Revenge

When I was about 6 years old I lived in an apartment complex. It was a one story brick building in the shape of a U. There were probably 25 families that lived there, many with children. Inside the embrace of the building was a parking lot and the outside of the U was grass and lawn. There was also grassy playground, with swings and a slide, where the U ended. One summer day a family moved in with two kids that were about my age. There was Steven, who was a year or two older and Kurt who was about my age. Kurt and I soon became fast friends as kids of the same age, who live close by and who are not in school for the summer often do.

After a short time however, I began to realize that Kurt was not such a good friend and not to be trusted. He was two-faced, he would talk about me disparagingly to the other kids behind my back and he would do things like take my toys and not return them. As Kurt settled in and started making other friends he became meaner and meaner towards me and some of the other kids, especially some of the younger ones. Oh, he’d be nice to your face generally, but then he’d leave and yell taunts from across the parking lot. One day he interrupted a game of kickball we had going on in the playground. He took the ball and kicked it as hard as he could so that we had to chase it far into the neighbor’s yard to get it back.

From there, his behavior only escalated. You never knew which Kurt you would get when he came up to you, the mean one or the nice one. He took to being a bully and would do things like put his arm around your neck, saying “Hey, there pal”, and then he’d punch you in the stomach and run away, while you were too winded to respond. In short, Kurt was an asshole. I am sure we all knew some Kurts.

One day I saw Kurt riding his bike around the parking lot, showing off as he often did and all of a sudden out of the blue, it came to me, a most evil plan. In that moment, I saw Kurt for what he was. It was as if I could see through him. I saw his weakness and I instantly knew how to take advantage of it.

My apartment faced a small field and near the edge of the field was a goodly size rock, a bit bigger than a basketball, which we had been slowly rolling towards the apartments for reasons that only kids could know. I rolled the rock further onto the grass and in an area that was somewhat centered on our lawn. The grass had recently been mowed and there were grass clippings everywhere. I methodically and patiently covered the rock in a large pile of grass, pulling up some weeds from the field for good measure. Soon, I had what looked like a small haystack.

Kurt was still riding his bike, so I yelled over to him, in my best taunting voice, “Hey, Kurt, I bet you can’t ride your bike through that pile of grass over there” as I pointed to my creation. There was no outward sign of the grass pile’s solid heart.  Kurt rode over to investigate. Without getting off his bike, he looked at it, and I could tell by the gleam in his eye that he had taken the bait.

“Oh, yeah”, he said, “I know I can”! And with that he took off at high speed across the parking lot. Knowing Kurt, he just couldn’t ride up to it; he had to get up the biggest head of steam he could muster, so he took off for the far end of the parking lot. He paused for only a moment, about 50 yards away, and then came full force back towards us, his legs pumping feverishly and his mouth agape.

Kurt never knew quite what went wrong. He hit the grass pile with its embedded rock doing about 15 or 20 miles per hour. The first thing that happened was that the front tire instantly exploded, with spokes flying everywhere like shrapnel. Then the forks bent nearly completely backwards. Inertia carried both the bike and Kurt, who was no longer in the seat but in the midst of a parabolic arc, moving forward. I saw it all happen in slow motion. At the last minute Kurt let go of the handle bars. He was about 4 feet or more in the air at this point. The bike flipped over and landed on the opposite side of the rock, but Kurt, with more momentum, kept going. He landed on his back about 10 feet away from the rock, however he still had forward movement and he rolled several times before coming to a stop. When he did stop, he just laid there soundlessly.

I panicked for just a split second, afraid that he was dead, but then he started to move a little and he began to moan. With that, me and some of the other kids who had gathered around to watch, burst out in hysterical laughter. We should have been more concerned, but we just laughed and laughed. Kurt slowly got up. I think he was operating on pure adrenaline at this point and, holding his side, he limped back towards his apartment without a much as a sideways glance towards us. I could see the beginnings of tears in his eyes as he passed me. I didn’t care. We both got what we deserved.

In the end, Kurt was not badly hurt. In fact, I don’t think he even told his parents what happened, because if he did I am sure a trip to the ER would have been in order and I hadn’t heard that he had gone. Such was the deflating of Kurt’s pride that he never mentioned it to anyone. Afterwards he was much more subdued and careful in his interactions with the rest of us. And he certainly never bothered me again.