The Worm Turns And Nothing Is There

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage."
—  Seneca

When I read this quote I was in rather a hurry and, for no apparent reason, read the word "courage" as "revenge". About all they have in common is that they're spelled using the same alphabet, so it's probably less an example of a curious cognitive upfuck and more a somewhat unsettling window into my personality.

At any rate, before I realized the error it brought to mind old enemies I've had and how many of them I've outlived.

Most of them, it turns out.

Sadly, and annoyingly, my few years lately spent learning the practical implementation of Stoicism has drained away about 90% of the delicious schadenfreude that's so righteously mine. I've slowly been learning that I should only emotionally invest in events I control, which boils down to virtually nothing.

In fact, all that I truly control is my reaction to events. I don't usually control events or other people at all. For example, I can't fix someone being a dickhead, no matter how much it pisses me off. The only thing I can control is my reaction to him being a dickhead. If I'm angry and stressed about it, he's going to continue to be a dickhead. If I'm NOT, he's also going to continue to be a dickhead, but I'm feeling much better, thanks. So, I ignore him, limit my contact with him to the degree possible, and move on. And, at the end, if him being a dickhead doesn't matter to me, neither does his outcome.

This whole string of thought, which was brought on by the misreading, lead me in the convoluted ways and poorly decided rabbit-trails that thoughts tend to chase, and ended with me deciding to find Ryan Pratt. This is truly one of those "Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time" moments. I literally hadn't thought of Ryan in DECADES, at least. I must have just been bored.

Now, you don't know Ryan, and it's not just because that's a bullshit name I made up to fill in for a real kid. Ryan and Reid Hannes (another bullshit name, but real person) were near-caricature bullies who featured prominently in my life from when I was seven or eight up until thirteen or so.

I can only describe them in negative terms, because although they more-or-less human in a genetic sense, they were otherwise entirely composed of negative traits. They were both a year or so older than I, certainly at least a year bigger. Ryan, in fact, was considerably more than a year bigger, being an atavistic throwback to those times when being the largest animal in your particular family unit or tribe was the best predictor of whether you'd survive. He was built like a wrestler, had a splotchy red face with piggy little eyes that squinted dully from behind a pair of always broken glasses. I can't remember what color his hair really was. I suspect it was red, but this may be a false "Christmas Story" memory. I'd never seen him laugh, as he had no discernible sense of humor. I truly believe it was outside his intellectual reach. He was a juvenile version of a sullenly sadistic Mafia street thug but without an apparent profit motive. His main occupations were failing grades (which is how he wound up in mine so early on) and hanging out with Reid.

Reid was a skinny, blond, round-headed kid with a perpetual sneer that, as far as I could tell, alienated every single human he ever met. He was wiry and strong, and the brains of the operation insofar as brains can be said to enter the equation. He was also, generously, an irredeemable piece of shit.

The two of them, Ryan and Reid, spent their time terrorizing practically every other kid within two years of their age, plus OR minus, mostly in that low-grade "Oh, fuck me, don't notice me today" kind of way that bullies use to ensure the other kid's misery even when they didn't have time or interest in actively screwing with him.

They used to mess with the girls as much as the boys, but once when we were all in fifth grade the older brother of one of their victims chased Reid till he stumbled to his hands and knees and threw up. He caught Ryan, who had stopped to help Reid, and beat him so badly that it looked for awhile like he was going to have to go to the hospital.

The older kid got into some kind of "Leave It To Beaver"-scale trouble, of course (c'mon, it was the early 60s), but Reid and Ryan kept a low profile for most of that summer and never thereafter had anything to do with anyones' little sisters. This was a lesson I took to heart, if not to scrawny, undersized body. Administering an ass-beating resolves problems with people who think they're exempt from getting their asses beaten.

Call it a life rule.

At any rate, they all slowly faded out of my life. They completely disappeared for all practical purposes the year I suddenly developed a probably hormonally-charged volcanic temper accompanied by a major growth spurt. I didn't connect the events in my mind until much later, but I spotted Reid in the between-classes hallway crowd just before that kid ran up behind me and slapped my books to the ground. 

The kid didn't even have time to take a laughing step back before I hit him so hard I thought I'd broken my hand. Wouldn't be the last time that happened, but since examples work as well as they do the number of occasions rapidly dropped asymptotically to near-zero as time went on. 

I can't even remember the poor little turd's name. Scott, maybe? I do know the school nurse sent him home when she couldn't get the nosebleed to stop and his shirt looked like he'd been butchering a hog. Dramatic, but he wasn't really hurt that badly and I was only suspended two days for fighting. I took a hiding for THAT when I got home.

Anyhow, I didn't realize until years later that I was never approached by Reid and/or Ryan again after that day I stepped over the border marked by Scott's bloody corpse from "Geek Targetstan" into the free state of "Don't Fuck With Me". I just knew that they'd moved into the background which was probably best for all of us. Never stopped hating the sadistic little bastards, though.

And today, for no apparent reason, I went about finding Ryan. I found myself curious to see where he'd wound up. 

It was a hard find, because, as I finally discovered, he's been dead since 1992. Into the Army at 18 for a couple of years, including a Vietnam tour about the same time as mine, then hanging out in Colorado Springs doing nothing in particular, another two-year Army stretch in 1980, then working in his brother's business until he finally stuck a pistol in his mouth. 

I found a picture of his gravestone which is in a miniature cemetery in a barely-town out on the windswept plains near the North Dakota and Montana border, his only company being the 18-wheelers muttering by in the distance on I-94, headed for real places.

"Fuck you, Ryan," I thought as soon as the picture popped up on FindAGrave, "it's better than you deserved." But there was no heat to it. Just a mild satisfaction that I'd managed to find such a hard subject. Beyond the most distant curiosity, he meant nothing to me.

The exercise with Reid was much easier. He died late last year. He didn't do any military time, as his prison stays made him ineligible. In the entire vastness of the internet, I was able to find only one picture of him with his kids. 

Yeah, he had some. You could see the resemblance, even though none of them were standing next to him. He was there, and they were about three feet away from him in a group with spouses and grandkids. It was clearly supposed to be a family picture, but it said everything that needed said about his place there. He looked old and burned out, but even with his thin hair and Van Dyke mustache/beard I'd have been able to pick him out of a crowd. It was the still-remaining ghost of his smirk that did it. 

His FaceBook memorial page had no pictures and not a single visitor. I couldn't even figure out where they buried him, even though he died right here in Texas, less than 200 miles from me, where he lived mooching off of family, as far as I can tell. 

"And fuck you, too," I told his sad picture. "I'm glad you're dead." And I was, too, but only in the most distant way.

Understand my lack of reaction wasn't forgiveness or a lack of forgiveness. I'm mildly glad they're both dead, as they were in fact shitsticks. But either way, I just didn't care one way or the other more than a moment.  

Annoying: Where's my little happy dance that I get to do because the worst parts of my life were apparently better than the best parts of theirs? Eh. Dust in my mouth. Again, I am confronted with the truth — they mean nothing to me at all.

I thought that perhaps it had all been so long ago that I'd just gotten over the childhood traumas. Not true. I'm finding that even the most recent events and personalities I'm having to deal with only barely raise a ripple, and it's always gone as soon as I notice it. And I'm happy. A bit annoyed that I don't get those "IN YOUR FACE!" moments any more and have lost the desire to piss on the graves of old enemies. I just don't give a shit — and while it's a fair trade for the calm places I increasingly find myself in, I'll admit I miss it more than a little.

In Our Next Episode: We philosophically meditate on the meaning, morality, and aesthetics of a bangin' hot redhead.