My Schoolyard Bully

I was on Eddie Bunion’s lunchtime hit list.

Eddie Bunion was good at his job. I estimate he borrowed $12.75 from me that first year. I call it “borrowed” because that’s what he called it though there was never any discussion of interest rates. My calculations showed Eddie brought in close to $10 a week, not bad for a third grader. (I base this number on twenty-five cents per day per victim, nine victims a day, five days a week less the inevitable sick day or two.)

He called us his family. The only advantage of being part of the family was the face-saving luxury of knowing I wasn’t alone. I bore the numbing shame of living each day as a victim. I couldn’t talk with my “brothers” because Eddie always warned us, “You tell anyone and you’re dead!” At eight years old, dead meant dead. It wasn’t hard to imagine Eddie’s clenched fist slamming my temple or his steel-toed boots pulverizing my nose.

Eddie was a master of his trade and there was no one brave enough to stop him.

You’d figure a couple of us would combine forces and fight back. But this is the reasoning of an adult, not a scared schoolboy. In truth, we in the family despised each other. At least that’s how I felt. I remember the time I saw Aaron Howley walk into math class holding his stomach and I knew he’d taken one of Eddie’s beatings. Rather than compassion I felt a sort of glee, grateful it was him and not me who’d been singled out. I reasoned…