Knife Practice

Michael was a friend from school.
He didn’t live in the neighborhood, but close.
We rode the school bus together,
and he would hang out at Tyler’s house too.

Mom didn’t like Michael.
Said he was trashy.
She said that about every friend of mine who lived in a trailer—
and Michael’s family lived in the trailer park down the road from our subdivision.

We would ride our bikes up and down the hills of the neighborhood together.
Another friend, Justin, lived at the very back of the neighborhood.
We loved hanging out there because he had an entire room dedicated to Legos.

Many times, we would disappear to a meadow—a clearing in the woods.
If there were a bunch of us, we’d play Narnia or some other fantasy game.
If it was just Michael and me,
I would give him blowjobs while he smoked cigarettes.

Michael and I had just finished watching a Steven Seagal movie.
I don’t recall which one—
but in one scene there was a knife fight that got pretty intense.

We were enthralled.

I wanted to learn how to use a knife like that.
So did Michael.
I’m not sure which of us suggested it—
but we went and found some knives.

For weeks, we would pop the movie into the VCR and skip right to the knife scene.
We’d practice some of the moves,
rewind,
and then do it again.

One weekend, we were out at a park.
I don’t remember why.
We started practicing our knife fighting—
clinking the blades as they glanced off each other.
We were starting to deviate from the movie choreography,
exploring different attacks and blocks.

It should be said:
neither of us had any martial arts training.

Michael attacked—
and I missed the block.
The knife went right into my right arm, just below the elbow.

I stumbled and fell down, the pain excruciating.
The knife hit and dislodged when I fell,
causing even more pain and tearing the wound wider.

With blood pouring out of the gash,
I clamped down and applied pressure with my left hand—
the first aid badge still fresh in my mind from Scouts.

We found my mother.
I told her I fell—
technically not a lie.
I just didn’t tell her we were playing with knives.

She took us back home.
Had Boompa take a look at it.

I remember him saying she should have taken me to the hospital for stitches.

He put a large bandage from the first aid kit on it.
A butterfly bandage, he called it—
pulling the skin together as best he could.

“That’ll leave a scar,” he said.

“It would be a smaller scar if your damn mother took you to get stitches,” he added.

It did leave a scar.
For years, it was a bright red, fat crescent shape just under my elbow.
As I got older, it faded.
Still visible—
but just one among many scrapes and dings my arms have seen along the way.

I stopped hanging out with Michael after that.