Mike Condrick

You've probably been to Europe, and maybe you've had an awkward threesome, but it's unlikely that you've ever been punched in the face. I'm not talking about a half-serious fistfight with a friend in middle school. I'm talking about catching a harm-intending punch from an adult with your fleshy mug. Well I have. It's fucking awful.

The first time I got my face bashed in, alcohol was as much the cause of injury as were the fast-moving fists of my huge assailant. It was early in my freshman year of college, and I was a skinny, cocky prick (I'm fatter now). Stumbling down the road beside a row of typical college party houses, some friends and I were searching for the last beers of a long blurry night. Sloppily hammered, I hardly noticed two guys cutting a path through our group, heading in the other direction. Then one of them decided to throw a shoulder into the chest a friend of mine--the lone girl in our group. That's when I decided to open my soon-to-be-disfigured mouth.

"Hey man, there'z no nee ferthat."

"What?!?" said the enormous angry giant. This guy turned out to be the Senior captain of the school's rugby team--he was probably 6'4", about 220 pounds, and much, much, much tougher than me. "Who fuckin' said that?" He was already walking toward us with one fist cocked.

"I fuggin' seddit."

WHACK!

The first blow looped downward at me out of the gray fog that had replaced my peripheral vision (thanks, booze). It crushed my nose, breaking it, and split my upper lip across my front teeth. You may have heard about the horror of getting punched in the nose, and it's all true: there's a bright explosion of stabbing pain and your eyes instantly well up with loser tears. I staggered backward, basically blind, and Johnny Rugby attacked. He tackled me to the pavement, pinning my right arm (the slightly less weak one) beneath his knee (I think). I just knew that my good arm was out of the picture, and oh dear God, he wouldn't stop punching my face. I had no chance. I tried my best to fend off blows and strike some of my own with my left arm while struggling to get free. It didn't work.

WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!

The shock of that first gigantic blow managed to somehow lessen the pain of the ones that followed, but I did feel each one vividly. Each one hit a specific spot, causing both a sort of general impact pain as well as a localized meaty sting. By the time my skinny friends got up the balls to break things up, I had gotten tired of seeing the white bursts of light that accompanied each punch. By then, the series of sudden, intense pains had already blurred into a thudding, insistent ache that throbbed under my entire face.

By the time I got to my feet, my adrenaline was finally flowing (I'm a late bloomer) and my friends had to hold me back as I tried to drip some of my blood on the other guy's clothes. Walking back to the dorm, already swelling mightily, I pulled my jacket hood over my head and tried to take on the heroically indignant air of a prizefighter who's just been robbed of his title by crooked judges. No one bought the act. This wasn't boxing, this wasn't the sweet science. I just got my face punched in. Over and over and over.

The next day, my dad happened to stop by my college. We sat down and caught up, never mentioning the fact that my face looked like a bloody California Raisin's. But as he left, he delivered the only lesson about fighting he ever gave me:

"Never lead with your face."

Makes sense, right? I wish I had taken it to heart.

The second and hopefully final time that my face came into sudden contact with a speeding slab of fist, alcohol again played a starring role. After a long night of inhaling hooch, two friends and I were walking home from a local watering hellhole. One guy, we'll call him Methuselah, suddenly decided to imitate one of those four-stage car alarms (the ones that drive everyone insane). At the top of his lungs, he achieved a near-perfect rendition of that horrible urban soundtrack: "ENGH! ENGH! ENGH! EEEE-AWWW! EEEE-AWWW! EEEE-AWWW! WOOOOOOOOOOOOP! WOOOOOOOOOOOOP! WOOOOOOOOOOP! AWWW-EEEEE! AWWWW-EEEEEE! AWWWW-EEEEE! ENGH! ENGH! ENGH!" Methuselah did this for two solid minutes as we walked down a city street full of drunks until, of course, someone decided to fight him.

So they square off, Methuselah and The Guy, and they're circling each other, and The Guy only has one other guy with him and there are three of us, and I don't fight so well, so I'm figuring I won't need to play much of a role. Then it starts, and they fall to the ground awkwardly, and Methuselah somehow breaks his elbow. He's done. My other friend, we'll call him Scott, rushes in to help Methuselah. Then Scott takes an absolutely brutal sucker punch to the face from The Other Guy, and his nose just plain explodes. There's blood everywhere, pouring out of Scott's face--I catch his eyes just before he falls, and his pupils are pinpricks. He might be in shock. He goes down.

And so I'm in the shit now, trying to get The Other Guy, who turns out to be big, crazy, and strong as hell, off of Scott's back. I succeed, and we struggle on the ground for a while, neither of us able to really able to throw a punch. We then push each other away and stand up, but he gets to his feet just before I do, which leaves me to look up just as a well-planned, well-executed roundhouse haymaker loops around from my left, catching me perfectly in the jaw.

WHAM!

My head rocks to the side like I've been in a car accident. It doesn't feel like pain at first, just a huge, thunderous impact. I don't fall, but I stagger wildly, then struggle to stand straight and look The Other Guy in the eye. As he closes in to finish the job, I see my own hand, palm out, in front of me. "That's it," I say. "It's over." As if in a movie, The Other Guy and The First Guy holler in victory, the crowd that had gathered closes in to talk to the champs, and me and my injured friends slink off to lick our wounds.

I knew, as soon as I took the punch, that I was hurt. I'd like to say that's what motivated me to give in, to weakly declare an end to the fight. Self-preservation, I tell myself. Plain old cowardice fits nicely in that spot though, too. Ah well. Regardless, it's off to the hospital.

I bring Methuselah to a cab, his elbow looking like a purple grapefruit, and we head off to the emergency room. Scott had stayed behind, claiming his nose was fine, although he'd later need surgery. As nurses examined Methuselah, the waiting room attendant noticed me, still hammered, trying to get my upper and lower jaws to line up. "Heyyy," I slur to the bleeding drunk sitting next to me, "you evver get inna fight and have yer teeth stop fittin' together?" He burps, weakly, and shakes his head no.

The next thing I know, I'm getting x-rays. My jaw had been broken in two places. I sat waiting to see an oral surgeon until six A.M. the next morning and, unfortunately, there was a four-hour lag between the time that the alcohol anesthetic wore off and the real stuff kicked in. The pain was unfathomable; it just roared and roared, washing over me in waves, accompanied by nausea and disbelief that something could hurt so much. You know the kind of throbbing hangover headache that makes you weep for God's forgiveness every time you move too quickly? Imagine wishing desperately for a pain that subtle. It was simply the most painful thing I've ever been through, and that includes natural childbirth (I don't want to talk about it).

So there you have it: a rough idea of what it feels like to get royally punched in the face. I hope this as close you ever come to it. Just know that what they say about street fights is absolutely true: it's never as choreographed or cool as it looks in the movies. Instead, what really happens is that I get punched in the face.