Rest in Pieces

What I am about to say is going to sound extremely insensitive, callous, and altogether wrong in just about every way.  But based on the news I heard last night, I feel that it has to be said right now.  They say that sometimes the best way to cope with past bullying is to talk about it.  This is the reason I'm taking to Blogger, here at 5am.

There was a kid in Caldwell, Ohio I knew in the 8th Grade by the name of Josey Clark.  He was a bully.  On a daily basis, he did everything he could to make my life a living hell.  From being a complete waste of a human being to me, to pushing me, picking fights with me, and even attacking me just because he could, I experienced just about all of it due mainly to this kid.  For the most part, I succeeded, until one day came that he pushed my buttons one time too many and I placed him in a side headlock, leaving him completely defenseless, until another one or two students pried me off of him.  He didn't bother me for the rest of the year.

Fast forward to my Junior year in High School.  Within days, he remembered who I was, starting his shit up with me all over again.  Only this time he would pass me in the hall and randomly call me a faggot.  Which I wasn't and still am not now, as I'm married to a beautiful woman a year and counting.  One day, I had enough, and after yelling "Faggot" at me one more time, I punched him in the back of the head.  It only got worse from there, all because I stood up for myself.  I would be ganged up on by his circle of friends on a daily basis.  Shit would get thrown at me.  More shoving.  More of me enduring acts of physical violence, sometimes right in full view of various members of the faculty.  And then, the conversation that took place that inspired a story from a previous blog from last year, as follows...

 - Age 17, an old bully that I had when I was still in 8th grade came back to terrorize me some more, as he was still pissed off at me after three years for kicking his ass when he tried to bully me the first time.  It got to the point to where he threatened me by saying that he was going to get his friends together to beat me to the point of being put on life support, and then break into my hospital room to pull the plug.  This was the ONE time that something was actually done, as my principal and grandparents put their heads together and put a restraining order on the son of a bitch.

From that day, not only was I afraid for my physical safety on a daily basis at school, but literally enough, I was honestly afraid I was going to die on any given day.  Even with the restraining order, things never changed.  The harassment still took place.  I still looked over my shoulder, and I still feared for my life every day.  Nothing was different.  And because of that, I left my hometown, not wanting to deal with it any longer.  It was a decision that broke my heart, because I had begun going to that school knowing in my heart that I wanted to finish high school at the one place in the world I had called home.  But due to the fear instilled within me because of Josey, I made the mistake of tucking my tail and running.  It's a decision I regret to this very day.

The last words I ever said to him were, "I'm above you.  I've traveled the world twice over, and I'll do and see more in the next ten years than you will the rest of your life.  You're going to end being stuck in this dead end town, and you'll die here."

As of yesterday morning, that's exactly what happened. 

I got word right before I went to work last night that he had died in a car accident on the most dangerous roads in town.  The sadness I felt for him was completely non-existent, and I do not feel bad for saying that.  What I feel bad for, is that I never got the chance to punch him in the face one last time.  I've said that if you've ever, EVER, been a bully at any point in your life, you're automatically a piece of shit in my eyes.  And in this, a moment of true tragedy for those who actually loved him, I stand by my previous statement.  Josey Clark was a miserable, worthless, piece of shit of a human being.  If there was any redeemable quality in him as a person, I was never witness to it.  All I was witness to, in the years that I had known him, completely sucked as a human being, and I saw absolutely no good in him.  I will not miss him, I will not mourn for him, and I will never forgive him for the way he treated me.  I'm glad he's dead, and the world seems a little brighter knowing he's gone.  I keep hearing stories that he's changed since High School, but I could really give a shit less whether he did or not.  If he was so different, he would have gone out of his way to make peace, not only with me, but with the countless others he had terrorized along the way.  But in the end, turns out I was right all along.  I just didn't think that it would be so soon.

Rest in pieces, you son of a bitch.