Easy


He walked like a tumble weed rolls but he did it with grace. His body moved up and down as each foot moved forward but not with any jerking motion. It sort of rolled into the next position.

"Galumph," someone once said. But that didn't stick.

"He reminds me of a tumble weed dancing across the desert in front of a soft gentle breeze," another said. So they tried to pin "Tumble Weed" or just "Weed" on him. But, those names didn't stick either.

Naturally, he was teased and mentally tortured by the other kids. But, he just rolled along doing his farm chores and going to school like the other kids.

His given name was Joseph but only his mother used it.  Everyone else had another name for him, including his father who called him "Tater Eyes"  He may have set some kind of record for the number of nick names that had been thrown at him.

Despite his handicap he learned to walk without any problems but he never spoke a word until he was five years old. He always understood what was being said to him and when he did start speaking he had the vocabulary of an adult.

Somehow he always knew when people were teasing him or talking about him and from his toddler years he had learned to smile and ignore remarks that were not kind.

Some time just before or just after he entered high school someone remarked how easy going he was.

"You know, that boy never gets mad. No matter what others call him or say about him, he just smiles. I have never seen anyone so easy going."

And there it was.  A name that stuck..."Easy".

With the name, the taunting stopped. How can anyone taunt someone named "Easy". There is no use.
The definition of taunting might include "the way to get inside of someone's brain". If it didn't work...what was the use?

But, Easy's way of walking caused him to bump into the class bully while he had a full can of soda up to his lips. All of the bully's friends laughed and Easy apologized and tried to wipe the soda off the boy's shirt.

Embarrassed and mad, the bully simply solved his problem by punching Easy smack in the left eye. Easy landed flat on his rump and the eye bulged out more into a rat sized lump than a mouse size lump.

The bully's friends began to laugh at Easy as he sat on his butt with both hands flat on the floor to keep him from continuing back wards and banging his head on the tiled floor. 

Then Easy did something that hadn't been part of him. He got mad and when he stood up he had his fists clamped and ready to fight.

The bully was so sure that Easy wouldn't fight that he just stood there and laughed.

He was right. Easy relaxed his fists and walked away. But, he wasn't afraid. He had decide on a better solution.

The next day Easy planted his body in the hallway of the school where he knew the bully would walk by and waited for him.  When he saw him walking down the hall towards he took a candy bar from his pocket and peeled the wrapper off.

He was holding the bar and almost ready to take a bite as the bully walked in front of him. The bully took the bait. Just like fishing down at the pond, Easy thought.

Easy smiled as the bully shoved the bar down his throat.

"What are you going to do about it?" the bully taunted.

Easy shrugged his shoulders and turned and waked away. The bully laughed.

As Easy walked out of the school door he dropped the candy bar wrapper in the trash.

If anyone had looked in the trash they would have seen the writing on the wrapper.

"ex-lax" - use sparingly.

* * * * * *

written for "Two Shoes Tuesday"


by gs batty/July 2013







16 comments:

  1. A delightful story of well-deserved revenge! I actually worked in a situation once where this very ploy was used by one group of employees in retaliation against another. However, the pawns in the "game" were nursing home residents that were over-dosed with laxative by the departing shift. It was a really shitty thing to do in every sense of the word. It wasn't funny, but in your story, it truly was. Way to go Easy!:-) Your writing skills made me love Easy, GS, great job! Thank you for an awesome Two Shoes Tuesday post!

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    1. tried to figure a way to add something about "blowin in the wind" at the end but nothing worked so decided to leave it alone.
      thanks for your kind comnent

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  2. "sort of rolled into the next position" was a great description of the way Easy moved.

    Part of me was hoping Easy would just punch him, but mostly I'm glad he didn't.

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    1. my first draft had Easy "cold-cocking" the bully but somehow that couldn't work with the character I had created.
      thanks for stopping by...

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  3. Nice one, Grizz ~~ In Florida he could say he feared for his life and "Stand his ground" by leagally shooting the bully. Good ridance.
    ..
    BTW, did you know that your profile is "unavailable?" Something must have slipped.
    ..

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    1. never understood the law..but thought we all had the right to defend ourselves..the case was tragic for everyone except the "talking heads" and they are pushing it to the max...
      thanks for the heads up..the slip is my ability to change the look of my blog...probably deep-sixed it and never realized it.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 17, 2013

    This is excellent Grizz, I was definitely rooting for Easy I loved his choice of vengeance! Tater Eyes cracked me up I admit lol

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    1. Revenge can be sweet...at least for the one getting it. This story has some truth as we had a bully in high school and someone played that trick on him...

      "tater eyes" is what my father called me as a boy...

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    2. AnonymousJuly 18, 2013

      Way to go for him!

      Really? I was never given nicknames I was called all sort of things good and bad but I never really had any kind of nickname that stuck. I was often teased about conflicting things somehow I was too fat and too skinny (does that mean I was average lol) I don't know teasing never makes sense really

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    3. Nick names can be a source of endearment or a source of torture. My dad always had a nick name for his children and grandchildren, etc and we all new they were terms of love. In high school my group of friends called each other by last names. To this date we still do. In sports the media is always tagging the players with nick names...Kobe Bryant.."The Black Mamba"..,
      I think "too fat and too skinny" is normal or average for a teen age girl..My sisters and my daughters were always "to fat or to skinny"...according to them.

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    4. AnonymousJuly 19, 2013

      Haha I didn't have too much of a complex as a teenager, others were way more interested in my weight than I was but thanks to their intense and relentless interest I now have a complex! That's cool =) My initials were C. Lewis and for some reason kids thought that I must be the relative of C.S. Lewis that was about the only attention my last name received (I do not think we are related!)

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    5. my true last name is Beatty...so I have always been asked if I was related to Warren...my answer has always been.."you can look at the two of us and think we could be related?"

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  5. AnonymousJuly 17, 2013

    Payback can be sweet, indeed. Bullies always get what they deserve, eventually. Good story!

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    Replies
    1. thanks McGuffy...appreciate you comment and the visit.

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  6. Replies
    1. Thanks Patricia...Easy does it...the good way

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