I like to fight. My paternal forbearers stomped the Roman Legions for 200 years in the South Eastern part of Germany, got bored after Rome fell, took over a piece of Eastern France (the last time that happened until tanks were in the mix) and then took off on a jaunt over to England in 1066. Afterwards, they claimed a chunk of Scotland since getting into century-long brawls over a social slight reminded them of home. My maternal side is a combination of German (Hessian) mercenaries who stuck around after the Brits went home with their tails ‘twixt their legs and some Scotch-Irish mongrels.

You could say it’s in the genes. That would be a false division, though, since all of us are direct descendants of a ridiculously long line of badasses who were good at fighting. The original proto-cell that discovered that although pseudo-chloroplasts were a big improvement in energy generation over just floating around in the primordial ooze, waiting for food to wander by, enveloping and digesting your passive, sun-bathing neighbor in the now-crowded blood-warm sea was much more effective is your and my progenitor.

I may be an anachronism in my affinity for physical altercation. The dichotomy in my mind that while large scale combat (i.e.: war) is usually the least efficient form of dispute resolution (although often effective), sole combat between two adults after rational discourse has failed a problem of significant import (such as whether Peyton Manning being such a stand-up guy makes Tom Brady a douchebag or a cheating sonuvabitch) is perfectly acceptable. I also hold that the combatants should be at least reasonably well-matched (e.g.: I wouldn’t beat the crap out of Stephen Hawking, but duking it out with a female Secret Service agent, while suicidal on my part, would be okay).

Still, I like to fight. I’ve done a lot of it—I have a big mouth, I’m stubborn and come off as easy-going (read: passive) enough that a lot of guys assume I’ll either be a huge pansy and back down or step up and be an easy mark in their “win” column.

I’m pretty good in a fight for two reasons: I’ve lost enough to know that losing is a possibility, and I’ve won enough to know that you’re going to take a hit and that if you accept that, you’re halfway home—if you’re fighting, you go until it’s over. Plus, it’s better to be a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing than a sheep (soft on the outside and inside), wolf (aggressive all ‘round), or sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing (bully).

I have two favorite people to fight with. One of them is a good friend of mine, the other is my brother. Every time we fight, it’s been for the same underlying reason—the sheer joy of it. The arguments that lead up to it are pro forma.

My friend Zak and I swam together in college. We’re the same height. While we were both butterflyers with plenty of upper-body strength, Zak is built like a fire-hydrant: thick all around, like a linebacker, and has a good 40 or 50 pounds on me. I’m built on what you might call a soccer player’s frame: big legged, wiry and quick—about 5'7" and 160. After seven or eight watery domestic brews, they’d start at halftime of an Ohio State football game.

Upended tables, half-drunk Budweisers, me dancing away and jabbing at Zak’s lowered head, him throwing looping haymakers and trying to wrap me up to slam me on the ground, flailing ineffectually to leave fist-shaped bruises on his back. Whether I popped him a stiff one in the nose and brought out the haze of red stars and white noise or he pinned me to the ground and choked me near unconsciousness, they ended the same way—the way any well fought brawl ends: through swelling and bleeding, a sheepish grin, handshake/hand-up, the argument totally settled through a heavily breathed “Nice one. Want a beer?”

With my brother and his being three years young, childhood fights usually went my way unless a chair or silver-plated comb came into the mix. But time has been an equalizer.

Any form of physical fitness is eschewed by my brother in favor of Camel Lights in a box and Jim Beam Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. He’s a long-limbed six-footer with unexplainable quickness and strength. All good fights destroy chairs, tables, doors and dry-wall. Beyond that, our fights are totally opposite of Zak and me. His firecracker-fast reflexes, only explicable by cybernetic endoskeletal implants to twist my joints in directions they don’t go are the counter for me outweighing him by 10 pounds and standing five inches shorter than he. I bull-rush and hope to find a wall for inertial transfer (JMGv⁺ + ZFGv^-) + WALLv⁰ → ZFG + “OOF!” or trip him, get a knee on his sternum, and slap him, open-handed in language translated-to-action; a man slapping another into submission is calling him your bitch…and he agrees.

No matter the winner, one of us exists in a pouting, sour silence for a few days; everything returns to normal—we’re brothers.

My favorite fight, I lost. Decisively. I tapped out. It was a guy that I didn’t much care for—I thought he was a condescending prick. I’m sure he thought I was a sheep with a big mouth. He was a 6’3” farmboy; he was probably sure of his ability to stare me down or pile-drive me into goo.

We got into it. I took hooks from hands that felt the size and consistency of frozen ham-hocks below both eyes. I blasted him in the rib cage on both sides and bloodied his mouth with my forehead. I got in too close or expected him to be stunned after a head-butt—he took us both down. After scrabbling in the gravel driveway for a while, trying to get my knees or elbows into anything yielding and soft, I ended up in a cradle lock: one of his arms was locked around my neck, holding the opposite hand, the arm snaked behind my knee pressing my face towards my shin. He was patient while I struggled. Eventually, I gave in.

Huffing and picking gravel out of ourselves, he said “I didn’t realize how strong you were.” He walked off. We get along just fine now.

If I say what I think and believe in what I say, I back it up. Just because you might end up with a painful mouth full of blood and teeth or knuckles swollen to the size of shooter marbles is an excuse…the kind that you lay awake in the dark cursing and second guessing. I don’t ask someone to fight my battles; I don’t walk away. Sometimes it requires that I have an Epsom-salt soak, use the ice-pack, swallow three Aspirin. I sleep just fine.