I imagine the kid didn’t like the beating very much, because the next day during homeroom I was hauled off to the office alongside a blubbering little child and a stern-faced principal. Stephen, I learned his name was. His mother was there too, sitting in the corner and shooting me nasty glares all throughout the ordeal.
As soon as I sat down, Stephen’s mother began going off. “This boy is a menace!” she said, only just managing not to burst into tears. “I cannot believe you would tolerate this type of behavior. My son, he could not even walk for an entire day. And he cried! He never cries in front of me, not since he was a baby, but when he came home he broke down!”
There was an almost comical tone to her meltdown. I thought it was funny. I kept glancing at Stephen to see if he thought so too, but he was too busy looking down and pretending he had obtained some sort of trauma from his beating. That was fine. If I had been humiliated, I’d be keeping my head down too.
When Stephen’s mother finished, she took a deep inhale, completely red-faced and out of breath. “And that’s all I have to say, regarding this situation,” she concluded. The principal nodded, and with the same grim expression, she turned to me.
“I called your parents.” She took a pause, as if she were expecting me to flinch. “Although it seems they haven’t arrived yet, I’m sure they will be very disappointed when they hear what has been going on.”
That seemed about right. My dad was probably busy flopping over the streets and being a prostitute, and my mom was probably busy being passed out at a bar being a drunkard. Or maybe not. To be honest, I had no idea what my parents did. At any rate, they were always busy.
“Expulsion may even be on the table,” the principal continued. “You understand what you’ve done here is taken very seriously, correct? We don’t tolerate any sort of fighting, and you can imagine your actions don’t reflect well upon the image of this school.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“The kids here, we fight all the time. Maybe you’re unaware because you’re the principal and all, but everyone knows it. Me personally, I’ve fought loads of kids. And we both enjoy it. It lets off steam, you know? I don’t know why it’s such a big deal now.” I pointed towards Stephen. “And this kid started the whole thing anyway. I didn’t realize he was going to be such a pansy.”
Stephen’s mother glared at me. “It was a tough fight, though,” I added.
The principal gave a deep, long sigh. Then she took off her glasses and set them on the table before leaning far back into her chair, so much so that I thought she might fall off. “Is all of this true?” she finally asked.
“Of course.”
“Stephen?”
Stephen looked at the ground, then at his mother, who seemed to be at the edge of her seat despite being the only person in the room standing up. Then, he looked at me. “No,” Stephen said. “He’s lying.”
Rat bastard, I thought. But oh well, I tried.
“My son has went through hell because of this boy. It’s only proper that you expel him immediately.” And his mother, she was near tears again.
It was pretty depressing. Stephen’s mother, so deeply concerned for her boy, and Stephen, quietly taking in her grief, knowing full well that he didn’t deserve her love. All of it communicated by his uncomfortable glances, looker anywhere but at his mother’s pain-stricken face. What an estranged relationship, I thought. His mother didn’t ask for this. And I suppose, Stephen was in a very awkward position himself. It was this, not his mother’s pleas, nor his bruise-covered face, nor the disappointed look of the principal, that made me feel somewhat remorseful for what I had done.
Stephen. He truly was a pathetic specimen.
Negotiations began to wrap up, and my parents had still not yet arrived. “Is there anything else you want to say?” the principal asked.
I stared blankly at her.
“I know you haven’t been honest with me. Whatever it is that’s really going on, you have to let someone know. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
I paused for a moment, then spoke. “I like to hurt people. It’s what I enjoy doing. Maybe you can’t understand that. And that’s fine. But this is what make me happy. It’s my only reprieve from this hell. Pursuit of happiness, right? I’m only doing what I enjoy doing. It’s my happiness. Stephen, perhaps he doesn’t like it when he gets his teeth kicked in. That’s fair. It makes him happy to not be beat into a bloody pulp. I would never try to take that little reprieve away from him. That would be cruel. But I won’t sacrifice my happiness for his, the same way he would not allow me to kick his teeth in to fulfill my desires. To me, it’s cruel that you’re taking away my happiness. Why place one person’s pursuit of happiness over another? Everybody deserves to be happy, I think. So you’re being cruel. This whole world is cruel, if I really want to go there. Man, this really sucks.”
I was expelled shortly thereafter.