I’m not a sport person. I don’t feel at home on a team and hate organized competition.
I suppose it’s not actually the sport itself to which I object—running is good, and I guess kicking things—it’s the rah-rah stuff that tends to surround it: the war games.
The school I attended in London set aside two afternoons a week for sport and we were all required to take part. So at eleven and twelve, I kicked a ball around a field on dark winter afternoons and in summer pretended to have an interest in cricket which, despite being silly, has it’s upside: if you’re fielding deep, ie, as far from the action as possible, you can at least get some reading done.
At thirteen, when I graduated to the Upper School which involved wearing long pants, I was able to choose a sport on which to concentrate. I enjoyed jumping and was reasonably good at it, but there was no modern equipment and no one to teach it. So I took up fencing, instead.
The fencing master was, as I remember, a refugee Hungarian who, rumor had it, once coached the Olympic team—though at this remove I don’t know if that story is true—now he had us. He did have an accent which meant that normally we’d be laughing at him, since we didn’t makes me think that he most have intimidated us into reluctant respect. He was a stickler on technique, the correct stance and placement of a foil, the various hand positions (four, as I remember), what was part of the target and what wasn’t, advance and retreat, and how to correctly stand en garde. We spent a long time learning how to do things correctly before we were allowed to fight each other—our opponents having also been trained by him—and even longer before we were thought ready to go out into the world and fight boys from other schools with different teachers. Which is how I came up against The Brute.
That wasn’t his name, just how I thought of him, or how I tell myself now that I thought of him. We faced each other down the fencing pitch? runway? no, piste! (I looked it up. I find it hard to believe we called it that with a straight face, but whatever) I faced him down the piste, reminding myself of where to balance, to spread the weight between both legs, bend my knees enough to produce the spring needed to lunge. When the start was called, he came at me waving his foil around like a cudgel, slashing it at me, breaking all the rules I knew as well as a few I didn’t.
And I was defenseless. I could do nothing to stop him, only try to keep him away.
A foil has a button tip—now it’s electronic to record hits—then it was only a slight cushioning. My jacket was thick canvas, and my head was enclosed in a mask. So he couldn’t really hurt me, but by ignoring the rules, his aggression rendered me useless. Not that I was an expert or even proficient, but faced with an opponent who followed the same rules, I could have fought back because we both spoke the same language. But because The Brute not only didn’t follow the rules but didn’t seem even to acknowledge their existence, I could do nothing to defend myself.
Briefly, I looked to the judges. When they did nothing to reign him in—perhaps they figured it was a case of ‘boys will be boys’, or they were asleep, or didn’t care, I don’t know—but when they seemed to acquiesce in his assault I gave in, stopped trying to score, merely waiting it out. To this day I’m not sure I could have done anything else. Perhaps, had I been more experienced, actually been able to fence—it’s a remarkably intricate sport, thoughtful and formalized—I could have defended myself. But perhaps not. What do you do when someone comes charging at you, unprovoked, as soon as the whistle is blown, defying anyone to stop him? You rely on the rules.
We’ve all been through this, we’re going through it right now, and I’m not sure who I most hold responsible: the bad actors or the judges, the politicians or the press, or has it always been like this and we’re just being forced now to notice it?
Reading histories of what we classify as ancient times, you come across this problem pretty often. They weren’t able to solve it any better than we are. For example, Alexander getting mad at the ancient city of Tyre, ancient even then, because they refused to give in to his whim, laying siege to it, finally storming it, dismantling it stone by stone, raping and enslaving the women, and putting the men to the sword. All those nameless people, the collateral damage, what did they think as they faced down the sword? In their case not make-believe, but all too real and cruelly sharp? When The Brute stepped off the piste and into their world.
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