In 1971, my family lived across the street from a retired airline pilot. Upon arrival five years earlier I was only seven, yet I could tell both he and his wife liked to party more than my parents; always offering up another gin-and-tonic with lime on their screened porch. The older couple had two adult children who may or may not have lived there, and one, Jack, who fell in the year between my brother and me. They were so different, I don’t think any of them even went to church.

That same year, at fourteen and twelve, my brother and I were deemed old enough for BB guns, essentially rifles with much less firepower. We asked for the pump action propellants for Christmas, and though Dad himself didn’t own a gun, in the morning, to our joy, ours were standing by the tree.

My brother never really took to his much, though as it grew warmer, me and a couple of friends would take ours down into an undeveloped swampland and shoot at the mossy stumps, rotted trees, and elusive bullfrogs. The sound was like low spitfire. We were supposed to be careful; you could take someone's eye out. I’d never tell my mother this: but if you got hit, it was probably on purpose.

And it fucking hurt. One day I was walking up the hill from my house, unarmed, when my outer right thigh suddenly stung like it had caught fire. At home, I found a red BB welt.

It had to be Jack, whose bedroom window was just beyond the woods from where I got hit.  Did Jack somehow know I recently used the spare key they kept at our house to enter theirs while no one was home (overcoming my wild fear and heavy guilt), to check out a stack of Playboy magazines laying right beside the bed in one of the other bedrooms?

Doubtful...unless Jack was home when I went in and stayed completely quiet the whole time.  No – it was just that he didn’t like me, and for that I couldn’t blame him.

For a while now, I’d been acting like a real dink. I started a neighborhood war when I beat up this snotty kid at the bus stop after he purposely stomped on my foot at school. His numerous siblings took exception, and next my brother and pretty much the rest of the neighborhood got involved. There were bitter insults, wild fisticufs, terrible acorn ambushes, one bonafide rumble at night, and seemingly ever-changing sides. When all was said and done I was still friends with the kid, who gave me a magazine to take home from his waterproof stash in the woods.

One day after the war had ended, I was walking with a friend when we came upon Jack and my brother sitting on the wooden post fence at the end of Jack’s front lawn.

“Watch this,” I whispered boldly to my friend, before shoving Jack backwards off the fence.

There was silence, then Jack got up, came around and got me down. He started punching me repeatedly in the head – I thought I was going to die. In my semi-conscious state I overheard my brother suggest: “Maybe he’s had enough, Jack.”

Progress, I suppose, since my brother usually rooted for the other guy.

I didn’t bother Jack again, and never once mentioned the sniper shot; though his aim at that range was impressive.

On the night of the first Ali/Frazier fight – the Fight of the Century, it was called – my brother and I were sleeping over at Jack’s house. We each had a sleeping bag on the floor of his room, and Jack’s mom would bring in snacks. We were recording ourselves with a portable cassette recorder. Only when we played it back, for some reason, our voices were sped up. So when Jack cried out, “More onion dip, Ma!” on the tape it was hysterical.

Jack wasn’t a sports fan, and didn’t care about the outcome of the fight. I was a Joe Frazier man through and through: low, scrappy, not kind on the eyes, a veritable bull in a china shop. My brother, Muhammad Ali: loudmouth, pretty as could be, lightning fast and extremely dangerous. Frazier was the champ, Ali the contender at Madison Square Garden.

I almost forgot about the fight. We were listening to music on Jack’s radio when the news came over: Frazier had defeated Ali in a hard fought fifteen-round decision, knocking down the great Ali for the first time in his career, and was still the champ.

“Congratulations,” Jack said to me. My brother rolled over.

Fin