Uzo Unmanned

I'm "non-confrontational." I quote because the term has been co-opted by the inarticulate to mean "shy" or "quiet." I'm neither of those things. If anything, I'm brash and loud. But I don't like to get into confrontations, thus, non-confrontational.

When I was 12, a sociopath named Jeffrey pretended to stumble and pushed me, face first, into a row of lockers. At the time I had a rather fearsome set of braces, all wires, and yellow rubber bands, and an apparatus to keep me from sucking my thumb (seriously). Needless to say, these got tangled in the flesh of my lips, sending what seemed like pints of my blood down my shirt and onto the band room floor. My lips began swelling immediately. None of the kids laughed.

Mr. O'Neal, the music teacher, approached.

"Do you want to go to the nurse?"

"No. I'b gobba be fibe."

I think I spattered blood in Mr. O'Neal's glasses.

In the lunchroom, children looked at me like I had blood all over my face and incredibly swollen lips, some of which were still caught in my braces.

"Are you sure you don't want some ice?"

The only sounds I could muster were "Pbbsst!" and "Murrrrrnnng!" Eventually someone convinced me to put some ice on my former face.

Naturally, I sat down with Jeffrey and the principal. When Jeffrey gave his "just stumblin'" excuse, I was skeptical, but rather than making a big fight out of it I just said "It's okay. Whatever."

The principal let us go our separate ways. The next day, my dad, a high-powered teacher in our tiny school district, threatened Jeffrey with physical violence. The day after that, Jeffrey had transferred to another school.

So I'm non-confrontational. It's worked out so far. After Jeffrey left, I wasn't bullied anymore, and sort of fell into my niche by the time high school rolled around. And being non-confrontational has kept me in relationships, in jobs, and in apartments. For example, if a lady wants to get into a fight with me, I just pretend not to hear her, or walk away, or ask her politely to leave me alone, then continue reading my novel about elves fighting dragons. It's been a good strategy for the past 25 years.

But recently I was tested, and failed. And perversely, succeeded.

One of the challenges of living in New York is finding a place to play soccer, a game I love. In Chapel Hill, where I used to live, you could join a seasonal a league for $80 dollars. For a few months, you'd get to practice twice a week, and play a real game on Saturdays. It was casual, fun, and easy. Here, playing a fun game of soccer is as easy and as cheap as getting Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnant, not with science like in Junior, but by fucking him in the ass. I joined a league for young professionals, thinking "I am one of those things," but our games are played in a gym, and I get about 10 minutes of playing time per ugly, boring match.

Lucky for me, there's a pretty active Queens pickup league. And it's run through the useful, if trying-too-hard, Meetup.com! It's only $5 a session (as opposed to the $150 I paid for a season of "young professionals" soccer) and you get to play for two hours. I signed up, showed up on a beautiful Sunday morning in Long Island City, and got put on a team with Hoon, a stoned Korean guy in a Kaka jersey, some other dudes, and three people who were, sigh, actually good at soccer.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to say that I am bad at soccer. On the “good at soccer" continuum, Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are at one end, while I am down at the other end with that Down's syndrome baby I saw on the train today.

One of the good players, Uche, seemed really nice. He came with another good player, Uzo, who also seemed very nice. And maybe it's deep-seated Orientalism, but I really dug on their Nigerian dialects. Not in a gay way, mind, just in a slightly racist way. The other good player, Chris, seemed okay. He was bragging about his hangover, which made me think that it wasn't that good of a hangover.

We played our first 30 minute game, and it quickly became clear that our team was bad. We lost 3-0, didn't hang on to possession, barely got a shot on goal. And it also became clear that Uzo was a competitive loudmouth.

"Why are you making that run, Hoon?" He liked to pick on Hoon. Hoon was a good sport, and I'm not sure he really noticed, anyway. Because he was stoned, you see.

"Pass the ball!"

"AAAAH!"

The last one is the sound he'd make when the last pass before the shot was off target, ruining his chances for glory. Often, this pass was from me, so I'd get the scream.

I'm competitive, and, just like Uzo, I get pissed off about stupid things. If I don't win bar trivia, I turn into one of those sad, angry, drunks. I curse when I don't make a saving throw against goblin poison. And Trivial Pursuit? More like Very Important Pursuit. So I understood where he was coming from.

But he was still being a cockhole. And I was getting angry. I started noticing his weird acne (which was all over his face, and big, like bigger than normal pimples), coming this close to saying something about it, then thinking better of it. I also almost said "I may suck at soccer, but at least my country has a lower HIV rate than yours."

What the hell, me? Why did I even think that? It might not even be true! I'm from rural South Carolina, which has an astonishingly high HIV rate.

I was holding in my rage, like I always do. I was being non-confrontational. And it was killing my fun. And apparently making me a racist.

Our second game we played well, probably because the team was even worse than us, and we got to slow down and have fun. Uzo was relatively quiet then.

We felt confident going into our third game. We'd made an improvement, and this team had not one, but two, pudgy middle-aged ladies on it. We were gonna win this shit!

Nope. We were sloppy, we were making bad runs, we were tired. And Uzo was letting us know. About halfway through the game, I mishit a pass into the middle. Uzo was making a blistering (for a grad student) run, gearing up to shoot. But he didn't get the ball, because, as you recall, I am bad at soccer.

"What the hell, man? AAAAAH!"

I looked at him for a second. And then I snapped.

"Jesus Christ! Fucking relax!"

Yes, this is snapping for me. I didn't look him in the eye when I shouted, I just walked away.

"You're right. It's a pickup game."

He didn't complain for the rest of the game. We still lost. We had fun. Even Hoon got a reprieve, not that he needed it.

There we go. Easy as that. All Uzo needed was to be shouted at. I had been confrontational, and it had worked out for me. I never realized I had this power. I think I'm going to do it more.

So if you see me on a subway platform berating a homeless man for singing, or on the street screaming at a cabbie because he turned in front of me in the crosswalk, or in a movie theater just mercilessly insulting a child for smelling bad, assume that they are repeat offenders, and that they deserve it. Especially the child, even if she has Down's syndrome.