"Give me my hat!" Charlie and Don were tossing my winter cap back and forth like it was a football. I was forced in the middle of this game of keep away, unable to stop it. It was an old trick used for decades by bullies but on that day it was new to me and it was infuriating.
"What are you gonna do Hutch? Fall on the ground and cry about it?" The incident at the high school field with Dale didn't bother me half as much as the lies and gossip that followed. The prevailing story about our fight was that I was a coward who chickened out until three "Friends" tricked me out of my house. They dragged me to the field where Dale beat me into the ground. According to numerous accounts I curled up in a ball and cried like a baby. My side of the story was irrelevant.
"Charlie! You have three seconds!" I stopped playing their game and started walking towards one kid. If he wanted to see tears so badly, perhaps this was the time for redemption. Charlie could see the fire in my eyes. I probably wasn't a threat but I felt like it. I wanted to be fearsome.
"Here, have it." Charlie caught the hat and threw it in a mud puddle then stepped on it as they both ran away. I went to reach for the knit cap but it was drenched and disgusting. It was there I learned that kids are like dogs. They can smell fear. They can sense weakness and they mercilessly exploit it.
Had it just been Charlie and Don, I wouldn't have cared that much but the violence was expanding. It felt like everyone was sniffing for a fight. Another former friend pushed me when we were walking home from school. I pushed him back so he punched me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. In history class the kid who sat behind me kept kicking my seat. I told him to stop. In between classes he held me against the green board and slapped me with an eraser until I was covered with chalk. I couldn't stop either of them. My mind imagined winning fights but in real life my body was awkwardly thin and weak even for someone my age.
The final blow came when a girl named Lisa, who had physically matured early, decided that she too was stronger than I. She manhandled me in an effort to prove it. I was more confused than hurt. I was told never to hit a girl so even though she was larger and stronger I didn't fight back. She slammed me repeatedly into the air conditioners below the school windows as other students cheered her on. It was then that the teacher returned.
"Mr. Hutchinson, what are you doing?"
"Um, I don't...she..."
"Lisa, was he bothering you?"
"Yes Mrs. Steed." She replied respectfully, "Alex thought he was better than me."
"So you felt the need to prove him wrong." There was snicker from the class. "Get in your seat."
I was returning to my desk, overwhelmed by a sense of humiliation but I was also feeling something else. Something new was growing inside me, a primal resolve, a twisted sickness born of injustice.
"Mr. Hutchinson, come to the front of the class." Why! Why me? Never before in my short life had I felt this way. It was like a clawed hand was squeezing my heart making me want to scream. To roar at anyone, everyone, for anything! I needed to rip away the veil of shyness and perception of weakness that made me a target for their cruelties. I was feeling rage and the more desperate I became, the stronger it grew.
I stood before her desk with the sound of blood pumping in my ears. Mrs. Steed spoke with dull authority, a warning perhaps, I'm not sure. My eyes had locked on an item of greater importance. In the open top drawer of her desk, next to the poetry book that started all of this trouble, there lay an item I had spied once before. Back then I wasn't sure if it was real but now, in clear sight I could see the handgun. I didn't know teachers could keep handguns in their desks. I wasn't sure why she had it but I knew that I needed it. I was absolutely certain that a gun would solve all of my problems. Now I just had to find a way to steal it.
