Meek Vengeance

 I once wanted to be a gangster or at least a bully. I had been a nerd being picked on for quite a while, and I wanted payback.

I told my dad one morning as he was driving me to the school of my intentions of pushing my weight around, hoping to get some grudging respect. He said it was doable, but that my plan could backfire against me in a major way.

He told me a story to illustrate his point.

A certain old man was seated and chatted with some neighbors in an outdoor cafe while their clothes were in the laundromat being cleaned.

There was the old man, a young woman in her early to mid-thirties, and two or three middle-aged men from the neighborhood.  This old man now had recently moved to this neighborhood in Miami, Florida from his native Belgium, the Flemish part of the country. 

Now, the area was mostly inhabited with Cuban-Americans and the old gentleman was fluent in various languages, including Spanish, which was the language being used here.

About fifteen minutes passed. Then there appeared the neighborhood thug, a nineteen-year-old, handsome, muscular, and tall guy.  He took a look at the old man, and because he could, he pulled his hand out of his jeans pocket and smacked the old man hard in the cheek. He then stood there and stared to see how the old man would react.  All eyes were on the old guy, the old man who had just been struck.

The old guy calmly, silently looked at the tough guy. He didn't look at any of the others.  He sighed.  He touched his mouth. The corner of it had a little blood from the blow.  The old guy took the can of soft drink and gulped a bit of beverage.  But while doing this, he never took his gaze away from the tough who had just smacked him.

"Hey, old faggot! I just smacked you and I enjoyed it.  And I shit on your piece of the shit mother who brought you into this world.  Show me if you're a man. C'mon get up, do something manly, show me you're not a piece of a shit cocksucker!  Get up, I said. Hey, don't you hear me?  I said, get up motherfucker! C'mon! Show me who's boss here."

The old man remained silent.  He didn't even grimace at any of the insults hurled at him by the tough dude.  The tough guy was visibly upset at not being addressed.  He said, "Hey, you want me to smack you again, you piece of shit, cocksucking, old geezer?" 

At that moment, the old man. He pulled out his wallet and took out a fifty-dollar bill and extended it to the tough guy.  "What the fuck? What is the matter with you, old geezer, you dumb fuck,  you giving me money after I just smacked your cheek?  You're squatting down and letting me bareback you like that?  I don't believe this is happening.  You're more full of shit than I ever imagined.  Okay, okay. Gimme that dough.  I'm going to do Ramona. She gives mind-blowing blowjobs.  And then I'm going to fuck the hell out of her, and I'll give here these fifty bucks you just handed me. Yeah, I'm going to do that now.  Hey, bye sucker!"

The tough guy walked away.  Everybody looked at the old man with the most contempt for his servile response.  The old man had expected this reaction.  No one spoke to him now. They couldn't even look at him.  

The woman stared disgustedly at the old man. She still was in a state of disbelief over the overmeek response of the old man.

The old man looked at her and smiled broadly.  The woman looked away.

The conversation continued.  The old man now having no one to talk to since they wouldn't even look at him, grabbed a Spanish language newspaper lying on a nearby table and began reading.

A half hour more passed. Nothing was going on.

Then suddenly, there rang a loud gunshot.

People began screaming and running.  

A young man who lived in the neighborhood came running to the group.

"Somebody shot Pablo, the neighborhood tough!  He's dead.  He's lying face down in a pool of his own blood."

Gradually, all the people began looking at the old man very nervously, especially the woman.  The old man looked at each of them with a cruel, cynical smile.

A year or two more passed since that incident.  The old man finally died.

The Miami Herald published the obituary of the old man.  He had been a World War II hero, a tough and fearless Resistance fighter who had killed about twenty Nazi soldiers and three high ranking Nazi officers in Belgium.  The Gestapo had captured him, and he endured their torture without breaking.  After the war, he became a mercenary soldier and fought in the Congo savagely and without a minimum of fear. Finally, he tired of it all and retired and emigrated to live in Miami, Florida.

After telling me the story, my dad then asked me why did I think that the old man had given the tough guy that money after he'd been slapped? Did I think that the old man was a coward?

Even though I was a fifteen year old kid, I knew how to think.

"Dad, the old man gave the tough lad that money so that it would go to his head and do something so stupid out of pride and arrogance that he would get himself killed.  He murdered the tough guy by proxy. He messed with the bully's head and made that guy take on the wrong victim, one who would finally kill him."

"You're right, son. That's what he did and why he gave the bully that money.  Do you still want to be a bully yourself now?"

"Hell no, dad. I'd be taking my own life in my own hands if I did something that moronic."

"Well said, son.  You stick with your books, get yourself educated. And when you're done learning, you'll always have physically powerful men do your fighting for you and it will be their bodies that will suffer and you'll sit back in comfort."