Mad Max

All you have to do to stop bullies is stand up to them. All bullies are cowards.

How many times have you heard that? Total load of bollocks. The *reason* that some people are bullies is because they like hurting people. They like to inflict pain and they're bloody good at it. A bully is generally stronger, faster and much better fighter than their victims. Standing up to them is just attracts their attention.

Meet Max.

Max was a lad I knew in school and someone who I became friends with after we left school. He was a small lad. Small but stocky. He was Asian/Indonesian in appearance with a strong Geordie accent and a cracking seems of humour. A good lad.

I never did find out what Max did to attract the attention of the school bully but somehow he did and he was called out to fight the bully after school. The bully was a guy called Mather. The only person in my life I've been frightened of.

Meet Mather.

Mather came from a wealthy but incredibly abusive background. I found out, years later, that Mather was regularly beaten to shit by his father and older brothers. He was the second best fighter in the school (the best was a guy who was a freak of nature. He was a boy in a man’s body. He was shaving by the age of 12 and had an impressive hairy chest by the time he was 14.) and was a real bastard. The problem with Mather is that he just didn't know when to stop. Unlike the rest of us, who'd stop fighting when your opponent gave in, Mather just kept on hammering his victim. How he didn't kill someone was a fucking mystery..... And Max had to fight him.

I was there.

The usual big ring formed and Max and Mather met in the middle then Max swung a beautiful punch and caught Mather smack in the face. A real purler of a punch. If conventional wisdom held true then Mather, the bully, should have crumbled. Sadly, reality held true instead and Mather went mental. He beat the living shit out of Max.

As a display of raw courage, I've never seen anything like that fight. Max was a good foot shorter than Mather. Slower, not as strong, but my God he was game. Mather was pounding the shit out of Max's face, his body. He was knocking Max to the ground and kicking him in the face and head but Max always got up and kept on coming. I don’t think he got a single blow in (apart from his first sucker punch) but he kept trying.

Eventually he went down for the last time and Mather kept kicking him for good minute after he lay still. To my eternal shame I did nothing. I knew what happened to people who got between Mather and his prey.

Fight over. Mather triumphant as usual but, strange as it may sound, the real winner was Max. Everyone who saw that fight just couldn't help but admire his sheer guts. He was going into a fight he *knew* he couldn't win but still he went. After that fight everyone kind of looked up to Max - physically I looked down on the short-arse but in my minds-eye I was looking up at him.

So, seeing that I'm having a few glasses of wine....


Cheers Max. Thirty years on and I still remember your courage.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 14 May 2009, 12:42, 1 reply)

Great post once again Legless.
Cheers!
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 14 May 2009, 12:49, closed)