". . . the expectation was that, if you had a fistfight with somebody, you'd become friends afterwards."

When they asked Sugar Ray Robinson what he liked best about boxing, he said, "Getting hit." Speaking of kindred souls!

I did not expect to have my combativeness validated at last night's Opium Magazine Eighth Anniversary event, which I was promised would be full-to-brimming with "fops" and "literary types"—yet, to my surprise, the novelist with the big square head came through. Stephen Elliot, by way of explaining the infamous case of the time he threw a beer in someone's face for saying that he had "no literary merit", said that "back home in Chicago, the expectation was that, if you had a fistfight with someone, you'd become friends afterwards."

Given that this exact sort of male bonding has grown up between the Ordinary Gentlemen and R. S. McCain in the aftermath of their flame war, I thought Elliot's comments were timely. In any event, it explains why a good heart and quick fists (metaphorical or not) make a lovely trio.