Honor Code

A story of retribution, by Stuart.

My school always sponsored a hayride in early October, and most everybody took the opportunity to ride an open cart in the chilly Autumn evening with a delicious cup of hot apple cider waiting for them at the end. 

But there were risks. School-sponsored evening activities provide fertile ground for bullies. You’ve got large numbers of kids all there to have fun (with different definitions of the word) and so few adults to keep eyes on them. Those events can be about as close as most people get to Lord of the Flies. 

At the hayride in my last year of middle school, I stood off in a corner with a few of the other boys in my class, our hands jammed in our pockets and ballcaps pulled over our eyes. A few yards away I saw Joe Boyle, a seventh grader, in the typical bully stance, leaning in to tower over his target, and threatening with clenched fists, narrowed eyes, and a smirk. I heard the other kid’s voice yelling back. It was my brother, Logan. 

If I thought I had problems in middle school, Logan had it ten times worse. Generally, the number of bullies you face is limited to the number of people in your class plus all the classes in the grades above you. So, in eighth grade I had few to worry about.

In fifth grade, Logan had a long string of them coming at him from all directions. Joe Boyle was one of many.

Logan took whatever Joe said and fired back some well-phrased verbal jabs. So, Joe responded the only way most bullies know: he pushed Logan to the ground and walked away laughing with two other boys. Bullies rarely act alone. 

I saw the whole thing, and I did nothing. My own brother got bullied right in front of me and I just stood there.

I went to Logan after Joe left, helped him up, and told him I would do something about it. The other boys from my class would no doubt hold me to it.

The next day at recess, they reminded me of my promise. The middle school honor code directed me to act. 

I was no fighter and had no intimidating physical presence. But neither did Joe, so I had some consolation. I had to keep this between me and him. None of us wanted an all-out brawl in the middle of the school day with all those nuns around. 

I drifted over to where Joe stood with a group of his friends, throwing up my middle-child-anti-attention aura while closing the distance to within a few paces of him. Whatever I did had to be swift and subtle. 

So, I sprinted right at him, crashed into his back, closed my arms around his, and slammed him to the ground. 

On instinct, the boys in his group and mine closed ranks in a tight circle, shielding us from view. I pinned him down, looked him square in the eye, and growled, “Keep your damn hands and your big mouth away from Logan.” With a parting shove, I stood up and walked away.

I had fulfilled my duty and assumed that would be the end of it.

Back in my classroom after recess and before our teacher returned, Joe and his friends came toward the door doing their best thug strut. He looked both ways down the hall, stepped into the room, locked onto me, and stabbed a finger in my direction.

“I'm calling you out. Ardsley Park. Four o’clock,” he announced, then puffed out his chest like an angry robin and bobbed back to his room.

I made my way to the appointed place with three other boys from my class. As we approached the hill leading up to the park, twenty boys on BMX bikes rolled up to its crest with Joe right in front, a battle line of pre-pubescent mounted knights.

They ushered me and Joe into a playground bordered with rusted fence flecked in peeling bottle green, and latched the gate behind us. A merry go round, swing set, and seesaw stood like weathered points of a triangle inside a cage filled with mulch. 

Joe and I stood there in our fighting stances we learned from Kung Fu movies and Mike Tyson’s Punchout, shuffling in opposition while the others egged us on.

I swung first, an intended left jab that felt more like poking with a rubber limb. The adrenaline turned my body into a wobbly mess of misdirected energy. I couldn't control my punches, and my legs barely held up my own weight. So, with no other options, I tackled him. 

I had Joe’s shoulders pinned to the ground with my knees, and I just started swinging at his face. My arms moved like leaden jelly, no strength and no control. But with the sound of the onlookers raising their voices, I could have stayed there all day with Joe unable to stop my slapping tentacles. 

In an instant the cheers and shouts became pedal clicks and grinding gears, and the unmistakable whoop-whoop of police sirens scattered the crowd to the four corners of the neighborhood.  A police cruiser drove over the grass and straight up to our cage match as we both jumped up and brushed away the wood chips.

The cop lifted the latch and marched into the playground as he tucked his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. He glared at me. I stared at his gun. He asked one question. And I crumpled, becoming a blathering crybaby. 

Joe kept his composure. He seemed to have experience dealing with police.

The cop lectured us about better ways to resolve our issues. He ordered us to clean ourselves up. Then he guided us into the back seat of his car and drove us home. 

It amazes me how middle school boys already have this twisted sense of honor. Follow through with your promise (even if it’s wrong). Stand up for the people you care about (by becoming a bully yourself). Stay cool, calm, and collected (that is, don’t cry, you wuss). Do the right thing even when no one is looking (especially authority, from whom you should hide, and if you can’t hide, run. And the “right thing” has a lot of gray area, like if it’s the wrong thing but they deserve it then it’s right… right?).

That warped perspective starts so young, and we carry it for so long, all the way into adulthood. 

Blame video games, music, and movies all you want. The reality is we learned this from our fathers, uncles, and older brothers. For the older guys reading this, that’s us. 

We can do better.

I wonder how the world would be if the good guys took the right lesson from the bad guys. I mean, what would things be like if the good guys roamed in packs like the bad guys do? And rather than search for prey to terrorize, what if they searched for people to help? 

This whole event would have turned out differently if, the moment I saw Joe bothering Logan at the hayride, I and a few others walked over there, asked if everything was ok, then brought Logan along with us. And what if we did the same thing for the next person Joe found? And the next. And the next, until we had a unified group whose mere presence would repel any attempted bullying, no verbal or physical violence required. 

Wouldn’t that be something?

This is a work of fiction based on actual events.

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