Backstory: It's weird. I used to be this really shy, non-confrontational person. The only "fights" I had been in were the ones where I never hit back, cf. entire childhood getting my ass beat by alcoholic, angry parents with a lot of unresolved issues. I've forgiven them and we have a good relationship now. They're in their 70s and I have told them at length what abusive dicks they were. But you'll see why this is relevant if you want to bother reading this long-ass post.
Anyway, once I got into opiates (10+ years after the childhood lol), when high, I lost my fear of confrontation. Shortly after I had gotten into a daily dope habit, my downstairs neighbor, who was totally deranged, got way up in my shit about a bill that I asked him to pay and that he should have paid but didn't. We shared the gas meter. Standard story. I rent a house, but the utility room right under my place is rented as a studio apartment.
Anyway, I'm a woman, 5' 2", 120lbs. He is 6' 2" or so, about 260lbs. He confronted me in the street and started screaming all this crazy shit about how I was out of line asking him to pay and all this other random shit that had nothing to do with the issue. Dude had had many confrontations with a lot of folks in my hood and everyone knew he was off his chair.
So he was screaming at me and I was thinking that I could get a store-owner to help me if necessary although he had chosen a dimly-lit, no store part of the street to hang out and wait for me. Freaky. He didn't leave the house very much and never at night. He was on disability for being a psycho. (The floors were flimsy as hell, so you could hear everything, which sucked.) So I was walking down the street at 9 at night, and all of a sudden, this shape at the side of the sidewalk rose up and revealed itself as Lunatic Neighbor. We had had words about the bill situation and I'm pretty sure he was waiting for me because he hadn't been out at night for years. In fact, he rarely left the house.
So I was on dope and I wasn't afraid to speak my mind, so I was countering every little bit of bullshit he was chucking at me. Normally I would be in panic attack mode. But because I was on dope, I wasn't scared of him at all. And I'm kind of a smart-ass when I'm at my best. So I was pissing him off even more.
So he flipped the fuck out and started getting closer and closer to me, towering over me and kind of puffing himself up like one of those lizards with the frills. He got so close that he was spitting on me as he was screaming at me. I was backing up to get away from his fat-ass, spitting face but every time I took a step back, he'd move right up towards me. If there's one thing that sets me off and makes me quite literally see red is people getting up in my face; My vision gets extra-sharp. Apparently this isn't uncommon, but I know jackshit about fighting so idk.
So he was in my face and then actually bumped his chest into me. (This is really funny now that I'm writing it down. 6' 2" v. 5' 2". Pathetic.) But I flipped. I told him to back the fuck up or I was going to hurt him. Naturally, he started laughing at me. I could smell his nasty-ass rotten-tooth breath. So I backed up a bit and kicked him as hard as I could in the knee-cap. He was so close to me. And I'm pretty strong actually. Dude stopped laughing quick. I guess I hurt him because he yelped and kind of bent over towards his knee, grabbing it. And then I punched him as hard as I could in his ear. Hard. I clocked him. He was reeling, screaming in pain. Holy shit. It was the best feeling of my life. My hand hurt like a motherfucker, but I didn't notice that until way later.
I was totally in shock. I couldn't believe I actually hit this guy. So I just walked away as fast as I could, heart rate: 250bpm. My neighborhood's pretty tight-knit. so I ran into friends of mine on the street. I could barely tell the story, I was tripping so hard on what I'd done. Everyone wanted to call the pigs to get this guy arrested, but he's the kind of big pussy bitch who would press charges. I worried about that for a second but then I figured the cops would side with me considering this guy's history (and the size difference).
So that was my fight. And I won in the long run too. He moved out about two months after this incident. Shorted me for the PGE (gas) bill, but he's gone. He moved into a trailer in Nevada onto former military land where they used to test nuclear bombs. I like to picture his pasty fat-ass out there in the middle of nowhere in a cheap-ass trailer with no heat, glowing florescent green. Petty, I know, but satisfying
6 months in
