Being the shortest person in my grade always left me open to being bullied by the so called macho, cool people in school. I went to a public school in the Bronx in a very good neighborhood. When I was in third grade I had an encounter with a bully that changed my perception of myself and how to deal with bullies. His name was Marc. He was in my class. We interacted with each other when we had to, but other than that I rarely said anything. I was very intimidated by him. I tried to avoid a confrontation with him whenever possible. That wasn’t a possibility that one day on the playground when I accidentally ran into him on the playground while he was eating a frozen ice and it spilled on his shirt. He didn’t take kindly to that.
No apology was acceptable to him. I would either start paying him for the damage that I had done, or he would physically take it out on me. Being beaten up was not high on my list of things to have happen. The added dilemma was that I had no money to pay him, either that day or in the foreseeable future.
When I got home that day I didn’t tell my parents what had happened. I was warned by Marc what would happen to me if I did. I decided that if I took the money from my parents’ dresser drawer, where I knew they kept loose change, no one would be the wiser. What I didn’t count on was Marc’s persistence that the money I paid him was not enough.
Fortunately for me the next time I tried to steal the money from my parents’ drawer, I was caught by my mom. Teary eyed, I told her the whole story about what had happened. The next thing that I knew I was sitting in the principal’s office with my parents, Marc and his parents. The upshot of the meeting was that Marc got in trouble for using extortion on me, I got in trouble for stealing, and I was rarely bothered by Marc again.
I guess I was lucky in that telling on Marc didn’t exacerbate the bullying situation. I learned that it was a lot easier to inform my parents I was being bullied rather than try to deal with it myself. I felt more confident when confronted by bullies, since I knew that I had support from my parents and the school.
It was almost a case of overconfidence 3 years later when I was in 6th grade and was returning to school from Junior’s Corner (a local candy store near school) and a gang of bullies from another school decided to harass Phillip, a kid I hung around with. They started calling him names and took some soda and poured it on his white shirt. (Phillip was in the color guard at school and had to wear a white shirt that day.) Phillip, who I thought was a rather tough individual, began to cry and was very upset about his shirt. Without thinking I asked Phillip if I could have the soda that he was drinking. He said yes, I took it and ran back to where the gang had departed to. I got close enough and heaved the soda from the can at one of the gang members. I’m not sure if any got on him. I turned around and ran as fast as I could in the other direction. Not quite fast enough though, as one of the gang caught me and punched me in the arm before I finally got away.
Though I wasn’t the one being bullied, my confidence, made me the defender of the victim. It felt good to stand up for the little guy (though Phillip was about 2 inches taller than I was). I’m not sure why I did it, I certainly didn’t get any recognition for my deed from any of the group that I hung around with. They were more interested in Phillip and his shirt. I never was foolhardy enough to do it again. Without any recognition, it wasn’t worth the risk.
I succeeded in avoiding bullying for the rest of my schooling. The one time I almost got bullied again was in high school, my senior year. It was Senior Day and that was a day noted for seniors picking on underclassmen. I was accosted by a very tall youth in the halls of my high school. It took me a while to explain to this senior that I was not the victim he wanted, I was a senior also.
