Raymond
Raymond was bad news…..I remember him vividly….he had a very stinky afro. Every-time he walked by, I wanted to puke. He was my 7th grade bully. He would take every opportunity to go through my bag and steal from me. I remember him laughing as I got into big trouble, because I screamed at my teacher. Raymond had stolen a very expensive watch from me, in the middle of class. I told my teacher to search him, and he told me I couldn’t do that. So he walked away with an Omega watch that was given to me as a present from my dad.
We had algebra together, which at the time, I wasn’t fairing so well, and needed no help from having him stressing me out, even more. He really had no excuse, other than the fact that he was a criminal. He had been arrested several times. He sold drugs. At that age and he already had a stolen car under his belt. He sticks out in my mind so much; because he was the first real criminal I met and knew.
I basically stayed away from him, out of disgust. He was a predator in every sense of the word. He would accost everyone and had no fear for authority or law. He would walk around and at least destroy one thing on his path before reaching the end of a street or a school hall. I really believe that he had it in his DNA.
I used to walk to and from school with my friend Mary, everyday. One day, she was at home, sick and as I walked to school, Raymond got on my case. I told him, that he really needed to put a lot of distance between us. (In my mind, I had no problem envisioning him in critical care). I realized that morning, just how much I hated him, deep inside.
He kept on teasing me, and doing circles around me. He kept asking me how much money I had. I had a very bad feeling about this, as I was planning to go shopping that day, and yes, I had quite a sum of money on me. He taunted me all the way to school, and I was relieved once I got to school. Right when we were let out for lunch, I went out to the store, with my friend. Inevitably, there was Raymond.
He smacked my friend with the back of his 007 knife. The blade was 12 inches, alone. My friend ran away. He then turned to me. He was told of my plans to go shopping and to him that meant I had money, and he wanted it. But he was actually surprised when I said, NO.
He laughed and pointed out, that he had my back against the wall, and he had his blade on my neck. … I told him; “ just to be fair, this is exactly
Why you should just go away”. Because I was justified by all elements to show him that I was no longer going to be bullied by him. I was tired of his stench, I was tired of him being near me and I was really tired of him.
I risked a slash on my throat when I side-slapped the blade from my neck. I grabbed the handle and pushed him long enough to pull out of my bag….my favorite pair of nunchucks. Ah….nice, heavy and did I mention I had a thing for chucks? I had a bunch o’them….oh that knife was off his hands within seconds of the chucks coming out. I took his knife, smacked him with it, on the back of his head and I ran to the principal’s office. I called my parents, and told them someone tried to kill me. They were there in minutes. Now in the middle of this, I screamed for the police, to which I grabbed the phone and called them myself.
When they showed up, I told them the story. The police took the report, and we went to the station to press charges. It ended up in a trial. My friend and her parents were too scare to let her testify.
Raymond had too many arrests to ignore, and I had made a big enough stink to make it to the local paper. This was enough to have him taken away from his parents, and into juvenile. I was very happy to go to school without Raymond. I later found out he got killed during an armed robbery to a grocery store.