My name is Vexacus and using the power of hindsight, I have now come to realize that I was in love with my best friend from boarding school named Matthew. I am by no means gay and have no problems with gay folk, but looking back at my time at boarding school I am confident in my sexuality to now say that I was in love with Matthew. When Matthew started at school, we instantly gravitated towards each other and got along like a gas station on fire. We shared all the same interests and hobbies, and we also shared a bedroom. And before you ask, we did not get up to anything even close to sex so you can stop thinking that right now.
Throughout our time at school, our friendship continued to grow. In our friendship, I would always tell people that "Matthew is the brains and I am the thing that's not the brains"; which was an accurate description of our relationship. We were rarely ever apart, which earned us a few nicknames that were in equal measure good and bad. We did not pay any attention to the negativity surrounding our friendship, but this did not last as when the school bully started calling us "The Joy Boys" that I when I wanted to react.
But before I could react by decking the bully, Matthew convinced me there was another way. We reported the bully to the staff, and thought that would be the end of it; we were wrong. It would seem that the school bully did not take to kindly to being reported for hurling abuse at us and unbeknownst to us at the time, he decided to get his own back the next day. After morning prayers, one of the care staff needed a hand schlepping a few boxes of crap to the school tip, while I obliged Matthew took my books down to class with him.
After I had schlepped boxes of crap down to the school tip for the member of care staff, I needed to go back to my bedroom to change my school trousers as they had got mud on them and they needed to be cleaned, obviously. After changing my trousers, I went back down to class wherein I found out that Matthew had not shown up after running an errand. The teacher that sent him on the errand asked me to go look for him, which I did. As I left the class-block, the school chaplain approached me and said that he needed to speak to me concerning Matthew. I went with the Chaplin to his house, which was on the edge of the school grounds.
When we got to his house, I was surprised to find Matthew sat on the couch drinking a cup of tea, but what surprised me the most was the size of the black-eye my best friend was sporting. The Chaplin told me that he'd found Matthew laid in the ground crying and sporting the black-eye and a bloodied nose and had brought him back to his home to treat his bloodied nose and put ice on the black eye and to find out just what had happened to him. Matthew then told the two of us that the aforementioned school bully had punched him in the face twice for us "Grassing on him" for hurling abuse at us; this was it, this was the red line.
My best friend Matthew was the most non-threatening person you could ever meet. He would never raise his fists to anyone not even in self-defense; that is until he met me. Matthew was the brains in our friendship while I was, as I mentioned before, was 'The things that are not the brains'. I made sure that no-one dared pick on my best friend and made it clear that I would be most displeased if they did. Thankfully they all soon got the message and left us alone; until this incident. I was blinded with rage and wanted nothing more than to grab the bully and smash his face into the wall a thousand times.
Thankfully the Chaplin prevented me from doing so. He made me promise on my honor that I would not go after the bully and start a fight with him, and I kept my word; sort-of. Leaving Matthew with Chaplin, I went back to class to tell my teacher where I'd been and that I'd found Matthew and what had happened to him. My teacher took what I'd said and told the Headmaster and Head of Childcare what happened. It did not take long for what had happened to Matthew to make it around the school. And for a time, it looked as if all was going to be quiet for the rest of the day.
That is until Li, the girl from my "The One That Semi-Got Away" post came running into my class and told me that "He's on his way down". Despite the teacher and a few other kids in my class telling me not to go out and confront the bully, I did just that. I walked out of my class an stood outside, waiting for the scumbag bully to make an appearance; and I did not have long to wait. The bully entered the class courtyard and just stared me down like he owned the place, but remembering my promise to the Chaplin I did not start the fight.
I called him out on attacking my best friend, saying he was a gutless coward for going after Matthew, who was the most non-threatening person you could ever meet. I said that he would never have tried that if I'd been with Matthew which reinforced him being a thumb-sucking coward; he did suck his thumb and had a tatty old rag he'd hold while he did it. The bully responded by saying Matthew deserved what he got and that I'd be next if I did not back down; I laughed and said that a thumbsucker like him was no challenge and that he should follow that yellow streak down his spine and head back under the rock he came from under.
This tipped him over the edge and he ran at me and I could not have been more pleased as this gave me an excuse to clobber him without breaking my promise to the Chaplin. After the bully slammed into me, I let loose with everything that I had and started to kick his ass. After getting in a few choice punches, I managed to hit the Bully in the chest which knocked him down. As I was about to kick him in the ribs, one of the other pupils pulled me away. Now at first, I thought he was trying to stop me but I was wrong; he wanted a crack at the bully now that he was down on the ground and an easy target. As it turns out, Matthew and I were not the only ones to have been victims of the bully, this kid was one of many.
I pulled the kid off after he'd got a few kicks in only to see other kids rushing up and joining in the fight. It would seem that seeing the bully on the floor was just the things they had been waiting for. Within a few seconds, at least a half-dozen other kids had joined in the fight and were kicking and punching the bully all while trying to pull other kids out of the way so they could get the best kick/punch in. This whole thing lasted less than 2 minutes before some of the teachers intervened, pulling everyone off the bully and taking him away.
While I was angry that the teachers had broken up the fight, I understood perfectly why they did it. Because there was more than just one of us who had gone at the bully, no one single pupil could be held accountable for the incident; but that did not stop all of us who HAD been involved being isolated in the Geography class. When I say we were isolated in the Geography class, I mean we were effectively isolated from the rest of the school. A teacher was sat outside the class to let us out to go to the bathroom if we needed it but other than that, we were locked in the classroom. It was not until 1 hour later when the headmaster came down to speak to us about what happened. Mr. Grent, which is not his real name which I've changed to protect his privacy, came into the Geography class, and sternly and firmly addressed us stating that what we had done was very wrong.
He told us that we had seriously injured the bully and had caused him to have a breakdown and had to be sedated by the school nurse. Being the one who had been the original target of the bully, I stepped forward and spoke for everyone. I stated that I had called the bully out on his attack on Matthew, and pointing out my promise to the Chaplin that I would not instigate a fight, said that I was attacked and defended myself. When Mr. Grent asked the other pupils why they had got involved, he soon found out that the phrase "Revenge is sweet" was oh-so-true. It came to light that the bully had been picking on everyone in the class, not just myself. What he had done to everyone is too long to list, but the three things that stuck out were:
1: He slapped Li on the bum hard enough to leave a mark, this happened the morning he'd attacked Matthew.
2: He'd been stealing sweets/sodas from one pupil's bedroom.
3: He'd been stealing shampoo/bath products from the bedroom of another pupil.
We got rather animated when we were told by Mr. Grent that what we did was wrong and that we could face trouble with the police if the bully's parents decided to press charges against us. The general opinion was that if we did get in trouble with the police, then our parents would also press charges against the bully for what he did to us and also against the school and the diocese for failing to protect us from the bully. We argued in an increasingly combative and loud manner with Mr. Grent about the situation, with the shouting and screaming only coming to an end when the Deputy Headmaster sent word down to the class that the Bully's parents had arrived to collect him and, to use his exact words, were "Spitting conkers and wanting to crack some heads".
Knowing that all of us could not fit into his office, Mr. Grent had us meet with the bully's parents in the conference room. This was on the condition that we are on our best behavior and were not to shout and scream as we had done when we were talking to him. Admittedly we wanted to vent our fury on the bully's parents but we reluctantly agreed. The parents of the bully were nothing like him, they were almost likable but they still tried to defend their asshole son and what he had done. Each of us in turn outlined to his parents just what he had done, including our perceived failure of the staff to deal with our numerous complaints of bullying.
Each account of what their son had done to us was a nail in his proverbial coffin. By this time, Matthew had returned from the Chaplin's home and subsequently joined us in the conference room. With his massive black eye and bloodied nose now on plain view for the bully's parents to see, what turned out to be the final nail in the coffin was hammered in. After listening to everything that we had to say, his parents said they would not press charges and just wanted to take their son home. We were elated that he was going to be expelled, but once the bully had left with his parents, our elation was short-lived. We found out that he was not being expelled, merely suspended for the rest of the term. While this was not ideal, it did give us 2/3 of a term without him.
We accepted this minor victory over the bully and got on with our lives and the rest of the term without him. And for a time it was good; Li and I carried on our secret relationship of which the secrecy was piss-poor. Matthew became more confident and stood up for himself a lot more; yes indeed those were the good days. But as the saying goes "All good things must come to an end"; we found that out after the summer holidays. When we returned to school, we could tell that there was something wrong with some of the care staff, they seemed to be preoccupied with something else and the same went for the teaching staff, especially my class teacher and Mr. Grent. It was not until after lunch on our first day back that we found out what was troubling the care and teaching staff; he was coming back, the school bully would be returning to school the following week.
This was not what we wanted to hear, and the staff seemed to know this. On the second day back at school, all of us involved in the incident with him were assembled in the conference room as we had been before. We were told officially that the bully would be returning to school in just three days. In the conference room with Mr. Grent was Sister Darby, which is not her real name which I've changed to protect her privacy, the Nun who was the head of our school governors. While I am a former Catholic who is now an ardent Odinist, when I was at school I still spoke to Sister Darby with respect.
She was very patient and understanding with us and addressed our concerns, but told us he would still be returning. She said that he'd written a "long and heartfelt letter of apology" which is what convinced the governors to allow him back to school. We called out the letter as being written by his parents, as aside from the hand-letter being filled with absolute bullshit, the school bully was dumb as a fucking post. When we wrote home each week, the knuckle-dragging troglodyte could not write two words of his own. He'd dictate to the teacher what he wanted to say, she'd write it then he'd just copy it and sign it.
The letter that was well written, articulate, heartfelt, and came across as sincerely genuine; all things that the bully was not. When we pointed this out to Sister Darby, she said that we "Must learn to forgive as Christ forgave". We weren't buying it, not one fucking bit of that total bullshit did we fall for. After just under three and a half hours, we had to face up to the fact that the bully was coming back and that there was sweet fuck all that we could do to stop him. At the end of the meeting, Sister Darby said there was something that she wanted to ask us, and that we were under no obligation to do it. Now when a member of staff says that it usually meant that it was mandatory and we'd have no choice. But with Sister Darby, when she said we were under no obligation to do it, she meant it.
She said that when the school bully came back to school, she wanted us to be there to greet him and show him a united front. At first, I thought she was joking, and when I asked her as much, she said that she was indeed serious. When asked by Li why she thought that we would ever agree to do such a thing as greet the kid who had made our lives hell for many months, Sister Darby once again said that "We must learn to forgive as Christ forgave". She then said that by showing a united front when he came back to school we would send the message that we will not put up with his behavior ever again. We turned down her request to greet the bully when he returned to school.
As we left the conference room, we told Sister Darby and Mr. Grent that our parents would hear about this and they would not be as polite as we had been. It was then as we went back to the class that we decided something had to be done. For some of the kids involved, it would not be as bad for them as he was not in the same residential group as some of us were; they could get away from him when school ended. For the rest of us, we'd be stuck with the pisshole in class and the residential group. We knew we had to do something about him, and kicking the crap out of him as we had done before was not an option.
It was not until the next day in History class that I got the idea of what we could do. We were watching a documentary about world war 2, it was at the part where the Nazis would walk out when a vote was needed that gave me the idea. What if WE walked out when he came into a room. I discussed the idea with the others in our residential group and they agreed to it. We spoke to the others involved with the bully and told them what to do, but it was Li that came up with an idea that made it even better. What if we ALL left when he came into a room, even if he were not in the same room as some of us, we ALL should leave. That was just a spot-on idea; with all of us walking out, the bully and the school would get the idea that he was not wanted back at school and we would not put up with him.
We were all in agreement on the plan and as we waited for the day he came back, we kept checking in with each other, making sure we were all still in on the plan; and we were still all in. We waited for the day when he'd be back blighting our lives and sadly we did not have long to wait. 2 days after the meeting with Sister Darby, the bully was seen with his parents in the front office by Li. We got word to the others who were planning on staging the walkout and we were all ready to walk out. But owing to him arriving back at school within a few minutes of 3:30 pm, he did not come down to class. So when class ended for the day at 3:30 pm, we knew the walkout would have to take place over tea (the evening meal).
We made sure everyone was ready and would be on the lookout for the signal to walk out on. When those of us in the same residential group as the bully got back to St. Pats, the name of our group area which contained bathrooms, living room, and our bedrooms, we tried not to look like we that knew he was back; thankfully if the staff noticed they did not say. One thing that bugged us was the bully's absence; we knew full well that he was back at school but we'd not seen him since Li said she saw him with his parents in the front office. When we went down to the dining rooms for tea, we still did not see that piece of crap school that was the school bully and we soon began to wonder where it was; but we did not have to wonder for long.
10 minutes after we sat down to eat, the deputy head of childcare Mr. Baxter, not his real name which I've changed to protect his privacy, came into our dining room with the bully. Looking over to Matthew, I nodded and he said "Now". Those of us who had agreed got up and walked out of the dining room, I moved into the other two dining rooms and said "He's here, now"; and those dining rooms, those who had agreed also got up and left. We went and sat in the School Library/Computer Lab and refused to go back to the dining room. When the Head of Childcare, a dour Scotsman named Mr. Mcready, as with other staff names I've changed it to protect his identity, came into the Library/Computer Lab he was more than a little angry at our protest.
We told him that he would not be going back into the dining room so long as the bully was there; this also applied to any other room he came into. We were sent back into the dining rooms to finish our evening meal and thankfully the bully was not there. When we'd finished and those of us that share a residential section with him went back, we kept up the plan. When he came into the living room, we all walked out and when he left we went back in. On the occasion he did not leave the living room, we all simply retreated to our bedrooms where we had some measure of privacy away from the dumb ape. The next morning before breakfast, we were told not to pull a stunt again; yet when the bully came in we all got up and walked out of the room.
Mr. Mcready was angry with us for what we have just done and told us we had to go back into breakfast. We said we would go back into breakfast if the school bully was not in the same dining room as us. Mr. Mcready said that is not how things work and how we would go back in and finish breakfast right now; we refused and reiterated that we would only go back in if the school bully was not in the same room as us. Mightily pissed off that we wouldn't do what we were told, Mr. McCready hauled us off to see Mr. Grent who he told of our 'disobedience' & 'Disruption of breakfast'. We told Mr. Grent that we did not mean to cause any disruption but we were sticking to my guns and would not be in the same room as the school bully; this included the school chapel for morning prayers. To keep the peace and out of respect for the chaplain, we agreed to not walk out of morning prayers so long as the school bully was not there; this was agreed on.
So after morning prayers, we went back to refusing to be in the same room with the bully or to even speak to him; and this had an unexpected but delightful effect on the human shitstain. He had a breakdown, he began crying and screaming that we were "bullying him" and treating him "unfairly". We just laughed when we found out, further upsetting the bully. His breakdown got worse and he was physically shaking and in floods of tears; by now our protest had spread to all the other pupils and it was glorious. He was sedated in Sick Bay and his parents told it would be best if they came and got him; they were told that his presence was too disruptive, caused so many problems that it would be best if he were to leave and not return. When we were told that he was being sent home permanently, we were all overjoyed beyond fucking measure. We had done it; we had achieved victory AND IT WAS GLORIOUS. We would now be able to enjoy our life at school free from that slack-jawed troglodyte of a school bully.
