You’re No Different Than Anyone Else

I come at Steve Perrin from behind. He can’t see me. I stick my right leg across the front of his shins. I break him with a roundhouse from behind him, the full length of my left forearm crashing into his upper back.

The playground asphalt bakes in the heat. I have scabs on my elbows from this asphalt. Patches on my pants cover the scabs on my knees. The scabs get ripped off often and soften and pus up when I take a bath. Steve stands on the kickball diamond near the garbage dumpsters. Flies congregate around a chunk of a hot dog, a clue that today is Thursday, hot dog day. We have a Catholic parochial schoolboy look. White short sleeve shirts, blue pants, and black Buster Brown shoes. A voice screams at me. Prove yourself. Hurt someone in front of your classmates. They’ll see that I’m not the smallest or the weakest. On the farm, I’m small. I’m weak. I’m strange. It’ll never change. I’ll never be older or stronger than my brothers or sisters. All I can do is to punch down on the calves. Here, I can change that. I’ve outlets. The kids that the school looks upon as weak

I attempted to pick a fight with Mike Stapleberg. He wore cliché black rimmed glasses and had an obsession for Star Trek. Once, In the boy’s bathroom in front of 20 of us, Jody Majernik goaded Mike into a fight. Pushed to the breaking point, Mike attempts to give Jody a Vulcan nerve pinch. You wouldn’t believe the laughter. I’m crushed at the sight of the beaten look on Mike’s face. Life wasn’t going to follow his fantasy.

Later, as we played at recess. I began hitting him as we ran next to each other. “This is stupid,” I think. He doesn’t have any idea what is happening.

The Perrins were different. There were five of them. One boy. Four girls. All bullied, made fun of and talked behind their backs. Their mother was fat. Paige was fat. Melissa was fat and looked as if she was always under attack. Steve was a redhead with a buzzcut, pale white skin and pimply face. It wasn’t strange to see one of them crying. It was strange to see any of them smile

Steve crashes face-first into the hot asphalt. My leg in front of his shin doesn’t allow him any option to break his fall. His binder explodes. The lens of his glasses shatter. A Buster Brown Shoe is pulled off his foot. As he hits, I am filled with a wave of horror and disgust. He turns to look at me. To see who has done this him. Who he will remember treated him this way. His face is covered in dirt and sweat. His eyes are red with tears.

We are the only two kids on the playground. I have proven myself to no one.

The words inside come clearly.

“You are no different than anybody else”

I turn and run through the flies, past the gate and to the public library six blocks up the street, crying all the way.