Bully/I remember you

Was recently mocked for being a 36 year-old man that carries the baggage of his 17 year-old self. Probably true.

Heard on the news that the woman that Roman Polanski raped when she was a child forgives him. Wonder what the child version of her would’ve thought.

There’s this line in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that says of kids tormenting other kids, exactly as they themselves were, They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.

To paraphrase my friend Somena, the hard part of life’s knowing much of your past to bring with you into your future. Enough so that you’re better for it, not so much that it hollows you out.

Finally realized why I detest Heartgirl’s creepy friend, Shawn.

Cause he’s a minority and, I suspect, probably a geek as a kid. And we minority geeks are bullied in the most spectacular fashion. Emmy award winning. Yet he’s learned nothing from it.

Never did tell you what happened, did I?

Without her knowing, he picked up HG’s phone and randomly dialed numbers to make them think that HG was calling. And when they’d pick up, he’d essentially just laugh at them for thinking a pretty girl would call them.

Recall saying to him, Not sure y’know who I am.

Guessing he didn’t think I’d end up her boyfriend.

He’s awfully brave for someone on the phone. Told him I hoped that he’d get the opportunity to say to my face what he said on the phone. And of course, he’ll say what they all say, I was drunk, I was kidding, blah-blah-blah.

Funny – been hammered enough times, and yet not once did I turn into a lout.

Still, just to refresh his memory – and cause he just happened to move a block from me – he’s said I’m not a man. And he’d show me what a real man’s like. OK, I’m in.

Cause an old bully’s the worst kind; the kind that’s taken none of his torment with him.

Evidently, the socially correct way to deal with this type of situation is to just let it slide. Not mention it again. As luck would have it, never had many friends growing up so I never learned that.

Look, can’t let it slide. Cause I owe that fat kid y’see up there. Call it stupid or insane, but I owe it to him to remember what it was like to be tormented. I owe it to him to remember him.

So yes, Shawn. Show me what a real man’s like.

Without a hint of sarcasm or irony, I’d like to see that.

Location: a block away
Mood: indignant
Music: Somewhere inside my childhood I missed