Stupid Brave

There were a few guys I knew growing up who were for lack of a better or more inappropriate term bullies. Now, bullies would tend to focus towards me for random reasons. Either because I was small, tiny, or nerdy. Take your pick. They aimed their punk ass sights on me and made their move.

The first one was this guy that lived down the street from my Grandmama. His name was Kerry. He should’ve been mad getting a chick name like that. Whenever we would go past his house he would chase me, my brother, or my cousins or any random kid that walked by. He was one of those kids that were big for his age. Not fat wise, but just tall. One day when we got to school he was just waiting for us. For some reason that day I was in a mood. It could’ve been anything. I could have had wrinkled pants on, the cereal was gone, or I got called a ugly motherfucker one too many times by my mother. Either way, I wasn’t having his shit this day. He started messing with my cousin first and then went to me. He started pushing my shoulder and trash talking until WHAM! I clocked him on the cheek and took off running. Yes, I ran. I wasn’t stupid. Dude would’ve beat my ass if he caught me. I ran to a teacher and turned on the waterworks. Man, I used to be good at forcing myself to cry. He got suspended and never bothered me again.

The next was this boy named Sherman Boyd. I hated this kid. He was this big boned fool that didn’t live in the area like most of us that went to the school. He would pick on me, Damien, and Tony. One day I was tired of him. I loved going to school but I hated dealing with this nonsense every single day. I was never one of those kids that would get older brothers or cousins to go after people for me. I could have though. One day I told Damien to go mess with him and have him chase him around the building. This part of the school was always quiet after the morning when the tiny kids were in class. So Damien’s crazy ass shoved him in the back and as he ran around the corner I shoved Boyd (yes, like a TV bully he went by his last name) and he went flying sideways to the ground. Me and Tony jumped on him and started wailing. He never said anything to us again let alone bugged us.

Bullies are pussies. They either get their asses kicked at home and take it out on you or they are just mean. Yeah, some people are just mean for the sake of it. I never had a tolerance for them and I still don’t. When I see someone pushing someone around all I can think is “Push back!” Sure, you might get your ass kicked but at least you did something about it. You might surprise yourself and beat their ass. It felt good to finally fight back and I always encourage others to do the same. Never let someone push you around just because they are bigger, faster, richer , or better looking. None of that matters. That’s one piece of advice my father gave me (pretty much the only advice).

One day while watching boxing he said that this one dude would lose. I thought he was crazy. This guy was buff as hell and looked like he wasn’t afraid to go back to prison. My father said, “It don’t matter how big somebody is. Anyone can be knocked out. Plus, being that big is gonna make him slow.” Sure enough this dude got knocked out in the 2nd round by a perfect body shot. A body shot to a stomach covered in abs. We are all tougher than we give ourselves credit for and its about time we all realized it.

Rockets.