Chapter 196: More Macho Bullshit: the 'Castration' Attack

Monday, May 9, 2005 (Continued)

I got back to school before lunchtime had ended, so I went looking for Julia and the others. They weren't in our usual spot, but I remembered her saying something about having a different meeting spot for our non-private meetings, so I went looking for that. It wasn't hard to find, it being a very large group of girls. Most lunchtime groups are half a dozen or so people, so a group ten times that size stood out, even when they were sitting down.

I noticed several guys hanging around the periphery, which didn't please me. I was starting to form the opinion that I should be going to a girls-only school. Perhaps with a few ugly male soccer players also permitted to give me a team to play with.

The girls saw me as I got closer, and I was welcomed noisily. I was introduced to the girls who were in the two first pipeline groups, twenty of those thirty two girls were here. Pipeline Group 1A was a 10th grade group, 1B was 11th grade. I joked with some of the girls I knew well enough to think of relevant jokes for, and generally pretended much more enthusiasm and interest than I really had. It was just as well the girls were arranging the pipeline dates because I had too many other things going on to give it much priority. I hoped my lack of enthusiasm was caused by my being away during the first week, so I'd missed all the excitement and buzz. The alternative was that I'd lost interest in the pipeline system even before it'd started, which didn't bode well for a long, successful process. That'd be disappointing after all of Julia's work and all the abuse I was taking for it.

I checked whether Group 1B knew they'd been bumped out of the weekend, to Tuesday evening, and they did know. I apologized, simply saying, "I'll be out of town that weekend. Sorry about that."

"Where're you going?"

"It's not fully planned yet, but I'll tell you about it next week."

The rest of the balance of lunchtime was spent on dull conversation: more of the same questions about my absence last week, how my OSU studies were going (from girls who believed the "I was at OSU" cover story), and, "No, I don't know who the strangers asking questions about me were. Maybe Hugh Hefner was feeling threatened and he hired people to check out his competition."

Between the first and second periods after lunch I had to take a pee, as I hadn't had time during lunch. Julia waited for me outside as I went in to take care of business.

I was standing at the urinal, minding my own business, when I heard the hallway door crash open and some guys come in. Almost immediately one of them said, "There he is."

I looked over my shoulder, and immediately recognized trouble, as most of the guys coming into the room had been in my face several times already today. They were now glaring at me as they walked straight toward me. As fast as humanly possible, I cut my business short and zipped up. Stopping early isn't easy, being an unnatural act, but I definitely didn't want my manhood to be swinging out in front of me during a possible fight.

They were aggressively ordering everyone else to "get the fuck outta here," which the other guys were obeying with alacrity. These guys looked pissed!

I'd learned Aikido on a wide-open floor with plenty of room to move. That wasn't going to happen here, especially because the six goons had already blocked off most of the room. If I couldn't get room to maneuver in, the best I could do was to get into a small area, to limit how many of them could come at me at a time. I retreated down the urinal (it was one of those long stainless steel jobs, that a dozen guys can stand at simultaneously), until my path was blocked by the wall of the first toilet cubicle. I was facing diagonally out of the corner: the cubicle wall to my left, the urinal to my right, with my back to the corner they formed.

My retreat had pleased the assholes considerably, but it also pleased me too, as now only one or two of them could attack me at a time. I thought they'd prefer individual attacks over a mass pile up, as that would most likely result in our rolling around on the urinal's grating (that guys stood on to pee), and possibly even rolling into the urinal itself. They wouldn't want to risk that. Individual attacks one or two at a time from my front gave me a good chance, as I could proximity sense every move coming. With six-to-one odds against me, I certainly wasn't going to be pulling any punches when I fought their attacks off, so as each of them came at me, he was going to be put down as hard and fast as possible. I figured I had a pretty good chance of working my way through all six of them before they could do much to me.

My proximity sense through the thin cubicle wall that I was standing next to told me that there was a guy in there (proximity doesn't show gender unless the person is intending to do a gender-specific action, such as jerking off or clothes shopping. But all things considered, my money was on him being a guy). He was determinedly sitting still. That gave me an audience to play to verbally, which was fantastic because I could say one thing and do another and the 'witnesses' would believe what he'd heard. More likely than not, there were guys in some of the other cubicles too. I hadn't been keeping track while I was peeing, but it seemed likely, so I should have a few verbal witnesses.

All the visible spectators had left by the time the Head-Goon reached me. I recognized him by sight as a senior. He was about the same height as me, although he'd be heavier because I'm so slim. There was one junior who I recognized, Conrad, a guy that I knew fancied Ava, although I didn't give him much chance of scoring with her after this, regardless of the outcome. The other four were all sophomores, although only two of them had classes with me.

They formed a group behind their leader, and the obligatory taunting began. It seems crazy to me, but apparently it's important for a group of macho bullies to posture for a while, to show each other how cool they are. Normally I could have added, "and to work themselves up," but this group seemed pretty worked up already.

The committee leader explained their collective grievance. Apparently I had too many girls. Or, as they expressed it, "We'll see if any girls want you after we rip your balls off."

"Yeah, after we rip your balls off," echoed some of his followers.

#1: <I wonder how many balls they think we've got.>

#3: <Don't say any jokes out loud. We don't want the verbal listeners to tell the cops we smart-mouthed these guys.>

#1, #4: <Agreed.>

After a couple more taunts, Head-Goon said something about his losing his girlfriend because of me. It was about time for me to start letting the witnesses hear that I didn't want to fight, so I said, "I don't know who she is. To avoid this fight I'll agree never to date her though. Who is she?"

"Pat Osmond, asshole. She's already broken up with me because of you..."

#4: <Damn our decision not to verbally taunt them back, because Pat's hooking up with Lily is PERFECT belittling material.>

" ... You're not going to talk your way out of this, fancy pants."

#1: <"Fancy pants"? What the hell sort of insult is that?>

I ignored the apparently inflammatory fanciness of my pants, saying instead, "I don't want to fight you guys."

They jeered. The best possible way of guaranteeing guys attack you, is to ask not to be attacked. The words I said may have been, "I don't want to fight," but what they heard was, "I'm a pathetic wimp who can't stand up for himself. Hit me as much as you want, because I'm too pussy to fight back."

While they were jeering my cowardliness, Head-Goon (whatever his name was, I didn't know) dramatically escalated the seriousness of the situation by pulling a large pair of scissors out of his right pocket, holding it underhanded like it was a knife.

#3: <Uh oh. He's asking for two burst eyeballs.>

#4: <Let's save that for any fights versus guns or other clearly life-or-death situations. We should be able to break his wrist easily, especially with an NP distraction.>

^

[I should explain the last point. Aikido teaches several extremely effective wrist techniques. Normally used to immobilize the attacker or sometimes to get him to release a knife or handgun, but breaking wrists requires only continuing to apply the technique beyond the point we'd stop in training. It couldn't be simpler.

Minds are extremely important in Aikido, both your own and the attacker's. If I grabbed Head-Goon's wrist and tried to twist it, he'd concentrate on locking it, and I'd be unable to achieve anything. We'd be struggling, getting nowhere, while the five other attackers would be pummeling the shit out of me. For the wrist techniques to work the attacker's mind can't be concentrating on locking his wrist. That's usually achieved by moving the attacker off balance, because then all his attention is on avoiding his imminent fall. His wrist becomes as easy to twist as a wet noodle, and it'd snap as easy as a dry noodle (noodles might not be the best simile). I had very little room to move in, so getting Head-Goon off balance would be problematic in this situation, but fortunately I have a much faster and more reliable ways of distracting his concentration - a quick NP-push on either his crotch or nose would do the job. Half a second later his wrist would be broken and the scissors would be falling to the floor, where I could kick them under the cubicle.

If that didn't work there were always the eyeballs, either a partial push like I'd done with Don Eaton, or popping one or both of them, if the situation demanded it.

I figured I wasn't in immediate danger from being stabbed with the scissors because proximity meant I could probably avoid his first stab or two. I could be in trouble after that though, because his helpers might manage to restrain me so I couldn't avoid subsequent attempts. So I had a little bit of a safety margin to work with, but not much.]

^

For the witnesses, I said, "Why are you holding a big pair of scissors like a knife?"

"I'm gonna cut your balls off, motherfucker."

#3: <They're not just jealous of our success with girls, but with Mom too.>

Some of his Head-Goon's gang seemed surprised and uneasy by the news of the scissors. They glanced down at Head-Goon's hands, although most of them couldn't see the scissors as they were held down by his right side and most of his gang was behind and to his left. It was definitely a good idea to reduce the number of attackers if I could, so I said, "I'm defenseless and you're six-to-one with a huge pair of scissors as a weapon. This is criminal..."

I was going to say something like, "and you'll all go to jail for a long time if you attack me," but Head-Goon either decided he was so cool by now that he didn't need to posture any more, or he didn't want me saying anything further, because he suddenly decided to thrust his scissors toward my groin.

I could sense that he wasn't actually intending to stab me. That hand's ki projection showed its attack to be a jab that would stop several inches short of my groin. That was good news! He was using it as a feint for his punching me in the face with his other hand. I was still going to put him down hard though. No way was I going to leave a pissed off, active opponent holding a large pair of scissors, especially when he seemed to have a thing about my groin.

During his scissors thrust he wasn't even thinking of that hand, as he was already concentrating on his punch, so it was very easy for me to slide to his right a little, using my right arm to deflect his stab to his left. I didn't do that to ensure the stab would miss me, as he wasn't intending to do that anyway. It was to get his stabbing hand in the perfect position for my left hand to grab hold of the back of his hand, with my thumb just behind his smallest two knuckles and my fingers wrapped around the base of his thumb. It's part of one of the first Aikido defenses I'd learned. (You can do it to your own hand: put one hand up in front of your face, palm facing you, put your other hand's thumb just below hand1's two smallest knuckles and hand2's fingers around hand1's thumb.) As his scissors jab started its return movement, I applied an extremely rapid twist of my hands and hips, and there was a loud crack as I felt his wrist break. (Hold arm1 stationary while you push hand2's thumb forward and slightly downward and pull its fingers back. Your wrist will start hurting. Done rapidly and forcefully, the wrist is broken.) He'd barely started his 'war cry' to go with his attack, when the totally unexpected pain cut it off.

The Aikido technique had required me to move further to Head-Goon's right so I could get at the back of his right hand, which put me hard against the cubicle wall. One of the 10th graders was to Head-Goon's right [his younger brother, I later learned], and he now had a reasonably clear run at me. He'd also been perfectly placed to see his brother's scissors attack start, so he was the first of the gang to move in for his attack. He was about four steps away, and starting to run in to grab me.

I didn't have any more time to spend on Ex-Head-Goon; not even not to wait for the scissors to fall or to NP them away in a natural looking way, so I dropped his limp wrist, expecting that he'd be useless for a while. I needed to get away from being pinned against the cubicle wall, but the first thing I did was NP-hit Charging Boy in the groin. It wasn't a hard hit, but it was definitely noticeable. He was already leaning forward to run, and now he looked down at his groin to find out what had hit it. That enabled to take a large step to my right, in front of Head-Goon again, who was now safely falling rather than coming at me. When he looked up, Charging Boy would see that his charge would pass to my left. I had room and time because the other guys were only just starting to react, as they hadn't seen the scissors attack at all.

Charging Boy was just starting to look up when I did my very usual ankle-tap, sending him tripping forward. I put my left hand on his neck, holding it down and pushing it toward the urinal. As his ass got within range I put my right hand on it and pushed him HARD, headfirst into the urinal's stainless steel wall.

Ex-Head-Goon had caught a breath after losing it to the shockingly unexpected pain of his broken wrist, and his first scream started just as the top of his brother's head impacted at high-speed into the wall of the urinal.

My pushing Charging Boy had turned my back on the group. That's not nearly as bad for me as it would be for other people, as I can still sense three feet behind me. Conrad had been to his leader's left, so it would be him I sensed about to put his arm around my throat from behind. [They had somewhat planned their attack on me. Head-Goon was going to punch at me a couple of times to keep me distracted, his two lieutenants would try to pin me, one low (Charging Boy, who was the shorter of the two lieutenants), the other (Conrad) coming in high. Once I was grabbed, Head-Goon was going to start pounding me, with the others joining in the fun however they thought would best teach me to be fair with how many girls I allowed to chase me.]

Conrad hadn't had time to process what had happened yet, so he naturally went to grab me around the neck. Especially because I was irresistibly facing away from him now and slightly bent over from when I'd pushed Charging Boy.

If you're being grabbed around the neck from behind in the usual way, with one of the attacker's forearms around the front of your neck so that its hand is grasping your opposite shoulder, there's a throw which is so ridiculously easy and effective that I'm surprised anybody grabs anybody else around the neck from behind. To simplify slightly, the defender just has to rapidly bow from the waist. It's a little more complicated than that, but not much. Its effect is very much the same as putting a ruler on your desk with some of it sticking over the edge, then hitting down on the protruding length of ruler: it's catapulted through the air.

Conrad wasn't intending to punch me or anything like that; merely to grab me around the neck with his right arm and grab my left arm with his, and to hold me immobile. So I let him. As soon as his arm was around my neck I grasped it with my two hands and pressed it tight into my collar bones, made sure my ass was hard up against his belly, then bowed rapidly from the waist, keeping my knees locked straight. Conrad went cartwheeling over my back, just like the ruler off the edge of the desk.

In the dojo, Sensei had trained me to keep a very firm hold on the arm my opponent had around my neck. There were two reasons for this. The first is that my action of bowing pulls that arm forward and down, which pulls his body over my ass and back. That's what transfers the motive power of the catapult from me to him. If I bowed and let my opponent's grip slip, all that would happen is that I'd bow in place, leaving him standing behind me, looking at my ass.

The second reason is an important safety one. If I hang onto his arm the whole time then his upper-body scribes a small internal circle following my bow forward and down, forcing his feet to scribe a very much larger exterior circle, his feet going all the way over the top and landing 'palm' down on the floor well in front of me, which is a very safe manner for the attacker to have his movement arrested. I can then relax my grip on his arm, and lower his upper torso slightly so he can sit on the floor. Then I back away leaving him free to stand up so we can practice the technique again. If the defender's grip is lost halfway through the technique, when the attacker's lower body is roughly vertical overhead, the attacker would continue cartwheeling through the air. That would be so impossibly disorientating that it'd be virtually impossible to land safely, even on dojo mats. So Sensei had always stressed that it was vital for safety that I always hung onto his arm securely all through the technique.

I didn't let Conrad go; instead I pulled his arm off me and pushed it away when Conrad's body was approaching vertical, to give it the maximum flight distance. The room's ceiling didn't let him gain much height before his feet hit it, impeding his flight. To visualize his position, start by think of him as being upside-down, dangling from the ceiling as if his feet were glued to it. That's only roughly accurate, as he was also flying rapidly toward the urinal's wall, and his head was higher than that image suggests because his body wasn't ramrod straight and his feet hit the ceiling at an angle as they spun in their circle, which stopped his spin, but not most of his rapid horizontal movement. Moments later he impacted the urinal wall with his head and upper-body, then he dropped headfirst three feet or so straight down into the piss trough. His head wedged itself at high speed between the urinal wall and the grating we stand on to piss. It ripped a fair bit off skin the side of his head, then held it firm while his body slumped to side, leaning sloppily into the corner of the urinal, still mostly vertical.

The back row of attackers, three 10th graders, had followed Conrad toward me. From their point of view things didn't seem too bad yet. Head-Goon was kneeling on the ground with his back to them, so they couldn't see what he was doing, other than sitting still and screaming (he was cradling his broken wrist). Charging Boy had been slammed into the urinal moments before Conrad successfully grabbed me from behind, so the other three hadn't had time to see that Charging Boy wasn't getting up. What the three 10th graders had most clearly seen, especially because they were focused on me, was that Conrad had successfully grabbed me, so they rushed to follow Conrad so they could have their fun at my expense. Their rush was totally disrupted when Conrad's feet came flying backward off the ground and around in a large vertical circle. Two of them had to scatter to avoid being kicked by Conrad's flying feet, and the third was deflected when one of the others ran into him. They were just resuming their charge at me about the time I stood and turned to face them.

They were spread out somewhat, so I decided to run to my right, in the direction of the hallway door. That'd give me room to move, and would spread them out so they didn't all arrive at me at the same time.

I started running up the room, noticing for the first time Julia and some guys were standing at the far end watching. I didn't have time for any more than the briefest glance, because the opponent closest to the exit was going to cut me off before I could get past him. With two other opponents close by, one of whom was very close, I didn't have time to waste.

Having played several soccer games with proximity, each game containing many dozens of repeated practices of dodging around people, I wouldn't have any trouble getting past this guy, especially as I could use my hands to push him out of the way. But I didn't want to get away. What I wanted to do was fight them one by one, breaking a part of each of them.

I zigzagged a bit as I ran toward the room's exit. I could read my closest opponent's movements well enough with sight, and then with proximity when I was near enough, that he soon ended up out of position to intercept me. His body was wrong-footed and moving the wrong way to tackle me head on, but he reached out with his right hand to try to grab me as I went past. That was a mistake because nearly all the Aikido techniques I've learned so far start with the opponent reaching out with one hand, usually to grasp. His hand was extended in front of his body, and it just so happens that there's an Aikido technique which would do the job perfectly. I grabbed his wrist with both of hands, twisting his arm so his elbow was rotated down and in toward his belly until his hand was palm up. Keeping the twist on his wrist applied so his body was awkward for him to move, I lifted his hand and I swiveled to face back the way I'd come, using the power of my swivel to push his hand back over his right shoulder.