It was dark in the orphanage and Lawrence was only eight years old.
That night he’d been beaten up by three other guys, and although he’d been in worse situations, they’d managed to shove him into a small metal locker.
Once its door had been slammed shut the boys knocked it over onto the floor – BAAAAM!
After a few long moments, Lawrence, somewhat bewildered, watched the locker door open by itself but only just enough to let a storm of punches and kicks in.
The kicks were coming downward from above like they were walking all over him.
“Your mother was a slut Lawrence”
They weren't much older than he was, perhaps three years at most, but at that age you grow fast and they were all bigger in size, but most importantly, greater in number.
Before he could even move his arms up in time to block the blows, they were already kicking him again.
“A slut”
A slut – echoed in his head.
A slut.
Galvanized by the feeling they got from beating Krakauer, the group of boys became even more confident and began kicking him in the face.
His head banged against the metal locker each time they kicked him, and he seemed to hit the metal over and over again.
In almost no time both his lips were cut open, his mouth was full of blood and he could feel a loose tooth giggling near his tongue.
Feeling by that time somewhat exhausted, the group of boys finally stopped to catch their breath.
They walked away from the locker where Lawrence was still closed in. Despite the tiredness, it was obvious that the boys felt more satisfied than ever before.
It was then and there that Krakauer rose up behind them like a shadow, without any of the group even noticing he’d gotten out of the locker.
His face was covered in blood and his clothes were ripped and torn in several places. Neither the pain he felt all over however, nor would his fear be able to stop him at that point, not even for a second.
The shadow at their backs grew taller and taller, and as it silently moved up to them, he had grabbed hold of a chair.
Using every bit of strength he had in him, he brought it smashing down over them.
BAAAM!
“AAAARGH!”
The chair didn’t break the way you usually see them break in western film brawls. On the contrary, it withstood the blow despite how hard it had been and a not even a second later, Lawrence was in position to hit the second one already.
This time however, instead of smashing the chair downwards, he swung it up high from side to side taking aim at their heads.
The second kid had managed to turn around in time but it didn’t do him any good because the chair hit him right in the face causing one of his teeth to go flying through the air.
The third kid somehow blocked the chair so the fourth kid used the advantage to strike back.
He hit Lawrence with a left hook right in the jaw, the kind of hook you would find in a Boxing “How To” manual, such as real boxers do. For a second it was lights out for Lawrence, but only for a second, because that kid who coincidentally would one day be Special Forces, was right back on his feet ready to hit.
He never had the chance though.
The brawl suddenly came to a stop when two caretakers came out of only God knew where, and split them all up by force.
That is the story of how Lawrence Krakauer went straight from an orphanage to a reformatory school therefore, without living life as a free man until he joined the army.