That’s What Big Brothers Are For
When I was in the fifth grade, a lady grabbed my brother who was in the third grade by the neck. She picked him up and threw him three to four feet against the lockers. She was mad because he had pushed her child out of the way when her kid cut in line in front of him at the water fountain. I couldn’t believe it. I just started going off on her.
I was calling her every name I could think of while following her out the door. I wasn’t using your standard fifth-grade insults. My dad was a Marine, and I was saying all the stuff I wasn’t supposed to have heard from him that I amassed over the years. I followed her and her kid out the front door and got to the circle where buses pulled in to pick up the kids.
Then, she turned around and came at me like she was trying to destroy me. There were no teachers around. They were all inside, trying to find out what was going on. It was just her and me, and I could see in her eyes that she was really going to hurt me. She grabbed me by the shoulders, picked me up, and shook me as hard as she could the whole time I was screaming.
Then I heard car breaks, and my mom football tackled her and beat the bejesus out of her. My mom had layers upon layers of that lady’s skin caked under her nails and bruised knuckles from punching her so hard. That night, I got ice cream for trying to protect my brother and was sent to bed early for saying the words I shouldn’t have.