You Wouldn't Like Me if I was Angry

I’m always try to keep calm.  Reason being is that I’ve gone the fuck off before.  I don’t mean that I was being an asshole to some customer service rep or flipped someone off on the road.  I’ve found myself being completely out of control and being regretful of my behavior almost immediately after.

These kind of flip outs have been with me for some time, too.  I submit to you two times when I flashed on a nigga, both before I left grade school.

I had this good friend in 1^st through 3^rd grade.  Let’s call him “Bill”.  Bill was a little feminine, but I didn’t really care.  I was very quiet back then.  Niggas probably thought I was gay, too, so we got along just fine.  Even at that young age, he started getting in good with the girls (because that nigga had to be gay) and I was becoming a loner, known for knowing all the answers in class so we slowly drifted apart.

Fifth grade comes along and we were in the same class.  We weren't friends but acquaintances at that point.  I was already falling far behind as far as size went.  Little nerdy me was happy to read “chose-your-own-adventure” books and play Sonic the Hedgehog rather than be too social.  Then one day I accidentally cross dressed.  I mean I didn’t wear a dress or some shit.  For some reason my mom bought me some of those jeans with the zipper at the bottom, the kind that only zipped up about four or five inches.  You know, the kind that are for girls.  I thought nothing of it but that nigga Bill did!

All morning, he and his crew of popular girls laughed and joked and pointed.  By lunch time I was in tears.  We got up to get in the lunch line and he made one last crack and the girls all laughed.  That’s what did it.  It was the girls laughing at me, it was the last thing I remember before I remember being mid-fight.

I had been fighting my neighbors for years but never out of any real anger.  They were just assholes and that’s just what you do with assholes; fight them.  This time I was pissed and it wasn’t a game.  I didn’t know much about fighting technique but I did know one thing: Mike Tyson.

Mike Tyson threw some of the most serious hooks in world history.  When I realized what was going on, I’m not sure how many hooks I threw but the last 4 or 5 where picture perfect.  I’ve never thrown punches that accurate since and they landed one after another.  All right hands, no less.  It was looping hook reset, fire again.  If I ever hit somebody with that kind of rage and accuracy these days, I would probably break my hand or be in jail for manslaughter or both. Poor Bill went into the windmill, standard Jerry Springer female fighting style and ate every punch.  Mind you, I was probably the smallest kid in our grade so he was FAR from being knocked the fuck out.  When the teacher broke us up, I was all out crying.  Not because I got beat up, not sure he ever hit me with one of his slap punches but because I couldn’t believe somebody got me that mad.  I was so disappointed in myself that I was worthless for a few days.

My mom was a teacher at the school and I knew she would be disappointed and angry.  She was but she seemed so worried when she saw how broke up I was about it, she really didn’t punish me.  My dad?  He was shocked that I had the balls to not only get into a serious fight at school, he seemed impressed that I didn’t get my little ass kicked.  As for Bill, we actually remained cordial after that.  Those were the days when a fight was over, it was just that, over.

II

My second flip out wasn’t directed at an ambiguously gay bully.  No, this one was a much different target and played out a little differently.  In the same grade, I flipped out on the substitute teacher.  I don’t even remember what my beef was.  I think he told me to let some other kids answer the questions or something.  I remember him doing some long addition problem on the board and expecting us all to be impressed.  Something about him showing off to a room full of kids still bothers me.  So what, nigga, you can add… Anyway, he neglects to do the usual substitute teacher worksheets and decides he wants us all to write an essay of a hundred, that’s right 100 words (that was word #794 of this post, for some reference).  Now, this was way more than our usual teacher would assign and I was outraged.

10 minutes later and I counted out 95 words.  I probably would have been finished had I not stopped to get a word count several times.  And then it happened…

I remember writing “Reverend DuBose thinks he’s the motherfucking boss but he ain’t the boss of me!”  and so on and so forth.  (Did I mention that he was a local pastor?  Yeah, probably my first ever run in with the holy.) Funny thing about writing angry, the words seem to pour out so effortlessly.

Anyways, about 1 million curse words later (I vaguely remember a “he can go fuck himself”) I was finished and proud.  That wasn’t the end of it.  What would be the most gangsta shit to do with such an essay???  That’s right, I turned that shit in.  I knew he was going to read that shit.  Still, as crazy long as it was, I was still the first person to finish and he didn’t have anything else to do but enjoy my work.  I remember sitting down at my desk and watching him read along.  It took him a little bit because my handwriting always has been atrocious.  Then he got to the meaty part.

I remember his head tilting as if he wasn’t sure what he was reading.  He finished reading and a little voice in my head said “You done fucked up now!” 

I don’t know how he knew my mother worked there.  I can’t even remember the rest of the day.  I just remember my mother being so mad that she was going to tell my dad.  The car ride home was the longest 2 minutes of my life.  I hadn’t got a good ass whipping in a while and this was one I actually deserved.

By the grace of God my dad didn’t come home until after I went to bed.  I thought if only he could get some time to calm down, maybe have a beer or two, I would at least escape with my life.  I remember my mom saying she showed my dad the little essay and guess what?  That’s the last I ever heard of it.  No beating, no suspension, no nothing. 

It was the first time the written word got me in trouble and I got off clean. 

What did I learn in these isolated incidents?  As my body grew, also did my understanding as to when the beast was about to come out.  I learned to detach myself from a situation before those wicked right hooks start popping off but every once in a while, when someone is defending trickledown economics, protesting a funeral or just being a general douche, I can feel it, that darkness coming to the surface and I relax, breathe and know that it will be ok… aside from those times I just let it out, of course.  But those are all isolated incidents, I swear…