THIS AIN'T NO NEVER- NEVER LAND
This kid Jimmy Pack was a bit older and lorded over us first-graders with an iron fist. He’d get us all to play touch football, brutally tackle us, and tell us it was fair because he was oldest. We’d be sitting around playing trucks and digging in the dirt and Jimmy would show up and ruin a perfectly good time by bossing us around. Why we allowed him this control I’ll never really understand.
One time he made us all go behind his house, where he had propped up a bunch of sheets of plexiglas into a cube. He made a bunch of kids get in there, while the rest of us who couldn’t fit sat as an audience to Jimmy’s lecture about how the kids in the cube would suffocate and die before our very eyes. He dared us to try to rescue them so he would have an excuse to whomp our asses, and prowled in front of the cube taunting us. The kids in the cube were crying and he yelled at them not to use up all the air or they’d die sooner. I couldn’t take it anymore, stood up, and abruptly turned around and ran all the way home with Jimmy yelling threats.
My mom would see kids playing from the kitchen window and say “It’s a nice day, get out there and play with your friends”. But if Jimmy was out there I would go around the side of the house where mom couldn’t see me and sulk. One time she came to find me there and said “What are you doing there? Go play with the other kids!” I reluctantly went off to get tackled by Jimmy. We were playing football and I went to put the ball down for a new play and saw a pile of old, white, decaying dog crap where I was about to put the ball. “Ew gross!” I said, and Jimmy rushed over. “WHAT’S GROSS? You can’t handle a little dog crap? Pick it up!!” I just stood there whimpering and didn’t move. “I said pick it up!” and Jimmy picked up the fossilized dog crap, grabbed my hair, and force-fed it to me. All the other kids were disgusted, I was crying and spitting it out, and Jimmy was laughing as I ran home.
Mom was exasperated when I came in and threw down her wash cloth. She said “What now!” but she could tell I was really crying. I could barely speak but choked out “Jimmy made me eat dog poo” She looked at me hard to see if I was lying, believed me, and went outside to chew him out. Of course all the kids were gone.
When my dad came home I heard them talking in the kitchen and could hear him yell “WHAT?” Dad rushed up to me and said “Did Jimmy Pack make you eat dog shit?” and I nodded yes and started crying again. He grabbed me roughly by the arm and dragged me out the front door, marched me, bawling, all the way to Jimmy’s house, which may as well have been the gates of hell, and banged on the door. I was a mess and didn’t know who scared me the most.
A man’s voice inside yelled “It’s open,” my dad hesitated, and we went in. We immediately saw Jimmy scurry down the hallway towards his room, where he mocked me for crying when my dad wasn’t looking. Jimmy’s dad was the only other person in the house, and was kicked back in a La-z-boy recliner watching "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band on MTV. He didn’t even glance in our direction. My dad said “Do you realize your son forced my boy to eat dog poop today? He’s five years older and has no business messing with these younger kids”. He changed the channel on the remote and said “That so?” I could sense my dad getting pissed but Jimmy’s dad was impossibly bigger than him, and my dad was supposedly trying to set a good example. My dad says “I have to say, I’m not impressed with your response here. This behavior isn’t going to be tolerated.” I was quaking with worry about what would happen. Jimmy’s dad finally looked at mine and said “I’ll take care of it”.
Somehow that was enough to satisfy my old man and we left.