Deathmatch
Competition as killing.
To my ears, at least, “Epic Fury” better describes a warring video game than a real war with human casualties. The words voice a cartoonish level of aggression, a phrase one might yell to another player before snatching the controller and racking up as many “frags” as possible, until the most kills wins. Conversely, “Epic Fury” would be a poor title for ceasefire negotiations.
Our country has staged this war before, over seven decades ago when we removed the democratically elected leader of Iran due to fears the country would nationalize its oil reserves. Regime change begins with two leaders engaged in a showdown, a game of chicken. Violence usually ushers in the power grab. It emblazons the triumph of one man’s will—yes, it’s almost always men—over his counterpart in the targeted country.
Though national interests can provide reasons for and against regime change, I believe we can no longer safely ignore the psychological states of the men involved. In the masculinity of intimidation, men push themselves to one-up each other and escalate risks that grow increasingly perilous. Once they set out on this path, it’s difficult to retreat or turn back. Even when leaders try to save face, lives can be lost.
I believe most men have experienced these kinds of competitive traps. In my younger years, I willingly participated in them, schooled by my father’s repetition of NFL coach Vince Lombardi’s maxim that, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”
My mental health issues at that time, driven by the family trauma of my childhood, felt to me like a more weighted cause for my actions than the destructive version of masculinity I learned from the men in my family. I’m less sure of the usefulness of this distinction today.
On one occasion, at the end of a long road trip when I was 19, I entered a vacant stretch of highway in the New Mexican desert. It was a hot, bright August day. Summitting a hill in my boat-sized Monte Carlo and gazing across the valley, I spotted a twinkling black-and-white dot traveling down the opposite hill on my side of the road. As the sun’s reflection shifted, I could make out a semi-truck. It was in my lane.
Without other vehicles on the two-lane highway, the driver was not attempting to pass anyone. A mile or so still stretched between us, but halfway down our respective hills, the truck remained in my lane.
I drove at all times of the road trip with a one-gallon jug of Ernest and Julio Gallo Pinot Grigio or Chenin Blanc wine between my feet for easy access. Air conditioning deprived me of the baked and charged desert air, so I had rolled down the windows and shed my clothes.
At about two-thirds of a mile or so away, the truck had not vacated my lane. As a test, I steered to the other side of the highway. The 18-wheeler reciprocated, the sun glinting off the trailer’s white siding as it shifted and corrected into line behind the cab. I moved back to my lane and the semi mirrored my shift again. At this point, time seemed to shorten and my desire for risk expanded.
As I got nearer, maybe a quarter mile, I could see the cab illuminated, a baseball cap on the head of the man glaring behind the wheel, and it was clear to me what was happening: We were in a game of chicken. I could either accept the man’s challenge or pull over and cower on the side of the road. “All right,” I thought, “let’s do it.”
I swerved to the other side of the highway, screeched my tires in switching back to my lane, and repeated this again and again, the car pulling my torso side to side. The truck driver drifted to the middle of the road with what appeared to be confusion and second thoughts about returning to his lane.
With about 300 yards left, he drifted slightly into my lane but I continued rapidly covering the highway from side to side, mowing down his options. 150 yards. He pulled his air horn. I could hear the echo fill the valley.
At about 80 yards or so, I saw his arms move wildly in my direction, either flipping me off or signaling me to move to the other side of the highway, his lane. So close to each other now, however, I had no clue what to do, either. The trailer tilted as he careened back to his lane, but I had swerved simultaneously into the same lane with him.
The air horn felt like it rumbled inside my head and at maybe 40 yards I hit my brakes, squealed my tires, and steered back into my lane. For a fraction of a second, the left side of his front bumper and my driver’s side door came a few feet from each other, the pressure of sheared air between us pushing me toward the far shoulder. I over-corrected back into his lane but averted the back end of the trailer.
His trailer ceased wobbling in my rearview mirror but the horn still groaned across the valley. We had narrowly missed each other. I’ll never know what was going through the trucker’s mind, but in those seconds of imminent collision, of death likely for both of us, I had forgotten it was just a game.