While this is a true story, it’s an account of an event remembered from nearly a half-century ago. I don’t claim to be the ‘hero’ here, in fact, in many ways I’m rather ashamed of my actions. But, well, “it needed to be done.”

This is also my first submission to this site, so please let me know how I’m doing.

“Hey! Faggot!”

Just great, Tony was starting up again, and I’d had way too much of his shit lately. I was seriously sick of it. Four months into the school year, and he hadn’t found something else to attract his unwelcome attention yet. I’d had about all of those attentions I could stand, and I needed to do something about it.

I’d complained to the coaches in our Athletics class, the only class we had in common, and was told to: “Suck it up!” I’d complained to the counselors in Administration, and was asked: “Is it true? Are you a Homosexual? If it’s not true, and you that, what’s the problem? If it is true, then, again, what’s the problem?” This was the early Seventies in an unfashionable part of California, and Bullying laws wouldn’t even be heard of for decades yet. These days, those answers would have resulted in heads rolling in the coaching and counseling staffs, and very probably in the school administration, as well as a lawsuit and hefty fines. Back then it was “just what kids do.”

Add to that a certain ... ambiguity as to my own sexuality, never admitted to ANYONE, of course, and we have a somewhat explosive mix. I didn’t think I was gay, but I wasn’t sure yet, either. Girls were starting to become very attractive. They were growing up, and out, in very interesting ways, and were starting to jiggle in ways that did odd and enjoyable things to my psyche. But I’d never, at that time, touched one “with intent.” I also knew that boys were getting interesting in different ways, and were a whole lot more available. Leave it to say that I hadn’t expressed a preference yet, and I may not have known myself, which side I’d come down on. I found it a cause for some worry and stress.

I was a big and beefy kid. As a high school freshman I was over six feet tall, and about a hundred forty pounds. Tony, my nemesis, was actually a bit bigger, probably six foot one or two, around a hundred sixty pounds. Neither of us were actually huge, but definitely big for our ages.

I had another characteristic that attracted sometimes unwanted attention. I was a ‘smart kid’ with low social skills. I was always at the top of, or significantly beyond my classes academically. I found the standard subjects taught in the schools to be easy to handle and presented at a painfully slow pace. I loved learning new things, but the structure of the school just wasn’t capable of dealing with me and my talents. My homework was always done well ahead, to a standard well above what the teacher had asked, (if you don’t know which book questions the teacher is going to ask for, might as well answer them all.) Whenever the teacher asked me a question in class I always had the right answer, even when I very obviously hadn’t been paying attention. And my answer was right, even if that wasn’t the one in the book. I also always had proof as to why that answer was right. Yes, arrogant, I know, but I was a kid and didn’t know any better. I also wasn’t observant enough to know why the rest of the class usually exhibited hostility.

Some of that hostility broke out into open physical confrontations. After the first couple of times, this became something new and interesting to learn, and again, I began to excel. The confrontations became tedious, though, and I came to the decision that I’d leave athletic competition to those that needed it. After all I had other paths to success available. This turned out to be a (mostly) successful strategy. My reputation became that while I didn’t start any fights, I always ended them. Quickly. “Don’t poke the sleeping bear,” seemed to be the consensus. It was a successful strategy until we moved to a new district just as high school was starting.

At the beginning of the year we met to set classes and schedules. I was looking forward to trigonometry and physics classes. The first desk inside the hall was for the Athletics program, and it was manned by the football coaches. They took one look at my beefy six-foot plus frame and drooled, picturing me prominent on the ‘Front Four’ of a future football squad. That was something I had exactly NO intention of pursuing. I think Heinlein’s quote about “sadistic gorillas in hobnail boots, jumping up and down on my chest” had something to do with that.

“Hey, kid! C’mere!” one called to me. “You wanna play football!” (Note: Not a question.) “You’ll love it!” The coach in question took my currently empty schedule sheet, and signed me up for the Athletics course, the feeder course for the school sports teams, before I could object.

“Well,” I told myself, “it’s a PE credit. I have to take one anyway. I might as well try it out. Maybe I’ll learn something new.”

At the first class meeting I met Tony. We were the two biggest in the class, and both apparently destined for the football team. (I still had no interest, but I couldn’t convince anyone of that.) I don’t know what his thought process was, (if any, ) or who he talked to or what was said, but Tony was apparently of the opinion that he had to severely dominate whoever was second to him in order to secure his social position, and that would make the rest of his life go pretty well. He chose me to be that ‘second in line.’

The abuse began in that moment.

“Hey, faggot!” were the first words I ever heard out of his mouth. I remember that my initial reaction was confusion. Did I know this guy? I didn’t think so. I did as I’d been trained to do and ignored him. That wasn’t the end of it though. Not by a long shot.

Since I’d given up interest in athletic pursuits, I really wasn’t very good at them. That’s polite. The truth is that I really sucked at them. Couldn’t throw, couldn’t catch, and I ran slow. No native skill, no practice to improve, no desire to excel in that field. (It would be a while before I would be able to find the joy in doing something badly just because you wanted to.) Tony vigilantly watched and waited to leap on each of these failings, and loudly proclaimed them to anyone who would listen as further evidence of my ‘faggotry.’ He was really invested in trying to dominate me, and was starting to work his way through my defenses.

On this particular day the coaches had a meeting. I never knew, nor was I interested in learning, what that meeting was about. The important part was that they left us to our own devices in the locker room. So naturally Tony decided to start in on his favorite entertainment. Me.

“Hey! Faggot! Yeah, you know I’m talking to you! Don’t you dare ignore me!” he shouted.

I don’t know what made this time different from literally hundreds of others. Maybe it was the lack of adult supervision, maybe it was the phase of the moon or alien influence. Maybe it was just “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Whatever the reason, I snapped. I’d made my decision. I wasn’t going to take his shit any more. Ever. I’m seriously not proud of what I did next.

“Faggot, huh?” I shot back. “do you even know what that means? I seriously doubt it. You don’t strike me as bright enough to know what you’re talking about, ever. You just repeat animal noises you’ve heard shouted at you!”

“Huh?” he said. This was going seriously off-script for him. When you bullied someone, the victim was supposed to run away, cry, surrender, try to reason with you. Some weak response. Not get up on his hind legs, get into your face and hit you in a surprisingly weak spot. “Ya know. Weak. Slow. Geeky. Faggot!” He thought he was on stronger ground here.

“First, asshole,” I replied hotly, “that’s not what the word means. Particularly not when you use it. Second, If I’m so weak, slow, and faggoty, take your best shot! Prove what a big man you are, try to beat me down!”

“What?” He was seriously in the weeds now. Again, the bullied was supposed to run away or surrender, to acknowledge your superiority. Not demand a beating.

“Go ahead. Take your best shot,” I taunted slowly, as if I was explaining a difficult concept to a child. Probably not far off, really. “Show everybody here who the faggot is.”