The Bully

Most boys have a tale or two

about a bully in their life.

Boys who were not looking

for trouble but discovered

to their dismay that

trouble was looking for them.

Their story was either to

flee or fight. In my case,

I never fled or fought.

My bully didn’t look like a ruffian.

He was well-dressed, clean-cut, and

a nice-looking, civilized young man.

But for some unknown reason,

he didn’t like me.

He taunted, threatened, and

terrorized me for weeks on end

during Physical Education class in High School.

I was always taught that

it took a bigger man to walk away….

I figured I could only turn the cheek

so many times, before he would decide

to make good on his threats.

This taunting never took place

during P.E. class, only afterward.

If I had put two and two together

I would have known he was bluffing

all along.

On one fateful day,

my bully was feeling his oats and

attempted to act more aggressively

toward me.

After weeks of derision,

I reached my limit,

but before I could catch myself,

I agreed to fight him the next day

during P.E.

This pumped adrenaline into his lips,

and he puffed up like a banty rooster.

I chose to ignore his litany of bodily harm

while I finished getting dressed.

As I was walking to my next class,

he followed me down the hallway

with two of his thug-like buddies,

vocally abusing me and

publicizing to all in the hallway

what he was going to do to me tomorrow.

Embarrassed, I just ignored him.

Naturally, this occupied my mind

for the remainder of the day and night.

I never told my parents

what I was going to do;

what I felt like I had to do.

I was in no mood to turn my cheek

any longer.

With a lump in my throat,

I walked into the locker room the next day.

My courage was around my ankles;

but I had every intention of following

through with this distasteful

display of stupidity.

My bully was waiting for me!

When I approached him

I said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Immediately, he informed me that

the guidance counselor

wanted to see us both, asap!

In a strange twist of fate,

we walked together silently

down to the counselor’s office.

When I met one on one with the counselor,

he reminded me that fighting in school

was strictly forbidden,

and if I started a fight

he would suspend me from school.

I protested, “Are you kidding me?  

He has been trying his best

for weeks to get me to fight him!

It wasn’t me doing the threatening!

Maybe you need to talk to him!”

The school counselor didn’t like that last comment;

he turned a deaf ear to my situation!

He warned me again that

he would suspend me if I fought him.

I returned to class perplexed and stupefied.

From that day forward,

that bully never bothered me ever again.

Actually, I was glad it never came to blows,

for I really didn’t dislike the guy

and never understood why he felt     

like he needed to fight me.

For the remaining days of high school,

my former bully and I were neither friends nor foes,

and kept to ourselves even in passing.

There was another altercation that surfaced

the following year with another bully

in a physical education class, where else…?

I decided not to allow this situation

to go on for agonizing weeks like the last one,

but nipped it in the bud

the moment he started his jawing,

suspension or not.

Fortunately for both of us,

he backed down.

Turning the other cheek

is a far nobler thing; I think.

But in my youthful days,

I was finally bent on going physical

by turning the cheek of the bully

rather than mine.