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By Lily Burana

June 19, 1999 | The New Year came in with a bang. Or rather, with a solid pop to the jaw. Defensive and dyspeptic as I am, it's surprising that it took so many years for me to haul off and belt someone. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. But on such an auspicious occasion? Who knew?

I've always liked the aesthetics of aggression -- punk rock, fast cars, barbed wire tattoos and boots with spike heels that could take out a man's eye -- but I'm not so keen on the real thing. I can't even watch "real life" dramas like "ER" (too much blood), pundit-laden cable news channels (too much yelling) or talk shows like "Springer" (ditto, plus all that klutzy fighting.) Common brawling has forever been, to me, the trashiest means of conflict management. A surgical strike delivered verbally seemed much more dignified -- and so I maintained the position that only the truly uncivilized negotiate with the world using their fists.

But then, no one had ever pushed me too far.

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The scene of the maiden tussle takes place at the local honky-tonk, Jack and Gloria Horn's Cowboy Bar, just after midnight on Jan. 1. Hordes of people possessed of few brain cells and several beers mill about the billiards lounge, many more are on the dance floor shaking their behinds to Tracy Lawrence, George Strait and Reba.

My boyfriend and I sit side by side at the crowded bar, sharing a New Year's toast with our Bud Lites. He is wearing basic cowboy drag -- boots, black hat, denim shirt, competition-style Wranglers. I'm in a more festive outfit -- a red plaid A-line jumper, coordinating red plaid "Hillary, circa 1992" headband, black tights and combat boots. I'd have turned out in Wranglers, too (for that soupçon of Western credibility) but after weeks of holiday grazing, mine fit me like a sausage casing.

"Dagger: On Butch Women" by Lily Burana and Roxxie Linnea Due

Enter the antagonist: very loud, very aggressive poster girl for White Trash Nation. (White trash: It's a style, not an economic class. You can have a million in the bank and be white trash up the yin-yang.)

WT is drunk, and continually jawing off and dribbling her drink on my boyfriend. When he asks her to stop, she yells, "Lighten the fuck up! It's NEW YEAR'S EVE!"

"Geez, quite a mouth on that girl," I say.

"Don't mind her," my boyfriend replies, turning back to his beer. "She's just a 2-o'clocker."

I try to diffuse the tension by distracting said boy, but WT comes back and wedges herself between two guys. She continues being loud, bumping into us, and one of her weasely guy friends stumbles (accidentally, drunkenly, but still) into my boyfriend. Boyfriend pushes him away with full-body force and he sails into WT and her friend.

Next page | My turn to try my hand at brutal conflict resolution