My Epic Battle as a Kid at a Football Game

When I was eleven, my father took me to watch my cousin play in the junior varsity football game on a Saturday morning. Some of my classmates were there at the stadium and I tried to hang with them. Although I wasn’t in this particular clique, I thought finding ourselves at the same event on a Saturday morning would relax some of the protocols we followed in sixth grade. And for a few minutes, it went fine: we were just a bunch of boys who knew each other, trying to pass the time together.

But one kid–I’ll call him Donny–started picking on me, calling me “fat,” and taunting me.

I have always been a little husky. I know I was not alone in this; in fact, Sears and Roebuck devoted an entire section of boys’ clothing to “Huskies” like me. When you’re a little kid, such distinctions make you feel less like the other kids. In fact, the only thing that bothered me about being chubby was the taunting. For the most part, I enjoyed being me, but that joy was ruined by the cruelty of my classmates, leaving me with only shame.

I lashed out at Donny but he was nimble and quick and I couldn’t get a hold of him as he darted in to poke and slap me. The other boys laughed and joined in the fun, and my frustration grew to anger.

Pressing his advantage, Donny spit on me and laughed as I flew into a rage, unable to make him stop, and surrounded by the other boys.

Enter the adults

My father finally noticed my plight and extricated me with a sharp, “What the hell’s going on here?”

On the verge of tears, I explained as best I could. Donny, of course, denied all wrongdoing. “We were just playing,” he said, an excuse delivered by wrongdoers since the dawn of man. I’m sure that when Cain slew his brother, the first thing he said to God was, “We were just playing,” but that line got cut from the bible during the editing process.

My father’s authority held little sway with Donny and the others. My tormentors dispersed in all directions, jackals chased away by a lion, who lurk in the tall grass biding their time for another chance to pick at the carcass.

The festering wound

My father had little sympathy for me. I was a coddled little wimp in his view. We were there to watch tough-as-nails boys knock heads on the gridiron, and if I couldn’t figure out how to take care of myself I’d just have to stand there in his shadow while he watched the game.

I stayed by my father and watched the jackals creep out of the tall grass and assemble. With their carcass (me!) gone, they amused themselves in some other fashion. As the game intensified, even Donny re-joined the pack, confident that my father had already forgotten what happened.

Jungle rage

Several minutes later, it seemed Donny had forgotten about me, as well. The pack had meandered closer, and Donny stood with his back to me.

With my anger seething, and the sound of his taunts and laughter still fresh in my mind, I slipped away from my father and ran as fast as I could directly at Donny, my plodding approach covered by the noise of the game…

Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…a Different Fight

My next published novel reflects similar anger to what I experienced with Donny oh so many years ago. The characters are trying to get along as best they know how but then something happens that makes their blood boil. They take action. HIVE is their story.

It’s science fiction with four main storylines. What I like about sci-fi is its capacity for satire by modeling a world and laying bare some of the absurdities of our own world. It’s dystopian sci-fi, in a world controlled in a corporate management structure with robots and an all-seeing artificial intelligence thrown in for good measure.

But even the best run corporations have dysfunctional flaws, and that’s what we see in the story.

Again with the Anger

The story is set in a not-too-distant future when climate crisis, plague and war decimate humanity, leaving only a few cities functioning. (That’s where the corporate management comes in.)

Those four people in the story are finally angered enough with how things are to finally do something. At the risk of preaching, we all need to feel that way soon and get busy with changing our infrastructure to ameliorate the climate crisis and also ensure voting rights.

The book is called HIVE

I’ve spent the past few weeks fighting with the bookmaking process. Specifically, I’ve created the book interior, the cover and an ebook. It’s going to be published on October 11 (giving me time to also create the audiobook) but you can read it right now!

I hope everyone reading this newsletter takes advantage of this free book because what I need help with is getting reviews for it. Reviews help convince other people to buy the book. If you’ve never written a review, just know that it don’t gotta’ be fancy. A few, honest words is all that’s needed.

The original idea for this story is ten years old. I could never quite figure out how to tell it until two years ago I had one of those epiphanies that cracked it open. It was at a time when I wasn’t sure I knew how to write a novel so I took my time. So here it is, ready to be read:

Upcoming Books and Stuff

The other project I’ve struggled with is also going to be a book, but it’s very different from the stories I’ve been telling. It’s a book of essays based on Stoic philosophy, and I’m sharing them at a website called:

WisdomTodayApp.com

I’m also working on the book for that but when you only have a couple of hours a day available for this sort of stuff, the projects get dragged out.

Maybe You’d Like

I have a new satire piece over at Robot Butt: Nightmares about Game Shows and Health Care.

It’s about having nightmares about game shows and health care, in case you’re wondering.

Back to Donny at the Stadium

If you recall, I was enraged at Donny for taunting me and spitting on me. My father had extracted me but I wasn’t ready to let bygones be bygones.

So I was running as fast as I could toward Donny. I was not known for my speed or agility back then. I was not among the first kid picked for any sports teams.

I mentioned I was husky. That, in fact, was the only thing I was known for, and I used it as my only weapon against Donny, slamming into him from behind and landing on top of him like a lumbering nose tackle falling on top of a tiny halfback.

Beyond that, I had no other fighting skill. (My older brothers will attest that my only defense was crying loud enough for our mother to save me.) Donny quickly struggled out from under me and we started to scrap.

Deus EX Machina

Luckily for me, my father grabbed me and dragged me away before I started crying. I’m sure that Donny would have gotten his bearings and pummeled me within seconds had my father not gotten there.

It was a victory of sorts, and my father and I had our version of an Andy Griffith and Opie moment as I explained why I was so fucking angry.

Of course, my father was notorious for fighting, but those stories will have to wait until…

Next Time…

Until then, thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune.

All the best,

–mickey

P.S. Seriously, I really need help with HIVE so I hope you read it and give it an honest review!