After School Special

A friend of mine posted a question on Facebook asking if you'd jump in if your friend started a fight and then began losing. It reminded me of a story...

I was about ten years old when my cousin spent the weekend at my house. We went to the playground one day and we were probably there about a half hour before "they" showed up. There was a group of kids in the neighborhood that everyone just assumed would be in jail soon. They used to go around throwing rocks at cars, stealing bikes and kicking down newly planted trees. They were like the anti-planeteers.

I made a living as a kid knowing how to get along with all personality types. I could dumb down for the slow ones and use big words with the sesquipedalians. Most important, however, was knowing how to deal with the future life-in-prison'ers.  My cousin was a suburbanite. He didn't have those skills.

There were six of them. Normally when I was alone and they would show up at the playground I knew not to show fear because they were like dogs. They'd pounce and beat the hell outta you. Instead, I always pretended to be nonchalant. I laughed at their stupid jokes, asked questions as if they were the most interesting people I'd ever met and always kept scanning the environment for something large and hard that I could hit the big one with if it came down to it. Then I'd conveniently say I had to go home after about three or four minutes of pointless banter. That's how you deal with idiots and thuglettes. That skill works to this day.

My cousin didn't get the memo. They showed up and right off the bat he went into "After School Special" mode. Rather than follow my lead, he gets the crazy idea that all he has to do is stand up for himself and the bullies will leave him alone. Survey says.....X (buzzer noise)!

First off, these weren't bullies. Bullies are people who may have some insecurity about themselves so they feign a superiority complex that's easily shattered when confronted by someone with actual confidence. They didn't fit that description. No, these little bastards were crazy. Their parents were on drugs, in and out of jail and hardly ever paid attention to them. They grew up doing whatever they wanted whenever they felt like it. They were the people that Alfred was talking about when he said, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

You don't get in the way of crazy people. You use their insanity to your advantage to make them think you're on their side and then you back away slowly. Over the course of the next five minutes I watched my cousin say such silly things as, "I'll get off the swing when I feel like it." "Unless your mother's name is ___ and she bought you that jacket, I suggest you put it down." "You guys don't scare me."

(Why so serious?)

The kicker for me came when one of them said, "The only reason we aint beat ya ass yet is because you Ordale cousin" to which my cousin said, "I'm not afraid of you, me and Ordale can take all of yall."

(Gooooodnight everybody!)

At that, I picked up my jacket. I put it on, and walked nonchalantly out of the gate and towards my house. I didn't say a word. I looked like one of those people walking out of church early. I rounded the corner and when I was out of sight, I hauled ass full speed to the house. As I was going up the steps I looked back and saw my cousin doing his best Haley's Comet impression...running full speed with a fire trail of kids following him.

Anyone who thinks that two people can fight six deserves to get jumped alone. Fortunately, they just scared him. He got off with the "Cousin of Ordale" discount...but he never went back to the playground.