CRYING WON'T HELP YOU, PRAYING WON'T DO YOU NO GOOD

   Sitting bored in last period geometry class at Stonewall Jackson Middle School, trying to draw all the Zeppelin logos from memory on my solid blue Mead notebook. The teacher was somewhat new because Mrs. Perkins was on sabbatical because a kid had brought a loaded gun to a different class of hers and accidentally discharged it while playing with it in his pocket.  

   So I’m drawing on my notebook before class, and this kid Robbie pulls out a King Size Snickers bar from his backpack, puts it on his desk, and goes to talk to his friend across the room. I didn’t even know this kid, but decided to pull a minor prank by putting the Snickers back into his backpack so he would think he was going crazy. Instead, he turned around to find me unzipping his backpack with Snickers in hand, got pissed and charged back across the room to slap it out of my hand. His general style was like redneck Vanilla Ice, and he said “Don’t be messin with my stuff unless you want to get smacked.” And me, being in a goofball frame of mind, said “Yeah, let’s definitely fight by the bike racks after school because I moved your Snickers.” 

   “You better be ready” he says.

   After class I went and found Travis and said “I don’t know if this guy actually wants to fight me, but let’s get out of here,” which of course made him move slower because he wanted to see it.

    Stupidly, I had to go over to the bike racks anyway to get my damn bike, and he was there waiting. “Oh I didn’t think you’d show” he said, and started taking his shirt off, revealing way too many muscles for a seventh grader. I just stood there grinning because this guy was so stupid to want to fight me for no reason. Well, he stormed over, said “You not ready” and blasted me in the face with both fists in rapid succession, like a boxer. I was stunned, and awkwardly grabbed him and tried to wrestle him to the ground. He was like a steel column and wasn’t going anywhere, so I started pounding my fists on his back. Travis groaned.

   Robbie squared up, gave me a few belts in the gut and one more in the head, laughed and said “You not even trying.”

   He spat on the ground and said a bunch of words at me while my brain rattled around in my skull.

   I absentmindedly went to unlock my bike and towed Travis home on the handlebars in silence. When he hopped off he said “Hitting him in the back like that, that doesn’t do anything. You should have kneed him in the face! You gotta fight to win!” He was disgusted and went inside his house. 

   The next day at school I was a paranoid mess. We went and ate lunch in a different spot so nobody would mess with us, and I was considering skipping last period. Well, Robbie and his inbred hip hop squad sidled up to our secret lunch spot, posturing all tough. 

   “Yesterday was a joke” I said. “I didn’t think you actually wanted to fight for such a stupid reason.”

   “It was joke alright. Tell me another one. Anytime you want more.” He was preening. 

I felt a suicidal need to turn this thing around and said “I’ll fight you again, tomorrow.” Travis’s eyes bugged out.

   “Ha! Why not today?” Robbie asked with a smirk.

   “I have to, I have to help my mom with something” I stammered. I was thinking maybe I could somehow learn to fight in the next thirty hours. 

   “Fine, yeah tomorrow then, but one thing: let’s go way out past the baseball field so no teachers can see us”

   I knew I was fucked.

   The next day, word spread through campus, and by 3:25pm everybody was headed out past the baseball field. Except me. I was having stomach trouble and was in the bathroom. When I came out, Bobby and Travis were there like executioners to escort me to my doom.

   We walked the death march, all the way behind the dugouts off campus. Half the school was there, and they literally parted as we entered the scene, my executioners turning into my towel guys. Suddenly there was no one in front of me but Robbie, posturing and smiling and practically licking his lips about decimating me. He started taking his shirt off again, and the second it got over his eyes I charged and clotheslined him, got him on the ground, sat on his chest, and beat the hell out of him just like in the movie A Christmas Story. A guy in the crowd kicked me in the head, and someone else said “Hey! Stop!” I didn’t even realize what happened until afterwards, I was so focused. He was a gang member and was quoted as saying “I just wanted to fight”. He kicked me in again in the ear, whipping my head sideways and messing up my ear and neck for months. Then, thank god, the crowd parted again as the Principal barnstormed the place and broke it up. While Principal Connors held us both by the back of the necks like misbehaving animals, Andy smacked me as hard as he could in the jaw. He had to get one in. 

   They gave us both in-school suspension for four weeks, which is about how long it took for the cuts to heal, and we silently sat there side by side.