For months he had been harassing me at every opportunity. “It’s just because he likes you,” I was told by every adult to whom I bewailed my predicament. “Boys at that age are funny that way.”
Well, if that was affection it was a damned strange way of expressing it.
Eventually my limit was reached.
As I stood in the junior high school locker room preparing to head out onto the field for soccer practice, Louise approached me: “Josh is out there waiting for you.” It had been a rough day; everything that could go wrong had and I knew I couldn’t put up with the inane taunts of a mean-spirited boy. With a deep breath I nodded at Louise and she squeezed my arm in silent support before I turned towards the exit and prepared to face what was waiting outside.
I had hardly emerged from the dim fluorescents into the dazzling Miami sun when I heard his recitation of all the earlier jibes about my looks and boyishness. I turned to him and quietly said, “Not today, Josh. Not today.” He barked a cruel laugh at me and turned to his friends mocking my warning. “What’s wrong? Did the girls realize you were in the wrong locker room?”
All the anger and frustration of my day—-no, of my whole week, month, year thus far—-came bursting to the surface and I felt my face flush with heat and rage.
I think I shouted; maybe I screamed; perhaps it was a cry. Whatever the noise, I lunged at him, knocking him to the ground while his friends watched in stunned silence. I only remember hitting him once before someone pulled me off of him but that one hit had hurt my hand and as I stood, I looked at him lying there on the ground curled up, bleeding from his nose and mouth.
I shook head to toe with fear at my own capacity for rage.
hocscripsit 