Believable Fiction Workshop Exercises

Reason for the Fight

Advanced Short Story Prompt - Laurel C. Striker (1) 

Write a story about how violence comes to be. Focus on how it develops, less on the act itself.

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People filled Butch's house every weekend, beginning Friday night after work.  The guys would cash their checks, pick up some beer, and begin drinking just after 4:00.  When I arrived by 7:00, every one was already drunk, so I watchedand listened mor than I participated.

They say drunks don't lie.  I don't know if it's true, but drunks don't back down.  Every week was some variation of the same conflict.  Ech man wanted the respect of the other's and would brag and lier until they reached the top of the heap, or fell out of it from being too drunk to make sense.  I went for the entertainment value, as much as out of friendship for Butch.  You could never tell what would happen, but usually there was an argument.  There would always be loud animated conversation with flailing of arms, but no violence.

This particular Friday it was Ray's turn to make the first run to the beer store.  We gathered a collection of money from have half-dozen or so drinkers making merry after a week of work.  The guys could blow off a whole week's steam before the night was out.  Whatever was bothering them would come out somehow.  Usually things said in the heat of passion were swing fodder, or overlooked in the many loud conversations.  I never actually saw but one fight.

While Ray was gone to the beer store, Butch started talking about how Ray wasn't treating his wife and kids right.  Gina and Ray weren't technically married anymore, since Ray got out of prison, but they still had five children together.  The oldest boy was now wearing a detention cuff, and under house arrest.  Ray's two little girls faced a different kind of difficult situation.

"When I went over to give Gina some money, there was Mija sitting on Gina's old man's lap.  I didn't like they was it looked, and I told him so.  He just took the money I had for Gina and told me to get out.  I couldn't take Mija with me.  I'm not even part of the family.  But he had his hands all over her, and she looks very grown up for twelve.  There's no telling what's going on in that house."  The implications were clear.

When Ray returned with the beer the conversation drifted back to the job.  Eighteen beers later, it was Butch's turn to take up the collection for the beer store run.  Ray's brother, Bobby, mentioned what Butch said while Ray had been gone.

"That's not why Gina won't let him see the girls anymore.  The baby is eight now, you know.  Amber is no baby now.  Gina used to let them spend the night with "Uncle Butch," but she didn't like what the girls told her the last time they spent the night.  Yeah, sure, he's always brought the girls clothes and toys at Christmas and Easter, but they aren't his responsibility, they aren't his family.  Gina just let them visit him because she wanted a might out.  Hey, I can't make excuses for the old lady."

"The last time they stayed with Butch, Mija said that Butch put the two of the girls in the bathtub together, and was offereing to help them clean all their dirty parts.  He was right in the bathroom with them.  Mija wears a bra now, and a single man like him, with his wild ways doesn't need to be able with kids in the bathtub.  He was drunk too.  Gina didn't let the girls come back after then.  She says he don't dome to the house to see them no more since she's got a new old man.  He don't like Butch.  He thinks Butch got a big mouth, and nothing to back it up."

The next beer run was complete, and he who carried the beer seemed to have been labled a child molestor in his absence.  Everybody was Mexican except Butch, and they all knew he was sort of crazy at times.  He might be capable of doing anything.  Although the host of the evening, he was the outsider.

Time paseed and Butch and Ray continued to work together until Ray took off with $450.00 for supplies for a job.  He even called Butch to say he'd left town with the money.  Ray wasn't going to be welcome back at Butch's house.

But, several month's later, Ray was back with the Friday night after work drinking crowd.  Sometimes Butch would fire up the grill, and everyone had a feast of chicken and beer, topped off with bourbon, and perhaps a trip to the pub down the road.  Some night's were very late and very drunk times.

After saying he'd never speak to Ray, there he was, fresh out of doing time in prison, and staying at Butch's house.  Before two months passed, Ray was told to move out.  He wasn't able to work enough to save money to get his own place, and things had begun to disappear around Butch's house, but just small things.

When the letter came from the bail bonds man, Butch said Ray had to move out.  He knew Ray was a thief.  Ray knew Butch was a liar. Butch raised enough hell on his own that he didn't need the police knocking on his door looking for the likes of Ray.  So Ray left town again, or that was what his brothers said.

The next weekend Butch was out of town on a weekend contruction job, and his house was broken into.

"That son-of-a bitch took everything that was important to me.  He wouldn't read books, but the ones I'd just gotten from an old house, that I remembered reading as a child, are gone.  They took the television, but left the remote.  I can feel him laughing at me."

When the bill came for the cable televsion the next month, there were over $100. in extra viewing fees.  Butch was sure it was his friends who had broken into the house, because they knew he was to be gone out of town working.  It could have been any thief, but Butch was certain it was Ray.

The day came when they finally faced each other on the street.  Nothing was said about why the tall old white guy and they young short Mexican dude got into it.  Nobody watching the fight heard any explanation.

Only the strong survive.  There were no knives or guns that night, but there could have been, and one or the other would have been dead.  They had both been drinking when he ran into each other, and started swearing and swinging.

Although there were other "friends" around, nobody jumped in on either side.  They fought until Butch couldn't get up from the ground and Ray couldn't see out of either of his eyes.  When it was all over, they got up and went their separate ways.

Are fights so simple as to ever having only one cause?