My Bodyguard

7th grade PE class in middle school was where I met Mike. We shared the same alcove where our lockers were located. It seems now that the class must have been the first period of the day because Mike would always seem to run into the locker room either late or not at all, depending upon when he got up.

I know nothing of Mike’s home life when he was young. What I remember is that I would be changing into my gym clothes when he ran into the locker room and more times than not, he needed a shower and smelled of sweated-out alcohol and cigarettes. I can remember wondering, how he could have come to school like that?

Mike was lean, muscular, and 3 to 4 inches taller than me. He was, I would surmise at the time, a boy who was having to fight to live. I believe that he had been in and out of detention a few times. And again, I admit that I know nothing of his life outside of school.

Sitting next to me on the locker bench while we dressed, he was a nice guy. I was after all a mommy’s-boy wimp, and a 98-pound weakling at the time and nowhere near the Charles Atlas that I am today. I was no threat to him. He would talk about whatever was on his mind.

But sometimes, he would come in either drunk or stoned and in the process of getting dressed he would start punching me in the upper arms. He seemed to have some training in boxing and in his altered state he assumed I was a punching bag. I never hit back. I waited until he stopped, quickly finished dressing, and made a hasty exit to the gym. I never complained to the PE teacher because Mike wasn’t beating me up, he was just tenderizing my biceps. It went on this way the whole school year.

I’m sure that our school was no different than any other in the world. You will always find groups of boys who have something to prove. They become ringleaders and attract followers which turn into a gang that terrorizes the rest of the student body. Mike wasn’t a ringleader. He was a loner.

As it happened, I was in the library one day sitting at a table with two of my friends. At the next table was a ne’er-do-well group of young men and their ringleader, Bill. Bill and his henchmen also had previous experiences staying at juvenile detention. I don’t remember if I was talking too loud with someone at our table or laughed at something, but Bill at the next table said, “Hey Mitchell, shut your mouth.”

To which I replied, “Why don’t you. Are you the librarian?”

*Let me just put a large asterisk next to this paragraph. All weenie-armed middle school boys whose moms still comb their hair pay specific attention: Never! Ever! be snarky with a gang leader especially when he is surrounded by his henchmen.

Almost immediately I recognized I had created a gang faux pas. Big Bill, who stood six inches taller than me and outweighed me by 25 pounds, looked at his gang members and slowly got out of his chair and walked over to mine. With all gang eyes watching, he bent down and whispered in my ear, “I’m going to find you and beat you into a bloody mess.” He then left the library with his entourage.

I was worried about leaving the library. Not because I would run into Bill, but because I didn’t know how I would explain the wet spot in the crotch of my pants to the kids in the hall.

For the next two weeks, I moved carefully about the school, checking each hallway before I walked down, making sure I didn’t see the tall, hulking, Bill. Twice, I was cornered by one of his henchmen who told me that Bill was waiting outside by the backstop.

My response was, “I’m not fighting Bill,” and I fled to my school bus for a hasty escape home.

But one day, I asked the teacher for permission mid-class to use the restroom. Hurrying down the vacant hallway, I entered the empty restroom and was taking care of business when I heard the bathroom door open behind me. There, of all people, stood Bill. What were the odds of that happening? Just me and him alone in the boy’s restroom and no way out.

“I’m going to punch your face in Mitchell,” he said, and he reached up and pulled my glasses off my face and set them in the sink. “You’re going to hit me first so we can say you started it.”

“I’m not fighting you Bill,” I whined. “I’m not hitting you first.”

Bill took a step toward me and raised his scarred fist – and then the bathroom door opened again. In walked Mike. Again, what were the odds of this happening?

“What’s going on Marty?” he asked me.

“Bill is going to beat me up,” I answered.

Mike pulled the watch off his left wrist and handed it to me. “Go outside,” he ordered, and I gladly did.

There was no talking in that bathroom, and it was over in 15 seconds. I heard someone getting the life beat out of him, a moan, and the scuffling of feet. Then the bathroom door jerked open and Bill ran out. Blood was flowing from both nostrils and from his mouth. He ran down the hallway and out the exit.

The bathroom door again opened, and Mike walked out holding my glasses. He handed them to me, and I gave him back his watch.

“I don’t think that Bill is ever going to bother you again,” he said. Bill did disappear through the rest of middle school and high school. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties, working at my career job that I ran into him working at the same plant. I remember him staring at me once or twice trying to remember where he had seen me before. Luckily, before he remembered, he was fired.

Mike, my bodyguard who saved my life, also disappeared after middle school and I have not seen him since, although I know he lives in the same town I live in. He went to work in the same trade as his father, had at least one son who learned the trade also. From what I have heard from others, Mike turned out an upstanding citizen.

Someday I would like to find the guy who used me as a punching bag in our alcove in the boy’s locker room. I want to say thanks for standing up against a bully for the little guy. Obviously, I have not forgotten.

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