It?s interesting the things you think about while getting mercilessly beaten by a group of older kids. At first, the initial adrenaline rush has you clawing and swinging wildly, hoping to break free and escape, but after the first few punches in the face and gut, you pretty much give up hope and let them go to work. As a veteran of routine beat downs, I found that the sooner you gave in, the sooner they?d stop bashing you in the face, and then we could all go home. Besides, even if I did manage to slip away, I wouldn?t get very far. You see, back in eighth grade, what I lacked in speed I more than made up for in obesity. And while that may seem fair ? it didn?t help very much when trying to get away from starting line backers and other high school football heroes.

Now, don?t go branding me as a wimp or a coward ? although in all fairness I was probably both ? but there wasn?t very much I could do anyway. Besides, the beatings were usually pretty quick, just something for the football players to do in-between 9th period and the start of practice. And after they got me to the floor, kicking me was only marginally fun. Soon they?d move on to some other random act of violence.

There was one particular afternoon however, that stands out in my mind. I was being pressed against the locker by a rather beefy individual, his elbow lodged beneath my chin, pressing my oversized head against a locker, and his friend was quite content with driving his balled fists into my equally oversized gut.

I flailed out with my pudgy hands and kicked with my stumpy legs, but unfortunately I lacked the ability to cause any real pain, and it only irritated them enough that they would press a little harder on my throat.

It was customary for them to lash out various insults while doing their business, stuff like ?squeal pig? and such. Today, however, they decided to make a different attempt. ?You f-ing Chinese immigrant. Where?s your green card?!? This came from the linebacker who was pinning me against the wall.

Of course this insult wasn?t very thought out, these guys weren?t exactly the brightest candle on the menorah if you catch my meaning ? but nonetheless the statement bothered me. My first reaction was to point out that although I am half Asian, I was not Chinese at all. I doubted that would change anything, though, so I didn?t say anything. My second thought was that my captor was undoubtedly Italian ? and although it?s not considered a minority group ? last time I checked Italy and America were separated by a significant body of water called the ?Atlantic Ocean?.

He was just as foreign as I was, but before I could point out the flaw in his logic the football player violently pushed me parallel to the wall, and I collapsed in a bloody heap onto the hallway floor. He kicked me a few times, but I could tell by the lack of umph in the strikes, that he was bored of the endeavor, and soon he left for the boys locker room to prepare for football practice.

I always took a moment to collect myself before trying to move. It was kind of like waking up after a long sleep, you don?t want to move because you are just so comfortable. Yes, comfortable ? because after five minutes of torture, any painless position was deemed very satisfying. After a few moments of reflection, I drew myself up, and took inventory of the situation. I had stuffed my money behind my belt buckle, and I made sure to note that it was securely in place. I used to hide it in my shoes, but last week one of them figured it out and took the money and the shoe.

The walk home was interesting, while the explanation to my parents was lackluster. The regular bloody noses and stained clothing I blamed on fictional rounds of kill the carrier, and because of this my father concluded that I must have been a very active and excellent ball player. My mother was worried at first, but my father convinced her with the age old adage ?boys will be boys?, and I felt inclined to assure her that I was alright, and I enjoyed playing despite the aches and pains.

She accepted this, and the thankless task of removing the various stains from my clothes, and to this day I have no idea how she managed to keep my shirts from being splotched with innumerable blood stains.

I appreciated her efforts very much, and I was somewhat proud of the black and blue badges I wore home to dinner. Even my brothers assumed that despite my over weight physique, I was very into playing kill the carrier, and so they inducted me into their manly conversations about girls and cars.

Now, I?m not trying to say that I enjoyed getting my ego handed to me on a silver platter daily, but it would be a lie to say that absolutely nothing good came of them. I guess when something is unavoidable you end up accepting and learning to deal with it. That?s just the way I am, I suppose. I couldn?t stop them from beating me up, so I made sure to salvage some sort of silver lining from this very gray cloud.

I picked up my bag and began wiping the spit off of it with my sleeve. It wasn?t a very smart thing to do, because now I had spit on my sleeve ? which would have been better left on the bag. I didn?t think this far ahead of course, because my mind was shaken and I wasn?t rationalizing properly.

I regretted it immediately though, as I rounded the corner of the hallway on the way out of the building. I ended up running into the cheerleading squad, all of whom seemed to think on the same wavelength. It baffled me how all eight girls could give me the exact same look of disgust and disdain at the exact same time.

By this time, I was burning red with embarrassment, my shirt stained with blood, stinking of sweat, and my sleeve covered in foreign saliva. I wasn?t sure what to do ? keep going forward, or turn around ? and at first I kind of just stood there waiting for something to happen. It did.

“?Ew,”? Said one of the girls.

?”Gross,”? Said another.

I couldn?t tell the voices apart, they all seemed pretty standard. I often wonder if they genetically manufacture junior high cheerleaders. It would explain a lot. I decided to just walk past them, ignoring their inane comments. I really didn?t care at this point, I just wanted to go home and take a shower. Change my shirt too. And so I walked right by them, ignoring whatever insults they threw at me.

Enough is enough, I resolved on my walk home. I couldn?t take this much longer. I worried about the long term psychological effects. I already had lost most of my faith in humanity at this point. Nobody cared about what happened to me, and the only ones who did ? my family ? I was too embarrassed to say anything. Besides, I didn?t want to be the kind of person who runs off to tell on people who pick on me. I?d like to handle things on my own. I wanted to finish this myself.

I spent months preparing for the confrontation. I knew that the only way to move on was to face them directly. No more rolling over, no more playing dead. I would get beat down harder then ever before ? I knew, but I would go down swinging. I would find those bastards and make the first move. I would end this.