Chapter 4

I was deciding that things were going just too well to be believed one day when it became clear that I come to that conclusion much too soon. It was the lunch hour at Brooksville High School, and trouble was brewing just a couple of dozen yards from me.

It was during Desert Storm, the 1991 Gulf War, that this happened. One of our students, a slight, shy guy named Hassam, had the bad judgment to be born of Arab background at a time when testosterone-poisoned white teenage boys decided to strike a blow for jingo-ism by roughing him up in the halls.

"Hey, Ass-am," jeered one beefy lineman, grabbing the terrified student and shoving him roughly into the arms of another gridiron genius, "Go screw a camel, why don't ya?"

"Yeah," laughed his partner in human pitch-and-toss, clutching a fistful of the lad's wiry hair, "Isn't that what Mohammer did? Screw with camels?"

I was standing there talking with my friend, a fellow basketball hopeful with the unfortunate name of Ed Normal. He was a light-skinned black who sometimes himself felt the sting of being on a long-end of majority-minority equation in this suburban community.

"Mohammer," I said. "These guys are dumber than a barrel of hair." I looked on in anger for another minute of this corridor cruelty, then put down my books and shrugged off my jacket. "Stand up for the weak" echoed through my brain like a mantra.

"You wanna give me a hand with this?" I asked Ed.

He looked at the odds; seven or eight football players against two skinny freshmen, and shook his head. "Don't think so," he said quietly.

Then we heard one of the footballers giggle as he twisted poor Hassam's ear painfully. "Christ, Assam, your hair's almost as kinky as a nigger's! And you almost smell as bad, too."

Ed put down his books and pushed his sleeves up his wrists. "I just changed my mind," he said.

Now, you might think than this was foolhardy in the extreme. And so would I, had I not received that unconventional training from Uncle Mike.

The summer before, shortly after the incident with the baseball bat, he was watching a boxing match on the TV when I came home from one of my nocturnal ramblings at the basketball courts of a nearby park.

He was hunched in a chair, sipping on a beer and scowling as the pugilists on the screen clutched and held and generally avoided doing much fighting.

"Buncha sissies," he grunted, taking another sip. Then he noticed me. "Ah, Jack, me boy, you're just in time for another tutorial."

I blinked; I wasn't sure what this would mean. "Is it going to hurt?" I asked.

He stood up and stretched, "Oh, well, it's like hearing the truth; it only hurts the first time and then you're a better man for having heard it, aren't you?"

I wasn't sure what that meant, but in the rush of my new-found drive and enthusiasm for life, I was game for any new insight my eccentric Uncle Mike might impart.

In a split-second, he reached out and grabbed me by the hair, spun me around and bent my right arm -- painfully -- high up against my back.

"What -- are -- you -- doing?" I grunted, trying to kept from getting a dislocation and a scalping at the same time. He twisted my hair a little more and put a little more pressure on my aching arm.

"OWWwwwwWWW!" I wailed. "You're fighting dirty!"

He chuckled and whispered into my ear. "Ah, but is it working?" he asked.

"Jeez, yes, -- oww -- yes, you're right, you win!" I yelped.

With that he let me go and stood back, arms crossed across his chest. I patted my poor aching follicles and worked the sparks out of my twisted arm and elbow.

"Now, Jack, me boy, what did you learn from all of that?" he asked, smiling and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"That you fight dirty," I pouted. Then I caught the look in his eye. And the light came on in my own. "And it works!"

He really smiled now. "That's right! Jack, a gentleman never picks a fight, but when one is forced upon him he uses all available resources to prevail. In your case, not being what I'd call a huge physical specimen you might find yourself up against some big bully of a bastard. Fight him fair and he'd wipe up the floor with you. What's fair about that? But fight like you mean to win and now it's a more level playing field."

I frowned. "Yeah, but what if it just makes him madder?"

He waved that away. "Just a myth, Jack. Bullies are cowards. You give them a nice, sharp, memorable bit o' pain, and that's what they'll remember. They mess with you and yours, and they'll be limping for days. Do that, and they'll give you a wide berth, believe me."

I thought about that for a while. "Got any more... boxing... tips?" I asked with a grin.

The chief jerk tormenting poor Hassam was Wally Fuller, or WalMart as he was known because of his size. Six-foot-two, 220 lbs., he was easily the most formidable-looking student at Brooksville High, but fortunately, not the brightest. This day he was in his usual uniform of short, blond hair, blue jeans, Nikes and a red-and-black varsity jacket.

The group of football players were having so much fun they hardly noticed our arrival.

"Say, Fuller," I said, as I stood about five feet away from him. "The way you grab that guy I'm not sure if you want to hurt him or screw him."

That brought a chuckle from the students who had gathered around to watch the fun.

Fuller spat and pushed Hassam aside.

"Why don't you dance with a man for a change?" I said.

"You little faggot!" said Fuller, balling up his fists. "I'll kick your fairy ass."

I looked him right in the eye -- well, I looked right up into his eyes -- and replied.

"You sure have this thing about faggots and asses. Do your buddies know about this? I mean, this latent inversion?"

Wally looked confused. A couple of spectators snickered. His face got redder and redder.

"You... fuckin'... jagoff... asswipe!" he sputtered.

"Again with the ass-thing," I shot back. "So do you like to fuck ass or take it up your ass?"

The laughter that began with snickers grew into a bit of a roar. Wally's face went briht red. And I knew I had him. I remembered what Uncle Mike had said to me.

"When a man's face is white, it means all the blood has rushed to his muscles as his body goes into its fight-or-flight response," he said. "But when it goes red, that means the blood has left returned, and he's no longer a dangerous man, no matter what he says."

Wally was more afraid of being humiliated than he was of physical pain. And I was prepared to give him both.

He moved forward, awkwardly, his fists up, his face still scarlet. He took a wild, awkward swing at me, which I easily deflected. Just as Uncle Mike had taught me, I then stepped inside and stomped on his lead foot. Wally howled in pain, raised his foot and -- thus unbalanced -- he toppled over.

"Let me help you," said Ed said, moving forward and stepped on Wally's hand.

"Dirty nigger!" screeched Wally in a childlike voice.

What could have turned into god-knows-what quickly took a turn for the surreal. The principal, Ellen McCarthy was standing there, hands on her hips, a stern look on her face. "Who said that?" she yelled. "Racial insults will not be tolerated at this school!"

At her side was the burly vice principal. "You guys," he said, pointing at the football players. "My office. Now."

The principal turned to me and Ed. "You two. My office. Now."

Ed and I sat in the outer office of the principal's office for just a few minutes. Miss McCarthy came out and spoke first to Ed. "I was watching the whole thing from my office window, and I believe that the chief instigator of this fracas was Jack, here, so I'm going to let you off with a warning, Ed. You may go to class."

Relieved, he stood up, gave me a wry "Good luck, fella" look and walked out.

"You," she said, in that no-nonsense voice that cowed people much bigger and older. "Time to face the music."

The door closed behind me, and -- to my surprise -- the door was also purposefully locked. The blinds on the high windows in her office with closed tight as well. "Don't sit down," she said.

Ellen McCarthy was what I used to call one of those two-way females, and I don't mean bisexual. I mean that with the right sort of incentive, she looked like she could either be an annoying, controlling bitch or a hot-blooded sexy nymph. Not that those were the only two choices in the world, but being just 14 years old, that was the limit of my imagination. As it turned out, she was much more imaginative than me.

"I saw and heard what you did out there," she said in an even voice. "Officially, I have to chastise you for engaging in fighting in the halls." She looked at me sternly and pointed a finger. "You must never, ever do that again." A tiny smile tugged at the edge of her mouth.