Pecking Order

Being that I work with people younger than myself, not always by much, I always draw comparisons between how things used to be and the rapid changes that have occurred. Even though I know I am at an age where fighting is frowned upon, it's something I miss. I cleary blame the changes on the combination of Crack and Guns. I remember when it was rare for someone to have or use a gun. Those who were willing were clearly identified amongst people. Since a fist fight was the only true "conflict resolution" the make-up of a neighborhood was clearly defined. Adults, Big boys and little boys. Straight criminals aren't included cause everyone had to look out for them. During these times a majority of the people I got into fights with eventually became friends. The best part of the whole thing was that after people have fought you understood the order of things. There were certain people who could just scrap and you did not fuck with them. Then there were moderate fighters. These guys are like lower ranked boxers, they could win or lose so mostly they tried to chill. At the bottom were those who would get their ass kicked. These guys for some reason seemed to have cool toys and things that would make chill people hang with them and assholes try to pick on them. It's a symbiotic relationship. The lowest rank tried to have a friend on the highest to avoid ass-kickings via the friendship. These ranks then fit into the previous three as adults don't mess with big boys and little boys. Big boys don't mess with adults and may occasionally pick on little boys, but another big boy would kick your ass if you do that too much. Little boys, well they only get to fight each other and rise up against the occasional big boy asshole. During these "golden years" things were pretty cool. This was back when you rolled downtown with everyone you could get to avoid the worse thing around...getting jumped (or banked as we like to say). The emergence of guns has disrupted this system of existence. Now if you can shoot you can run something. Even if someone could kick your ass you can still shoot them. It means no one really has to respect anything. It's kind of like my thoughts on Viagra being the same as steroids in baseball. It's even worse than the Wild West. There if you proved to be quick on the draw, people might want to try you but they would respect your skill and be hesitant to become an example. At least with fighting you could lose but give it a good effort and earn someones respect. In the gunplay era taking a bullet will just mean that they have to try and get you again. As funny as it may sound I miss fighting. I miss being able to beef and walk away from it, win or lose. I miss people enforcing a head up fight. I miss people squashing beef after a fight. I wish the world was less like The Killer and more like The Warriors. Those dudes were hardcore and all they did was kick peoples ass. No guns. They didn't even carry weapons. They kicked your ass and took yours from you. So, children of the world, thugs of all ages - let's watch The Warriors, have a rumble and then drink some beers.