Chapter 4: My Own Personal Zorro

Become a real man. This is the kind of ad that caught my attention as a boy. I didn’t realize that someone could promise something that wasn’t true. I didn’t realize the power of words. Photo sourced from Mascola Group Blog

Every male in America, red-blooded or no, must face down his own personal bully. This is an honorable, All-American, coming-of-age ritual. Far be it from me to complain.

Of course, it’s fine to read about this ritual in books. I’d read plenty and enjoyed them all.  

My problem was, this was a real bully — I’ll call him Otis Amish — and he was all arrogance and rage. By eighth grade, he seemed to me like a mountain, one hundred sixty pounds at least in his steel-toed boots. He was farm-raised and heartless.

Every day, there were new threats, new insinuations, pokes and promises.

“I’m gonna beat the crap out of you. Just wait and see, Stevie.”  

I hated that name.

#

I knew what it was like to lose a fistfight. Beating the crap out of me back then didn’t take much. At the age…