Somewhere around my 14th year, my father bestowed two sets of boxing gloves upon us. In an Irish family of teens and pre-teens, it’s the kind of gift that keeps on giving. Plus it lessens the chances of jacking up all the work done by oodles of loot and hours in an orthodontic chair.

Over time, one of the sets of gloves was lost (maybe Brian packed them when he went away to college?) which left Kevin and I with one glove each and a hand behind our back. Not an entirely bad deal, since Kev is right handed and I’m a lefty.

We had two futons in our otherwise sparsely decorated basement which usually lived about two feet from our hoss of an RCA TV. They were the single seat variety that laps over itself, and they didn’t weigh so much we couldn’t pull them into the middle of the room. When two of these are laid out flat and set side-by-side, they make an impromptu ring of just the right size for an after school sibling grudge match. Hellz to the yeah.

We had a semi-regular habit of going a few rounds in the late afternoon with his friends ringside, taking sides; and many of them would eventually decide after watching us dance and whack the hell out of each other that they had the skills required to take me down.

I was a sophomore and had only recently transferred back to the mainstream public neighborhood high school from the semi-private alternative school I’d been in. I was full of angst and always ready to prove myself. Most of the time, unfortunately; I didn’t know who I was or what I was trying to prove.

On a particular afternoon in our sleepy basement on the hillside in Anchor-town, one of Kevin’s friends - I’ll call him Sal - was in attendance. Sal was the senior class president, a ladies man with stringy blonde 80’s band hair and a weight that nearly matched my own.

Sal issued the challenge and stepped into the ring after being reminded of the rules. We squared off, each of us throwing several solid jabs and hooks, bouncing around and bobbing and weaving and building up a fine appetite for din-din.

A punch came at me that knocked my brain about a bit and I leaned over, facing away from him. My arm was raised, under my face as if playing a game of Heads Up 7-Up with an invisible table. He stepped closer and asked if I was ok. I didn’t respond. When he asked again in a quieter voice, I stood up, pivoted on my feet like the ballerina I never was, and roundhouse clocked his ass.

Sal went down, and he stayed down.

My signature move had been played to perfection, and a reputation I would never outrun was born: I’d KO’d the senior class president. For reasons of vanity the true details of the match were never disclosed by Sal or his buddies. Which was worse: having your ass kicked by a girl, or showing vulnerability and then having your ass kicked by a girl?