Jeremy Got Beat Up Then Lied

It was a hot fall day and the bus was a bit quieter than it usually was. There was no air conditioning on the bus and even with all the windows opened as far as they were allowed to be opened it was still hot in the bus.

Mario was not in a good mood. It may have been because they were hot. It may have been because some things in their life were miserable. Mario was often a bully. Sometimes even to me. We lived next to each other and there were not many other children within several blocks of us. So, we were friends.

Jeremy lived with one of their parents several blocks away but we had the same bus stop the few days a week they were with that parent. Mario hated Jeremy. Jeremy was a bossy know-it-all. I was cordial with them, but did not hang out with them. Not at all. But, I did not hate them. I just ignored them. Mario could not.

I am not sure what what transpired between those two on the bus that hot day, but it must have been something. While we were walking down the alley before Mario, myself, and Shirley, Mario's sibling turned to our houses, Mario and Jeremy started yelling at each other. They threw their bags down and started pushing each other. It did not take long before Mario had Jeremy in a headlock and was thrashing them about. Shirley and I pleaded with Mario to let them go. We even grabbed Mario's arms to get them to let go. They did a few seconds later. Jeremy was sitting on the ground and we walked home.

The next day in school I was called to the principal's office. Gus was a hard person that belonged to an era that had moved on. The year prior, Gus had paid no attention to my complaints after I was beaten up by a teacher. The principal told me I was to receive one week of in-school suspension for fighting after school. I argued that I was not one of the people in the fight. The principal told me that Jeremy had said that I and Shirley had held them while Mario beat them up. I said that it was not true. That Shirley and myself were actually the ones that stopped the fight between Mario and Jeremy. Gus did not enough about me to even think about it.

In-school suspensions are the most boring. The school had sections of four rooms in a square that shared a small office in the corner between them all. There were two of these sections. Students would have to spend the entire day, eight hours, in the small room by themselves. No windows, no interaction. Just the mumbling that could be heard from the other side of the brick walls into the classrooms.

Five days doing all my school work by myself. I was usually done with the entire day's worth of learning and work in the first three hours. That left the rest of the day to be bored. I tried to rummage though the few things that the teachers had kept in the room. Staplers. Staple removers. Tape dispensers. Hole punches. The like. That entertainment lasted about 30 minutes of the whole week.

It did allow me some time to write in my journal. I was so pissed at Jeremy. I am sure that I was not kind in what I wrote that week.

Shirley had the in-school suspension, just as I did. We got to complain about our boring days on the walk home those five days. Mario was suspended out of school that week.

Walking home one of the days, two police cars, one from our town and another from the next town over pulled up to Shirley and myself. They asked our names. When we gave it, they got out of their cars. The cop from the other town grabbed me and slammed me against the car. Mind you, I am no older than thirteen at this time. Slammed me against the car and starts frisking me. As they were verbally abusing me and my insulting my character, they spent about 10 seconds inside the front of my underwear feeling my junk. I loudly asked if they enjoyed what they were feeling. They pulled their hand out and spun me around. They told us that they were Jeremy's close relative and that we were low life scum for holding them so they could get beaten up.

Great, Jeremy was telling this lie to everyone. No one at school believed us and we were left to rot in windowless rooms like prisoners for eight hours straight each day. Now we had cops from other towns sexually assaulting me and telling us that they were going to ruin our lives.

I was never even cordial to Jeremy again. I ignored them all together. I feel that bullies are usually bullies because they have seen more than their share of rotten people. Perhaps Mario always hated Jeremy because they just knew how rotten of a person Jeremy truly was.