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Jim was already in. He had been born here. My mother knew his mother. She thought we could be be good friends.
Every time I came around Jim, he had a look of contempt on his face. It mirrored my own.
To me, Jim was a conformist, a follower, a slave to his need for acceptance.
To Jim, I was the country mouse trying to horn in on his action. “Don’t try and get into the act,” he’d say.
I hated Jim. For obvious reasons and for reasons I am only aware of now.
I stayed clear of him. He stayed clear of me. Until gym class one September.
We had a free period. A few of my friends and I started a half-court game of basketball at one end of the gym. Jim and his buddies were playing Whiffle ball at the other end.
Our ball took an awkward bounce off the rim and rolled to Jim’s side of the building. I ran over to get it, “A little help?”
Jim picked up the ball and threw it in the opposite direction. That flipped a switch. I tackled him and cocked my fist back when we hit the ground.
I wanted to drive my knuckles through his face. I wanted to leave a hole in the floor where his head used to be. But our teacher grabbed my arm and pulled us apart.
Mr. Brandt was the football coach. He understood boys. He told us to cool off instead of sending us to the Principal’s office.
“After school!” yelled Jim.
“That’s when I fucking kill you, you fucking…”
“I said, cool off!” yelled Mr. Brandt.
I stewed the entire day. I couldn’t wait.
2:40pm: I marched to Jim’s locker. He was talking to Christina about some movie he wanted to see. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around, “It’s after school, motherfucker.”
Jim led the way. He didn’t want to do it on school grounds. He’d been suspended several times in the past for being an asshole.
We found a parking lot down the street – a trail of other kids looking for entertainment followed close behind. “Fight! Fight! Fight!” they cheered.
Jim turned, said something tough, and came at me. We tussled, punched, backed off, and went at it again. He was on the wrestling team; I had been taking martial arts lessons since the age of 7.
The fight ended when he stood up at the wrong time and my foot found the soft spot under his stomach. He doubled over.
A teacher, on her way home, pulled us both aside and wrote down our names. He got suspended for a week and his parents were called in. I got detention for two days.
“Why do the two of you have to fight all the time?” my mother asked. She was distraught, embarrassed.
I didn’t say a word. Fighting him, like that, it twisted me up inside. I couldn’t explain to her, not in my limited Korean, how awful I felt for wanting to genuinely kill him – kill that part of him in me.
I hated myself for being so different. I wasn’t just Asian. I was a geek, a smart kid, good grades, well behaved – the reason I only got two days detention as opposed to what Jim had gotten.
Seeing Jim everyday, the accepted and assimilated buffoon that he was, did something to me. Was that it? Was that my choice? Be forever set aside or be… that?
He was a jock, a wrestler, on the football team – He duct-taped a freshman to a locker after practice once – he was a bully. The freshman had a lot of body-hair. He got suspended for that too.
I went to karate class a few days later. My instructor, Pete, came over and asked me what was wrong. I told him about the fight. From my depressed demeanor, Pete guessed I had lost.
“You’re being a little hard on yourself, Sang. We train here to prepare, but we can only learn from actual combat. And hopefully that won’t happen too often out there,” he said with a hand on my shoulder. Pete was a good man.
One of my classmates was listening in, “He didn’t lose, Sensei.”
“No? Why are you so down, then?”
“I took it too far. I wanted to really hurt him, sir.”
Pete nodded, “He got you mad, huh?”
I nodded.
“Discipline is what we aim for, but you’re still human, son. We have rules on the mat, in this dojo. No rules out there. But you’re a good kid, Sang.”
“What if I just want to hurt people?” I asked with tears welling up.
“You won’t. You’ll remember this. You won’t go too far again.”
Jim and I never got into another fight – not a physical one anyway. Our parents threatened us with death.
He eventually avoided me all together after one particular incident.
The girl he was dating lived in my building. I stepped into the elevator while they were making out. They separated, “Hey, Christina,” I said, ignoring Jim.
After a brief pause, he asked, “What, you can’t see my visibility or something?”
I turned to face them, “‘Can’t see your visibility’? Seriously, dude, learn to speak English.” The doors slid open and I left. I could hear Christina laughing.
After a brief moment of triumphant jubilation, I felt awful. I had reminded him of what I so hated about myself. I had gone too far, again.
I didn’t apologize to Jim – he was still an asshole beyond measure. And I was 17. But I did learn to pull back, not go for the jugular all the time.
As a young man, I thought compassion was about simply not hurting someone, that it was about how we treated others. As an older soul, I’ve learned compassion is an altogether different thing.
Compassion is not simply a way to interact with the world around us, but also a way to better understand our own individual humanity.
Compassion is what’s left over when we have boiled away our own suffering – when we have finally forgiven ourselves for being human.
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