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Growing up, there was a kid a grade below me. He was kind of annoying, always cracking bad jokes, pretending to be a lot cooler than he actually was. The kind of kid calculated to drive a 12-year-old with anger issues into a frenzy.
I kind of made tormenting him my personal project. We lived in a shitty neighborhood, and there were plenty of bored, angry kids who were happy to go along with it. One of them was Jerome. Looking back, the kid was a sociopath. Basically roamed the streets. Tortured bugs, pigeons, cats. Probably eating a hooker's heart somewhere right now.
Anyway, Jerome and I started chasing this kid after school. It started with name-calling. We threw everything we could at him. He ignored it for a while, but I could tell we were getting at him. He stopped shooting back wisecracks and making goofy-ass faces. He just... well, he had to shut out a lot of the world to shut us out. Part of him just went dead.
One day in 1990, we saw this kid playing ball and we decided to start on him again. I grabbed his ball. When he said, "give it back," Jerome took it from me. With this cold look in his eye, he took out a knife and stabbed the ball. Then he shoved the kid up against the wall. Started whispering about what he was going to do. Me and the other kids were freaked out, muttering for Jerome to cut it out - but it was scary as hell.
Jerome actually has his knife on the kid's throat - and then something just happened. The kid jerks, and knocks the knife away, and he flattens Jerome with one punch. Months of anger start pouring out of him and he pummels and pummels Jerome - and we just watch. Jerome went unconscious early on - just this ragged animal gasping as his face got turned to hamburger. Finally, we pulled Will off him.
Jerome went to the hospital. Never came back to school. Will disappeared, too - heard he went to live with his aunt and uncle in California. Wonder whatever happened to him.
I kind of made tormenting him my personal project. We lived in a shitty neighborhood, and there were plenty of bored, angry kids who were happy to go along with it. One of them was Jerome. Looking back, the kid was a sociopath. Basically roamed the streets. Tortured bugs, pigeons, cats. Probably eating a hooker's heart somewhere right now.
Anyway, Jerome and I started chasing this kid after school. It started with name-calling. We threw everything we could at him. He ignored it for a while, but I could tell we were getting at him. He stopped shooting back wisecracks and making goofy-ass faces. He just... well, he had to shut out a lot of the world to shut us out. Part of him just went dead.
One day in 1990, we saw this kid playing ball and we decided to start on him again. I grabbed his ball. When he said, "give it back," Jerome took it from me. With this cold look in his eye, he took out a knife and stabbed the ball. Then he shoved the kid up against the wall. Started whispering about what he was going to do. Me and the other kids were freaked out, muttering for Jerome to cut it out - but it was scary as hell.
Jerome actually has his knife on the kid's throat - and then something just happened. The kid jerks, and knocks the knife away, and he flattens Jerome with one punch. Months of anger start pouring out of him and he pummels and pummels Jerome - and we just watch. Jerome went unconscious early on - just this ragged animal gasping as his face got turned to hamburger. Finally, we pulled Will off him.
Jerome went to the hospital. Never came back to school. Will disappeared, too - heard he went to live with his aunt and uncle in California. Wonder whatever happened to him.
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