"Bum Bashing"

Hank and Jimmy were the biggest bullies in our high school. They were the stereotypical “bad kids.” They wore lots of black baggy clothes and had multiple facial piercings. Hank even had a tattoo of a Chinese character on his forearm before it was a fad.

(Of course nowadays, since he wasn’t Asian, he might be accused of cultural appropriation, though it’d be hard to picture anyone saying that to his face.)

The two were inseparable, and if it weren’t for the rumor about Hank raping a drunk girl, on a sofa, at a party, it might have been thought the two were lovers.

The two were always beating up on nerds, scrawny kids, foreigners. There was a pudgy little Indian kid named Kartique (pronounced “Karta-kay”) and they’d kick the crap out of him, call him “Farta-kay” and steal his lunch money, damn near every day.

The worst I heard about them (well, maybe second to the raping) was that the two liked to go “bum bashing.”

Bum bashing, I didn’t even know what that was until my friend Tim filled me in.

“Bum bashing is when people go out, normally under the cover of night, and beat the shit out of bums, homeless,” Tim told me, in the cafeteria, as he chomped on a corndog.

Tim had gone on to say that Hank and Jimmy would allegedly carry baseball bats, pipes, hammers, whatever blunt object they could get their hands on, and then they’d set off in the night, find homeless sleeping rough in parks or in alleys and then savagely beat the ever-living shit out of the vagrants.

Tim and I then joked about dispensing a healthy helping of vigilante justice on the pair. Maybe slapping an electromagnet at Hank and Jimmy’s faces, watching it vacuum off their facial piercings. Then we talked about flinging gasoline on them, as they stood behind the gym, smoking cigarettes, setting the fuckers on fire.

We fantasized about numerous horror movie scenarios, numerous gruesome ways to murder the two. Even though they never picked on us as much as other kids, still, Jimmy had punched me in the stomach once and stole my Chicago Bulls stocking cap and Harry had slammed Tim’s head into a locker and stolen his Gameboy.

Yup, even though I already despised them, hearing about their penchant for “bum bashing” pissed me off to no end.

For real though, despite stinking worse than a bus station bathroom, the homeless in our city were mostly harmless. Most were elderly, with mental problems, many were Vietnam veterans. I always felt for those vets, too, since I’d had an uncle killed in ‘Nam.

For real though, those veterans deserved better. Dammit, that was the last thing they deserved, getting beaten on by those two snickering shitheads. The more I thought about it, the more my blood boiled.

 

Soon after that cafeteria chat, I saw a story on the evening news about a homeless man, in his 70s, who’d been found, beaten to death, not far from our high school. I’d suspected the perpetrators to be Hank and Jimmy. But I didn’t have any proof, aside from the rumor I’d heard. However, I’d considered calling the police.

As much as I hate snitching, murder, especially that of a senior citizen, now that’s fucked up, and the more I pondered it, the sicker I felt, and I contemplated calling the cops and leaving an anonymous tip.

But I decided not to after I heard the news.

 

It was a damp, chilly and foggy Monday morning, and I got to school late after missing the bus. My friend, Tim, who was my only friend, really, back then, had seen me in the hallway, between classes, and he ran up to me, giddy as can be. His breath smelled strongly of mint chewing gum.  

“Hey, you hear about Hank and Jimmy?” he asked, his eyes bulging and blazing with excitement.

Shaking my head, “Nah, what about those asshats?” I asked.

“They were out wilding last night, slashing tires, breaking windows, beating up on bums. But, like, a younger homeless veteran spotted them wailing on an old guy in a cardboard box, and the veteran ran over, went fucking Chuck Norris on the pair, beat the both of them... bad… Beat ‘em bad, I mean, reeeeeeal bad. Hank’s neck is broken. Dude might never walk again... And Jimmy… Yo… Jimmy is dead…”

“Dead?”

“Dead. Got his skull caved in. And the veteran is in jail.”

I lacked the language to respond, I was so floored by the news. Jimmy was the first person my age I knew who’d died. Even though I despised him, still, his sudden, violent death hit me like a gut punch.

 

Hank showed up to school, a couple months later. But he wasn’t the same guy. He was emaciated. He had these heavy bags under his eyes, making him look almost like a raccoon. He kept quiet and was transferred to the “special needs” classes, where he sat with the mentally retarded kids. Later that summer, he was convicted of the murder of the old homeless man, and was charged as an adult, sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

The young veteran pled guilty to lesser charges and got off relatively lightly, with only a short prison sentence.

I’m not inclined, usually, to believe in karma, but sometimes, sometimes I wonder…