Then, It Was My Turn

I was not always that tough kid that the other children feared. In first grade, I came across my first bully. His name was Thaddeus Wilder. At the age of only 6 years old, he was the size of an 18-year-old. Maybe that’s a small exaggeration, but needless to say, the boy towered over me. I’m not sure he was a boy. He might have been a gorilla. I don’t know what he was.

Anyway. Mrs. Chambers had bought cupcakes for the class. I happened to take the last blue cupcake. He wanted the blue one. He could have asked for it. But he didn’t. The only other cupcake left was pink. Although they taste the same, back then, boys did not do pink. So, he walked up to me, punched me into the chest, and grabbed my cupcake as I was falling to the ground. Then, he sat on me while he ate my cupcake.

He was nothing compared to Tonya, in 2nd grade. At lease Thaddeus was a boy. I don’t even remember what Tonya’s problem was. All I remember is that I very proudly and loudly stated that ain’t no girl can be me up. Yes, I did use the phrase, “ain’t no”. Mrs. Parkham was not around to correct my English. Whatever the case, Tonya had no problem disproving the stigma that a girl can’t beat up a boy. And she very proudly used me as her punching bag to prove that point. While I was trying to get up off the ground, she grabbed my legs, drugged me around the school, to show everybody what she did. Could anything increase my shame?

I learned later in life that you should never ask a question that you really don’t want to be answered. 3rd grade brought me Brenda and Sue. I thought Sue was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in the entire 8 years of my life. She thought that I was irritating. She would often punch me in the gut to get me away. Brenda, I was scared of, from the beginning. She had transferred from a school in Chicago. She had that tough personality that sent most boys running. But when she threatened to “kick my butt” after school, I couldn’t let anyone know of my fears. So, I accepted the challenge.

The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this. Everybody else just wanted to know if I was going to fight this girl. When the time came, I was sure that I was about to meet my maker. Then it came to me.

“Wait. I can’t fight you. You’re too pretty. I might mess your face up.”

It was an insult. My hope was that this would become a battle of words. What I got was much worse than getting beat up. All she heard was the word pretty. I said that she was pretty. Now, I had a girlfriend that I didn’t want. The only good thing was that it made Sue jealous.

Things turned around in 4th grade. I had learned that all bullies have a weakness. They all need an audience. They all need to feel superior. Thaddeus thought that he could just take my lunch. Bradford and Nelson were with him. They were there to hold me down. They were both just as big as Thaddeus. But I took down Nelson with great ease. His superiority was gone, and his audience was now mine. Bradford was next. He wasn’t going to go down that easily. But with one jab to the throat and he went crashing down. He was rolling on the floor gasping for air. I walked up to Thaddeus. He took off running without a fight.

By the time I was in high school, years of weightlifting and other body building techniques available to children, I was rather buff. Not too many kids were willing to mess with me. The crowd I hung with had punching contests. We would do all type of crazy things to test our pain tolerance. Some people will dip their hands or arms in ice cold water. The first person to pull it out lose. Well, we would dip our heads in ice cold water. We tested who could walk on hot coals or hold them in our hand. We even did high voltage, low amp electric shock. I was once thrown across the room but still got up. Our motto was “Pain is your friend.”

My junior year pushed me to the limits of what I could deal with. It terrified me to the depth of my very soul. I’d rather relive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade all over again than deal with what was happening. I’m sure that my face reviled the mortal fear that I unsuccessfully tried to hide. I was ready to run away. I was willing to deal with Tonya, Sue, and Brenda at the same time. I was just not ready for this.

I begged my parents to keep me out of school during this time. I even pretended to be sick. That may not have been the best decision, but they didn’t buy it anyway. If they did, I may have ended up in the hospital. That would have been just as bad.

The thing is, there was a bad flu bug going around. The school was giving free flu shots. I don’t do needles. I’ve never been good with needles. I hate needles.

The day came for the shots. Bobby Gunn was just 3 people ahead of me. They told him that it would hurt at all. But his face frowned up and he started to tear. That was a true sign of pain. Larry Green was after him. He screamed and kicked the table. Equipment went flying everywhere. Frank let out a stream of profanity that I dare not repeat. All of them got a decorative bandage on their arms and were sent on their way. Then, it was my turn.