Here’s a seventh excerpt from my book:

“I had gotten pretty inebriated that night, and had passed out on Martin’s bed. As I was asleep, Darnell decided to put baby powder all over my face. I kept trying to get him to leave me alone, but he insisted on pestering me in my defenseless state.

I finally decided that I wanted to go home, and I stormed out to my car. Darnell and Kelly trailed along, because I was their ride for the evening. Darnell kept telling me that I had to take him home, which was several miles north of town. I kept insisting that I wouldn’t take him home, and that I would drop him off in town somewhere or take him back to Martin’s. At first, we were joking about it.

However, after I dropped Kelly off at his car, the tone between Darnell and I turned more serious. We came to a stop light, and Darnell kept insisting that I was going to take him home. I once again insisted that I wouldn’t, that I would take him anywhere in town, but I wouldn’t take him home. I was sick, too drunk and not in the mood to take his orders.

Finally, while still at the stoplight, Darnell said to me “Shut up or I’ll beat your a**!” Without missing a beat, I replied, “Where do you want to go?” He snapped back, “Calvary,” meaning the parking lot of Calvary Baptist Church, less that a block to our right. I immediately made the right turn once the light turned red.

As we arrived in the parking lot, we both got out and Darnell came around the car and approached me. I said, “Hold on a minute, I need to take off my watch.” I was attempting a half-hearted joke, hoping that it would lighten the ill will we suddenly had for each other. That was a mistake.

Darnell continued toward me and caught me with a right. “I don’t care about your watch!” One punch, and my bottom lip was split open. That told me that there would be no more comedy. We clashed, and he got me with several shots. We backed away from each other, and then clashed again. I was trying to take him down to the ground, but he was too fast for me. Once again, he was all over me with several shots to the face. We backed away from each other again, and on the third clash, I was finally able to get him down on the ground and get on top of him.

I told him I wasn’t going to hit him, but he kept demanding that I let him up. I told him that I wouldn’t until he calmed down. I was too sick and weak to put up a good fight, and I really wasn’t ready for this spur-of-the-moment scrap. After about ten minutes, he calmed down enough for us to begin talking in a reasonable manner. The whole time, I kept expecting a police car to come upon us with lights flashing and siren blaring, exploding upon us in the darkness. But one never came.

I finally relented and told him I would take him home. We agreed to shake hands and reconcile, and let the matter drop, but I was perturbed by the defeat. It was my first and, to date, only loss in a fist fight. Unfortunately, the reconciliation would only last a few months. Fortunately, at least for me, I would get a chance at redemption the following summer.”

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