BULLIES AND THE REVENGE FANTASY: Part Two

This leads to a fantastic moment, though. My best friend at the time, Richie, his aunt Rosala (old school Sicilian woman) and I were walking to the grocery store to get the ingredients to make Rose's famous 3-inch thick Sicilian pizza. I spied behind us the busrider lunatic and his goons quickly trailing up behind us. I leaned over and told Richie the situation. He quickly turned and said, "Auntie, those guys bothering Rob are following us." Don't laugh at the word Auntie. She like being called that and even demanded I did. Now Rose was very diminutive, jet-black hair always under a bandana and coke-bottle glasses that made her dark brown Italian eyes all the more intimidating.

Auntie Rose whipped around, stood her ground and said, "What do you mooks want, a kick in the head?"
Classic.
Richie and I had a great laugh and we went our way. The busrider hooligan gang theirs. I had a bigger laugh later on that weekend as I visualized tiny Rose throwing spinkicks and hurricanes into the heads of bus-boy and his boys until they ran home screaming like Scut Farcus in "A Christmas Story". It made the rest of the weekend enjoyable. Alas, Monday was fast approaching.

Later, that summer, there was a punk a couple grades ahead of me, who decided it was his turn to give me shit. That he did all school year long. With the changing of the seasons, it was like these assholes passed the Prick Torch to one another. One hot summer afternoon, pre mentioned Richie, his brother and I were playing a 3-way game of catch when this pre-mentioned punk, let's call him Brad and a friend starting in on me before even getting off their bikes. Brad had pretty substantial burn scars on his face that were very prominent. I guess he felt that gave him the right to step on everyone like they were dog shit.

Not to be crass, this is bitterness talking, but just because you look like Quasimodo doesn't give you the right to act like him, even if you are just as intelligent. Brad started in on me, trying to get me to say self-embarassing things, which I refused, then his buddy be brought with him told him to get into the "crane" position. Now the "Crane" position is the incredibly useless martial arts stance taught to Daniel LaRusso by Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid". Once firmly established in this most ancient of stances, he told me in his best Eastwood, to "make a move". Which I didn't. Unless you count picking up my Dudley baseball glove and going home, leaving behind everybody including my friends. I decided to watch a Kung-Fu movie supplanting the faces of the bad guys with Brad's face, that was "making my move" that day.

That was damn embarassing, and right in front of my best friend. Pride cracked stings like a bitch. I needed plenty of Gorilla Glue.

Eventually during the school year, Brad continued the same act until a couple guys in his grade leaned on him to make better size decisions on who you pick on. Volunteering themselves. Sometimes it's good to have friends in slightly higher places. Brad backed off. Slight relief set in. I often still fantasized about a leaping Chuck Norris spin kick to the right side of his face blowing him through the bus window and out into the street. Not necessary, as I had mentioned, he backed off, but therapeutic nonetheless.

(TO BE CONTINUED)