Bully for you, Chilly for me

Ya wanna know something? Something that might come as a surprise? I wasn't always the six-foot, 210-pound (that's right, I said 210-pound - I'm still carrying some holiday weight) former soldier and current daddy blogger you read here. No, I was once the third smallest freshman in my high school class; the second smallest kid in my grade throughout elementary school and junior high. Do you know what happens to small kids like me growing up? Yes, we get bullied. A lot.

I spent most of elementary school, junior high and part of high school avoiding bullies. For most of my youth it was the same one. He lived a few houses down from us, but I didn't know much about his family life. His father seemed nice enough, but I rarely saw his mother. His brother drove a semi - a Kenwood - that he would park in front of their house when he was in town. My much older self would look at the brother and call him a skinny prick, overcompensating with a big rig and coming off as cartoonish. But the brother, my bully, he didn't seem cartoonish, at least not then. He stood a good 6-7 inches taller than me. Blonde hair, parted on the left and swept across his face and over his right eye. He had freckles and his eyes always appeared to be squinting. He was no fashion plate - this was the 70s and jeans, flannels and boots were de rigueur for suburban white kids. Yes, boots, even in elementary school - clunky motorcycle boots much like his rail-thin brother's.

(sidenote: I'm shaking as I write this. It's been 30+ years and yet I still feel the flush in my face; the anger and the fear causing my heart to beat with more gusto - I hear my pulse in my head. I'm pretty sure the 42-year-old me would jump over the desk in front of me and defend the 8-year-old me if my bully were to walk in the room right now. And I would throttle him. And I don't think I could stop. Or want to.)

For the most part, it was just a matter of being picked on - that's the phrase used most often - picked on. It was flicking my ears, tripping, pushing - what now looks like nothing more than an annoyance. A nuisance. But that nuisance kept me on a heightened state of alert. Always expecting the unexpected as it were. And that was all it was until I snapped just ever so slightly. I turned on him one day on the playground and screamed "Leave me the fuck alone!" I was 10 and I had dropped an "f-bomb." But it didn't change anything. He knew I was small, defenseless. I was the gimpy zebra that had used its last few ounces of adrenaline to make a getaway and had come up short. No matter how many people you surround yourself with (and I surrounded myself with a whole bunch of big people), there's always a time when you're unprotected. And you know it. And so do they.

By the time we reached fifth or sixth grade, his fascination with tormenting me had waned. As junior high approached, I was able to drop down to Defcon More at Ease. However, my height and subsequent development put me in the "wicked late bloomer" category and I was still small and puberty remained some mystical, mythical time. And although I did find myself "picked on" from time to time in junior high, it was infrequent and less malicious - at least compared to the majority of my elementary school years. I attribute this to bigger friends and girls. Trust me, being small and cute does have advantages and will save you. It did me.

In high school, those bits of bullying were even fewer and father between - virtually nonexistent. It was a private school and, for the most part, you didn't know a soul save the few you grew up with or played baseball with in your town. Kids here came from everywhere: South Boston, Dorchester, Quincy, Hingham, Weymouth, Scituate, Marshfield, etc. There were some that tried to be bullies, I stress the word "try," but Jesuits don't have none of that. And they have no problem hitting a bully back. But, again, just to be safe, I made friends with football players and hockey players. Mama didn't raise no fool.

I think I should make something clear here. I wasn't picked on because I was different or strange or weird or an outcast - I wasn't a rebel, Dottie. Or a loner. I wasn't a geek, slut, bud, wasteoid,dweebie or dickhead. I was well-liked - not in a Willy Loman-like way, mind you and not quite Ferris' righteous dude status - but a genuine well-liked. I was just small. An easy target for someone else's inferiority complex.

I'm not sure I have any moral for this story. Should I have expected to be bullied because I was small? No, definitely not. Could I have told someone? Yes, and probably should have. Would that have involved some sort of retribution? Most certainly so. It wasn't like I could always avoid him - he lived in my neighborhood, four houses down.

Still, I wish I had had bigger balls back then and kicked him in his.