Settling the Score with an Anti-Semite

My father often sent me alone during summer vacation to buy feathers. He took pride in my business skills. My brother escorted my one day when I made a big buy. Walking home, we encountered a gentile girl whom my friend Edith complained would harass her. I decided to settle the score with this anti-Semite and signaled her that I wanted a fight. She told me it was not fair to have my brother with me, so I asked him to go away and not to intervene.

As the fight started, she hit me with a glass jar and I scratched her face with all ten fingers. When blood started streaming down my face we both got frightened and ran away. It took me about twenty minutes to get home, where I started to cry and asked my mother to file a complaint against this girl with the police. My mother refused, telling me that she was sure it was I who started the fight. I said no more, stopped crying, and learned not to start fights any more.

© David Muskal, 2001