BULLY

Excerpt #7 from Dr. Crittenden's Memoirs

BULLY

Otis was my first cousin. He lived in my neighborhood and attended the same school I did. He was two years older than me and larger, but he had failed a couple of years and was in sixth grade with me. He was a regular member of our walk to and from school every day.

Otis was a wild youngster. As a child, he got into serious trouble in school and eventually dropped out. He played "hooky," was rumored to steal and shoplift, and was a bully. However, in later years he straightened out and became a good citizen, even a police officer.

He picked on me. Otis would wait in the woods on the east side of the street until I came along on my way to school and jump out to attack me, hitting me on the arms, in the back, and on the legs. One of his favorite tricks was to put his leg between mine, shove me in the back, and trip me to the ground. Another involved twisting my arm up high behind my back until I thought it was going to break; while in that position, he would tell me to bark like a dog, beg to be let go or any other humiliating thing he could dream up.

I had two older brothers who walked with us at times and also my cousin and best friend, Charles Emmett in the group. Their presence may have acted as a restraint on Otis, and he never hurt me seriously, but they didn't interfere, expecting me to get out of my troubles on my own, and I was too proud to ask them.

Mama didn't sympathize a lot either. I told her about the bullying, hoping she would say something to his dad; instead, she gave me a boxing lesson! She said, "Hit him BACK!"

"If I hit him back, he'll kill me!" was my response.

"Fight him anyway. You'll have to fight your way out of many tough situations in life; you can't let a bully think he can get away with his bullying scot-free."

The next day when Otis tripped me the first time, I got up and hit him back. He laughed and punched me in the stomach, then tripped me again. I got up and bear-hugged him, trying to wrestle him to the ground, but he twisted my arm behind my back and held it that way as we stumbled on toward the school. I kicked at him, butted him with my head and kept trying to hit him in the face.

The one-sided fight went on all the way to school. When he let me go, he commanded, "Meet me after school at the flag pole!"

The day passed incredibly fast. I just KNEW he was going to beat me to a pulp after school, but I was determined to deny him the satisfaction of scaring me off. I was trapped anyway, because he would get me sooner or later.

News of the big fight spread, and a good-sized crowd of boys was waiting at the flag pole when I came out. In the middle was Otis with a group of six smaller boys, each about my size. Otis said, "Billy, I decided that it wouldn't be fair for me to fight you, since I'm so much bigger. I picked out these six boys, and you're going to have to fight them."

"All at one time?" I stammered.

"No. One at a time."

And so I fought those six boys, one at a time. Otis acted as the referee; he would pull a boy out to fight; we would circle, hit at one another, clinch, roll around on the ground, etc., for about five minutes; I would be allowed a minute to rest, and then he would repeat with the others until all six had fought. I don't know who won, but I didn't give up.

Evidently, when I started resisting Otis, it caused him to respect me more. When we had finished fighting, he put his arm around me and said, "Now you are a member of my gang." Then he took me to a house in the next block. We went in the back door and found an old lady in the kitchen. Otis told her, "I brought you a new member. He whipped six boys."

She looked me over and treated me nicely, saying I was welcome to come over any time. Well, I was scared. I knew something wasn't right about that old lady. I got out of there as fast as I could and never went back.

Mama told me later the police arrested that woman. They found a lot of stolen items in her house. She had organized a gang of boys who were stealing things for her to sell.

I don't believe mama called the police about Otis and the old lady, but I do know that Otis never lifted a hand toward me again.