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qxe:

Grew up in West Virginia with no father in the 70′s, no instruction how to fight. I liked to read and draw. Grade school was OK, but Junior High was murder. Started becoming a punching bag for a few bullies for a year and a half. It was brutal. They kicked me down the brownstone steps of Charleston Junior High, took turns terrorizing me and then making good on their threats. Their favorite pastime was punching me in the stomach as they strolled past me in the lunch line. I tried to fight back but it was useless. I was weak and didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Mostly I was paralyzed with fear. Started doing secret push ups after the first 3 months of abuse. Got up to two hundred pushups in one session, then one day, the main asshole, a year and half older than me, ten inches taller and outweighing me by 50 lbs, started manhandling the girl I worshipped from afar during co-ed gym class (held in the combo gym/cafeteria/assembly hall). He was laughing at me as he held her arm; she tried to pull away but he was too strong. The kids around me started asking me if I was “gonna do anything about it” and I found myself getting off the bleachers and walking over to them. I had no idea what I was about to do, it was like I had tunnel vision. I watched from the inside as every bit of rage in me welled up and I poured it all out in a single punch to his nose, the only thing in the center of my tunnel. His nose exploded like an egg and while he clutched his blood-gushing face, he tripped over his own feet backing away. I jumped on top of him and flailing wildly. I beat the holy fuck out him, crying in pent up anger while everyone in the gym watched with their mouths agape. The coach pulled me off him, and he rolled away from me crying. I kicked him in the back as I was hauled up and taken to the principal. The principal took down the “board of education” with holes drilled in it (for the whistling sound, I suppose, as it came streaking toward your ass when you got caught fighting), sat on the edge of his desk and held it across his knee. He knew the hell I’d been through, but I was sure it was going to be an even more severe beating than I’d taken before for fighting. He also knew everyone was listening at the door, so he whispered, “when I hit, you better yell.”, then turned around and smacked his naugahyde couch as hard as he could with that paddle, and then pointed at me with it. I yelled. After the requisite three swats, he said loudly, “You’re done, son. Have you learned your lesson?” I said “Yes, sir”, and smiled a grim smile of thanks. There were a few fights after that just to test the waters. Can’t let a little skinny artist bookworm get a leg up or the whole fucking social order will collapse as sure as rain. I won a few, barely. Lost most because I was trying to fight like I’d seen in the movies: Get your stance, punch a couple of times, then wait politely while they shook it off and got back in the proverbial ring. I was tested two months later by the bully, only he couldn’t risk open retaliation, so he hired a kid named Danny Brice to start a fight with me. Paid him $5.00 I heard later. Danny pushed me in the hall between periods and asked me what I said about his mother. Reasoning with him was no use. He had to earn that five bucks. I was seeing red again because I hadn’t said a word about his mother. I hate lying, weaselly assholes. I guess that’s why I hate Republicans today. He pushed. I pushed. He struck. I got him in a headlock and rammed his head into the fire extinguisher on the brick hallway wall. He staggered, looked confused, then idiotically tried to head-butt me. I collared him again and drag-walked him through the hall, using his head to open the push bars of the double doors that led to the street. I banged his head into a car window twice, then let him go and he fell to the sidewalk. I kicked him hard, yelling at him that he was fucking stupid. I didn’t cry this time. They pulled me away, and his mother pulled him out of school. I was suspended for a week. No one ever bullied me again at that school, and when I left the state and started up in a new high school, there was only one time a kid tried to pick a fight with me. I was suspended for two weeks, and I never had to fight again.