BE THE HERO

Sometimes Life sends someone to remind us why the world needs Heroes

Bruce Dern outright murdering John Wayne in ‘The Cowboys’ and NO, I am NOT over it

Bullying happens because there are no Heroes to stop them.

You don't 'choose to be the Victim' - that's a lie adults tell to justify their inaction. Bullies choose you because they are allowed to be Bullies - and you can only go with the flow and decide that if you survive, you will become the Hero you needed.

My Father was a Freelancer who worked for Government contractors. We moved every year or so; social isolation was a part of the price we paid for being an adventurous family. But there one place during my 6th grade year that made me who I am today -

Let's just it call it AnyTown.

AnyTown was a small mid-midwestern town of around 4000 people. Not particularly conservative or religious, the community's claim to fame lay in simply being from AnyTown - and I was not from AnyTown.

I am sure I appeared very different to them; short and not particularly pretty, I looked and sounded like a Texas gnome, and I acted like, well, me. I really didn't talk much, because I had learned that therein lay danger; so I came to the assumption that if I just didn't talk to people, I wouldn't get noticed enough to be bullied.

I was wrong. An absolutely adorable All-American Sports-Star Super-Girl named Robin noticed me sitting in the back being weird...

What followed was the year from hell.

Through a series of spy-level communications, Robin commanded her 6th Grade Mafia in a manner that would have made Don Corleone weep. She sent hand-written notes detailing how I was to be dealt with, where and when, and of course, the why. I was never told why. I was only punched, pummelled and relentlessly mocked.

Bullies don't want you to change, you see - they need you to remain the hated object, so you can justify their existence.

It wasn't hard to see why. They were bored. Recess was a flat playground with little to offer but the wide open plains of predation and the classroom was a windowless fluorescent-light prison. Even Lunch was a joyless affair, a boy-girl-boy-girl seated speechless wasteland governed by a soulless red-light green-light stoplight on the wall, eternally stuck on red.

I was entertainment.

I didn't tell my parents. The teacher did notice, a lovely young Barbie-like apparition beloved by the class, who suggested I should try to fit in. Since I was doing poorly in math, I decided I really didn't want my parents to talk to the teacher, so I kept my mouth shut. I bided my time picking flowers on the gravel playground and talking to the only girl who would talk to me, another shortie named Jackie. Jackie kept me sane, and we became friends as much as was possible in that lock-up known as AnyTown Elementary.

Then the mob attacked.

We were running laps around the concrete playground at PE. I of course was coming in at an abysmal dead last, and I didn't care. I was looking at the sky, hoping for a tornado to end it all, when I was pushed from behind by the biggest boy in class -

"Get out of the way."

I fell, and skinned my knee. I looked up, and saw a circle of approximately forty children gathering, but they didn't look like children; they had the aspect of executioners. I looked to the teachers, standing, watching, and assumed they would come to my rescue -

Robin grabbed ahold of my ponytail and pulled me off the ground. "Fight me." A head taller than me, and built like all 6th grade softball queens, she had a definite advantage. I knew a diplomatic answer would be best: "But I don't want to fight you..."

I looked to the teachers again. But they just stood and watched; I was baffled. I had always heard teachers would not allow children to get hurt. Instead, they gathered to their own little corner to watch, talking and whispering. They were rewarded with a show fit to please, as Robin proceeded to whip me around like rag doll by my ponytail.

I of course went limp as usual.

I was lying on the ground. And I wasn't really mad - I couldn't figure out why it was happening. It made no sense. There were no heroes coming to my rescue, no adult to stop the fight, and I wasn't going to win, no matter what I did - but I could at least die with dignity, like my Hero, John Wayne in the Cowboys.

I stood up to face Robin, and she broke my nose with a brutal straight punch. I went down again, bleeding... and Robin and the group laughed and walked away.

Then I stood up again. "Come back and fight me! I'm not done..." but Robin and the group just walked away, because they didn't have to give me anything.

I walked myself to the bathroom, saw my broken nose, then took myself to the Nurse's station. No teacher talked to me, no adult except for the Principal, and he suggested that maybe I didn't belong here in AnyTown.

I told my parents I fell at school. They didn't find out until Jackie told her parents, and her parents told mine...

then the Mafia came for Jackie. They did the same thing to her that they did to me, because adults made it possible. Adults watched, adults did nothing, because they were all living with the Bullies of AnyTown.

I was still friends with Jackie, but Robin's minions warned me away with a written note: "Don't talk to Jackie..." I told my parents she was being bullied, and they told hers. My Father forbid me to go to any school functions, and we moved later that year.

I feel guilty for leaving Jackie behind in that hellhole. I'd like to think I helped Jackie, but I don't know - I wonder what happened to her. I prayed for her, but I was so, so glad to be gone.

In the end, I never found out why they hated me. It never mattered. Haters are going to hate. Bullies are going to bully. They will abuse until they win, unless someone more powerful than them stops them. And that day was the day I decided -

I was going to be that someone.

If I could, I'd find Jackie, and thank her for being my one friend, and I hope she made it out alive. If I could, I'd find Robin, and tell her I pray for her each night and I thank God for the experience of seeing why the world needs Heroes -

be the Hero.