"I wouldn't tangle with him if I were you," warned Garrett, the resident advisor of our dorm.

"Tango? You wouldn't tango with him?" mocked Mitchell, trying to act even dumber than he already was and nearly tripping over himself as he turned to face Garrett.

"You heard me! Don't be an idiot. He's going to knock your teeth in before he knocks your head off. Don't be a clown."

That's just what Mitch acted like when he was filthy drunk – a clown. Even when sober, Mitch was a jerk as he pretended to be Peter Lawford, ormaybe it was Peter O'Toole, quoting Shakespeare or David Hume. Standing about five-foot-six and weighing around 120 pounds, Mitchell was a pretentious little twerp. His stature wasn't the only thing small about him. He had no control over that. It was his squeamishness and pettiness that truly made him frail. The one attribute of Mitch that wasn't small was his mouth, especially after he poured plenty of alcohol into it.

Meanwhile, the rest of us stood on the grassy hill between the men's rival dormitories waiting for the moment of bloodshed. The guy Mitch was taunting towered over him at about six-foot-four. The fact that he wasn't the most cheerful character on campus didn't help either. He was a mean cuss. Maybe that's why Mitch picked on him. I didn't understand why he did it. It seemed suicidal to me. Maybe Mitch was a glutton for punishment – a masochist. Whatever his intentions were, he was about to get pounded into the ground if he kept at it much longer.

"Hey, you big oaf! You're ugly!" shouted Mitch as the mug in his hand sloshed beer onto the grass, nearly missing the big guy's shoes. "I betcha can't hit me. I'm too fast for ya. See, I can bob 'n weave outa yer way," he boasted as he spun around and fell to the ground. It was a pathetic sight watching him get wasted and making a complete fool of himself. We tried to tell him to back off, but he wouldn't listen. Even the big guy looked like he felt sorry for him.

Mitch managed to pick himself up from the ground. He started to get serious, putting his fists up like he was ready to fight. The big guy's emotions changed from pity to embarrassment to annoyance as Mitch continued to taunt him. But above all, he was confused. Was this guy nuts? Or could he really be a threat somehow? Who knew what he would do next?

I want to say Mitch caught the big guy off guard and knocked him for a loop, but I'd be lying. The truth came as no surprise when the big guy delivered a colossal fist full of hurt headlong into Mitch's jabbering jaw, knocking him out cold like a fish on a bed of ice.

Not one of us felt sorry for Mitch. We were glad someone had finally knocked some sense into him.

Story and Cover Illustration Copyright © 2021 by Michael DeFrancesco