That puts you in my class, or a bit better. I didn't have the killer instinct. After the first expression of outrage, or whatever, I was trying to think of a way out.

Some guys had "it", and they were fearsome bastards. Had a brother-in-law like that and the one time we got into it he hit me, and I just turned around and left. We had been in his den with guns all over the place and I felt lucky to be allowed to.

And the guys who said they never looked for a fight but weren't going to walk away from one either were always looking for one.

A fight I wasn't in that involved kicking was on Skid Row. A friend of mine who was a Senior Parole Officer and I were killing time looking for any of his parolees who might be out where they shouldn't be. One of them was a pretty violent guy who had "strayed off the reservation" that night, and had police everywhere looking for him.

It was about 12:30 AM on a Sunday morning, and we drove around a corner to see two obviously intoxicated, poorly dressed gentlemen wrestling around on the sidewalk. One of them struggled to his feet while the other fellow sort of laid there on his back, almost taking a nap.

The standing guy wobbled a bit, saw his opponent just laying there and wound up with his right leg aimed at the fellow's head.

The guy on the ground didn't see it coming, but raised his head to look around. The standing fellow unloaded, missed completely, lost his balance and fell, hitting the back of his head against a brick building. It was over for him.

The guy on the ground put his head back down, oblivious to what he had missed, closed his eyes and seemingly went to sleep. Tom and I laughed our asses off, figured that when they woke up they would have no recollection of the problems they had had, and would be fine.