Your professional schoolyard bully has built in radar which allows him to single out the most likely candidate on the playground to play with, by which I mean beat up. And that would have been me: the trembling target of my tormenter’s terror.
Now, I’m not sure what it was which gave away my unwillingness to brawl with this bully. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that every time he looked at me, I would surgically attach myself to the leg of the closest teacher. This, evidently, set me up as his preferred prospect for permanent punishment, persecution, and pain, that is, whenever he could manage to pry my arms and legs loose from the teacher’s lower limb, sometimes with the help of a crowbar.
Hey, I’ve always been lover not a fighter, which roughly translates into the fact that I don’t handle pain very well. And to this very day, some 35-years later, I’m still highly allergic to pain, and it should not come as any great surprise to you to know that a hangnail has been known to produce enough of a dramatic overreaction from me as to require the local pastor to rush to my side and read me my Last Rights. So you can imagine my paralyzing peril when presented with the possibility of a foot to the face skillfully delivered by some detention-bound delinquent.
However, as aforementioned, I was not a fighter, but when cornered, I defended myself. Okay, yes, I was usually beaten into a bloody unrecognizable pulp. But I went down swinging.
But as sit here typing this column, I realize that one of the major problems associated with fighting centered on my style of fighting versus the bully’s way of fighting. My way of fisticuffing was to ALWAYS use polite Marcus of Queensbury boxing rules of engagement. My brawling bully’s way of fighting was to ALWAYS use slightly more creative means, oftentimes involving their teeth and a hammer.
EXAMPLE OF A TYPICAL BILLY VS THE BULLY BRAWL
Scene: 5th grade art class.
While I was busy intensely concentrating and tracing a pen around my finger and then cutting out my hand-shaped paper turkey masterpiece, my tyrant would sneak up behind me, stick his face right next to my face, call me a “dweeb,” shove me to the ground, followed by a good hardy laugh, and of course, loud uncontrollable snickering from his glue-eating art-class cronies.
I calmly responded by standing up, holding up my index finger in an attempt to convey to him to “hold on a minute,” then I would take off my jacket, roll up my sleeves, construct a regulation-sized boxing ring, step into the ring, and finally putting up my dukes ready to partake in what I thought would be a civilized Marcus of Queensbury quarrel. Unfortunately, somewhere along my “fighting clean process” he firmly hit me in the back with his desk and then he used my neck as his own personal trampoline.
As humiliating as it was to wind up as the primary punching bag for my prepubescent persecutor, it would be paled by comparison to being defended from this boisterous bully by a (gulp) pigtail totting girl. Yes, you read that right; I was protected by a girl. There, I said it. Are you happy now?
Anyway, and I’m not making this up, it was circa 1971, I was 11-years-old at the time. We were in the schoolyard, at recess, and unbeknownst to me, my current girlfriend, who I will only refer to here as “Rhonda,” was sick and tired of one particular bully beating up her boyfriend. So, on this one memorable day, she laid and waited for the bully to attack. And he did by way of shoving me to the ground and then dumping his milk on my head. That’s when Rhonda attacked.
She stepped out from behind the side of the building, stomped over to him, grabbed him by his ear, and kicked him squarely in his shin. He grabbed his leg and began violently hobbling around the schoolyard. But after the pain subsided, what was he going to do? Even a bully knows better than to hit a girl, especially when said girl in question was wearing high-heels and could kick like a mule.
To put it mildly, the whole situation was very uncomfortable for everyone involved. The bully was embarrassed because he was beaten up by a babe. I was embarrassed because a babe had to beat up a bully which I could not beat up. And she was embarrassed because she was a babe who had to beat up a bully who beat up her boyfriend because her boyfriend could not beat up the bully whom she needed to beat up.
Nevertheless, my embarrassment was short-lived, because every time he’d get within a 1,000 yards of me, I’d point at my girlfriend, and smile a confident smile. She’d begin widely kicking at the air, and he’d scurry off into the underbrush. And I don’t know about you, but I will take being publically humiliated over pain any day.
Okay, so remember you middle-school boys out there who are being beaten up by a bully, and you know who you are, go out and get yourself a good sturdy girlfriend who has either been recently drafted by the NFL as a punter, or who bears a striking resemblance to a mule.
