Tim Kaiser was the classic schoolyard bully, an overgrown ogre projecting his self-loathing on anyone smaller in stature. Tim was a mischief mastermind, as evidenced by his decision to strategically position himself on the opposite side of a picnic table before calling me the unholiest of unholies.
I was well aware that my height and weight were grossly disproportionate, my rail-thin big brother never missed a chance to opine on the dichotomy and my mirror never failed to parrot his opinion. My weight was, as Tim would soon learn, the sole key to the brain cell incarcerating my inner simian.
Despite repeated commands to cease and desist, Tim continued calling me "Fatso." I snapped. Dead set on doing him grievous bodily harm I gave chase. He eluded my pursuit by simply circling the table again and again. Eventually we came to rest, still on opposite sides of the table. I picked up a golf ball sized stone and dared him to call me "fatso" again. He did. I made good on my threat, leaving him with one less tooth to neglect brushing.
My mother arrived at the principal's office in hysterics. Tim's mother, on the other hand, remained calm throughout the ordeal. Her contributions were few, brief and mostly meant to downplay the gravity of the situation. I suspect that as his mother, no one was more aware what an asshole Tim could be when he put his mind to it, and ambivalence was her way of saying, "I'm sure my son did something to set Christopher off," without siding against her own kin.
Due to our ages school officials swept the incident under the rug. My mother did not follow suit. She made me buy Tim an apology gift despite eyewitness testimony that he had provoked my attack. The gift was a toy car, red with yellow racing stripes and substantially larger than a Matchbox. Financing the compulsory peace offering cost me two month's allowance. Adding insult to injury I was forced to wrap it and pen an apology. If I had had the wit then that I have now (and a way to sneak it past my omniscient, omnipresent mother) I would have bought Tim a boxer's mouth guard and wrote in the accompanying card, "Just in case you didn't learn your lesson."
