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you fight with a bat. I approach you carrying my bat pointed down so it matches my leg. You might not even notice it. When I come close, I bring my bat up, grip it in both hands, and swing it low at your knee. If I hit you near the knee with any force, I will put you on the ground. I don’t careif you’re a guy who weighs four hundred pounds. A bat to the knee will drop Superman, and when you’re on the ground, I own you.
    When you’re bat-fighting, as soon as you get your guy on the ground, you need to reverse your grip on the bat. Put your strong hand near the end of the handle and your weaker hand below it. Point the bat down like you’re grinding herbs in a mortar and pestle. You’re going to pump the bat up and down on the person underneath it. Focus on taking out the knees, elbows, and hands. After that they ain’t running nowhere, bro. Now you can take your time cracking their ribs, busting their balls—anything you want. When you got a bat, you’re king.
    If you don’t have a bat, no matter what the other guy is doing, focus on his weak points. Take away his legs by kicking his knees. Take away his eyes by sticking him with your fingers or something sharp like a broken bottle. Work on his shins. Shins are very sensitive, and you can hurt a person real bad on his shins. The shinbone is the strongest bone in the body, but the front edge is tender if you stomp it.
    Even though I just said the fronts of a person’s shins are sensitive, when I kick people in the balls, I will use my own shinbone. My shin hits with more force than my foot, and my shinbone won’t hurt me because I’m kicking balls, which are soft. You can break someone’s balls with your shinbone. When you’re fighting, look for every opportunity to hurt the other guy’s eyes and knees and shins. And no matter what, always be kicking his balls.
    Use gravity when you fight. Punch down, not up. When I’m fighting, I always beat down, and I always stab down if I have a knife. I do not stab up, I do not stab straight. I always stab down. *
    Dominic taught me everything about fighting.
    P ETEY G ALLIONE is the last Outcast I got to know, but he stayed my friend my whole life. Petey was like a brick with feet. He wasfive-nine and weighed 190 pounds. Later he played semiprofessional football, but he kept getting sent to prison, which stopped his career. *
    I met Petey at a party in West Englewood. There was a rich kid who had a party at his house when his parents went out of town. He was a popular athlete, so all the popular kids showed up in their letter jackets, with pretty girls and nice cars.
    I walked up with my Outcast friends, and the kid hosting the party came out on the lawn and said, “You’re not welcome.”
    Jack Buccino was always comical. He says to this kid, “How about if you box our friend Petey. If you win, we leave. If Petey beats you, we stay.”
    I’m wondering who Petey is. Then I see the brick with legs waddle out of the darkness. It’s Petey. He was seventeen or eighteen back then, and he did not talk. I later found out he was already a strung-out junkie. He drank fifteen bottles of opiated cough syrup a day. This was his secret weapon. Nobody could hurt him because he was full of painkiller in advance of being hit.
    Petey steps up to the kid hosting the party. The kid shakes Petey’s hand, as if they’re going to fight like gentlemen. They circle around, throw a few punches. But boxing takes a long time. Petey got bored. Out of nowhere, he kicks the kid in the balls, knocks him down, and drags him onto the street. Petey goes nuts. He climbs on top of the kid and starts strangling him. He isn’t fighting no more. He’s just trying to kill him.
    Girls start screaming. Kids pile onto Petey to stop him. But Petey’s like the monster in the Frankenstein movie. Not even a whole crowd with pitchforks can stop him. Finally someone gets in a car and rams into Petey. That’s how they save their friend.
    To me, Petey was