This happened at Broadview Junior High School while I was in 7th grade so we must be talking about 1987-1988. As a 13 year old I was at my most awkward. It was before I got contacts so I was still in glasses, but I already had braces on my teeth. My faces was speckled with acne. My hair was still being cut in the not so flattering bowl style. And I was only 150 pounds spread out over a nearly 6 foot body. Throw in some shyness and a fear of girls and I was doing great.
One day after lunch I stood up from my table and was run into by some kid whose name I forget. Its really not important. He was also a ninth grader and he was big. He was running between the tables and I had unluckily timed my standing up to be in his way. The collision made me drop my lunch tray making a small mess.
“Watch where you’re going!” he snapped.
I responded with some unimportant logic. “You ran into me!” but he had already walked away.
Having finished my lunch I went outside to stand in the courtyard and talk to a few of my classmates. We were probably discussing how the Simpsons was actually a pretty good show or something equally important. All of a sudden I realized the big kid was right behind me. He grabbed me and tossed me against the brick wall of the cafeteria.
I recall flying through the air and being so confused. This kid could easily have beaten the hell out of me in a fair fight. He could have walked right up to me and punched me in the face or shoved me down and there would have been nothing my flailing boney arms could have done about it. But he snuck up behind me and had already left the scene of the crime before I even hit the wall.
There’s not much more to this non-fight other then a seventh grader unsuccessfully fighting back tears as he searched for his glasses and clutched his aching head while the very girls he was still afraid of watched on.
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