No, for the record. I don't remember you name. And yes, you were fat then. You wore trashy clothes and smelled. But worse was the terrible way you tried so damn hard to be cool that it literally hurt to watch. It made me grimace. Still does. The way you hovered and tagged along like a retarded remora. Eating our shit while we ignored you. And hell, even when we told you to go away, you still followed us, yeah? You had every bit of what we gave you coming.

The fact that it was me makes no difference either. In fact, the beating didn't matter either, because in the end I made you stronger. Yes, we were just kids when all of this was going down. That's even what the adults said too, right? But you know we were just playing the same games that Men do. Maybe we didn't understand what it meant then. All those social-psycho aspects and big words behind it. But it was the same. We waged our wars, shunned fakers, loved our own, and hated others. We went to sleep, woke up, and did repeated it day after day.

Has it changed any? Can you answer that? You can't lie to me, but you can to yourself. But me, I'll be straight up. Yeah, we stomped your faggot ass. Right over by the vine choked, chain link fence on the far corner of the field. Right at the perfect time of the day where the shadows kept us hidden from view in broad daylight. I wasn't planning on teaching you anything that day, but I did. See, when you're at the bottom, you don't get to say anything what you want. You don't get to say the things on your mind because it means nothing without something to back it up. Power. Authority. Respect. Intelligence. Goddamned conviction. None of which you had.

So you think you were a nice kid? Yeah? And that's why you're the angel in all this, yeah. Okay. Remember, you called me queer right before I punched your face. Ain't that something. So think, what genuinely nice thing did you ever actually do? Without expecting my friendship in return. Without expecting a pat on the back or a gold fucking star. Yeah, Mister Nice Guy. No ulterior motives whatsoever. Forgetting the difference between actual kindness and just not doing anything to anyone.

You assumed we were all kinds of stupid and our crowd only hung out because we admired each other's assholery. Never assumed that we actually understood the concept of friendship or that we saw things in each other that you apparently lacked. We had social tact and respect for each other that you so hopelessly lacked. And that's our fault? We're supposed to tutor you and nurture your ass?

Fuck that, and fuck you too.

You called me queer, and then you acted like you were going to hit me. But you were too much of a coward to follow through with any real action. What the fuck is wrong with you? So I laughed at your stupid, winding story about your dog or some shit. You got mad. Boo hoo. Let me show you how to really hit someone. Let me show you have to make damn sure to shut someone up--and then keep them from coming back with anything else.

So eat the dirt, fag. Right here, right now against the dead grass, under our feet because you don't know me. You really don't. For all you know (hope) I was the product of a broken, loveless marriage with an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother addicted to painkillers. I was beat and showed nothing but hate so now it's all I know. And maybe my uncle would watch me on the weekends because my parents would be off blitzing themselves with whatever substance. And then he'd take me into the backyard for 'camping' and then molest and sodomize me against the scratchy, crisscross pattern of cheap Walmart canvas. Maybe he said if I told anyone that he'd call me a liar, and then everyone would call me a dirty fag for thinking up sick stories.

And you'd like that, wouldn't you? You're not perfect.

Or maybe I'm just inhuman to you. I'm just a psychopath. All the king's doctors and all of their pills couldn't put the fractured pile that was my psyche back together again. Not even Mommy and Daddy's love was enough to cover the dark, gaping hole inside that was meant to hold a soul. I took stray kittens behind my house and bashed their goddamned little skulls in, and right now I'm somewhere off in El Paso, luring hookers into my truck so I can take them back home and drown them in a bathtub for fun. And then I'll smoke a cigarette afterwards like it was the best I'd ever had.

Or maybe not.

What if I grew up?

One day I had an epiphany. I realized my wrongs. I let go of that hate and learned to love myself. I felt remorse over my sins. The people I'd hurt. I look at my son and I pray, every night, that he doesn't carry the same rage that I and my father had, and his father before. Please, God, let him be better. And when I get the chance, I go out of my way to do good. You know, in the vague karmic sense. I know it doesn't change anything. I know it doesn't right the wrong. My weight to carry. Memories of me beating a helpless, terrified boy in middle school because he couldn't help the awkward way he walked life. Just because he got on my nerves. And it hurts. It hurts knowing I was capable of inflicting that kind of pain

Maybe I went on to feel the pain you did.

Or, what if I was and am just some unforgivable asshole? I'm driving the newest BMW(your dream car), screwing and abusing your high school crush, and living a life I will never deserve even if I spent nine lives in hell making up for it. I'm everything you've ever hated and more. I'm a thousand miles away doing everything you did-not and will-not. It's no fair and it makes you want to kick my teeth in.

So yeah, Mister Nice Guy. So perfect that even if you did know me, you wouldn't care. So perfect you drug around a child's hate through ten years. Three schools, six cars, five girlfriends, three near death experienced, two months homeless, and whole goddamned war later and you still shake with anger. Sitting at your desk, thinking of things you hated as you smoke because you think it's romantic in a stupid self destructive way. Letting your hand shake and stutter the line of smoke as it crawls up to your ceiling. Ridiculous. So busy hating the boy I was that somewhere along the way you forgot that we were supposed to grow up and be Men.