Why We Suck_ A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid - Denis Leary [37]
Much to everyone's surprise, instead of stopping and placing his lunch money into Noonan's grasp, Peter instead leapt forward onto Noonan's chest and as the bully fell backward Peter inadvertently-only because of gravity and other scientific relationships between two moving masses-raked his arms down the overcoat and ended up ripping the two pockets off as he landed on top of him.
The lunch money of many flew out-coins bouncing off the cold cold ice, dollar bills billowing out on the wind.
Thinking quickly, Peter got to his feet and tossed the two pockets down onto Noonan's very scared and shock-filled face. Where's your Kung Fu now, asshole? Hah? he said, standing over him. Then he made a very dainty, delicate retreat-the ice underfoot not allowing him the swaggering John Wayne exit he would have preferred.
"Look what you did to my cool new coat!" Noonan whimpered.
"Yeah yeah yeah," Peter replied, struggling to keep his balance.
All the kids watched in awe as Peter minced up the icy street with his head held high. Had the bully pushed Peter over the edge? Was this cold snowy morning's demand just the final straw in a long and seemingly endless battle? Was justice finally getting its due?
Nope.
Kung Fu and Spock's Vulcan Death Grip had just scared the crap out of an entire generation of kids-to the point where some kind of revolution was inevitable. Bullies everywhere had taken the power of gossip and TV and turned it against the masses, much to their own chagrin.
Noonan was never again to collect lunch money or even stand in front of his house spitting and taunting. Bobby Burns was reduced to just another idiot who forgot to wear a shirt. Noonan became known as No Pockets. Eventually shortened to just Pockets.
Those were the days. You fought your own battles and sometimes you won and sometimes you lost and sometimes Mother Nature actually stepped in to lend you a secret hand. Just getting from one place to another was fraught with peril and potential karate chops.
We were lucky to be alive and our parents reminded us of that almost every other day. Starving kids in China and Africa and Ireland itself. I can't count how many times teachers and parents would say think of the poor kids over in Vietnam-and they weren't just referring to the Vietnamese. Ray Kelly who lived in the building next door got drafted. Another kid two streets over joined up. In the working class it was always an option-you wanted out of the neighborhood-a fresh start-you probably couldn't afford college so you signed up with the army. And sometimes they just came and took you. Your number came up. Literally. It used to crack me up later in life when I'd meet people my age who grew up with money and they talked about Teen Tours-trips they took in the summer during high school where they visited Rome or Paris or the Swiss Alps. Yeah-we had Teen Tours too. To goddam Saigon. Or the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
We walked our skinny asses to school or down to the bus stop and it might as well have been the wild wild west: bullies on one corner, drunk drivers on the other and once you got to school you dealt with women dressed up like penguins who wielded wooden yardsticks as if they were light sabers and pedophile priests who lurked up and down every single hallway.
Nowadays parents show you videos or photos or tell you stories about how their kids are climbing and standing and saying such and such.
Hey-you wanna impress us?
Show us pictures of the kid falling down and getting stitches and stuttering to speak and swallowing nails or munching on a pigeon or just staring into the camera with scabs all over his head. Then we might be impressed. Show us a photo of the world's ugliest kid and say "hey, look-my baby looks just like an orangutan!" This would really lead to a round of applause.
First of all-they are SUPPOSED to start climbing and standing and grabbing and kicking-if they aren't, then take them back to the hospital