My family moved in the middle of my third grade school year. This made me a new kid in a new school in an established classroom in one of the rougher schools in the city. Not the best situation to put a third grader into. All the clicks had been established, friends were hard to make, and I was pretty much the odd boy out most of the year.
One of the few things I did like upfront about my new school was being able to walk home instead of having to catch a bus. I was within walking distance, and better yet my mom worked at the local hospital that just happened to be in between the school and my house. My daily ritual included stopping by to say hello and asking her for a dime so I could stop by the gift shop and buy some candy before heading home.
On third or fourth day walking home from school, I noticed one of my classmates standing across the street from the Hospital. Not wanting to appear impolite, I altered my routine and stayed on that side of the street to say �hi�. My classmate responded to my �hi� by grabbing the upper portion of my t-shirt and questioning whether or not I had �lipped off� sometime during that particular school day. I assured my classmate that I did no such thing, and that he must misinterpreted something I said. This apparently did not sway this particular boy because he proceeded in tripping me to the ground rather forcefully and causing me to scrap up my elbow and knock my knee on something rather hard. At that point I did the only thing that came to mind, which was to get up and limp across the street to the hospital. My bully classmate, not privy to the fact that my mother worked there, simply assumed that I was going there to seek emergency medical attention. While he seemed interested in inflicting some pain to my body, he seemed rather concerned with the thought that I may have been seriously injured. He followed me most of the way to the building asking me if I was �o.k.� and then fled away when I entered the building. The next day in school, when it became apparent that I did not suffer any serious damage, I was placed on the hit list of the class bully and his gang. I spent the rest of the school year avoiding them, and in some cases running away from this posse. My walking home from school was no longer a fun experience, but rather a struggle to keep from being pummeled by the class thugs.
Fortunately my parent moved again the next summer, and I entered a new school. This school was more like my first school where I got along with most of the people, and the few bullies we had seemed interested in picking on other people. About half way through the school year however, one of the other kids from my class who lived only a couple of blocks from me had a notion of glory. He decided to call me out so to speak, to challenge my boyhood. When I first heard the rumor that this boy, who I considered a friend, was making the usual claims that I had �lipped off� and other bad things that grade school kids do, my heart sank and I felt that familiar pang in my stomach. My first thought was to avoid him and hope that it might pass. But after some soul searching I realized that I did not want to live in fear and shame, especially since I expected to be in this neighborhood for quite some time. It also helped that the kid in question was not exactly Mike Tyson. So I made a decision to walk home from school with my so-called friend to see what would happen. My stomach was churning as we walked among a large group of kids (probably hoping to witness the possible fight) and made casual conversation as if nothing was up. But when we got to the front yard of the big white house where most of the fights took place, he stopped and proceeded with the usual taunts of what I had done to deserve the aggression he was going to inflict on me. Then, without further ado, he hit me in the ear with a classic grade school wild roundhouse punch (it was winter, very cold and the shot on the ear hurt like mad). At that point the usual mayhem occurred. More wild punches thrown by both of us, none of them landing with any force, a lot of stalking and circling, and then eventually the obligatory charge that brought us rolling down to the ground in a fight for the ultimate advantage. Probably more by chance than anything else, I found myself on top of my friend and in the heat of the moment paid him back for the shot on the ear with a clean shot across the side of his face. As luck would have it, almost simultaneous to my wicked shot there was a patrol officer driving by. He slowed to a crawl, put on the flashers and gave us a quick burst of the siren. I immediately jumped up and away from my opponent and he jumped up and moved away as well. He was quickly surrounded by some of his closest friends, but at that moment it appeared that most of the crowd surrounded me. We walked our normal way home across the street from each other, with a few taunts from his friends and my friends� My opponent and I, however, were quiet. I was clearly happy to have gotten out the situation with my pride and body unscathed and felt that I at the very least fought my so-called friend to a draw.
Of course in the world of grade school fights, there is no such thing as a draw. By the next day the story was getting bigger and bigger to the point where it was being reported that I beat up my friend so bad that someone had to call the cops on me to break it up. The fact that my opponent was not in school the next day; added more fuel to the fire that he was home nursing serious injury. Needless to say, I was not picked on during the duration of the school year.
This particular situation taught me a valuable lesson. That lesson is that sometimes, there comes a time where your best option is to fight. I certainly could have avoided the fight. I certainly could have walked away when threatened. I didn�t know for sure what would happen if I stood down, but I had a pretty good idea, and didn�t want any part of it. In fact, I choose to fight rather than deal with what �might� happen if I didn�t. One could actually call my actions �preemptive� to some degree even though I was not the one who was openly making the threat.
While I consider myself to be somewhat of a pacifist regarding fights, and will teach my sons to avoid them as much as reasonably possible. There can be no absolute in regards to it. It�s not a question of life or death; it is not a question of self-defense; rather it must be a question of being the better choice. You need to ask yourself�. �What happens if you choose not to fight?� 99 out of 100 times you are probably better off avoiding the fight. But sometimes the consequence of walking away and doing nothing are worse than the possible consequences of the battle. It is those times where we need to find the courage to stand up and fight. |
