Maybe the principal, a growly old-school bully himself, thought we needed to be toughened up, since he allowed the harassment -- as long as his own authority wasn't challenged.
Willie never seriously hurt me. Once a week or so, there would be a little blood, a few bruises, maybe a pocket torn off my shirt. But the humiliation in front of my classmates especially the girls, proved crushing. I still remember it viscerally.
Of course, I was hardly the only victim in that school, but I seemed to be the only one with a designated bully on a regular schedule. I never complained or reported it because that seemed to me a form of giving in, surrender, letting Willie and the other bullies know that the torment had gotten to me. I always told myself: you can take it.
And then, one day, I couldn't take it anymore. I have no idea why. It seemed like any other bully afternoon outside the school's front doors. At 3 p.m., Willie swaggered up and gave me a preliminary shove. I stood my ground and talked back, trying not to sound whiney. Some of my classmates, relieved they weren't involved, gathered to watch.
The Battle
Willie kicked my bookbag out of my hand. That hurt. He grabbed for my pocket. I tried to push his hand away and then, for the first time, I suddenly launched myself at him, a rotund rocket of repressed rage. We both went down on the gray sidewalk. Incredibly, I was on top.
I began beating his head. Writing this even now, some 75 years later, I smile, sit up, and feel stronger.
I jammed my pudgy knees into his chest until he gasped, grabbed handfuls of his greasy hair, and yanked until he started to scream. I screamed back, "I'm gonna kill you!" Then I began trying to bash his brains out.
My classmates cheered discreetly, the bullies clapped, and my teacher shouted, "Robert! You'll hurt him!" What a thrill that was! It didn't last long. A burly shop teacher peeled me off and laughed as he put a steel-tipped toe in my rear. The principal himself came over to get a better look. I could tell he was trying not to smile.
I didn't become a school hero, the girls didn't flock to me, and the bullies didn't try to recruit me. Still, Willie avoided me after that, and no one ever bullied me again. There were moments in the years to come in school, on the street, even in newsrooms, when I sensed someone was about to symbolically kick me, but I like to think that my response -- even if only a sharp word or my body language -- left that fight in the world of my fantasies. I was always ready for Willie redux and I think it showed.
Another Kind of Bully
So here we are so many years later, surrounded by bullies (think, Elon Musk) so consumed by their psychoses, greed, cowardice, and outright madness for domination that they seem capable of becoming the ultimate bullies and destroying our world. No wonder so many of us feel vulnerable, hopeless, marooned at the butt end of this experiment in what once was but no longer is a liberal democracy.
The tale of Willie and me wasn't simply a metaphor, of course; it was once my reality. Still, I cherish its metaphoric lessons in this moment. They keep me going. After all, the Trump era has felt all too much like a fever dream, a slow-motion train wreck leading us into a future that once seemed inconceivable. But we let it happen, didn't we?
Who could have foreseen the rise of the new oligarchs, including Elon Musk and all those other billionaires? Well, don't you remember the first time around -- the robber barons of the nineteenth century?
The question is: How did everyday Americans become so ready for such a nightmarish change? How could they be seduced by a clown like Trump? Of course, American history offers its warnings. Remember how many were ready to follow Father Coughlin in the 1930s or Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. Still, neither of them ever became president.
Back in Willie's day, the conventional wisdom was that bullies were basically cowards who would back down if you stood up to them. Even then, that wasn't necessarily true, but as an explanation it served a purpose. In standing up to the bully and taking your lumps, you would learn that survival itself was a small victory that could lead to bigger ones. Perhaps even a full-scale victory someday.
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