Some fuckwad punched my little sister in the face.

I was sitting here trying to put this brilliant and disjointed post together when I saw the number jump in my inbox … and as any writer knows, new e-mail is an even better reason not to write than a dirty apartment or disorganized bookshelf.

It was just the photo you see above, sent from my little sister’s Treo.

She was out at the bar with a friend the other night, just waiting on the valet to bring the car around when a couple rowdy drunk guys came up and pulled some serious space invasion, laughing and shoving and stepping on her friends’ toes on an otherwise uncrowded sidewalk.

Her friend asked the guys to move along, and they declined. He asked again, and one of the drunks just started swinging at him. My sister tried to break it up and got cold-cocked right there on the lips and chin, splitting her lip and possibly chipping a tooth.

Takes a bad motherfucker to punch a girl right in the face, doesn’t it?

She dropped to the sidewalk immediately and the guys took off. Once her friend saw the blood pouring from my only, beloved sister’s lips, he caught the puncher and paid him back in spades, right in front of a shocked dinner crowd at a packed restaurant. Bouncers tried to break it up, took one look at my sister’s face and figured it out — they let her friend continue uninterrupted until the cops came.

She is pressing charges.

My sister’s tough. Real tough. She can handle this.

I remember her consoling me through my first teenage breakup, hugging me until the sobs stopped and drying my eyes with a Kleenex. In the quiet that comes after a big cry, she looked me lovingly in the eye and said “Jeffrey, I just want you to know that I always hated that bitch. And if you want, I’ll go around to her place with a dog chain and set shit straight, you just say the word.”

Now she says to me with soft, puffy syllables, “Damn, man. All that shit I pulled in high school, and NOW’s the first time a motherfucker clocks me in the grill.”

Apart from some split lips and a bruised face, she’s fine. The guy’s face looks a LOT worse than hers now, and the law is on it.

But if all this is in motion, why am I not satisfied? Why do I want mob connections and handguns? I want a Louisville Slugger and a stolen car, a length of hemp rope and an open road. I want to drag this guy out of his bed by his hair and make him beg for something I can’t give him.

Instead I’ll go to bed.

We’ll all wake up in the morning, and go to our respective jobs and the wheels of justice will turn or not, and nobody will get hurt any more than they already are and everything’s going to be fine. That’s what I hope, anyway.

I think.