When I was eight years old, I met my brother Marshall for
the first time when he nearly killed my best friend one summer. I was playing
in my backyard with Spot, my pet beagle, when I heard Lamar screaming the way
kids do when they’ve done something worthy of a belt whooping. But that didn’t
make sense because his dad was still at work, and Lamar was screaming in the
middle of the street.
I sprinted to the front, with Spot yapping and snapping at
my heels, thinking I was playing a game. Right in front of our house, Lamar was
lying flat on his back in the middle of the road, and a kid on a ten-speed bike
was standing over him. Even though he was our size in height, he was a bit
chubby with beefy hands, built like a typical bully. I recognized him as the
new kid who had recently moved into the neighborhood a block away.
Some of the teenagers on my block, the ones kids like Lamar
and I looked up to, heard the commotion as well. They started filing out of
houses, which seemed to make the bully nervous because he took off on his bike,
pedaling the way everyone does whenever a mean dog jumps a fence that has a
“Beware of Dog” sign.
I joined the dozen or so teenagers as they huddled around
Lamar.
“Lamar, what happened!” demanded Willie. He was the biggest
male of the teenagers, tall like a basketball player but big like a football
player.
Lamar wouldn’t stop screaming, probably because some of the
girls started cuddling him, so I volunteered what I had seen. “He was hit by
that new boy!” I said, pointing toward the bully’s escape route. “He hit Lamar
with his bike and ran.”
Willie looked in the direction of my outstretched arm.
“Where’s that little punk now?”
“He probably went home,” I offered.
“You know where he lives?”
I nodded, and for the first time in my life, I got the
chance to feel the exhilaration of leading an angry lynch mob to someone’s
doorstep. Willie did the honors of knocking on the door. It took a few minutes
before the bully emerged, and that took some coaxing from his mom, who didn’t
seem too concerned about a bunch of angry children on her front lawn. Of
course, Lamar sobbing in the center of us didn’t help, but I guess a lynch mob
isn’t very menacing without the props of pitchforks and torches.
“We just want you to apologize,” said Willie, which was news
to me, but I didn’t say anything because of the presence of the bully’s mom.
Reluctantly, the bully descended his steps, went over to
Lamar, and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Whatever he said, it satisfied
my lynch mob, so they started heading back toward our block. I followed, a bit
disappointed about the lack of bloodshed.
After we walked a few yards down the street, I glanced back,
and the bully held me with a hard stare. Then he pointed at me and mouthed
something that I couldn’t make out, but I didn’t need to understand his words. His
expression made it obvious that the bloodshed was coming later.
