Tommyhawk's Fantasies: Just Plain Mean
Milford Slabaugh
Following is an excerpt from "Bully:"
"Hey, Ellie!" came the dreaded shout as I walked home from high school a few weeks before the end of my senior year.
The voice belonged to the school bully, Tom Baxter. What the hell was HE doing on this side of town? Skinny little me had been his favorite target since fourth grade. When younger, it had been sheer sadism, punching me without warning, taking or smashing my things, dumping my lunch tray over my head, that sort of thing.
Now he was older, he had moved to more elaborate pranks, like the time he hid my jock strap before a basketball game, then yanked down my basketball shorts during the game, exposing me to the entire congregated township.
"Hey, Ellie!" Tom called again, now right behind me.
"What do you want, Tom?" I sighed.
"Hey, can't two schoolmates walk together? What's your problem, Ellie?" My name is Elliot, but Tom never called me anything but Ellie.
"No problem." I said, while being careful to stay out of arm's reach. "Why are you going this way?"
"Aw, my old man's decided to shack up with this dumb broad he's been balling for a while." Tom said. "I'm supposed to meet her after school. It's this way."
"Oh." Tom would be walking my way after school every day? I looked at him carefully.
Tom was a big dude, with a body more massive than muscular. Not that he didn't have muscle. His arms were thick shafts that bulged and rippled with the slightest movement of his broad shoulders. His legs were tree trunks, his thighs nearly rubbed together they were so large. His chest was enormous; it seemed to force his arms away from his body, and from there he narrowed so slowly until you got to his groin, the narrowest part of his body. His skin seemed strained to hold in this huge body of his. His neck was a thick joining that seemed as large as his head, which was as wide as it was tall, but there was nothing square about it, all round and somehow not in the least soft-looking. He topped it with blonde hair that he kept cut in a military flat-top, which made him seem fiercer than ever. That face and body had jumped on me many times in my dreams. Those immense arms would fasten upon me and I would wake up sweating.
"Yeah, he's been seeing this woman for some months. Now she's talking marriage, but he says he won't do it until they get to know each other better, and see if she's going to be a good mother for me. You know, guff like that. So she's agreed to shack up for the summer and they'll marry in the fall." Tom began to snicker. "Gives my old man time to come up with a good reason not to marry her." And Tom laughed a hard laugh.
"Well," I saw with relief I was home, "I wish you and your new family a lot of luck, Tom." I said. "This is my house. Where are you going?"
Tom looked up at the house, and a dumbfounded look came over his face. He yanked a note from his shirt pocket, and looked at it, at me.
"What is it?" I asked. "What's the address?"
"1224 Houston Street."
"You don't mean...?"
"Yep!" Tom gave me a nasty grin. "We're going to be sharing the same house. You, me, my old man, and your old lady."
"Oh, my God!" I whispered hoarsely.

