Author's Note:
This is my first hand account of the event.
All the events depicted here are my best recollection. I have not embellished in any way.
I have had these exact memories in my head since 1974 when I was 9 years old.
This story is simply a fIrst hand account of the event.
I have been telling myself to write this out for over twenty years now.
So today, April 5, 2011, I finally did.
Chris Horvath Has A Bad Day.
( A True Story )
By Christopher R. Whalen
April 5, 2011
I was sitting on the stoop in front of my family’s tiny brick-row house in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY.
It was May, 1974, mid afternoon, the sun was high and bright, and the sky cloudless. The temperature was perfectly comfortable.
The sun’s rays fully lit our tiny front yard, which was simply an 8x16 patch of crab-grass and a length of black wrought iron fence. Just a few feet beyond lay the sidewalk, a single lane street and then another set of brick-row houses which seemed to be a mirror image of my side of the street.
1974 - The year of the great move to NJ. That move was only a month away, and my nine year old mind didn’t fully comprehend that my entire world, this stoop, tiny house, and patch of grass, would be stripped away in an instant in the not-so-distant future.
Since I was young, I always thought that each house had been assigned one tree by the City of New York, as there was one tree growing out of the concrete in front of each one.
For one of the last times in my life, I sat on the stoop of my childhood home, thinking the normal thoughts of a nine year old and probably some most nine year olds had never thought.
I heard them long before I saw them. From my right, I heard the sounds of a group of teen-aged boys approaching. It sounded like a pack of hyenas swarming over the still struggling gazelle they had just brought down.
I looked to my right until they were in sight, my brother Jim and his friends. I counted 11 in total and could now hear Jim and Chris Horvath arguing above all the rest.
As they approached the house Jim pushed Horvath against the fence and Horvath returned the favor. As with any gang of Queen’s 13 year olds, they quickly started screaming, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT !!!
Today, I can see all of this in perfect high definition and in slow motion.
Our gate was open and Horvath, standing with his back to me, pushed Jim by the face towards the street.
At least once per day, even at 50 years old, I am sure Horvath plays this scene over in his mind, and still cannot believe his own stupidity. But as always, people must have consequences for their behavior. Horvath would soon learn that lesson at the hands of Jim.
Jim dragged Horvath through the gate by his neck and threw him down to the concrete walkway. He fell just below my feet and just as Jim was about to mount him and use his face as a punching bag, Horvath rolled to his right, and stood up on the grass. He raised his fists.
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!
It was deafening. The other 9 boys were leaning on the fence now as if just outside a professional boxing ring and screaming at the top of their lungs.
Jim approached slowly, cheetah like, and stood before Horvath in a natural boxer’s stance without realizing it, body turned to his right, left foot in front, right firmly planted under his body. He had left the perfect distance between himself and Horvath, as if he had calculated Horvath’s reach ahead of time.
Jim’s face was pure, emotionless focus. His mind’s ability to remove all emotional filters when under stress was a natural gift, and one that he would use later in life countless times to bring untold success to him and his family.
In the three seconds it took him to square off to Horvath, Jim had prepared responses for every possible attack that Horvath could utilize.
So my older brother stood to my right, chest facing me, weight mostly on his left foot, and his remaining weight balanced on the ball his right, his right heel now slightly raised. His left hand was extended in front of him, chest level, bent at the elbow, with an open hand, not a fist, and his right was curled in tight fist and it hung just at his waist. His breathing was not accelerated or labored at all.
Horvath telegraphed a right hook.
Jim arched his upper body just enough to move his chin out of the way.
Before Horvath’s punch’s arc was completed, Jim planted his right foot, twisted his body slightly clockwise, and then with perfect torque twisting left, released a punch that started at his right heel and ended with his right fist squarely crushing Horvath’s face.
It would be his body’s natural ability to gain maximum torque that would see Jim out-drive everyone on a golf course later in life.
My brothers and I all had been taught to aim for the back of someone’s head when fighting, as this would guarantee the most damage being done. Jim applied that lesson here.
Horvath fell down to his knees and tried to steady himself by putting his two hands on the ground in front of him. His nose, probably broken, was bleeding out of both nostrils.
Jim approached, no fear, no worry, unblinking. Although his prey was wounded in front of him, Jim was prepared for any eventuality. He did not know that Horvath’s only possible responses were heavy breathing, bleeding and tears.
Horvath looked up and all he could see through his tear-filled eyes was Jim’s silhouette against the blazing mid-day sun in the cloudless Queens NY sky. His right cheek was at Jim’s knee level and it was unfortunately perfectly exposed.
I saw Jim’s right elbow rise skyward.
I had seen pile drivers on construction sites, where a heavy weight is lifted and then dropped onto a wooden or metal object that needs to be pounded into the hard earth, and that is what Jim’s body became for a moment.
His right elbow extended as high as it could physically go, Jim jumped slightly on his toes to get the greatest extension and downward force, and then his right fist came down with the power of a falling anvil in the center of Horvath’s left cheek.
Horvath was unconscious before his right cheek made a permanent impression in the crab-grass.
The 9 friend audience crowded into my front yard “ring”, screaming and laughing.
No one checked on Horvath. No one wants to be affiliated with the loser.
I sat motionless on the stoop all the while, cataloging everything in my mind.
When Horvath started to come to, he slowly sat up on the grass. As he turned his head I saw broken lines of blood running down his left cheek.
I realized that he had been punched so hard that his upper and lower braces completely pierced the skin of his cheek.
Horvath stood and walked out of the gate alone and headed down the street the same way the gang had come, holding his left hand to his cheek and sobbing as he walked.
The next day, Jim was only accompanied home by 9 friends.
The End
