine. As the evening turned slightly chillier we adjourned to a nearby pub on the waterfront development which this couple lived on.

    In a kind of wine-bar-esque environment I met one of the couple’s friends, bought everyone a drink and went for a game of pool. This friend of theirs for some reason unbeknown to me decided to punch me repeatedly in the head a few times without a word even being spoken. I didn’t even know what had happened. By the time I’d brought my dry white fragmented mind back online, the bar manager had chucked this other guy out and was asking me what the hell was that? They didn’t have bouncers in this pub and apparently this was the first fight they'd had in the three years they’d been open. My gay friends were stereotypically camp and unsettled as were the other punters. I was wearing a white tee shirt and beige combats and blood literally covered my front from head to toe. One of the after effects of having a rather large cocaine habit in my early twenties was that it had left my nose in a very tender state, just blowing it would give me a nose bleed normally, but a few blows to the head was like setting off a fire hose, ensuring a powerful and unrelenting torrent would follow.

    Still bemused my friends thought it best we left, as my blood soaked attire was not de-rigueur in this particular watering hole. As we walked up the summer-chilled streets, this same friend of theirs approached from the other end of the street, striding confidently and soberly towards me.

    Now this was going to be a moment of obvious confrontation, he had the look of someone coming back for the kill. The familiar fears from all those years before surfaced in me once more, if I’d had less self control my pants would have filled with shit-bricks of terror. This was the beginning of the glorious moment. All my fears of violence, of being hurt, of dying and of moral outrage against what was about to happen to me were there, bright, well lit and with sour resentful edges that you could literally taste. To achieve the same awareness of what it was to be me at that moment would have taken years to reach on a therapists couch. I had a decision: either play my given role as the victim or do what I actually did.

    Time dilation, time slows down. Within a millisecond I grew some balls and decided that no matter what this prick tried to do I would not give up
, he could hit me, beat me, break my bones but he would not triumph. He would have to kill me if he thought he was going to leave me lying in a bloody pool on the floor.

    Time speeds up:

    Me: What the fuck was all that about?

    Violent prick: I dunno….

    Violent prick approaches with his arms wide, palms forward in a pacifying, friendly stance. As he comes nearer his demeanour changes, in an instant he begins to lower his head defensively, his fists close as he draws his arms into his body and he leans slightly forward, eyes looking directly into Me’s drunken stare.

    Me sobers in a moment sensing what is coming. Acting instinctively as the first punch is swung Me ducks under the wild swing rising and taking Violent prick off his feet with the first punch.

    Me moves quickly to finish the job, punching Violent prick once, then twice as he tries to get back off the floor, his head bouncing off the concrete as his nose splits and deep red blood and congealed snot spray Me in the face and drip from his fists.

    This is the perfect fucking moment. Please believe it. All of my fears, doubts and insecurities were felled in one righteous act of vengeance and self-defence. All those nagging doubts gone in an instant. Definitely not a PC moment, thank fucking Christ.

    At that moment I could have pummelled him into the ground, stamped on his head, jumped on it if I felt like it. I didn’t. The police didn’t want to believe that he attacked me when they turned up a few moments later, but neither of us wanted to press charges and my witnesses were freaking out.

    So I defeated my demons that night and the moment has lingered. I quit my shit job on the Monday and have not looked back, not even for an instant. The best part of the evening though was in the 24-hour Spar half an hour later while I was buying myself a cheap pizza to eat when I got home. I’d forgotten I was covered in blood and I was smiling and giggling to myself while I queued to pay. I then realised everyone thought I was completely insane. That’s probably an accurate description, insane but deliriously happy. It’s this ability that I discovered that night to smile at my demons and kick them in the arse that I now use to get out of bed, cry, work and live my life. I’m not violent and I’m still a pussy, but that was just one of those perfect moments that changes your life and lasts a lifetime.

    Author's Note

  I wrote this up as a character background for a novelist friend of mine nearly 12 years ago. It was the first thing I ever wrote as me. It was a buzz to discover a voice know matter how raw and unpolished. And I've been writing ever since both professionally and for fun.

  I was inspired to dig this out and post it online after a discussion in the Men's Book club over on Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/852852-fight-club?type=topic#comment_48991975

  So how does Fight club inspire you? Well, do you know what a duvet is?

  Thanks for reading. You can can check out my other books over at https://www.frankcoles.com/books.

  Stay in touch.

  Twitter: @FrankColes

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  About the Author

   

  Frank Coles is a globetrotting writer based in the UK. He’s edited two books, written three (as himself), been a contributing magazine editor, brand maker and copywriter and spent a decade in the TV and film business. His work has taken him all over Europe, the Middle East, SE Asia, North America and the Arctic Circle.    

  He has his own NatGeoAdventure web channel, YouTube presence and blog. You can find all these and more at: www.frankcoles.com

  He finds writing author biogs in the third person a bit odd. He'd love it if you checked out his other books at https://books.frankcoles.com or the sample that follows.

  He's me, and I'd just like to say thanks for reading.

  Bonus Content

    A Top Gear Magazine and Cosmopolitan book of the month. John Savage definitely picked up some of his skills here. Just skim the contents pages and then enjoy the sample chapters and videos. Illustrations are included in-book but not in the sample.

 

 

  How to Drive a Tank...

  . . . and Other Everyday Tips for the Modern Gentleman

 

  By Frank Coles

 

 

 

  Dedication

  For my friend Sam Harber, 

  my father and my grandfathers.

  Gentlemen whose lights burned brightly.

              

 

 

  'Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not.'

  Virgil Thomson (advice given at age ninety-three) 

 

  The Legal Bit (aka Here be Dragons)

  No book, including this one, can replace the services and supervision of qualified personnel. As you will see the best policy for following the advice in this book is always to seek guidance and help from professionals.

  Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible. However neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable for any loss or injury arising as a result of the information in this book.

  CONTENTS

 

  INTRODUCTION

  What Do You Really Really Want?

  Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda . . .

 

  LIFE SKILLS EVERY MAN SHOULD HAVE

  How to Drive a Tank

  Handbrake Turns . . . and Other Naughty Driving Skills

  Pick Locks, Safes and Chastity Belts

  How to Hotwire Cars and Motorbikes

  How to Defeat Security Systems

  How to Get a Gun in any City in the World in the Next Few Hours

  How to Disappear Without Trace

  How to Hide a Dead Body

  Make Things Go Boom

  Drill It ’Til You Can Kill It – How to Shoot Any Gun

  How to Fight – The Everyday Application of Extreme Force

  How to Survive the Wild . . . Because You Never Know When You Might Need To

  How to Gamble – It’s All in the Game

  Learn Any Language – In a Week, in a Month, in a Year

  Learn to Jam in a Day

 

  FROM THE GENTLEMAN’S CLUB

  The Bare Essentials

  Bondage for Everyday Exhibitionists

 

  HAVE IT ALL

  Man and Motor: Why It Doesn’t Matter if the Oil Runs Out

  High-Octane Thrills + Speed ≠ £££

  Hot Laps – Off Road in the Arctic Circle

  On the Water

  Live Fast, Die Old – How to Ride a Motorbike

  Wings and Whirlybirds – Millionaire Playthings: or Are They?

  Space Travel

  People Power

  Living for Adventure

  Proving It – How to Jump Out of a Plane and Live

  Living on the Edge

 

  WORK AND MONEY

  Money – The Fundamentals

  Never Get Ripped Off Again – Negotiating Skills from the Boardroom, the Street and the Souk

  Swinging Dicks – Office Politics and How to Win Every Time

  How to Hire a Hit Man

  Cruising Without the Bruising – The Four-Hour Work Week

  In Praise of Idleness – The Philosophy and the Foolishness of the 9–5

 

  MAN THINGS

  Lost Erections – Where Do They All Go?

  Forever Fit

  How to Be a Great Dad

  Being the Strong Man Women Really Want

 
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  LUST AND LOVE

  The Best Sex She’s Never Had – Keep Her Coming Back

  Multiple Orgasms – Yours not Hers

 

  THE DIVINE COMEDY

  Laughing and Crying

  Smile at the Devil and Spit in His Face – Depression and How to Deal with It

 

  MIND CONTROL

  Mind Mastery – Be Happy, Handle Anything, Some Cognitive Tools:

  Assertiveness – The Art of Saying No or . . .

  How to Grow a Pair

  More than Mnemonics – The Loci Palace

  Control Your Thoughts – Never Fall for Advertising, Politicians, Religious Authorities or Con Men: What They Never Taught You at School or on the Job

  Religion and Spirituality

  The Meaning of Life

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

    Call yourself a man? You do? Do you even know what a real man is? Are you a six foot one Adonis who wears all the latest fashions, moisturises regularly, visits spas for pleasure and never does anything wrong? Or do you drink twenty pints every Friday night, batter some schmuck on the way home, spend three seconds with the misses and fart yourself to sleep?