Gentle Giant
Now, I'm quite a big bloke. Always have, always will be. And as such, I tend to attract attention from little angry men with serious masculinity issues. Especially at school. Being not only tall, but quite a little boffin and not fitting in at all. Naturally I was an ideal target for bullies, who made my school life hell, constantly starting fights with me, burning me with cigarettes, etc. You get the idea.

Sufficed to say, I would always defend myself, but I wasn't particularly interested in fighting. In fact, I hated it, it scared the shit out of me. To say I was meek and shy with an intense desire to blend into the background was a severe understatement. Well, until one day, anyway, when it all changed.

Now, the biggest bully of my younger teen years was Damien Harris. Pretty bullet, one of the hardest kids at our school. We used to be great mates, spending loads of time together and hanging out at his enormous house. But like so many young friendships, it went very sour very quickly and he and a group of his mates took a real dislike to me. No doubt because I was different and they had normality anxiety. Anyway, he became the biggest tormentor of my school days, beating me up at school, constantly flobbing huge greenies at me and covering me in flour and eggs. I wasn't the only one he gave grief to, but that didn't make the torment any easier to deal with. Basically most of my so-called mates were shit-scared of him, so sided with him to save their own skin. Tossers. So I was getting bullied and I was more or less friendless. Brilliant. Best days of my life, my fucking bellend.

Thankfully, it all turned in my favour one fateful Friday. I was walking home from school through the town centre. Two of my more reliable mates were with me, and we were just chatting and chilling. As we walk past HMV, who should appear but Damien and his posse of wankers. They clock us and Damien goes through the motions of abuse and outright begging me for a fight. Of course, my two mates make themselves scarse after a feeble attempt at diffusing the situation. I don't really blame them, I was bricking myself as well.

So there we are, walking through a packed town. Damien is still thumping and punching me, still gagging for a proper fight. His mates are laughing themselves stupid, and my mates have all but disappeared from view. We are outside Army & Navy, and all this abuse just gets too much. He asks me one last time for a fight. I ignore him and push him off me. So he grabs my jumper and makes me face him.

You want a fight mate? I'll give you a fucking fight.

I drop my bag at my feet, and I headbutt the bastard square on the bridge of his nose. His nose explodes, blood goes spurting everywhere, and I lay into him good and proper. Just a flurry of punches, kicks and yes, I send him flying to the ground with a tremendous roundhouse kick to the side of the head. Fuck knows where it all came from, probably too much Mortal Kombat-playing. Anyway, once he's grounded, I grab my bag and peg it. I was totally shit scared, I ran all the way home. My mum comments on the vast spatters of blood on my face and clothes. I tell her and my old man what's happened, and was still freaking out in fear of a reprisal. His family were a little bit on the rough and ready side, and his reputation of being bullet was known throughout the town. But my dad, still in the Forces at this point, assures me that I'll be fine. He was a big, double-hard bastard too. When he says you'll be fine, you know he means business.

Following an uneventful weekend, I return to school, and get summarily pulled up before the Head. Again, another pretty bullet ex-Forces chap I was pretty scared of. He gives me the lowdown of what I've done for the school reputation, fighting in the middle of town like that, parents outraged, detention, blah blah. The usual Headmaster dressing down speech, turn the other cheek, and so on. After I've been dismissed, he stops me at the door. What he said was something I'll never forget.

"Good job, son. It's about time you stood up for yourself, and showed that little cunt what for in the process. Well done."

Coming from him, it was a real confidence booster. Especially because he used the word "cunt".

When I caught up with the two mates who'd been with me that day, they were absolutely starstruck. They'd hung around with Damien after I'd done a runner, and told me everything that had followed. Apparently, the fuzz and paramedics had turned up, and Damien had been carted off to hospital for stitches. When he eventually came back to school later that week, he was a right mess. Not only had I broken his nose, I'd also broken six of his teeth after putting them through his top and bottom lips, broken one of his ribs, fractured his right arm, given him a concussion and ruptured one of his testicles which he'd had to have removed. Not sure how I managed that, I don't remember kicking him in the bollocks. Twenty two stitches and minor surgery. Pretty good result overall.

He never bothered me again after that, and neither did anyone else in town or at school for that matter. I had the quiet life I'd wanted and was left alone. And got a reputation for being pretty bullet myself despite never getting into another fight since that day. Bargain!
(TheInfamousMrD, Sun 12 Mar 2006, 19:05, Reply)