When I was in high school, I was as “rough” as I am now, which is to say I’d protest and I was good for a verbal sparring, but I wasn’t a fighter.
When you’re the outcast, and you’re fat, and people are cruel… you can’t really stay not a fighter, though.
This is the story of the day I went all Jeremy (the Pearl Jam song) about things.
I was mocked and insulted almost constantly through junior high and the start of high school. As a freshman, I’d eventually meet a senior who took me under his wing, a guy who was such a badass that no one messed with me anymore. But he’d claim that people stopped messing with me for a different reason entirely.
There were two events in the span of a week that defined the “end” of my time being bullied.
The first was part of the local lore. There’s a place (Ruby Road, if any of you know Centerville) where people challenged other people to fight. The bully who was always riding me one day challenged me to go to Ruby Road after school to fight. Everyone anticipated a slaughter. But you know… I was tired. I’d taken flack from his guy since the sixth grade. So after school, I walked on out to Ruby Road. And I stood. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. He never showed.
The next day, in the cafeteria before classes, I called him out, told him I was there until six and he never showed.
He never bothered me again.
But later that week, one of his friends started taunting me, claiming I lied and hadn’t shown up for the big fight. He went quickly from that to insulting my weight. Then he made the mistake that has defined most of the fights in my life: he insulted my mother. I stopped walking.
I turned, in a cafeteria full of people. I looked him dead in the eye. I was done.
“If you want to hit me just hit me. Otherwise shut the fuck up, you piece of shit.”
I would get detention for the language. As you can see, even then, I liked calling people pieces of shit when they made me mad.
He leaped up at the challenge. And he hit me as hard as he could.
It didn’t knock me down. It hurt. Really bad. But I stood through it, because I knew it was going to matter. I needed to look like I was shrugging it off.
He was going to go for a second swing, but the Principal descended on him like the wrath of an angry God.
We both took the long walk to the Principal’s office, me with a tiny bit of blood dribbling out of the corner of my mouth.
As I said, I got detention for one day for swearing twice. He got suspended.
I’d go on to be insulted for my weight about a thousand more times in my life. But never again in that high school.
The guy who hit me never insulted me or my mother again, though two years later he decided to chase a friend of mine–who was having an asthma attack– around the high school parking lot threatening to beat him senseless. I may or may not have opened my car door as he ran past and hit him so hard it broke his nose. Maybe. I might be making that up, though. Also, I might have stood over him and told him that if he got up I’d finish the job. It’s also possible that when the Principal came and I was standing over this guy with a broken nose and blood all over his face I told everyone I was trying to help him because he apparently tripped and smacked into a parked car. I mean who would believe I used a door as a weapon, that I toppled the biggest bully at our high school? Not Phill. He’s a nerd.
I was so the opposite of a badass. I always have been. I’m more of the light-hearted buddy friend guy. I’m the one who helps people, even if they don’t deserve it.
But in the face of injustice, I do what I have to do. That’s what it means to be a survivor.