Randy
On the school bus, I'd learned to sit near the front. Right behind the driver if possible. Outside, it was different. In the open air, I was a sitting duck. The bus was easy. Sit by the decent kids and close to the driver and the troublemakers had a line they couldn't cross without at least
some
penalties. And after my mom started driving me to school everyday that last half year, the bus was no problem.
It was everything else- lunches, study halls, recesses, gym classes, the few minutes between periods,
and
after-school activities. All worse. The bus was just the appetizer and dessert of shit on the cake of crap I was forced to eat every day. The worst part was that when I hit fourth grade, all the kids who were the biggest offenders of picking on me had gone to middle school, and the relative peace I got for the last two years in elementary gave my family hope they'd forget about me. Those first few years, the bullying wasn't so bad. The older boys laughed at me and called me stupid names because I was so small, but it wasn't straight-up
violent
.
It wasn't until I came home covered in bruises in the first month of sixth grade that my mom really freaked out.
"What the hell is going on at that school?" She started, staring at me with a look of horror. "Why aren't the goddamn teachers doing their jobs?"
If anyone was wondering where I get my habitual swearing from, now you know.
"They do it when there's no teachers around, mom, and then they cover it up." That afternoon I was sporting a busted lip, bruises all over my stomach and chest, mud on my pants, and a ripped backpack. What had started as an altercation over the last brownie at lunch had grown into a full-blown ass-kicking from an aggressive, testosterone-raging 14-year old already standing at five-five and shaving. Me at 11 looked like I was 8. I was the runt of the class and the favorite target from the big guys with something to prove.
I never fucking understood it. How did beating up the scrawniest, shortest kid in sixth grade when you were in eighth make you such a fucking badass, Jimmy? I often wonder what that meathead is up to, now. Last I even heard of him, he was kicked out of high school for having a bag of weed and trying to swallow it in front of a teacher. Served the asshole well. I hope he's a miserable puke.
"Even when I went down to the elementary school, that rodent of a principal didn't seem to give a shit," mum continued. I could tell she was pissed because she was brandishing her lighter like she could easily burn something down. "'It's up to your son to avoid antagonizing the other students'," she mocked my former principal, "'He needs to ignore them until they go away. Boys will be boys, Mrs. Strand.'"
"Ugh, their idea of fixing the problem was to sit us in the same room and make us talk about why we were 'angry' at each other," I groaned. "And the real kicker is that if I ever tried to fight back, they'd give me detention too."
"If this shit doesn't stop, so help me, Randy..." I saw the tears in her eyes as she stepped forward to examine my split lip. I knew she blamed herself. I was a preemie with low birth weight, jaundiced, always falling under the ideal height and weight for my age, and I never developed much muscle tone, all because cigarettes are an absolute bitch to quit and she couldn't totally kick the habit while pregnant with me. My sister was luckier. Mom always hated what she deemed the result of her weakness in that her first-born kid was doomed to be this tiny, weak little slip of a boy, and she'd really forced herself to stop to have my little sis. She succumbed to the cravings again after Sunny was born, but hey, it's a hard habit to kick. Reasons why I'll never touch the cancer sticks, right there.
And I don't blame my mom. She's human, and she's a pretty good mom all told. Neither one of my parents is what you would call large or strong, anyway. We're a petite group of people. I mean, my younger sister is just a little taller and less thin than I am- she's a tiny pixie to almost everybody else. I was probably going to be fairly small no matter what, and it's not like my mom
wanted
to hurt me. She didn't make the other kids pick me as the prime target for the adolescent bullshit, either.
People are just fucking cruel sometimes. I was smart enough then to know I would never want to be 'that guy'. Not that I could really pick on anybody not younger than me by a few years, but I knew I never wanted to inflict pain on anyone else, ever.
That year, sixth grade, would prove to be the worst and best year ever. Worst because I went through so much shit during the first half of the schoolyear, best because of what came next.
We pulled up that day and my mom turned to me in the passenger seat.
"Okay, Randy, just remember: The counselor is going to check up with you after the first week and if things go fine, you can stay after school and do whatever the hell you want. Promise me if anyone starts the same garbage you went through at our shithole, miserable excuse of a school you'll alert your teachers and we'll figure it out." God she was so scared. More scared than I was, really. I'd sort of accepted my fate by then, and I'd also learned a hell of a lot from the final showdown between me and Jimmy.
"I know mom," I answered delicately. "I promise you things are gonna get better here." Travel in packs when able, befriend the other nerds, keep a network of trusted teachers and advisors. She still reached over to ruffle my messy, spiky hair.
"I'm just worried about you, kid," she replied, looking at me hard. I shrugged.
"Why wouldn't you be, after everything I went through? I just gotta make some friends here and I'll get by." She smiled.
"I hope so, kiddo." With a hug, she let me go, pressing my sack lunch into my hand. I opened that door, and unknowingly stepped into my destiny.
***
Mickey
Midway the through the year, rumors started flying about the fact we were getting a transfer student. Everybody said they'd heard their friend at Mapleleaf Junior saw the whole altercation: This like nine-year old boy getting harassed by the entire junior football team after school, and the entire computer science club jumping on the star quarterback in his defense. A massive brawl erupted in the classic style, nerds vs bullies, and in the end the aggressors were overwhelmed and beaten back by thirty-five kids wielding thick-ass computer programming guides and D&D props. It became legend, and the guy who'd started it was, as the schoolyard lore went, given permanent suspension and was barred from playing sports for the rest of the year. The kid he'd picked on, well... he was coming to us.
It was the middle of the year. Over the summer I'd bloomed, my childhood adorability beginning its change to young adult beauty. I didn't know then just how pretty I'd be all grown up, but by the time the transfer arrived, I was already the subject of many,
many
crushes, and I loved the attention. Me and Cal were sitting on the steps, a couple of our classmates in pigtails chatting us up about our extracurriculars when the car pulled up. Nothing would have been remarkable about that normally, but first of all, we all knew every car that pulled up and who was in it, and secondly, all the buses had arrived by then and no one knew who or where the new student was. The car suddenly became the focus of all attention. For a minute, nothing happened. The new kid was still in the car, talking to a woman I had to assume was his mom. Their conversation appeared emotional, and we all waited for the door to crack.
When he finally stepped out I don't think any of us were expecting...
