He could feel the flat part of his shoe meet the pavement with every step. It seemed to him that everything in the city was aligned with his confidence. For the first time in his young life, Darrel knew what it was to be unafraid, and soon enough, he was going to end the days of cruelty on the playground.
Matt was most likely there. He was always there since he dropped of school and he used his time to reinforce his presence by terrorizing anyone who came by the playground, but today that was going to end.
Darrel's little brother, Ryan, had just come home with a bruise he was ashamed to show anyone, but Darrel saw it. He didn't even have to ask for the story. It was one thing for Darrel himself to be afraid and hide his face from the swing set, it was another thing to have that forced upon little Ryan. All he ever did was play by himself in the sand and dig tunnels for his favorite superheros to navigate. He didn't bother anyone. And now he had a bruise on his arm and his toys were missing. Even a coward has his limits.
Their dad made a thing about them getting picked on, but not in a kick some ass kind of way, but more of an aggressively passive kind of way.
"Don't get involved," he'd say without looking up, "Just stay out of their way. Otherwise, they'll just make it worse the next time."
He abhorred the thought of violence and preferred a buried head in the sand to a fist to the chin, and so, when invariable his boys were bullied, he had very little in the way of proactive advice.
Their mother on the hand, would get in fights with people in the parking lot. She didn't seem to have a problem with verbal confrontation and while it was often embarrassing it was something that Darrel envied, her total peace with stirring up conflict, never thinking about what might happen to her in response. And she usually won, too.
"Let them talk. That's all they'll ever do." she'd say under her breath after a row, more to herself than her children. "You don't let anybody push you around, or that's all you'll ever be. Pushed around." One time she broke her key off in the ignition when she tried to start the car so hard, still amped on adrenaline after berating an unsuspecting man for leaving his dog in the car with the windows up.
Darrel's world was one of polar opposites, with no safe haven of a middle ground to be found.
Then little Ryan came home with his own blood on his shirt, and something either genetic or primal in Darrel awoke.
Beating his way down the road that led to the park, he saw the towering apartment buildings with chipped paint revealing old graffiti. Forgotten laundry draped many balconies and there were bars on all the windows reachable from the ground. Old junker cars lined the street, and a local resident and shop owner named Horace washed his car in spite of it's rusted state. His white hair was always combed and his clothes were always pressed. Darrel's mother said he was "senile" and Darrel thought that must mean 'hard-working,' and hoped to be senile himself when he was that old.
Horace stopped washing just long enough to send Darrel a nod and a grin.
Horace was always outside when Darrel came by and though they'd never really spoken to each other, Horace had a powerful way of nodding to the boy that brought his spirits up when they were down. It was as though his soft, tooth-sparse small seemed to say that there was at least adult in the world who still remembered what it was like to be a kid, and that everything would be alright at the end of the day. Horace had a spirit that made other people's problems feel small, but today it had the added effect of making Darrel feel big.
It started with his old, torn up tennis shoes. Darrel felt like his feet were landing heavier than normal. He could actually feel the ground shake when he stepped, and the accompanying thud seemed like rattled the windows of the cars lining the street. He looked around to see if anyone was bothered and realized he was easily looking into the second story windows. He saw a fat man asleep in his underwear in front of a small television and in another window he saw a young woman dancing and pretending to sing in an all pink robe. He was getting so big in fact, that he had to walk slower to make sure he didn't catch any cars or people beneath his feet. He could see the park over the hill at the end of the street, and it looked empty save for one person. Must have been Matt.
In spite of his new found size, Darrel was starting to feel nervous. What if Matt wasn't scared of him? What if he could still beat him up? Matt was using a stick to poke something on the ground, and it was a fair bet that it used to be alive.
Matt laughed cruelly and Darrel felt his knees wobble beneath him. He heard his father's voice mixed in with his own thoughts, "Stay out of it. He'll just make it worse next time." He wondered if that were really true and then he started to shrink back down. The upper level windows were quickly out of sight, and he could barely hear his footsteps anymore. He seemed to be even smaller than when he'd left the house. He worried he'd get stepped on himself if he didn't stay out of the way. Even the smallest cars looked like enormous machines and he grew concerned that the curb itself would be too much of an obstacle to leave the street.
Matt's laugh seemed to echo down the street, and it taunted him from every direction.
Darrel considered turning around and heading for home before he was spotted, feeble and fragile as he was. He stopped and turned back, looking back home. The street was bathed in sunlight and everyone who milled about was laughing and smiling to one another. A man he didn't see before served lemonade in tall glasses and at the far end of the road, an ice cream truck turned onto the street -- his simple melody beckoned.
He turned toward the park, and shivered as a stiff breeze ran up his sleeves, carrying dead leaves past him and whistling through the air. The trees were stripped bare by the autumn and gray branches loomed like skeletons hands overhead. The wind quietly rocked the only remaining swing and a cloud of dust the size of a car pushed from one end of the park to the other, and worst of all, Matt had seen him.
He stood up from the ground and seemed tall as any full-grown man. His gaze did not waiver, and he seemed to be waiting for something. Darrel felt like an ant on a mountain as a vision of sprinting all the way home passed through his mind. He could probably do it, too.
Then he saw what Matt had been playing with - Ryan's Captain Action toy, his arms missing, hanging upside down by his legs.
Darrel's face flushed red and he squeezed his fists so tight that his arms trembled. He saw Ryan's bloodied lip and the purple bruise on his arm, and suddenly the world didn't seem so big anymore.
Matt stretched his arms out straight, his muscles protruding from his sleeves, his sheer size a challenge to this petty quest for revenge. He jerked his head back, smirked and waited.
Darrel was done with indecision, and he charged down the hill toward the park. Matt casually tossed the toy aside and squared up his feet, more than ready for whatever Darrel might have to offer. The young protector charged down the hill, running in great leaps due to the decline. He could feel his legs stretching beyond his normal pace and his knees vibrated with each footfall. He pumped his arms, keeping his hands open-palm so they might slice through the air more effectively than a fist. He was so close now he could hear the bully breathing.
Right at the bottom of the hill, where the road turned right, Darrel's foot caught the lip of the poorly lain asphalt and he landed hard on his face, tumbling at high speed onto the dirt edge of the park. His ears rang but he could still hear Matt howling with laughter. He pushed himself up and looked over his scraped and bleeding skin, his torn shirt and realized he'd lost a shoe. He rolled over onto his back, winded. He could feel the onslaught of tears, a mix of pain and frustration, building up just behind his eyes.
Matt was standing over him now, his face interrupted the cold, gray sky above with a mocking smile.
"Damn, you really ate shit, you little bitch." and he laughed. The way a boy handled the suffering of another would always be a measure of the type of man he would become. Matt leaned down and slapped Darrel lightly on the cheek.
"You were about to get beat anyway, you just saved me the time."
The scratching stop of the car tires on the dirt road caught both of their attention.
"Goddammit, Matty, I fucking told you to come straight home!" An unshaven man dressed in sweatpants and no shirt leapt from the car.
"I was coming home, sir." said Matt, his wave suddenly soft.
"Bullshit you were coming home. Don't lie to me or I'll whoop you twice."
The man was on top of them now and he grabbed Matt by scruff of his shirt and yanked him toward the car. He threw Matt up ahead of him, and he stumbled and fell onto the ground, hard. He groaned in pain.
"Sir, please! I was just leaving--" he pleaded.
The man turned to Darrel, who watched in silence from the ground.
"What are you, beating up little kids, Matty?" he shouted over his shoulder more angry than concerned. He loomed over Darrel, much in the way that Matt had done, and looked him over. Saying nothing, he saw his torn shirt, his bleeding scrapes and shook his head, heaving a huge sigh.
"Matty!" He bellowed and Darrel flinched. He spun on his heel and stomped over to Matt who was nursing a bleeding spot on his elbow. With one wide swing, he slapped Matt with the back of his hand. Matt curled up into a ball to protect himself, which only seemed to encourage his father's rage. He pulled his son's hands away from his face to smack him a few more times.
"What are you doing picking on these little kids?! He's half your size!" He pulled him up by his shirt, Matt's head hung backward toward the ground. He blubbered through a quiver in his voice.
"He fell." was all that came out on a whisper.
"Dammit, what did I say about lying to me?!" and with that he let go, Matt fell limp to the ground and groaned in pain, his eyes closed in shame.
"I'm not lying."
His father lifted his closed fist into the air, and Matt's face shifted from defeat to terror.
"I FELL!" yelled Darrel. "I did, I fell. I was running and I tripped on the road! He didn't touch me!"
The man leered at Darrel over his shoulder, but his fist remained up. Darrel's arm was outstretched, an involuntary action that emphasized his words, like an exclamation point. Matt lifted his head, confused by the intervention and he found Darrel wide-eyed and fearful.
The man stared at Darrel for a long time, and Darrel imagined him holding him up by his shirt, just like Matt, and in that moment he dared not take his eyes off him.
Then the fist turned soft and lowered. Matt's father set him down, gently this time and stood up. He opened his car and got inside.
"Get in." he demanded of Matt, without bothering to open the door or help him up. Matt pulled himself up and climbed in the back seat. The car started so fast, the back tires spun, kicking up dirt and rocks into the air. As it flipped around, Darrel and Matt locked eyes for moment. Matt's lip was bleeding, and his eyes were red. It looked like he might have a black eye on its way, too.
As the car disappeared into the distance, Darrel saw Caption Action's legs sticking out of the grass. He picked it up, slowly got to his feet and started the long walk home. He'd need a better story for his parents, but he had a feeling that Matt wouldn't hang around the park for awhile.
