The time I punched a woman in the face in Radio Shack

I was waiting in the checkout line at the Fiesta Mall Radio Shack when, trying to gesture to a distant friend, I punched a woman right in the jaw. At maybe 15, I had grown an unreasonable amount in just the recent years, transforming into a gangly creature of mostly bone and pale skin. Six feet tall and maybe 120 pounds, I had all the grace and coordination of calf fresh from the womb. I swung my arm upward and came right up under a chubby woman's mouth, right at about my nipple level. All that bone, it must have been like a crack to the head with a thin, wooden walking stick, the kind with a small round bulb at the top. That's about the sound it made, combined with what could have been the breaking of a rack of eight-ball. Yeah, her teeth.

The look of shock was the most disturbing part, but to be expected since it was likely the first time she'd been punched. It was the first time I'd punched anyone, much less a lady just older than my mother. She clutched her overly made-up mouth in pain - I got her really good alright - and tears welled up in her eyes. She was in great discomfort. Her husband was standing over us both and he grabbed her and held her close. His fists balled up and he had this look on his face like, well, like someone had punched his wife in the face. He wanted to beat me, very badly, and I thought it was coming. This time, I was at nipple level. I begged for their forgiveness, assuring them it was an accident. And really, what reason did they have to question me? I mean, why would I punch her? I was in front of them in line.

Nothing came of it, and I never got any dental bill or anything. But just the other day I thought of her. I've been working with a friend, renovating one of his rental houses in Tualatin. I was pulling up some linoleum in the hall bathroom, no easy task. While working around the toilet with a putty knife - my body curled up tightly on its side, squeezing into the corner of the small room - I came too close to the porcelain with the knife. A hairline crack started where the toilet met the floor and worked its way up to the base of the bowl. Then another on the opposite side did the same thing. It seemed I had broken the toilet. Joe was very easygoing about it. He told me it was probably already going to crack and he was getting rid of it anyway, maybe just to make me feel better. But looking at the cracked white porcelain conjured up the memory of that old woman holding her mouth, comforting her hurt teeth after my own clumsiness bashed them.

While thinking of both of these accidents the other night, I inadvertently merged onto a freeway that I wasn't supposed to and got stuck, detouring a good 20 minutes and three miles out of my way. All the way to the goddamned arboretum.