Bad Boys I Have Known and Loved and Hated, Installment Number 1

I have decided to work on a "series" about various bad boys (and some girls) I have known in my life. This will be a sporadic series, but always exciting, I'm sure! Look for it!

Some of these boys (or girls) really were bad as in horrible, nasty human beings. Others may have been bad in the really delicious sense of the word.

But I will start with one who was really bad as in horrible, even at the tender age of SIX!!!

OK, I was in grade one or two, in Arlington, Texas. I had a crush on a really cute older guy, Jack, who was seven and one grade ahead of me. His brother, Tim, who was in my class, knew I preferred his sibling. But Tim had a crush on ME, and as boys are wont to do, this pissed him the hell off. So Tim was always trying to make me cry. I don't get the logic in that, but I have noticed that even adult bad boys have tended to behave the same way. When somehow I am not doing just what they want, they seem to want to make me cry. What the hell is that all about? Maybe some adult bad boy out there can explain that to me some day.

Anyway, I was a pretty tough-minded little girl. Tim would punch me in the arm. I would just hit him back. He would call me names. I would chant, "Sticks and stones, blah blah" and Tim would turn red with rage. Sometimes he would laugh at me, but I would just laugh harder. As I say, I really did NOT understand WTF was going on with Tim, but I DID understand that he was trying to hurt me. It wasn't until many years later that I realized Tim knew I preferred his older brother, and in his innate boyness, could not find any other way to deal with that reality than to try to hurt me.

So one day, Tim finally realized he was never really going to make me cry. But MAYBE he COULD make my eyes water. When the teacher was writing on the chalkboard, Tim, who sat in the seat just ahead of me, turned and smacked me RIGHT in the eyes. A real sucker-punch. I didn't even see it coming.

Well, hell yes, that worked. My eyes watered--a natural physical reaction. But I wasn't sad, I was now mad as a snake.

Someone recently pointed out to me that I may have been devious, even as a child. I never thought that was true, until I recalled this story with Tim.

When Tim saw my eyes water and tears well up, he shouted with GLEE!!! He had WON! He had made me CRY, even if it wasn't real crying, but my eyes reacting to being hit. He whooped and hollered and jumped up and down. I sat still as a stone, fury flooding every cell in my body. I seethed, I hated Tim, and I plotted.

A few days later I invited Tim over to my house for a visit.

The visit started innocently enough--and I still have a hard time believing I planned what occurred, but you know, maybe I did. I think maybe I just did.

Tim and I played a game of "jacks", rode bikes, drank some cherry Kool-Aid. Then we lazed around on the back porch. Feeling confident and full of himself, Tim casually mentioned his "victory" over me. "Hah hah! I made you cry, didn't I?" He was taunting me. I looked through the window into the kitchen. My mother was busy at the stove. She had the radio tuned to the local station, the volume up high. I looked at Tim's snarling laughing lip, and glanced one more time at my mother. She had her back to us. The coast was clear. I knew just what I had to do.

I jumped up and grabbed the broom I had left leaning against the side of the house just that morning. Tim looked up in shock. I screamed like a wild banshee and started chasing him around the porch. WHACK!!! I hit him once, hard, with the straws of the broom. Tim cried out in pain. He tried to run away from me, but I ran faster. WHACK!!! I hit him again. Now Tim started to shed a few real tears. Finally I was whacking and screaming, right behind him, as Tim stumbled and cried, "Stop, stop!" My mother came out to see what all the ruckus was about.

I got sent to my room and Tim got sent home. Once I calmed down, I was pretty damned pleased with myself.

I STILL find it hard to believe I PLANNED such a sophisticated revenge at the age of SIX, but I always have been pretty much of a genius.

Suffice it to say, Tim changed seats the following Monday in school. He sat right up front near the teacher. And he never bothered me again.

I tell you what. I WISH I had taken this approach with some of the other bad (as in nasty, horrible) boys I have met in my life. Most of them got away with their crap scot-free. What a shame. What a damn shame. I really am good with a broom.