Banned Bard

It started with Nate Berhausen. We started discussing what would be the circumstances, events, and outcome of a no holds barred between all of our friends in his back yard. Even what would happen if we divvied up into teams according to all different categories.

Nate and I on stage.

This was not uncommon among Nate. His thoughts often strayed towards the pack mentality. I believe it was all his time in the woods as a child making friends with the local wildlife. Or maybe he read Jack London so many times that his psyche fuesed with the written words. No matter what Nate could not seperate his primitivist instincts.

Once Nate came into the bicycle shop where Joey Goemaat was working. He charges through the door like a rhino through an African tourist safari bus. Immediatly he shouts, "Someone is going to get their ass kicked!" He locates Joey accross the room and points at him with an evil eye screaming from from his socket. He then walks forward saying calmly, "I think its about time we settle here and now who would be a better man in a knife fight." Joey calmly in return walks out from behind the counter and the two of them hover their hand above their hips like some old west shoot out. Nate counts. One. Two. Three. Their hands fly. Without any time for me to comprehend the situation, the two men pull knives from their pockets, unfold them, and stand staring at eachother. "Alright, alright." says Nate. And the situation is diffused.

Nate's and my conversations of physical contest have also found their way into my psyche. Even when apart from Nate, I continue to size people up. When I enter a bar, go to a picnic, or visit old friends one of my thougths is to locate a person and ask myself, "Can I take him?"

Last Summer I was at a festival far from Nate and the majority of my friends. I was part of the set up crew and we all were in line for dinner. My primitive insticts flash and I turn to the man standing behind me in line and ask, "Out of every person here who are you most afraid of in a no holds barred fight to the death?" The man, whom I have never spoken to before, looked at me as if I was a loon. I continue,"I saw Johnny out in the field dwinging a sledgehammer over his head, but I've been watching him and he seems to favor his right leg. I think I can take him." The man still dumbfounded by my topic of conversation, or the subtle implication that I could kill him easily, stares at me silently. I decide to drop it. But all through the festival I get the most bewildering looks from strangers always standing at an assumably safe distance.

Nate told me once while we were at a bar that if the two of us ever found our way into a no holds barred that he was coming after me first. He assured me that his deciscion was not based in any ill feelings towards me, but quite the oposite. He just did not want the fight to near its end and build my hopes up of beating him. I thanked him and told him in return that I would not go down easily.