Vermin, and Other People
The pain was fast – it was always fast, and unseen – and I sprawled on the ground senseless for an instant.
The books that hadn’t cascaded across the tiled school hallway when he punched me left my right hand of their own accord, and I was on my feet in a blur of rage, smear of pale yellow wall swimming behind his head. My left cheek was hot and sore, sensory data that I would decode later.
The villain, Morgan Esser, danced in front of me like a mirage. He was fast, too fast for me, with reflexes he’d picked up in martial arts classes, courtesy of his rich daddy. I was moving towards him fast, reckless, swinging wildly, and missing just as wildly.
I was just barely aware of the crowd that had gathered like they were expecting a fight, and I knew somewhere behind the blind white-hot rage, that they had been. I was the only kid in the Kutztown Area Junior High School that didn’t know I was going to be in a fight that day. Fuckers.
He decided out of apparent boredom to swing at me again. It’s funny, adrenaline. I could actually see the blow coming. Not at all funny, to him at least, was the fact that he missed. He missed me.
I raised my fist again, preparing to swing, and then it came to me. This boy was attacking me, showing his dominance over me with his body, picking off the weak Gazelle on the edge of the pack, yet he couldn’t even begin to touch my mind. I lived in a world he was completely unable to reach, let alone comprehend. My white hot rage was still there, but I realized that I could do something to him he could never control. I realized with crystal clarity that I was the one with the power.
And so I did the one thing they weren’t expecting, had no defense against, the one thing Morgan had never considered. I walked away.
“Pussy!” I heard from behind me. “Come back here and fight, you faggot!” The words rolled off of me. I walked away, and with each step, I took away more of his power, more of their power. They could have grabbed me, sure, but they didn’t. I had beaten them, because they knew I wouldn’t fight back. I would just take it, and then leave. So they let me go.
Morgan never really talked to me again. He also never picked a fight with me again. Other kids still messed with me, knocked my books out of my hands, slammed my locker shut, pushed me down the stairs. They did what they could, but they did it from the shadows. I had beaten them all.
Later in life, I learned about Gandhi, and realized what I had done wasn’t new, but I had figured it out myself. Yay me, I guess.
A few months later, in my early days in the High School, a tenth grader gave me a nickname. Monk, he called me, because I was separate from them all. I was also lonely a lot, but that wasn’t new.
I don’t know where any of them are now, Morgan and the Fuckers. I don’t care. And why should I, except to thank them for helping me to learn? I don’t have to step on the bugs, but knowing I can, and instead I leave them alone, well, that’s made all the difference.
Someone once told me everyone was the same, that we were all equal. They were wrong. Some of us are better. Some of us choose not to be vermin, and some choose not to step on the helpless little bugs.