Bullying is serious business folks. It fucks with you for the rest of your life. If you don't believe me, read on.
Dear Bullies,
I've come a long way since University, High School, Junior High School, Elementary School. I've had to deal with your pissant pestering presence every single step of the way, and I've not forgotten a single one of you. Not a single one. Your faces are all etched in my memory, and most of your names are too. And for those of you whose names I've forgotten, don't rest easy because it doesn't matter whether I can find you or not, you're fucked anyway. The important thing is that I remember who you are, and what you did.
I'm writing you to tell you that I've made a deal with Satan. Your participation in the deal is non-optional. Karma, you see. And where the forces of God, Heaven, and all things Good and Holy would normally intervene on your behalf, such is not the case just now. Because of the desperate state of the world, where so many souls hunger for even food and shelter (the same way I hungered for basic kindness and civility while I grew up), your lives - your smug, spiteful little existences - are nearly dead last on their list of priorities. The archangels and guardians are all busy now, my unfortunate friends. Busy serving other, more deserving customers.
Where before, when your faces crossed my mind's line of sight, I gritted my teeth, now I grin with both rows. Your lives, short though they may be now, are mine thanks to this deal I've made with the ol' Beez'.
Now, I won't go into what I've traded for this opportunity. It's gonna cost me, but it's win-win... all in all... I think. All I have to do is put in a good word for the big evil fella. Well it's a little more involved than that. And if I don't live up to my end of the bargain, things could get quite ugly for me. But what's important to me right now is that this life-long wish, this blazing inextinguishable thirst, to wreak savage revenge against you all
has been granted.
The deal is simple. I control your destinies with my keyboard. Here's what's going to happen:
Melissa and Lisa, for that spiteful note you wrote to me for God knows what reason, for the look of sadistic joy on your face, Melissa, when you asked me if I "got your note," the note that told me you thought I was, what were the words? "a big ugly lurch,"? (And for what? What did I ever do to you to deserve that note? I was a decent kid, I never slighted either of you once.) And Lisa, for the incessant taunts about my eyebrows, for your constant bitch-nattering and general cruelty, Death's harrow will make its slow, painful swoop upon both of your souls in one of those far away, peaceful places you normally go to seek relaxation and respite from your lives that from here on will become increasingly painful and regretful. Your loved ones will be struck dead, you will starve to the point of exhaustion, you will be left with no way home. You will wander, too bewildered to gather your mind for the task of basic survival and when your strength finally fails you, the scavengers will come. And devour your barely-living flesh.
Stephen, for the bus... a bus. Eye for an eye, bus for a bus, a bus will run over your guts. You'll die during a few eternal last moments, with the taste of entrails in your mouth and the deranging sting of blood that had no place to go except out of your eye sockets. The last thing you'll see is the horrified face of your motherless child.
Drew, for the bedsheets, just for the bedsheets: scoliosis, a crippling chiropractor visit, and a long, decaying old age.
Bradley, I feel bad for you. But you did make walking home a nightmare. You'll get hit by a car.
Brian, when you kicked me in the ass after stealing the soccer ball from you, I nearly caught you, I nearly throttled you within an inch of your life, and I should have finished the job after school, but by then I'd cooled off. I can't believe I let someone as puny as you push me around for as long as you did. That day on the soccer field was not the reckoning it ought to have been, and little fists still ball up in my mind when I think of it. You're damn lucky you made it to the annex in time. Somebody's gonna deck you hard and take your wallet. Nice a guy as you were the last time I talked to you, you still bullied me incessantly before I knew I could stick up for myself, and for that you deserve a red-ass beatdown, my friend, and one's comin'.
P.S. I was happy when Ben P chased you with the hammer. Even though I guess I never really hoped he'd hit you with it (he didn't did he?) But that's the kind of guy I am, and that's why you're a blue-ribbon shit for being the kind of asshole that you were to me.
Derek, I've already seen how miserable your sorry soul is, and you were a pitiful doofus from the get go anyway. I'll leave you alone, and maybe that should make you feel worse about yourself.
Mike, you were rotten to me, and I'll never understand why you seemed to bond with me later in Jr. High. I don't know what to do about you. I'll put you on the back burner. A big back-burner, with a pot big enough to hold a human being, and leave you there a while.
And to that snotty quartet of punk twerps from grade 6, when I was in grade 5: Nathan S., Sean, Mark C., and the one whose name I can't remember, but whose perpetually smirking, bespectacled, thick-eyebrowed face I'll never forget, me and my best buddy from grade 4 are going to deal with you personally, Predator I style. Yes, I've got a whole story planned for you four, and the big man is going to see to it that it gets played out. You know who you are, the punks who had the tourette's-like urge to yell the word "geek" everytime you saw me, the ones who thought it was cool to sit in the hall and impersonate a woman giving birth while the other one impersonated the baby. (You thought it was funny? I guess there's a lot of stupid things that people who are stupid enough find funny.) You're the ones who also called my best friend a "geek" (I guess you weren't creative enough to think of another word, and the delivery room skit was copied from an older sibling wasn't it?), and picked an after-school fight with him only to chicken out (I think that was you, Mark) because you knew he'd thrash you to pieces. For you guys, the ones who really started it all. Like I said, me and my Buddy will see to you personally.
Cory, you were a funny guy. You were also a prick. "Bunjamin bites his bunjie cord?" It's hard for me to believe that you wrote such cool speeches (an earnest, and well-researched commentary on condiments, and a cool presentation on the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang), and could say such stupid things outside of class. You're also the one that taught me how funny it was that the French say "Le But! (le boo)" everytime a goal is scored in a hockey game. I guess I'll leave you alone. You were still a prick.
Finally, on behalf of my buddy Matthew R., whom the whole entire class blamed when the teacher asked who had thrown something in Jason's eye. (Jason had something in his eye, and he had said "someone threw something in my eye," when the teacher asked him what was wrong. It was probably a dust speck, maybe a fleck of dandruff or a tendril of spent pink-eraser, and nobody that I could see had thrown it.) Incredibly, the entire class bellowed in unison, with spite and delight bristling like thorns upon their pre-pubescent voices "Matthew R!" It didn't sound like an accusation, it sounded like a taunt. And the reason that you all bellowed it with that cruel mob-consciousness unison was because Matthew was the scapegoat of the month. That was it.
When I walked out of that music class, Matthew was sitting by the door, crying. He told me "why did they say that? I didn't do anything." The combination of betrayal and bewilderment on his face touched my heart, as it should have touched anyone's heart, not that any of you would have understood, heartless gremlins that you were. I knew what he was feeling, and I told him "I know. I know you didn't do anything, that's just the way they are."
So to you, the class that I graduated from Elementary school with, whatever you might be like now, back then ... first rate fucks, each and every one of you. You made my life hell, you made Matthew's life Hell, and I can't even imagine the psychological trauma you caused that poor music teacher you taunted every time she graced your sorry asses with her presence (By the way, thanks for screwing up my music education, you pricks), the teacher who - the day Matthew R. was unanimously convicted by his class - had no choice but to listen to the unanimity of your voices, in spite of their blatantly malicious overtones, and send the poor bastard into the hallway. So here's a big retroactive "Fuck You," to you all. Oh yeah, and death eagerly awaits you with big nasty pointy teeth like that rabbit from the Monty Python Movie.
Oh oh, and before I forget, to the very first bullies of my life, that little gaggle of girls who crowded around my friend Chris and I when we were catching water striders at the stream and berated us for messing around with it, I know what your real motivations were. You wanted to bully a couple of little boys, and while one of them stood his ground, the other one, me, bawled like a baby and you loved it. A very premature menopause to you all.
Up yours,
Pen
