rlfj: A Fresh Start

I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out my past that I failed to notice when the bus stopped at the next stop. There was the usual fussing as the alpha males got on first. At this stop, simply by happenstance, it was mostly ninth graders and jocks. It was a mouthy crew that got on board.

The first three down the aisle were Jerry Strutter and his twin brother Tim, and their buddy Bob Tewkes, a trio of bullies who liked to boss around the younger kids. I remember how all three got the shit kicked out of them when they graduated to Towson High and got to meet some older kids who were nowhere near as impressed as any of us. Jerry smiled as he saw me and said, "Where's our money?"

What the hell was he talking about? I glanced over at Ray and Betty in confusion, but they just had scared looks on their faces. I turned back in time to hear Jerry laugh. "No money?" The next thing I knew his right fist was rushing at my face.

I jerked my head back, but not in time to completely avoid getting smacked in the face. By the time I shook it off, Jerry had stepped past me, and his brother was moving forward, laughing, and saying, "My turn!"

What the fuck? The hell with this shit! I jumped up from my seat and pushed Tim hard, in the chest, knocking him into Bob, and the pair of them fell backwards, setting off a chain reaction of dominoes. I then turned around, and before Jerry could react, I tackled him from behind. No way was I putting up with this crap again. With him yelling, I rode him down to the floor of the bus.

"GET THE FUCK OFF ME, YOU LITTLE FAGGOT!" Jerry was roaring and cussing up a storm, but he couldn't do much else. He had already started to peel off his jacket and it was now tying him up like a straight jacket. I tried a rabbit punch in the kidneys but he was too padded there and all I got was some more yelling and struggling. I decided I would have better luck smacking his head. I reached up and tried to shove his head at the floor, but the angle was all wrong, and he was struggling to get loose.

Down at my feet, towards the front of the bus, Tim and Bob were getting untangled. Tim started towards me with murder in his eyes, but as soon as he got closer, I lashed out and kicked him in the chest as hard as I could. He and Bob collapsed backwards again, and it was like dominoes all over again. By now the screaming of the little kids and the calls of "Fight! Fight!" were deafening.

Jerry and I had shifted slightly on the grimy floor of the school bus. Now I tried slamming his face forward, and connected with one of the supports for a bus seat. There was a satisfying crunch and Jerry let out a scream of pain, followed by more demands to let him up. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Fuck that shit! I started slamming his face into the support again, and the results were most gratifying. Jerry began screaming more and threatening less, and after three or four more slams, was just crying and bleeding. Suddenly I was grabbed from behind and pulled up and away. The bus driver had finally managed to work his way through the scrum of bodies and grabbed me from behind. My final look at Jerry showed blood and teeth on the floor of the bus, and he was crying.

"Out! Get out!" ordered the driver. Half the bus had already gotten off and were milling around outside the bus, on somebody's lawn, and everybody was staring at me with sick faces. Very few of them had ever seen much violence before. At 67, I had seen my share already, even if I was only 13 now.

It wasn't over yet. Waiting outside were Tim and Bob, working themselves up to avenge Jerry. They waited a minute until I was off, screwing up their courage, I suppose, and then came for me. It was Tim who came in first. "You faggot, I'm going to kill you!" Unfortunately for Tim, he had never learned how to fight, and being big isn't enough. He simply rushed at me and tried to grab me, a loser's game for me if I let him. At the last moment, I sidestepped his rush and then pushed him from behind into the bus. He slammed into the bus and sagged against it.

I had a brief moment, while he was shook up and Bob was startled, to even the odds. Bob had been running up behind Tim, so I stepped closer and slightly sideways. I kicked out as hard as I could at the side of his knees. My timing was off slightly, and I missed the outside of his left knee but kicked him hard on the inside of his right knee. You could hear the cartilage tearing and bone snapping. Three hundred pound professional football players end up retiring from injuries like that, so it was no surprise when Bob collapsed screaming to the ground.

Tim decided on a final try for me, but he was still slow and stupid. After another mad rush towards me, I slammed him into the bus, and then pulled him back and slammed his head into the bus another couple of times. When I pulled him back the last time, his eyes were fluttering and I threw him backwards to fall to the ground.

I was suddenly exhausted, as the adrenaline began flushing out of my system. I sagged back against the bus, breathing heavily. I remembered this day from my first go around. My thirteenth birthday had been the worst day of my life.

You see, the thing to know about me was that I was a little guy, very little, one of the smallest in the school. I was certainly the smallest guy in the eighth grade, and last year, in the seventh grade, was the smallest kid in the entire school, even smaller than all the seventh grade girls. Being small in junior high school simply made you a target. Even after I hit my growth spurt in the ninth grade, I was still beanpole skinny and a target. It wasn't until I got out of high school that I was mentally mature enough that I was no longer a target. So for the rest of my junior and senior high school time, I was a victim, a target, and school was a prison more than anything else for me. I've heard it said that you don't graduate high school, you survive it. Certainly it was that way for me.

The first time around, all three boys had punched my face as they passed me in the bus. I just sat there and took it, and cried. Later, after I got to school, some of the girls on the bus complained to the vice-principal, so I got called down to the office for that. The bus driver reported that he hadn't seen anything happen, so that was the end of that. My parents were notified, and they just gave me a ration of shit about 'standing up for myself' and 'being a man' but of course fighting was not allowed.

I just leaned against the side of the bus, my mind going a million miles an hour in every direction. Tim was sleeping on the ground, Bob was still screaming and clasping his ruined knee, and Jerry was still bleeding on the bus. Then it got even more interesting. A police car showed up followed closely by an ambulance. I remembered that school buses at the time carried some kind of CB radio. The driver must have called it in. Now he came off the bus and pointed the cops to me. I guess he never saw the fight outside the bus, although how he missed hearing me slam Tim's head into the bus was beyond me.

The police came up to me and one of them was already reaching for his handcuffs. I stepped away from the side of the bus and held my hands out to them. I was cuffed in front of my body and loaded into the back of the patrol car. A few minutes later, after calling in another unit and another couple of ambulances, we pulled out. I leaned back against the side of the car to get some rest. This was going to be a very long day.

It was only about a ten minute ride to the police station. Lutherville is on York Road north of the Beltway, Towson is on York Road south of the Beltway, and Towson is the county seat and headquarters of the Baltimore County Police. I was quickly brought inside to a fairly clean central area with a big counter and pushed onto a bench against the wall. I was sitting next to another guy, early twenties, kind of scruffy looking, but hey, we were in a jail, also sitting there with his hands cuffed. I nodded at him but otherwise kept my mouth shut.