Leather Jacket

So I finally made it.

Made it through the debaucherous masses gathered in Williams-Brice stadium to watch the Gamecocks and Tigers act out the annual in-state blood match between two hated rivals. We don't like each other very much. In fact, we hate each other. And all over a college football game.

The only thing more satisfying than winning -- which we Gamecocks aren't apt to do against Clempson (note the "p" in the name; I refuse to spell it correctly) -- is pissing out the eight beers you drank right before kick-off.

So that's what I'm doing. Pissing. In those big pissers that look like hog feeding troughs.

I know how long it takes to get to this sublime place in the pack. A good 15 minutes. So I zip up and tuck in after I walk away and let the next man step up to the promised land.

As I turn around, my first thought is: Man, whoever's next is about to have an out-of-body experience ... literally. I almost wish I had to go that bad again just so I could relive that Dionysian moment.

Apparently, though, not everyone feels this same sense of urgency.

I turn around and hear, "What's up? 6' 5", 240. You want some?"

My next first thought when I hear something like that -- as someone who is 6' 0", 185 -- is, "No, but thanks for asking." When someone gives you their vital stats, they usually don't want to share the stickiest of the icky with you.

Luckily, he wasn't asking me if I wanted any of what he had. It was someone else. Another big boy.

These two, both Gamecock fans, are in a stare down with raging, mega-huge mean-ons for each other. They want to throw down. I wish I knew why. Or maybe I don't.

Everyone is just standing around with their mouths open. I suppose we've been programmed to watch controlled violence. That's why we're here, right?

Keep in mind, this is the kind of place where when you hear the faint sound of someone saying the word "innuendo" you know this is someone who is at her first football game. Someone who is most likely understating whatever fowl sexual comment was just belched her way.

There is no innuendo. There only is.

And there they are. Asserting their dominance.

There's a code here among the herd/pride. If guys really want to fight, they will. Usually, they're just trying to save face. They have to show that they will defend themselves. Evolution demands it. But the social glue is maintained when something stands between their aggression, whether that be laws, a cultural code, a wall or me.

"Yo, I've taken on guys bigger than you, nigga!" says the smaller-but-still-big dude (who is conspicuously white, given his chosen nickname for a counterpart just as white as he is).

The smaller guy has more of the mouth. The bigger guy wearing the black leather jacket is more calm.

"I'm right here. Come get it."

"Oh, I got it!"

No, you don't. Not yet.

Always work on the more-confident one, who's usually the quieter one. You've got to make him feel like he's the danger, not the talker. If you don't, the talking is magnified with the impression that the shit this guy's slinging is for real and you better hold him back or it's lights out.

My hands hold their chests back. Strength isn't holding them back. It's that they don't want to do it. And if they don't want to do it, try to make it so that they don't feel like they have to.

You build the more-confident one up. You have to convince him that he's Godfuckingzilla.

You know ... "Come on, man, you don't want to do this. You don't have anything to prove."

It's not violence that I hate. It's just a product of behavior like any other. It's the negativity that surrounds it. Something out of place, out of harmony. People hurting each other with nothing substantial to gain. It surrounds everything in this place.

The only thing that separates us from the animals we resemble here is that we have a conscious notion we know there's a better way.

Like using football and totemism to tap into the feral instincts that dwell deep down inside us. A pseudo-battleground where our warriors defend our tribal pride for us.

But we have no control over the outcome. So we assert what control we think we have. And we slip, struggling to keep the line drawn.

It's the human condition. Transcending ourselves. It's hard to do in a place like this.

But I've gotten through to him. The big done backs up. He looks like he wants to claim a sweeter reward, the one he waited in this line for. He wants to take a piss.

Then it comes.

"Yo, I wore that jacket in the eight grade, bitch!"

And here I thought we'd made so much progress.

So there they are. Again. Nothing standing between them except 6', 0", 185.

And as I hold my arms outstretched, I can't help but look over at the black leather jacket with all the zippers and think ...

"Yeah, that jacket is kind of old school."