Carl’s Mobile Stone Engraving

His eyes sparkle like diamonds from across the room. It’s terrifying.

Shirtless, soaked in blood, not his own. Foaming at the mouth, screaming something no one understands. 

Moments before he came downstairs, a girl with curly brown hair came tumbling, wailing. She hit the wall, scrambled to her feet, holding a nose gushing blood. Shirt, pants, askew. Sprints out the door, tears mixed with blood. 

A friend is standing at the bottom of the stairs, his name long forgotten. He’d been talking to another girl, and now the whites of his eyes are showing. Fear, shock; frozen. The deer, in the headlights of irrational violence. The shirtless berserker doesn’t pause. Three or four punches to my friend’s face, then turns to grab the girl. She screams, as does the rest of the party. 

If this were a movie, this would be the point at which the music screeches to a halt.

Of course, this isn’t a movie. This is Halloween, 2001. I’m at a house party, a freshman in college. It’s a Wednesday, but we’re still drinking like no tomorrow. Upstairs is where they do the hard shit, apparently. My alma mater isn’t known for its academic rigor, hell, they took me after I nearly failed out of high school twice. But it is known for its party life. The weekend there generally runs from Tuesday until Sunday, the parties a marathon between blackouts and stupor.

Only a few months into college, I’d quickly made friends with most of the guys from our shared dorm floor. We would link up with our opposite female floor, and hit the party circuit as many nights as our teenage livers could take. 

So, most. 

I had felt closer to those friends than those back home, something about living together and being away for the first time. Like brothers. After not exactly the most wonderful childhood, this was the first time I’d felt content and at home. Until that Halloween, of course.

The music didn’t stop. But everyone did start screaming.

My friend, crying on the floor. He’s bleeding too, and the berserker has a hold of the girl my friend had been talking too.

Some things in my head suddenly go click.

1. That crying boy is now just a friend. Not a brother. Shrugged off like yesterday’s hoody. Can’t depend on him.
2. Everything I see around me is red. The only thing I see is that shirtless guy, like looking through a toilet paper tube. Rage boils up so quickly that all other thoughts disappear. Even anger. I hear nothing. I feel nothing, but the overwhelming desire to collide with him. An odd sort of serenity. 

I don’t see the other partygoers run past me, but feel them as I swim upstream of the crowd. Time has slowed. The berserker is huge, has some inches on me, and maybe twenty pounds. Judging by his blood soaked abs, he’s familiar with the gym. And he’s high as fuck.

As I get closer, I see another guy moving towards my target. I know him. We’d talked at some other parties, bonding over our shared high school wrestling past. We make eye contact, and he crouches a bit. Got it. He’s going low, I’m going high.

At this point, I barely had any formal fight training. Some park district martial arts. Wrestling was great, but positionally sets you up for failure in real conflict. 

There was the nightly basic silat with my dad though. Some stuff he picked up serving in Germany.  Knife disarms, hip throws, elbows and knees. Less technique and more mindset… 

“Run if you can. If you can’t, make ‘em pay.” 

“If he makes you fight, you’re a fucking animal-you don’t stop until he’s on the ground crying.” 

“You may not win, but make damn sure they remember you.”

 “Knuckles break. Elbows and knees break the other guy.” 

“If there’s more of them than you, but they’re picking on someone weaker, better to be bleeding on the ground than live with regret.”

I’m not thinking of any of that. 

I’m just pissed. 

We collide. First, his fist and my face. As I will learn through many more of these encounters for years to come, I’m fantastic at blocking punches with my head (That’s sarcasm people, any decent pugilist keeps their hands up to prevent this. I am most certainly not decent.) My body is still moving forward, but my head is now leaned all the way back. 

Perfect, I remember this one. 

I snap my face forward, luck smiles and I feel his nasal bones crunch against my forehead. A few more times for good measure, despite him clawing at my face. His feet go out from under him. Guess my fellow wrestler has arrived. I swim to shirtless’s back like we drilled on the mat, and wrap my arm around his neck like I saw on Walker, Texas Ranger. Squeeze. His arms slow down, and finally go limp. 

Breathing hard, me and the other wrestler carry the unconscious idiot out the front door of the now empty house. Dumbass’s chest rises and falls, and bloody snot bubbles form around his sideways nose. Good, I’m probably not going to prison. We dump shithead on the front lawn, as red and blues start to fill the air. Me and other wrestler share a look, and run in opposite directions. Cops are coming, best to be gone. 

I know the drill by now, run a few blocks, make a few turns, and then walk real casual like. 

On my way back to the dorm, some thoughts start to bubble up. There’s something there that I can’t quite name yet. 

Before I figure it out, I run into another friend from my dorm. He’s with a girl; both had been at the party. She says I’m covered in blood, her dorm’s closer so she drags me there to get cleaned up. If I’d been running my dad’s script, maybe she was running her mom’s. Back at the room, she says thanks for….all that. Hands me a men’s shirt to change into. Simple, gray. On the back it reads “Carl’s Mobile Stone Engraving” and a number to call. 

Who’s that, I ask.

“My dad, it’s his company. He makes gravestones and stuff for people”

My friend quips “Like what you do to people, man. Hahaha, hell yeah!” 

I just stare at the shirt, as some things shift and settle in my head. Like rough rocks, locking into place to make a clear path. 

I say “I guess” more to myself, shrug, and put it on. 

We exchange pleasantries, but I need to clear my head. Excuse myself, and walk around the campus as a sliver of light starts to peak out. Thinking.

The towers had come down almost two months prior. I knew where I’d probably end up going. But now it’s clear. For the first time in my life, I had felt like I belonged somewhere. But the honeymoon was over. Yeah, those were my friends. But they ran away, and for some damn reason I ran towards. Not my brothers, then. I had suspected who I was, but I’m sure now. They’re not me, and it feels lonely. The difference feels like a chasm miles deep. I don’t feel better than them. I just feel….like I don’t fit there. That’s ok. But I need to find someplace with people like me. 

So I did. 

Seems there’s no shortage of guys like us. Society is imperfect but mostly works, we all end up in one institution or the other. Probably for the best. Some years go by. I recall the sheer joy of lying bleeding in a dark alley next to a friend, both of us laughing so hard while we try to not swallow our teeth. 

More years go by. It’s becoming clear that my first institution is not a forever home. Tired of signing my life away, want more freedom. Through pure luck and happenstance, I end up in a slightly better one. By now my identity has solidified. This is what I do. I am good at violence, and find satisfaction in protecting those who aren’t. Our subculture reinforces that, and it’s nice to be a productive cog in the machine. Things are fucked up, but the construct makes sense. 

Randomness and nurture probably landed me on one side of the law instead of the other more than nature. Learn to keep that in mind during every brawl. Cools the anger during, which frees me to think a few moves ahead. Helpful when weapons are in play. But afterward, it makes me see less of an enemy and more of a reflection. Empathy is good. But it can also be sad, for a million different reasons. 

The eyes of my older coworkers paint a picture clear as day. Don’t want that future; make my escape plan. Grind away, more years pass, the burnout builds and shit gets real. Look around, double check; I can leave now. So I do. 

But now what? I try leaving that identity behind. Try to look deeper and find something else at the core. The harder I look, the more I accept that part of me. The fight is not going away.

Get a part-time gig to monetize it. Better than nothing, but feel like I’m kidding myself. Past my prime in a physical fight, and don’t want to sacrifice more mobility to try and hang on a few more years. Maybe have a decade or two of being a passable gunfighter, but even that’ll fade. What then? Who will I be?

Better to figure that out now, than have it forced on me. 

I’ve written all of the above for a few reasons. As usual, to clarify my thinking, and document stuff so one day maybe my kids will understand me a little better. But I also want to discuss this identity thing a bit more, and thought a visceral description might help you understand how closely I hold mine. 

Identity seems like a two-sided issue in the FIRE community. Some people leave their job because it was never the core part of their identity, it was just a way to pay the bills. Casting off is more about being comfortable with the math than excising a big chunk of yourself. Others have jobs intertwined so closely with identity, they only leave to survive. Jordan Grumet comes to mind. Different story, similar process. 

This is wrong though. Yet another false dichotomy. Some few may only be working for the pay. But do anything long enough, and it creeps into your identity. I don’t think the order of operations makes it any easier to leave. I just happened to have my identity seared in before I made money at it. Betting I’m not alone. 

The choices then are simple: 

1. Leave behind your old identity, get a new one. If you have actually done this, lemme know. 

2. Acknowledge that identity and ego are just deeply ingrained patterns of thoughts. Meditate on non-being, how the self is an illusion, and reach enlightenment. Maybe train with Ra’s al Ghul in the mountains or something. 

3. Cling to your identity until you’re incapable of living it. Afterward, vacillate between living in the past and crushing depression. Kill the pain with your substance of choice. Well that doesn’t sound great. 

4. Break down your identity to it’s core, and figure out different ways to express it. Maybe healthier ways, which fulfill some purpose. 

For me, I’m trying 4 and 2. 3 is always an option, but gonna try to stay away from that one. 

Think I have an idea for 4. May have found a different way to fight, which helps alleviates suffering. Maybe I’ll write about it sooner or later. I’ll keep plugging away at 2. The obstacle is the way, or some shit.

What about you?