My older brother used to beat me up every single day.
He didn’t have a good reason: he wasn’t an abused child, we had both parents, neither of whom drank or used drugs. We were raised in utterly banal normalcy in suburban Queens; he was just a jerk.
For reasons I didn’t understand as a child, my parents never interfered. Partially because my brother was terrifically duplicitous; an angel when parents were present, and an asshole the second they left the room; partially because they wanted us to figure it out for ourselves, partially because they were more concerned with peace and quiet than with justice, a concept I understand as an adult.
“You can beat me up” I said. “I’ll kill you.”
In any case, my elder brother would come home every day from school, tease me mercilessly, and then beat the living snot out of me. This continued pretty much daily until I was 11 years old. Big bro had just finished tormenting me, and before the tears dried on my face, I went downstairs and oiled the brakes on his bicycle. When he figured out what happened, and who did it, he came home madder than I’d ever seen him, ready to beat me to a pulp. Shoved into a wall and feet hanging off the ground, he raised his fist to my face. I hissed through closed teeth:
“You can beat me up” I said. “I’ll kill you.”
He never laid his hands on me again.
Don’t count on an appeal for justice or mercy. Don’t count on higher authorities to save you. Don’t expect reason and logic to have an effect. Don’t play by the rules with cheaters. Be prepared to stand up for yourselves—and each other.
We’re the only ones that can save us.
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