Fall in May

~1~ Mayday

Unfortunately for me the punking parlay down the way just continues to get louder, intruding into my Zen time until...

"I SAID ...LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE ...YOU FREAKS!"

The final scream slices right through what's left of my Zen like rusty razors. This time the sharp retort is too much to ignore, because it's as clear to me as winter water that this is a girl's voice. A girl who clearly sounds like she is in distress. Now that I know a girl is in the mix, I have no choice but to pay attention to this bullshit down below. So of course what little zen I had left is now completely fucked. And dammit, I really needed my zen time to think through the suck that is my life. Try to figure out how to get back to the beach life that doesn't totally sux rocks. But noooo, thanks to these zenfuckers I am now forced back into the real against my will.  

So I do the slow roll to upright, and glare down the terraces at the punking parlay below, taking the scene in at a slow stare. Almost all the way down at the bottom of the bleachers by the infield grass, I spot three boys facing off against what I assume is the girl in the mix. At a glance, all three boys appear roughly my age ...and I already don't like them.  

The largest of these three assholes is a big barrel-chested looking lout with a buzz cut, dressed out in baggy jean shorts and a white wife beater. I immediately name him "The Muscle". The smallest is a ginger head kid, with a wicked sunburn and smiling steel braces. Him I name "Mouthy". But it's the last of the zenfuckers that causes me pause. A thin skinny sallow-skinned reedy kid, with long greasy hair and a dirty little weasel face to match his filth. This kid practically reeks future registered sex offender, so I immediate slot weasel face as The Creepy Kid.

However, it's the girl in the mix that strikes me as the odd one out in this whole scene. She is just sitting down at the bottom of the bleachers, facing off with the three boys, with her back is to me. So I can't really see her face to tell if she's truly scared of these three assholes or whatnot? But the thing that strikes me as seriously strange about this chick, is that she is wearing a bulky black hoodie, with the hood up over her head. Which out in a 95 degree plus sunny summer day is a little strange, to say the least. So her I name her The Strange Girl.

As I am taking all this in at a glance, the Creep draws my attention as he starts to slowly circle up the bleacher benches on the Strange Girl's left. While Mouthy starts pressing in on her right, clearly trying to distract her from Creepy's move in. With his two cohorts penning their prey in between them, The Muscle drops back and posts up at the foot of the stairs, just below the pending attack to cut off her only escape.  

It's a classic triangulation attack formation, that any wolf pack from here to the Arctic circle would be familiar with. But like all predators, these three zenfuckers forgot something important in the thrill of the hunt. They forgot that there are far worse things than them in the wild world. Unluckily for these three zenfuckers, I am most definitely one of those "worse wild things".  Even worse luck for these three assholes, they have interrupted my zen time to pick on ...or pick up on the Strange Girl? A girl who is clearly not interested in whatever game they are playing.  

And seriously, three guys trying to intimidate one little girl is these assholes idea of a good time? Yeah, that's total bullshit in my book. So I am thinking that this just became the proverbial,"Why don't you pick on someone your own size", life lesson moment. So Happy Birthday to me, time to join the party!

With that decided, I reach back and tug off the tight band holding my hair and shake the mop loose from the topknot it's been living in all day. With my hair hanging down in front of my face, I slow roll my neck side to side to loosen up all those little "take-a-punch" muscles that I am going to need in order to break them before they can break me. Because in my experience there are two kinds of fighters to fear the most: the ones that can inflict the most damage the fastest ...and the ones that can take the most damage the longest. Of the two, I am most definitely in the second category. The kind of kid that can take the pain, and has all the scars to prove that point.