who were hitting the pipe as hard as them fools in the projects. We were every bit as angry, as bitter and hopeless, as jaded and hardened and lost. In my mind I was going to prove all of that with one punch.
Tank shoved me a second time and I dipped and threw an uppercut to his solar-plexus with all the strength I could muster, a Tyson punch, thrusting upwards with my legs so that I nearly rose off the floor myself. I knew that at 5’3” and less than 100lbs there was no way I was going to knock the much bigger kid out going toe to toe with him but I knew just where to hit to cause the most damage. I figured I could knock the wind out of him and then fuck his shit up while he struggled to catch his breath. He bent over with the punch and I kicked him right in the face trying to shove my worn-out Nike right into his mouth and succeeding in splitting his lip open and cracking a tooth. The huge kid staggered backwards holding his face and I kicked him in his gut like the SWAT team kicking down the door to a drug warehouse, putting all my weight behind it like I was trying to drive right through him. An explosion of air came out of his lungs and he went down on one knee gasping and wheezing as he fought to replenish the oxygen I’d just deprived him of. I leapt on him and began pummeling him with my tiny fists.
There were other kids in the hall now, but I was only peripherally aware of them. They were just shadows dancing and raging at the edge of my sight which was filled only with the tremendous ten-year-old.
“Get ’im! Kill that dirty mutherfucker! Fuck his shit up!”
I didn’t know who they were cheering for and didn’t care.
Tank lashed out blindly trying to fend off my attack and caught me right between the eyes with the back of his fist. Blue lights flashed in my skull and I staggered backwards. That’s when Tank got up. I’d never seen a kid come back after a beating like that and my eyes widened in surprise and fear. It was like watching Micheal Meyers or Jason Vorhees rise up after being stabbed, shot, and burned to death. It seemed supernatural and damn did he look pissed.
He charged me and swung a right at my head. I leaned back to avoid the blow and he swung a left uppercut into my gut. Just to pay me back I supposed. Air evacuated my lungs in a great rush and my eyes teared up. The whole world seemed to shift as pain overwhelmed my senses. It took everything I had to remain standing. I turned away from him and he punched me in the back so hard I thought my spine would snap. Another blow struck me in the back of the head and the light bulbs flashed in my skull once more.
I wanted to black out. My body wanted to sink to the floor and succumb to the painlessness of dreams, but instead I kicked at his unprotected head with some fake-ass Bruce Lee move as he charged me again and shocked myself by connecting, catching him on the ear and knocking him face first into the wall. There was a sickening wet “Smack!” and a great splatter of blood sprayed across the wall. This big, black, mean-ass thug screamed when he saw his own blood and ran past me, down the hall, to the principle’s office. The motherfucker was going to drop dime on me.
In no mood to face the principle, I decided to skip out. I pushed past all the spectators who had gathered to watch the gladiatorial games and slammed through the fire door setting off alarms and not giving a fuck.
I started running and was halfway home when I realized that I couldn’t go home at noon without my grandmother getting suspicious and calling the school. So I took a detour and went to the library. It was the only place you could go during school hours and not get questioned.
Northwest Regional Library was one of the newest and nicest libraries in the city. It amazed me that it was right in the middle of Germantown. In the children’s section they had a big wooden sculpture of a dragon that was almost twenty feet long and upstairs they had computers and
Tank shoved me a second time and I dipped and threw an uppercut to his solar-plexus with all the strength I could muster, a Tyson punch, thrusting upwards with my legs so that I nearly rose off the floor myself. I knew that at 5’3” and less than 100lbs there was no way I was going to knock the much bigger kid out going toe to toe with him but I knew just where to hit to cause the most damage. I figured I could knock the wind out of him and then fuck his shit up while he struggled to catch his breath. He bent over with the punch and I kicked him right in the face trying to shove my worn-out Nike right into his mouth and succeeding in splitting his lip open and cracking a tooth. The huge kid staggered backwards holding his face and I kicked him in his gut like the SWAT team kicking down the door to a drug warehouse, putting all my weight behind it like I was trying to drive right through him. An explosion of air came out of his lungs and he went down on one knee gasping and wheezing as he fought to replenish the oxygen I’d just deprived him of. I leapt on him and began pummeling him with my tiny fists.
There were other kids in the hall now, but I was only peripherally aware of them. They were just shadows dancing and raging at the edge of my sight which was filled only with the tremendous ten-year-old.
“Get ’im! Kill that dirty mutherfucker! Fuck his shit up!”
I didn’t know who they were cheering for and didn’t care.
Tank lashed out blindly trying to fend off my attack and caught me right between the eyes with the back of his fist. Blue lights flashed in my skull and I staggered backwards. That’s when Tank got up. I’d never seen a kid come back after a beating like that and my eyes widened in surprise and fear. It was like watching Micheal Meyers or Jason Vorhees rise up after being stabbed, shot, and burned to death. It seemed supernatural and damn did he look pissed.
He charged me and swung a right at my head. I leaned back to avoid the blow and he swung a left uppercut into my gut. Just to pay me back I supposed. Air evacuated my lungs in a great rush and my eyes teared up. The whole world seemed to shift as pain overwhelmed my senses. It took everything I had to remain standing. I turned away from him and he punched me in the back so hard I thought my spine would snap. Another blow struck me in the back of the head and the light bulbs flashed in my skull once more.
I wanted to black out. My body wanted to sink to the floor and succumb to the painlessness of dreams, but instead I kicked at his unprotected head with some fake-ass Bruce Lee move as he charged me again and shocked myself by connecting, catching him on the ear and knocking him face first into the wall. There was a sickening wet “Smack!” and a great splatter of blood sprayed across the wall. This big, black, mean-ass thug screamed when he saw his own blood and ran past me, down the hall, to the principle’s office. The motherfucker was going to drop dime on me.
In no mood to face the principle, I decided to skip out. I pushed past all the spectators who had gathered to watch the gladiatorial games and slammed through the fire door setting off alarms and not giving a fuck.
I started running and was halfway home when I realized that I couldn’t go home at noon without my grandmother getting suspicious and calling the school. So I took a detour and went to the library. It was the only place you could go during school hours and not get questioned.
Northwest Regional Library was one of the newest and nicest libraries in the city. It amazed me that it was right in the middle of Germantown. In the children’s section they had a big wooden sculpture of a dragon that was almost twenty feet long and upstairs they had computers and
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