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The Day I Fought BackMar 23 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I’m tossing you a curve ball on this one.
It sucks getting picked on, doesn’t it? There’s nothing more disheartening than walking into the lunch room only to have a gaggle of football players corner you, ridicule you to the brink of tears, then walk away forcing you to weep in isolation in a restroom stall. I used to be the prime victim of my high school’s bullies. I suppose I had it coming, though. You can’t walk into school wearing a pink fanny pack with a fresh edition of Nintendo Power magazine tucked beneath your arm without expecting some harsh social repercussions. To make things worse: I never brushed or trimmed my hair, wore the same clothes for weeks at a time, and had a pair of spectacles so amazingly huge that people often wondered if I could see, in perfect detail, the craters on the far side of the moon. I had no style, no game whatsoever. I was a skinny kid with nary a clue. My favorite article of clothing in my wardrobe was a skintight, olive green Bruce Lee T-shirt. It was skintight because I had owned the shirt since I was a little child. It fit much better then, admittedly. We never had much money growing up, and it reflected in my appearance. To make things worse, our house was infested with fleas. Even when I tried, I could not hide the myriad of fleabites on my arms, neck, and legs. To the kids who have never experienced such disparity, and therefore could not relate to my meager existence, I became a living bull’s eye that invited the slings and arrows of even the most accepting of people. The mockery was easy to tolerate at first; the occasional snicker from the cheerleaders, followed by a laugh that was shared all around. It stung, but only in the psychological sense. The ridicule factor quickly mushroomed as the first months of high school went by. People became more bold… more brazen in their open dislike for me. It wasn’t long before the damage these people were dealing expanded from the painful confines of verbal abuse to the darker realms of actual physical hurt. I got checked into lockers by the jocks when they passed me in the hall. Eventually, even the goth kids, renowned for their acceptance of misfits like myself, would slap me with their chained wallets when they needed a gothic giggle. I quickly descended to the bottom of the high school food chain. And I took their abuse because, quite literally, I had no choice. Maybe I should have fought back. I wish I would have. But fear would tangle my insides, mutilating my ability to remain calm. A fierce sensation of heat would overwhelm me, killing my ability to think and act rationally. In some instances, I would simply run. Most of the time, I would bite back tears as I pretended to act as nothing happened, silently whispering a prayer to God to make it all stop. One of the worse moments I can remember is the shower room incident during gym class. Nobody seemed to have a problem with showering nude except for me. I was far too scared. I was almost certain that the guys would ridicule my penis size, or whip my bare buttocks with their wound up towels. So I would always shower with my briefs on. One day, while hastily showering, a quadrant of high school boys closed in on me and jerked my briefs off, causing me to fall. They all pointed at my crotch and laughed while tossing my briefs around, keeping me from successfully retrieving them. Sadly, those briefs had slight traces of skid marks in them, which they quickly took notice of and before I knew it, the entire school… even some of the teachers… called me “Skid Mark” instead of simply “Mark”. It was then that I accepted my fate as a complete loser, incapable of escaping my fixed-in-stone notoriety. I wept that night. I was wracked with terrible sobs that caused my body to shudder and my soul to mourn my pathetic existence. And I remember as though it were yesterday… that waking up the next morning was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. The bullying culminated in an event that changed me forever. A few months after the “Skid Mark” incident, the ridicule began to dwindle as people seemed to grow tired of making my life a living, breathing, all-encompassing hell. I was able to slip beneath their radar by some terribly appreciated twist of fate. Little did I know that this placid scenario would quickly erupt into a life altering moment of trauma. Despite my acknowledgement of my shortcomings, I still hungered for female acceptance. I still harbored fantasies of being able to make a girl smile, perhaps show her that beneath my repulsive veneer there bred a shining heart; a hopeless romantic that yearned for another soul to confide in. There was a girl I had always been fond of, her name was Jennifer. She was very comely, beautiful and popular. I think that one of the reasons I became fixated with her was because she had never made fun of me, even when I was being mobbed. She would make eye contact with me occasionally, sometimes extended, which my mind mistakenly interpreted as hope. So when she pulled me aside in the hall one day, away from the judgmental eyes of our peers, and invited me to the snow coming football game, I gladly accepted. I experienced then an excitement that dispelled all the sadness, wiping away my self-loathing with a single stroke. The night of the game, I rummaged through my drawers and found the best clothing I could gather… some Spalding tennis shoes; a fresh, unbroken pair of Rustler jeans, and a cheap, unlabeled crimson flannel shirt. I slicked my hair down with ‘LA Looks’ brand hair gel, ensuring that all my stray patches were uniformly controlled while primping myself before the mirror. As my father drove me down to the school, I felt like a million bucks. My father teased me in a loving fashion during the ride, asking why I was all dolled up. I retorted with a smile that it was none of his business. When I got out of the car, he told me to have fun, and that he’d be back in a couple of hours. I slammed the door shut in my excitement and approached the well-lit football field, shaken but not stirred. On the long trek through the darkened parking lot, the anxieties came back in full force. I could hear a chorus of people exclaiming with a laugh, “Holy sh-t, it’s Skid Mark! What the hell’s he doing?”, “He should have stayed home.”, “Hey Skid Mark, come here!”, “I’ll bet his underwear smells like sh-t!”, “Watch me score a touchdown on his face!”. I felt like running, it seemed the natural reaction. But I kept walking with a rapidly dying determination. I saw her, Jennifer, talking with her friends just beyond the concession stand. I fixed my gaze on her, and took carefully measured steps. I struggled to keep my panic from exploding, from escaping my shaking exterior. I forced myself from breathing irregularly, my eyes on the prize. There was no turning back. Without warning, I felt my feet leave the ground as an arm wrapped around my neck from behind, constricting my throat and pulling me away. “Hey, next time I say come here you little b-tch, you’d best listen.” I was pushed away hard, and my back slammed into a car. I tried to scan my surroundings quickly, to find out what was going on. My heart beat like a machine gun as my body doubled over from the sudden pain. I was surrounded by five or so intimidating guys. One of them I recognized through the darkness, it was Scott. He was the one who took the most joy from putting me down. He was the brainchild of the “Skid Mark” moniker. He was the one who always found a way to ruin my day. But never had he been as forceful as he was now. I screamed for help. No one seemed to hear. The guys laughed and pushed me back against the vehicle in each instance I attempted to escape. One after another, the insults and taunts came… each more perverse and terrifying than the last. “C’mon Skid Mark. Let me sniff your briefs, man!” “Yeah, he likes the smell of sh-t. He’s a f-cking pervert, Skid Mark. You better let him smell your sh-t, or he might f-ck you in the butt.” “Hey, that’s not a bad idea! You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Skid Mark? You’d like it if I slammed you in the a-s.” “Look at his face! He’s scared as sh-t!” “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Skid Mark. I’ll be gentle.” “Speak for yourself, dude. I’m gonna f-ck his a-s so hard he’ll be crying.” “Where you going, b-tch? Stop moving. Scott, pull his pants down.” I was overwhelmed with terror. Like a panicking animal, I kept trying to escape through any available avenue I could find. I was pushed back against the vehicle repeatedly, and I could feel that terrible bruises were forming on my hind side. When Scott reached for my pants, something inside me snapped. My hands were tightly wound fists, my palms nearly bleeding from my untrimmed fingernails. I whipped my arm out and struck Scott in the throat. He fell back in complete surprise. For a small instant, the guys stopped their threats and gazed at me with true hatred in their eyes. This day was now marked, for better or worse, as the day I fought back. Scott stood up, massaging his throat as he struggled to speak. “You’re going to die, you little f-ck.” Before I had a chance to react, much less draw in a breath, I felt the full impact of his fist on my face. The collision of his knuckles on my temple made a sick slapping sound and introduced me to a world of pain I had never known possible. I fell to my knees, clutching my bleeding nose as my vision failed, my glasses shattered and discarded. There were more blows, but I can hardly remember them individually. Each of the bullies took their turn, kicking me wherever they deemed fit. I lay there, on the cold parking lot pavement. The pain was so great that I felt no relief as they walked away. I do remember sensing a tinge of concern… one of the guys was freaking out as they left me laying there. Perhaps they felt they had gone too far? It didn’t matter. The deed was done. They broke my spirit, and it felt as though they had broke my bones. The game must have started, for the parking lot was barren shortly thereafter. My vision came back, though without my glasses I could not make out any detail. From my perspective, laying on the concrete with my cheek resting against the ground, I saw the underbody of the nearby vehicle. I twisted to lay on my back, grimacing from the intense pain and I saw the night sky, unfettered by clouds. The stars twinkled in sympathy, yet offered no comfort from their position in the heavens. A whimper escaped me, developing into an extended cry that echoed throughout the stillness, disturbing the evening’s silence. I struggled to breathe through my weeping, but I could not stop the pathetic wails… could not keep myself from taking in the grief of what seemed to be a universe. My body rocked to the wake of an ocean of sadness. I shut my eyes, and then my soul. The day had been marked, for better or worse, as the day I fought back. The ending to this story is neither sad nor happy. It simply is. … Just so you know, this story is completely fictitious. Though, for some, I can imagine that it is their true, inescapable reality. Keep that in mind the next time you feel compelled to ridicule someone for no greater reason than your own entertainment. Your actions, even those of your youth, bring with them unimaginable and undeniable repercussions. The world needs not another Scott. The world needs tolerance, acceptance, and most importantly… compassion. You know what to do.  |
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