during high school there was always the fear of
being bashed up by the hoods or losers in the
form/ of having shirts torn & earrings ripped out
in p.e. & on sports afternoons if their team lost/
some sports got that violent/ other schools in the area
withdrew their students & refused to participate/
when parramatta lost in football i was attacked
in woodwork with a rasp/ by one of the clean cut
boys called ricky brewster/ all done behind the
teacher's back/ but then again the teachers' backs
were always turned/ when i was walking down a
corridor/ on the way to a h.s.c. exam/ four boys in
year ten formed a scrum by linking arms/ &
rammed me into the brick wall in the corridor/
the whole school needed to wear a straight jacket
inside a padded cell/ in order to protect itself
against its own bottled up aggression/ i fell
down & said 'fucking pricks'/ the fear pushed
so far down/ that i could no longer be afraid of
pain/ fear replaced by determination/ i always
knew that if my life was threatened/ say by some
one with a gun/ there would be no whimpering/
no pathetic going to the knees for forgiveness/ no
pleading/ if they didn't kill me i would kill them/
the blase machinery in training for the factory/
the army or police force/ without attitude without
emotion/ just get out there shit kicker & do your
job/ in first form my friends were tipped off the
wooden bench seat during lunch/ so that the one
we protected in the middle/ would fall onto the
grass to be bashed up/ on the school bus the fear
of harassment/ or the shouts 'come & sit up the
back with us coral'/ if you didn't you were in
trouble for being a dag/ dags like susan &
debbie that were picked on endlessly/ that
always sat up in the front seat/ hoping for
protection from the bus driver/ or to get off fast
when their stop arrived/ this big long haired jerk
called john (his body too big for his brain)/ kept
sitting next to me/ putting his hand on my knee/
then looking around at the others laughing/ the
third time he did it/ i stabbed him with a compass/
i was considered too weird to be properly bashed
up/ the closest i came was with big rebecca bell/
with her nasty sidekick lydia black/ standing in
front of me in the quadrangle/ saying 'hit her
becky hit her'/ rebecca had big zircon rings that
were the size of knuckle busters/ my girlfriends
turned away through fear/ or went off to the
canteen/ as the losers converged on us to watch/
or to perhaps join in when i was down/ when i
looked into the freckled face & grey eyes of
rebecca/ i saw the vague stupidity of distemper/ i
thought i'm going to lose/ but i'll get a few good
hits in/ suddenly she turned away & walked off
saying/ 'she's too much of a dog for me to fight'/
i always carried a knife in my bag & intended
to use it/ i thought i wouldn't aim for the heart/
because the ribcage would get in the way/ i knew
that i would aim for the guts
