No, not actually good...
But good at what he done.
As a child I grew to fear him.
As an adult, I can’t wait
Until I see him again.
Once upon a time
in The Proving Grounds...
I was running from him...
Running away was what I did
when Schlie turned up.
Everyone ran...
I done nothing to him,
I never did anything to him...
Schlie targeted me anyway.
I was the easy target.
Slow. Fat. Weak. Bad fighter...
Schlie set his sights on me
the way a cheetah does its prey...
He dismounted his bike
to run after me...
He was a jerk like that.
He ran after me with ease.
He was toying with me...
At one point he even ran circles
around me while laughing and calling me names.
He ran circles around me
and still had breath
to verbally accost me and laugh!
All while I continued to run my hardest!
Like I said,
he was a jerk like that.
While attempting escape…
Attempting...
It embarrasses me even now!
…
He isolated me.
The weakest one his bike patrol could find.
He moved in for the kill…
Schlie kicked my legs out from under
me with a disciplined sweeping kick.
I toppled to the hard sidewalk.
Schlie would hover overtop of me
and taunt me.
Schlie was barking and growling
like the horrid beast
He would never stop being...
And he was slapping me!
And he was punching me!
And he was kicking me!
…
I covered my head
and silently wished him to die.
He eventually got bored and left.
He always did.
His feeble mind needing to be given
a sequence of continual conquest.
He got back on his bike,
victorious in his own mind…
His patrol resumed.
His hunt continued.
Feeling better about himself now,
surely his trademark smirk
was showing strongly.
He was, once again, full of shallow-pride.
After I was sure he was gone
I got up and dragged my scratched
and bruised body home.
Again…
I would attempt to take Tae Kwon Do
So I could learn how to kick his ass
but eventually the problem was solved
when I moved away to Atlanta Georgia.
Schlie would only re enter my life once
again
as the next-door neighbor of some good friends.
"Yeah, we have this real screwy neighbor..."
They would say one evening.
It ended up being Schlie.
After all these years
It would work out that he
would still be playing his role.
Still, again.
The Cheetah patrolling with his smirky smirk.
Feeding on a diet of continual conquest...
Schlie was still the big bad bully...
But now, things had changed.
They intensified.
In a bad way…
He was the bully of the entire community now.
Schlie was the chief of police.
In the same neighborhood
he terrorized me in.
The cheetah still on the prowl
hunting the prey
that run away
day after day.
This time he had a partner, the badge.
The streets are more dangerous than ever!
One day I will see him,
Approach him and remind him...
Remind him how he was a bully.
Remind him, how in many ways,
he is still a bully.
A smirking bully with a badge.
No matter how many awards or medals
he gets or ever receives.
No matter how many bus loads of kids
and old people he saves
from a wreck or terrorist attack
or whatever other
fill-in-the-blank calamity that may yet exist...
No matter if he does any of that,
or all of that,
or any number of the myriad of things
that makes cops appear to be heroic...
Schlie will never be my hero.
He will always be that kid
who made me wish I were dead.
After all my wishing that he was dead
never, ever, worked out.
One day I will look him straight in the eye
and tell him those exact words.
I guess the fear is gone...
Now.
Finally.