MERIT BADGE: PUBLIC HUMILIATION
“Hey, faggot!”
I fumble with my backpack, my desperate desire to zip it closed making it take twice as long. All around me kids are streaming out of the school, heading home for the day.
“Hey, faggot!”
It’s all of them, the whole group, the Assholes and their Associate Assholes: Bill and Jason and Kurt and Guy and Tim and Kevin.
“What’s up, faggot?”
Nice clothes, nice hair, what a faggot, what a faggot, Jewboy, faggot faggot faggot.
The zipper is jammed and there’re too many books in there, but I throw it over my shoulder anyway and start walking. So it bursts open, and two-inch-thick textbooks spew forth and thump thud thump onto the pavement, slipping from my hands when I try to gather them up, my haste again undoing my efforts. I’ll have to drop my books and bag and make a run for it, but while I’m trying to decide what to do they’ve already surrounded me, grabbing at my backpack and jerking me to a halt.
“Leave me alone!” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t.
“Oh, leave me alone!”
“What a faggot!”
“Leave me alone!” they all mimic, a chorus of them mocking me, whapping me on the top of the head with open hands.
“Nice bag, dumbass,” says Tim, and yanks it out of my hands.
“Give it back!”
Why say that?
“You want to make me?” he says, the others jeering and laughing. “Come on, come and take it.”
How is it a circle of kids can form so quickly? There’s suddenly a dense wall around us, layers thick, everyone crowding in, people shouting, “Fight! Fight!”
Tim pushes me, saying things, pushing me more. He’s got me by the shirt, Lesley’s shirt, and it’s starting to rip.
“Don’t wreck my shirt!” I say, and again it’s the stupidest thing I could possibly say at the moment. He spins in a circle, pulling me to stumble along, the shirt tearing further. He hurls me to the ground, and I get up again and he pushes me. I want to punch him, to tackle him, but I’m powerless. The tears are coming, and I don’t want them. The crowd around us feels thousands deep, every single student there, faces fascinated or eager or pitying or hungry, and then I see them: Steve and Paul and Danny, just watching, not doing anything to help. My peeps.
And then I see her: Patricia Morrison, staring at me with the same excited curiosity as the rest. The first time I’ve ever registered in her consciousness, imprinted in her brain as a victim who deserves what he gets because he’s too weak.
And then I see him: Josh.
I think for a second that I’ve imagined it, but no, he’s standing in the back of the circle, towering over everyone, his arms crossed, his expression completely dispassionate.
“Help—” I breathe before Tim tackles me to the ground and scrambles on top, sitting on my chest. He’s saying stuff to me, horrible things, but I can barely hear him, and he’s slapping my face. He’s spitting on my face now. I know Josh taught me how to get out from this, but I’m paralyzed, pathetic. Tim spits in my face some more and slaps me, and again, and I don’t do anything. I know that Josh is just watching and judging me.
Then Tim stands up, bored with me, fresh out of ways to humiliate me. More taunts delivered from an upright position, gleeful cackling from his cronies, other kids saying things. My life is over. Even Eric Weinberg wouldn’t talk to me now.
“Get up.”
Josh stands over me.
“Get UP!”
His huge hand gathers up a fistful of my already-ruined shirt and lifts me roughly to my feet. The seams making tearing noises.
“Get your books.”
I go to retrieve my books, head down. Kids are dispersing or lingering, not sure what the arrival of the golem means. Danny and Steve and Paul are gone. Patricia is gone. Tim and the Assholes seem to sense that Josh isn’t a threat to them, and they’re still nearby, darting close to talk smack to me and then retreating, and then repeating it again. Josh doesn’t pay them any mind, because he agrees with them, and it makes them bolder, showing off in front of him, still calling me a faggot, an asshole, a pussy. And then Tim says, very clearly, “Stupid Jew.”
What it is, I realize, is that he somehow doesn’t get that Josh is my brother.
Josh absently reaches out and grabs Tim by the upper arm and spins him around to face him. There is a long two seconds where Tim and Josh are looking at each other, Tim with a face caught in the transition between scornful snarl and surprise—how dare this guy grab me!—Josh with a calm expression that says, Look at me. Look at me, because I want you to understand that what’s about to happen is very intentional. Then he slaps Tim across the face.
Not a slap, an open-hand blow to the side of the head, Josh’s palm nearly the size of Tim’s skull. The impact is so loud that I make a coughing, gaspy sound. It’s a lazy, relaxed swing for Josh, but it literally knocks Tim to the ground. His eyes glaze for a moment. He’s propped up unevenly on one hand and one elbow, looking at Josh, stunned.
Everyone is frozen. Me. The Assholes. Any kids left in the immediate area. We’re all rigid and wide-eyed and terrified, me maybe more than anyone, because I know Josh, know what he’s like when the rage shuts off his brain.
Tim starts to cry.
I don’t feel any satisfaction or triumph, no sense of revenge. I just feel more frightened and want it to stop.
“All right,” says Josh, “let’s go.”
He grabs me, no more gently than he treated Tim, and starts marching me away.
Behind us, Tim blubbers the inevitable cry of the helpless victim, the very cliché I probably would have blurted if I’d been able to speak: “I’m going to sue you! I’m going to tell my dad!”
Josh stops.
“Wait here,” he says, turns, strides purposefully toward Tim, accelerating as he goes: step step stepSTEPSTEP. Tim doesn’t even try to scramble away, because he still can’t believe it, can’t believe this full-grown man would actually do anything else. Josh grabs him by the arms and lifts him effortlessly until they’re nose-to-nose, like he’s done to me.
“Where do you live?” he says. “Where?” He gives Tim a shake. “I want to go home with you right now. I want to meet your dad. Because I’m going to fucking KILL HIM.”
Tim is bawling. The other kids are bawling. I am bawling. The earth has cracked open and Satan is here.
Josh drops Tim. Tim collapses on the ground. Josh stalks back to me and says, “Let’s go.”
How do you walk away from something like that?
If you’re Josh, you just do, like nothing much happened, your little brother trailing after you.
He leads me to the parking lot. The car is there. He opens the back door and tosses my bag and my books in, not in any special hurry. I can almost hear the sirens drawing closer. If you’re a grown-up, you can’t just hit a kid. You can’t, even if the kid deserves it. Dozens of other kids saw what happened. Maybe a teacher did, too.
But there are no sirens. No police arrive. Josh closes the rear door, gestures with his chin for me to get in, gets in next to me, and starts the car. Some kids are gathered at a respectful distance, watching us, but no teacher comes running out of the school, saying, “Stop! Stop! I saw you!”
We drive out of the parking lot, no one hindering us. But that can’t be the end of it. Not even Josh can get away with something like this.
When we get home, the house is on fire.