Just US

Third grade.

I was playing four square.

Chip, Mickey, Thomas faced me as I prepared to serve to one of their respective squares.

Rusty.

I could see Rusty exit the building  then, seemingly, head straight for me. He looked angry. For an eight year old he looked incredibly angry. And focused.

Focused on me.

The kickball we were using bounced off my knees, I could sense Mickey’s and the other’s confusion.

Closer now, Rusty was fuming. His cheeks red and puffed out from his heavy breathing, perspiration forming on his lip. Marching, clenched fists, and his fly down.

He looked so serious and there he was, barn door open.

I think I may have smiled a little. I certainly chuckled.

“Shut up!” He half-yelled, half squeaked, at my silence and held up his fist.

“Just us!” And grabbed me by the belt like he intended to carry me off like a suitcase. Then I thought, “wedgie!”

But, no, no wedgie. In the two seconds it lasted I felt just slightly, weirdly, roughed up. Not even “roughed up.” Maybe just “molested”? But not in the way you mean.

So, somewhat confused and with a freshly untucked Oshkosh, I pivoted to return our sport.

I served, bouncing the big red ball toward Chip but he remained still.

Still and staring at my left shoe.

I looked down.

And, as I saw what I saw, I remembered, just the day before, laughing at Rusty.

Why had I laughed at him? Why would that make him angry today? Why had he grabbed at me, yanking me around? And what did, “Just us!” mean?

Was it a threat?

A fight?

You know, Mano y mano, “Just us!”.

And as it came into focus, the thing by my foot, I felt something on my backside and I realized what he had done.

And it was warm.

Rusty had harvested a fresh shit from the bathroom, found me, yelled, “Justice” and shoved a huge turd down my pants.

He knew no one would believe he had shit my pants.

Even Chip, who watched it all go down, and who was now focused on a bit of shit by my sandal didn’t believe me.

And he was right there!

Like the martial artist who can tear out your heart and show it to you, he had done the reverse by holding his weaponized feces just inches in front of my face before deploying it down my trousers, “Justice!”

So, he won.

I mean, I guess.

He did carry a warm turd a couple hundred yards.

And, now I wonder, there was a kid with him.

Was it his turd?

Had they divised this plan together and his contribution was the shit?

I did suffer embarrassment.

I couldn’t exactly ask my teacher to dust my ass crack for poo prints.

And, at that age, any connection to shit is a bad one.