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| Two are better than one. |
My junior high school experience was
dominated by sex and violence. Since the
response to my asking someone out for the first time was “no way,” it was hard
to imagine a girl going out with the likes of me. I settled for the next best thing: feeling up
pretty girls in the school’s corridors.
I only struck when I thought the hallway was crowded enough. When it was, I started looking for pretty
girls. Then I'd get behind one and feel
the curvature of her ass with my hand.
One of them jumped so high that she landed on the floor. She was smiling afterward, though.
When her friend helped her up, she
asked, "Who did that: Mike?"
She was referring to a Neanderthal
football player who made my life a living hell: more on him later. That's what I was counting on. The girls wouldn't suspect me because I was
such a nonentity. They would think that
I was incapable of such a ballsy endeavor, even though I was right behind them
whenever it happened; I never ran away.
I also had my favorites that I felt up more than once. Later on, in high school, I realized that I
hadn't gotten away with it entirely. The
first day in science class, in front of everyone, this girl announced that I
have touched the ass of her friend Gail, and the contact had not been
sanctioned by her. I denied it, but I
was guilty. She was one of my favorites,
wearing tight Jordache or Sergio Valente jeans that drove me crazy.
There
was one girl in junior high that titillated my young loins the most. She had a beautiful face and body, but her
most remarkable features were her fully developed and perfect breasts. They were the biggest and the best in the
school. The opportunity that I had been
praying for presented itself when I saw her at the outer edge of a crowd in the
hallway. I was so excited, that I
literally ran over to her and pressed my whole body against the back of hers.
She just looked back at me as if to
say, 'What the f do you think you're doing?' Consequently, I peeled myself
off of her. Regardless, it was a real
thrill to have my penis against her sublime ass, even though it was only there
for a moment or two.
It has been said that karma is a
bitch. Perhaps karma sent bullies to
punish me for sexually assaulting turn-of-the-puberty girls. Maybe that’s why I was bullied frequently in junior
high school. Three friends, at least two
of them were football players, bullied me the worst. Mike was stocky and ugly. Clay was taller and uglier. Jeff was tall, and he had curly blonde hair. They sat behind me in more than one of my
classes. They smacked me really hard on
the back of the head whenever the mood struck them (and the teacher wasn't
looking). They thought that this was
funny and so did my classmates. I was so
pathetic, that I even laughed along with them sometimes. Sometimes they smacked my head repeatedly
with a burst of quick, hard ones. I
never fought back. I was a coward. Considering what I know about the human brain
now, it's clear that I shouldn't have let them batter mine around the inside of
my skull as many times as they did. The
teachers somehow never noticed this bullying, or they just ignored it. All of my classmates knew about it. Those smacks were loud.
School shootings suck, but at least
they have brought attention to the subject of bullying. Perhaps kids aren’t as likely to get away
with physically assaulting other kids as much as they used to. Such beatings were just considered to be part
of growing up. Hopefully, that has
changed some, and kids have the right to not be abused by their peers. If there was a gun in my house, who
knows? I might have used it against my
tormentors.
I was riding my bike near my house
one day, and a bunch of kids starting throwing acorns at me. Apparently, I had reached my bullying limit
just prior to this incident, because I snapped.
I went home, grabbed a baseball bat, and rode back over to those
kids. I threatened to hit anyone who
threw anything at me. I clearly meant
it, so I saw fear in some of their eyes.
Satisfied, I remounted my bike and pedaled homeward. Of course, at least one kid hurled an acorn
at me as I departed, spoiling my victorious freak-out.
That wasn't the only time this
cowardly junior high school student fought back. This kid in my music class, Freddie, didn't
like me. Join the club. Well, I didn't like him either then. We insulted each other regularly. We eventually decided that we would fight it
out. We planned to get to the classroom
early on fight day so we could do it before the teacher arrived. That fateful day came, and we stood in front
of each other and started talking trash.
The fistfight began when I shoved him.
Some girl told me to leave Freddie alone because he was shorter than
me. The rest of the kids wanted blood,
and they got it. Freddie bloodied my
lip, but I didn't even feel it. I got
him in a headlock: bad news for Freddie.
However, as an acquaintance of mine who witnessed the bout noted, I was
only giving him noogies on the top of his head, when I should have been beating
his face in. Finally, a teacher heard
the ruckus and broke it up. Freddie
pointed at my bloody lip and laughed, which was when I became aware of it.
Then he declared, “This is not over,”
which was an obvious threat.
Since Freddie was shorter than me,
and he gave me a bloody lip, the consensus among the kids was that I was the
clear loser of the fight. Now I was the
loser who started a fight with a smaller kid and got my ass kicked. I'm damned if I do and damned if I
don't. We both received detention, where
Neanderthal football player Mike was already serving time (shocker!). Not surprisingly, he berated me for losing to
a smaller opponent. I can still recall
the look of disgust on his face. Freddie
never did finish the job; in fact we became friends after that.
Violence was all around me in junior
high, though. I'll probably never forget
an incident that involved my locker partner, Ryan. Ryan was a tall and moody sort. He and I had been randomly assigned to share
a locker with each other. A girl, who
took art class with Ryan and I, seemed to have a crush on him. She was big boned, but pretty. She decided to tease him by hiding his
pencil: bad idea. Ryan kept asking her
where it was while she giggled like, well, a schoolgirl. He was standing over her and becoming
increasingly frustrated while she continued to giggle in her seat. Then it happened really fast. His arm was a flash as he hit her nose hard
with the palm of his open hand. Large
drops of blood fell from her nose and formed red circles on the table as she
started to cry. Ryan was sent to the
principal's office. Her nose bled quite
a bit. I don't remember, but he might
have broken it. It was a sudden,
reprehensible act of violence.
Scotty and I were best friends, but
he was very competitive. When we played
sports on the same team, everything was fine.
It wasn't always fun to be on the team that opposed his, though. For Scotty, the ends justified the means,
which is why he lied and cheated. I
heard that he's a lawyer now: that figures.
An example of his Machiavellian tactics occurred when we were playing
football. My team kicked off to his, and
the ball hit his hand, then the ground.
That meant that possession of the ball was up for grabs. Someone from our team seized it, and we
celebrated. Scotty claimed that he
didn't touch the ball. We all saw him do
it, so we argued. Scotty stubbornly
continued to deny it though, and he eventually got his way.
He was also very physical. We very rarely played tackle football on a field; it was mostly touch football in the street. That didn't stop Scotty from getting
rough. On a day when he and I were
playing for opposing teams, he kept running into me hard and illegally
interfering with me before I could attempt to catch the ball. I called pass interference on him every time
he did it. The more I did it, the harder
he glared at me. I had seen him
intimidate several kids this way.
Regardless, I continued fearlessly because I thought that our friendship
would allow me to challenge him with impunity.
I was wrong. He treated me
especially roughly on a particular play, then he looked at me fiercely, as
though he was going to hit me. He saw
the fear in my eyes, and it made him smile with delight. I don't think I called any more penalties on
him that day.
This time, we were playing street
hockey, and Scotty and Rob were involved in an intense physical battle for the
puck. Rob was a skinny kid that we
played sports with whenever we could drag him out of his house. Scotty decided that the game was turning from
hockey to boxing. He had lost his
patience and was preparing to hit Rob. I
was mesmerized by this turn of events.
Is Scotty going to beat the crap out of him? Then Rob looked at me with wide-open eyes
that made his fear clear. His very
effective nonverbal communication snapped me out of my reverie, and I got
between them before Scotty could demolish him.
Too bad Rob wasn't around to return the favor when I needed it.
Completely fixated on Star Wars,
I wrapped black tape around one end of a neon-green broomstick to create my
very own lightsaber. As I played with
it, I imagined that I was Luke Skywalker.
Scotty dropped by. I showed him
my new lightsaber. I went a little too
far and ended up behind him, holding my lightsaber tightly against the front of
his body. I don't remember if he warned
me to stop or not, but he managed to turn around and punch me in the eye. I immediately released him, and after a
moment of shock, I lay down on the ground.
It wasn't a knockdown. I hoped
that lying on the ground would prevent him from hitting me again; he
didn't. He apologized, but I wasn't
impressed. I told him to leave. I didn't want to be his friend anymore. I was sick and tired of having a best friend
that was bigger than me. I'd rather have
a friend who had an ass I could kick, if it came to that. Scotty kept trying to apologize to me, but I
wouldn't take his calls. He was very
persistent, though, so I finally agreed to go to his house. The bastard gave me a get-well card. He wasn't sincere about it at all. He was smiling when he gave it to me; he
clearly thought it was funny. Despite
his lack of respect for the major tragedy which had befallen me, I accepted him
as my friend again.
Scotty and I visited our friend
Carmine. Carmine and I began to wrestle:
just for fun. Nobody told his dog that,
though. Without even barking a warning,
Carmine's dog stood up on his hind legs and slashed me with a paw. That was it.
One swipe and he was done. He
never made a sound. I stopped wrestling
with Carmine. I pulled up my shirt and
saw a red line that was about four inches long; that’s where one of his claws
had broken the skin. I had that scar for
several years. I had no choice but to
admire the dog's action. That was the
coolest, most badass thing I've ever seen a dog do.
While I was
enrolled in high school, something happened to me that left a dark cloud over
my head for years. The homely girl on
the block, Rachelle, managed to get herself an ugly, tough-looking
boyfriend. I don't remember his name, so
I'll call him Thug; it suits him. He and
I initially got along well together. He
was on our block to see Rachelle, saw me shooting hoops by myself, and asked me
if I wanted to play a game with him. We
played one-on-one, and I won. I've
played several sports, but I was probably better at basketball than any other sport
I attempted. Even when there was no one
to play with, I could always improve my abilities by practicing. It was the perfect sport for a loner like me.
Another
time, I was playing basketball with my best friend on the block, Todd. Thug, Rachelle, and her little brother, Dean,
walked over to where we were. Thug
played ball with us for a while. Then he
and Rachelle went back to her house.
Dean started asking me all these loaded questions about Thug.
He asked me,
"Do you think that you could beat Thug in a fight?" He also asked, "Are you scared of
Thug?"
I was
somewhat diplomatic when responding to these questions, but I didn't want to
seem like a pussy either. I didn't
realize, at the time, that I was being set up by this instigator. He went back to his house. When he returned, he was accompanied by an
angry-looking Thug. I can still picture
the dramatic sight of him getting closer and closer.
"Watch
out for this guy," Todd warned me.
Thug walked
right up to me and started interrogating me about the things that Dean told him
I had said. I suppose that Dean made it
seem like I had voluntarily said all these things about Thug when he spoke to
him about me: leaving out his involvement.
I tried to explain the situation to him, but Thug was having none of
it. Like a dog, he could sense my
fear. As I kept trying to avoid
conflict, he became more aggressive. He
pushed me. I couldn't believe this was
happening! I hadn’t said or done
anything to deserve this. Then he
punched me hard in the mouth. That was
extremely startling, and it threw me into a panic. I tried to get away from him and go to my
house, but he was in the way. I went
left, and he blocked me. I went right,
and he blocked me again. This is where
my football experience came in handy. I
faked left and went right. I got by him
and ran to my house; he chased me. When
I reached the front door, he gave up the chase and left our yard. I was too scared to venture out and get my
basketball, so I asked Todd to throw it to me while I was standing in the
doorway. He did, but he was clearly
disappointed by my cowardice. As Thug
walked by my house, on his way back to Rachelle's, he predictably called me,
among other things, a pussy.
I went
inside and looked at myself in the mirror.
My upper lip was swollen and bloody.
He had broken the skin just above the lip and left a deep, ugly
cut. I have the scar to this day: a scar
of shame. There was a knock at the
door. I approached it with caution and
saw that it was Dean. I opened the door,
and Dean apologized for what he had done.
I accepted his apology and tried to act as though getting punched in the
mouth and completely humiliating myself didn't really bother me. However, because of that incident, I have
very strong feelings about people who initiate fights between others and then
watch them from the sidelines. Even if a
woman incited a fistfight (for no good reason) between her husband and me, I
would seriously consider slapping her once I was done with her better half. This event crushed me, and I was ashamed of
myself for several years afterward as a result.
However,
when my friend Scotty called me the next day and asked me to play street hockey
near his house, I accepted the invitation.
Now, I don't believe in God, but something strange happened. When I arrived at the location of the hockey
game, the face of the opposing team's goalie caught my eye. It was Thug!
I was very surprised to see him there, because I had only seen him a few
times before that day, and only on my block.
It seemed possible that some mysterious force was giving me another
chance to hit him back. I didn't,
though. At least I didn't turn around
and run like hell. I couldn't hear what
he was saying, but it sure seemed like he was telling his friends the story of
how I got cut and the aftermath. I
suppose that one of his friends questioned the veracity of the tale. He asked me if I had fought Thug. I meekly confirmed it without going into
detail. We played our hockey game. I scored a goal against Thug; that was all
the vengeance I could muster. I hope
that scumbag is rotting in a prison somewhere.
