Coward of the County

Jed was born skinny and small. There weren't any kids smaller than him in his grade and he had just grown used to being picked on by some of the other children.

There were those that were nice to him, but they were few and far between. He had to eat lunch at school by himself for the most part. The one thing that 5th grade Jed had going for him was that he was smart.

Little did Jed know that his luck was about to change. Jed loved to fish. The problem was that he lived in the well to do part of town where the boys did things like play basketball and tennis and being so small, Jed just wasn't good at either of these.

Jed decided to look elsewhere for someone to spend time with. Then quite by accident, it happened. What happened is that he was put into a group for some stupid gym game the teacher was making them play with a boy named Brian. He began talking with the Brian. Jed Immediately realized that Brian was not like the boys who lived in his neighborhood.

Brian invited Jed over to his house which was located in a very rural section of the county. Jed could not believe his luck. At Brian's, there were horses, dogs, a pond, but mostly, there was Brian. Brian and Jed quickly became inseparable.

Brian introduced Jed to all of his friends. He was immediately accepted into this group. For the first time in his life Jed felt like he fit in.

Sometimes on a warm morning in the summer the whole gang would gather at Brian's house, and we would head out on our next adventure. On one memorable morning we set out for the Ohio River to do some catfishing. They picked up a few other kids on our long trek to the river. One of Jed's friends from Boy Scouts named Bill met them by the school. Bill was a redhead and very smart.

Brian and Jed had spent the previous day seining minnows out of the creek that ran in his front yard. We had caught a couple dozen creek chubs that were about 6 inches long. Brian cut their heads and tails off and left them out overnight where the local racoons couldn't get them. These things were quite fragrant by the time they left to go fishing. Jed had the unfortunate duty of carrying the bait and Brian carried the fishing rods. The trek there took a couple of hours.

They walked down the railroad tracks for a solid hour. They could smell the railroad ties, the forest and of course, the Ohio River had an odor all of its own.

They finally arrived at a place where the boys could walk down to the river on stairs. They had to scurry down the stairs so the guys at the barge terminal wouldn't see them.

The boys gathered en masse down on the riverbank and split up into a few groups so that there were two boys on each opening between barges. The riverbank always stunk like rotting fish and stagnant water. They also divided up the stinking minnows and nightcrawlers. Jed was busy making Ys out of sticks so he could rest his rods on them. Bill and Brian fished with Jed.

After all of the rods were set the boys began talking. They talked about deer, fishing and of course, girls. Then Bill's rod bent over double and began a mad dash towards the river. He ran to retrieve it and in an act of desperation grabbed it. He reared back to set the hook and all at once we all heard a loud crack, his rod had broken under the pressure.

"Fuck," Bill exclaimed.

"Grab the line!" Jed screamed.

Bill grabbed the line and began to pull the fish in hand over hand. As the fish drew close to the shore the boys could see that it was an enormous catfish. The problem was that the fish was scared of the three boys jumping around on the bank and screaming. It took a powerful run causing the line to slide over Bill's hand, slicing his skin like a hot knife through butter. Bill looked at his hand which by now was a brilliant shade of red. He then looked at Jed and with tears in his eyes as he dropped his rod on the shore of the river.

"I am going home," Bill cried.

The three of us watched his rod disappear as it was dragged into the river by that behemoth. No one blamed Bill for not wanting to fish anymore on that day. Half of the boys escorted Bill home and Jed and Brian stayed to catch more fish.

One day at school while Jed and Brian were talking to Brian's friends out on the playground after lunch a bunch of the kids from Jed's neighborhood walked up and began throwing insults at Jed. This made Brian's friends mad.

The entire group of Brian's friends squared off with the other boys. Brian took a swing at one of them and it was on. In the melee of about 8 boys a few of them ended up on the ground. One of them was the smallest boy in the fight, Jed. By the time the teachers finally found out what was going on and broke up the fight Jed was on the ground and bleeding. Two teachers picked him up and carried him into the nurse's office. His parents were called, and his mom came to pick him up. Jed didn't say much during the ride home. His pride was hurt more than anything.

Brian called Jed that evening to see if he was OK.

"Why didn't you punch that guy?" Brian asked.

"I tried." Jed answered.

"He ain't very tough. If you would've thrown a few good punches. you would have gotten him."

"I tried," he answered trying to hold back the tears.

"Come on over to my place this Friday night and me and Dave are gonna teach you how to fight." Brian exclaimed.

With that the conversation was over.

The fallout from this fight was huge. The boy who had hurt Jed was suspended for an entire week and two of Jed's friends were paddled. Nothing officially happened to Jed, but the people in the school began calling him a pussy, especially the girls.

Friday afternoon arrived and Jed and Brian walked to Brian's house. On the way they stopped off at a country store to buy some chewing tobacco, chips and soda for the sleepover.

Then Dave came over and the boys went fishing until night fell. They ate dinner with Brian's parents and then went out to his clubhouse. The clubhouse was the top level to his dad's root cellar. This was were he reloaded ammunition. There was a bench with all of the reloading equipment. a small refrigerator that was always full of beer and soda and there were always several rolled up sleeping bags in the corner.

After dinner they sat up in this room and split a two-liter bottle of soda. They then each took some chewing tobacco and took turns spitting into the empty bottle.

Brian brought out two pairs of boxing gloves after they were done chewing. Brian and Dave each put a pair on and then they began punching each other. Jed was surprised by the ferocity that these two friends came at each other with. Dave finally conceded defeat and they both collapsed on the floor. Jed untied each of their gloves and then they drank some more soda.

Brian looked at Jed and told him to slip into a pair of gloves. Jed complied and they started by punching the bag. Jed had been punching the bag for a long time when Brian told Dave to get a pair of gloves on. Brian then grabbed Jed's wrist and said, "Like this." He moved Jed's hand toward the bag and said.

"Ok, now move your hand like this before it hits the bag. so you don't break your hand or wrist."

Brian went through this motion several times with each hand. Then he watched Jed do it by himself to ensure that he had the motion down.

Brian told the two that the loser has to drink a mouth full of the chew spit in the two-liter bottle. Jed raised his eyebrows at that.

Jed and Dave squared off and began punching. Jed gave it everything he had and tried to remember what Brian had taught him. But Dave's punches came fast and had power behind him. It wasn't long before Jed found himself on the ground once more. Dave was on top of him and pounding his fist into Jed's face. He had to admit defeat.

After that beating, the two had to clean up Jed's face. Then boys were sitting on a circle on the floor with the chew spit bottle in between them. Jed looked at the spit bottle because he knew what he had to do.

It took him a couple of minutes, but he finally picked up the bottle and took a chug, trying not to let any of the nastiness touch his tongue, but he was not able to do it. His stomach began to rumble as soon as the repulsive concoction hit it. The boys looked at him with absolute awe in their eyes as he sat there and debated with his stomach whether or not it was going to reject the chew. It didn't and the boys cheered him for finally being tough.

"I have an old heavy bag in the barn that you can have, Jed," Brian explained. "Practice every night this week and we will have another sleepover next Friday. Say Jed, look at your face in that mirror over there. You look tough with all those bruises."

Jed looked at himself in the mirror. He had new bruises and scrapes on top of his old bruises. He did take a bit of satisfaction in the fact that he was beginning to work toward being tough.

The next day Jed had to go home and explain the new bruises on his face. He also had to explain why he was setting up a heavy bag in the basement. As he had expected, his father understood, and his mom objected to his newfound obsession.

Jed began hitting the bag on every spare minute he had during the day. He was waking up early and staying up late to hit the bag. His dad bought him a book about boxing so he could learn a little about punching technique.

The next week at school was one of the worst experiences Jed had ever had. People he didn't even know where pointing at him and calling him a pussy. At one point the boys who had hurt him cornered him in the bathroom and began pushing him around in the middle of a circle they had formed around him. Jed thought he was going to have to fight or be hurt when the gym teacher walked in and saved him. Jed never did like that teacher, but he did save him.

This incident only made the kids tease Jed even worse. He began to dread going to gym class because the kids either ignored him or called him a pussy. This made him even more determined than ever to spend every waking moment practicing his punches and working out. He would run all the way home, do his homework, and then lift weights until it was time to help with dinner. He would then clean up after dinner and go back downstairs to practice his punching until it was time to go to bed.

On Friday I arrived at Brian's house to see that Brian was already there.

"Jed, ole buddy, you had one hell of a week!" Dave exclaimed.

"I sure did!"

"Well, I hope you practiced because we are going to box tonight! "Brian added.

The boxing was the same stuff that happened last week. He got in more punches, but Dave was tough, and Jed just ended up getting more bruises and drinking the chew spit and he was already getting annoyed with that.

Once Jed arrived back at his own house his dad told him that he would be attending karate lessons at the local YMCA two nights a week. Jed got into these classes and immediately began refining his punch technique and learning kicking techniques.

Two weeks went by, and Jed continued training and his karate. Then one Friday afternoon he was riding on a well-traveled trailed through the woods on his bike when he encountered the boy who had beaten him up at school. The boy had four of his friends with him and Jed had none.

"Kevin, do you really need to do this again?" Jed cried.

"Jed, you are such a pussy, I am going to enjoy this," Kevin exclaimed excitedly.

Jed began thinking back over the previous month and going over everything he had learned. He walked up to Kevin with a confidence that scared him for a moment.

"Let's do this," Jed exclaimed.

"Listen to the pussy!" one of Kevin's friends said.

Jed then threw the first punch. It landed solid on Kevin's face and caused him to stumble backwards. He didn't stop there. He backed the punch up with a barrage of two more that also hit their marks. Kevin attempted to throw a couple of punches. Jed blocked all of them and then threw him to the ground and jumped on top of him just like Kevin had done to him a month earlier. He began punching him furiously and as quickly as his arms would move. Kevin's older brother then jumped in pulling Jed off of his younger sibling. Jed swiveled around and kicked his feet from under him. He fell and Jed turned around and walked off straight through Kevin's friend. Kevin softly whimpered as his friends picked him up and carried him off.

Jed felt an amazing feeling of satisfaction as he walked home.