The Lawson's Incident

He was skinny and poor; not the best combo to avoid bullies in elementary school. And he seemed to either: not know he was both those things or in denial of both those things as he strutted down the hall like a wealthy peacock in a peacock tuxedo if you get my drift. He got a lot of punches to the spine. His dad was an umpire at little league games and was kind of the same way, poor and skinny but umpired like he was rich and important, exaggerating strike out calls on 8 yr olds just trying to make contact and not cry and here he was yelling Striiiiike Thureee and motioning like he’s trying to start a giant lawn mower. He wore cracked cowboy boots behind the plate instead of cleats. He usually reeked of body odor that blast out from behind his chest protector. Then there was the mother, all 280 lbs of her, poor and scummy, loudmouthed as hell, with basically a handlebar mustache. She could scare the rings off a raccoon and her breath could fog an entire windshield on a hot summer day. What the son didn’t inherit in girth he inherited in the white trash equivalent of chutzpah. How he got on the pee wee football team is anyone’s guess. He couldn’t have weighed 70lbs and there must have been a sliding scale for the equipment because he wore the same pants year round and they were floods because he had to wear them year round for 3 years now. Anyway, he’s on the team, just taking a beating every practice, never seeing the field on gameday but strutting around at school like he’s Tony Dorsett or something. More punches to the back, and he didn’t have on shoulder pads at school. Well apparently he was telling his mom about who exactly was delivering the most painful blows to the spine. So one day before practice some players were at the Lawson’s convenient store around the block and the old lady must have given quite the shake up to the spine puncher. There were rumors that during the bust up her mustache rubbed all over his face. Some say he see a therapist to this day. Anyway, she didn’t stop there: upon after practice pick-up she was about to light into the father of the spine puncher and he was not going to have any of it. She might have had 30 lbs on him and more facial hair but he yelled something to the effect of “you lay a greasy finger on me and I’ll knock the welfare right off your double chin!” She backed off. The spine punches got worse at school and who knows when they let up. Anyone who thinks about it for more than a minute knows there is no justice in the world but somewhere there is a bully out there, on a couch, trying to come to grips with a handlebar mustache on his face.