A Rare Case of Just Desserts

I was driving in Waterloo, New York years ago. A car pulled out in front of me badly enough that I had to lean hard on the brakes and swerve. I cursed but straightened the wheel went on my way? I tend believe car horns should be saved for emergency warnings and not used to express emotion. Down the road a ways I saw gumballs in my rear-view mirror. Oh great! What now? I pulled over but the cop roared by and promptly sped up to the guy who had pulled out in front of me and pulled him over.

The fact that I was so surprised is testament to the fact that there's never a cop around when you need one.

A few years later the California Highway Patrol drove past a car I was trying to stay away from because it was towing a torn-away gas pump handle and six feet of hose down the freeway, to stop me for speeding.

Win some, lose some... then lose some more.

There was one serendipitous little 'vengeance is mine' cookie God handed me on platter once that made up for a whole truck load off rotten tomatoes.

After I dropped out of college I worked as a general merchandise clerk at Wegmans. For those who don't know, Wegmans is an amazing chain of grocery stores in portions of the Northeast. The corporation has been rated in America's top five employers for many years (number 1 in 2005) but this was well after I worked there.

The Wegmans I worked at looked nothing like this at the time 

(now it sorta does)

Myself, I didn't enjoy my time working at Wegmans very much at all.

It wasn't Wegmans fault. Wegmans rocks! (ask anyone) I was in, shall we say, a period of transition: I was living at home. Naturally my parent's were not particularly happy that I had spent three years at a two-year school rendering zero degrees. I knew my grace period at home wouldn't be very long.

I was beginning to face the fact that success as a musician was going to be far harder and perhaps less rewarding than I had dreamed it would be. I was in a band at the time but things were not going very well.

My college girlfriend had recently moved to Georgia. She had not invited me to go with her or even to visit and it was getting harder and harder just to get a hold of her.

The job was monotonous and uninspiring. I could feel my creativity begin to shrivel every second I was there. I didn't relate to the people I was working with at all. I hated the looks on the faces of friends of my parents and parents of my friends when I saw them shopping. They couldn't hide their disappointment watching me schlep boxes and scrape price labels. Their kids were about to graduate from a 'real' school somewhere in another state. What had happened to poor, poor Joel?

Then there was the other thing...

I have always gotten along well with most everyone but there is this archetype of guy that pops up once in a while in my life that can't stand me for some reason. These dudes all seem to have the same basic appearance and personality as if there is some sort of genetic predisposition of wanting to punch me in the mouth. Or maybe it's some sort of family feud that no one's let me in on. Honestly, I don't think these guys had any more clue than I did as to why they didn't like me.

Remember "Our Gang" aka The Little Rascals? There was this one sneering tough-guy character named Butch that was a constant bur on Alfalfa's ass. He was always trying to steal Darla—Alfalfa's would be girlfriend.

"Our Gang's" 'Butch' played by Tommy Bond, 

who served in the Navy in WWII and played Jimmy Olson 

in the Superman serials of the late '40s

That's who these guys make me think of.

We'll call them that for our purposes here: “Butches”.

The undisputed king of all the 'Butches' I ever encountered was a guy I worked with at Wegmans. His name was Matt. He was a key reason I was miserable working there. Matt didn't just hate me, he seemed to enjoy the sport of it.

It was mostly little things; whenever he was around there was always some comment or insult to be endured.

One day he was in rare form. I tried not to show that it bothered me lest it prompt more abuse but I had had enough when our stock carts passed on the main aisle, I on my way back to the stock room, he on his way out. He said one stupid thing too many and then so did I.

I responded in some reactionary, threatening and poorly thought-out comeback that I can't remember. It sure had an effect on old 'Butch' though. He doubled around from another entrance to the stock room walked up to me and pushed me hard. It was put up or shut-up time.

I was terrified. I was afraid of getting fired, afraid of getting my ass kicked (I had never been in a fight), I was afraid of the confrontation, afraid of looking like a pussy, but there was one thing I was scared of more than anything else.

Myself.

Rewind to fifth grade:

There was a girl on our bus in the named Beth. Beth was a year older than I and a lot bigger and tougher than I. She more than occasionally got on my nerves. One day she was sitting directly in front of me and laying it on particularly thick for my benefit.

My little brother, who was sitting across from me remembers watching me grasp my metal “Emergency” lunch box with white knuckles and steam beginning to flow from my ears as I endured Beth's continued insults. He was thinking: “Oh man, she'd better cool it.”

I fumed and fumed until my fuse... gently... blew.

Without even knowing what was happening, I took my lunch box to a fully cocked position behind me and let fly with it at the end of my straightened arm with everything I had until the slightly embossed color images of Johnny and Roy from “Emergency” smacked down on Beth's head.

BANG!

Johnny and Roy really kicked some ass (head) that day.

Ironically, Emergency" was Beth's favorite show too.

Then, with tears of rage, embarrassment and fear flowing down my cheeks, I prepared to die.

Beth turned around in complete disbelief. She didn't kill me, I think just said “jeez!” while rubbing her head.

From that point on though, we were friends.

I wanted so badly to handle these situations differently than I was. I felt like the Not-quite-so-incredible Hulk. If someone agitated me beyond a certain point they, well “didn't like me when I was angry.”

I didn't like me either. Other than giving Beth a sore noggin, I had never hurt anyone so far and I never wanted to. I had once kicked a hole in my bedroom wall and smashed an alarm clock trying to redirect my anger from what or whom I was mad at. Even on those occasions I felt horrible afterwords.

So there I was in the stock room at the old Canandaigua Wegmans, twenty-one years old and confronted by a bully in front of several of my coworkers. I was not about to get fired or bleed for this idiot at that point so I backed down with my tail between my legs. It was a burning bitter pill to swallow.

I wished I could have just walked out of there and never gone back but had to keep on working at Wegmans and endure Matt's abuse which was, of course, even worse from that point on.

A few months later I was finally able to move to Rochester. I had several jobs that when put together I could scratch out the rent and a few groceries. I worked as a sound engineer for a handful of bands, at a group home for retarded adults and at Rochester General Hospital as an X-ray transporter on weekends and some night shifts.

RGH had at that time the busiest ER in New York State outside of New York City. They had a contract with the county sherif and city police so county jail inmates and those in police custody came into our care.

Rochester General Hospital

One such patient was an unassuming looking Hispanic guy who we brought over for a abdominal x-ray along with his deputy escort. He walked from the wheel chair to the exam table on his own power so I wasn't even sure what was wrong with him. When we put the x-ray film on the viewer, even my untrained eyes could see that something was obviously amiss.

“What's that?” I asked the x-ray tech while pointing at the long white balloon-like section of intestine.

“That's a coke condom.”

“So that's why they're x-raying him.”

“Maybe, but look at this here at the end.”

One end of the condom appeared to be broken open.

“What's that?”

“The condom’s freshly broken open.”

“How do you know it's fresh?”

“Because he's not dead.”

Twenty minutes later, as I walked past the room in the ER where they had worked on him, he was very much dead.

I saw many things at RGH. I saw bloodied faces and bodies, bones sticking out of flesh and flesh hanging off places it shouldn't be. I had to wheel bruised and battered rape victims to and from the ER and try to say things like: “I am here to take to to radiology,” and “someone will be with you in just a moment.” in such a way that somehow it might come across as: “I am so sorry this horrible thing has happened to you,” and “I'm sorry there isn't a female transporter to do this because I am pretty ashamed of my gender right now.”

I learned what drunkenness and a whole lot of other things smells like.

And, yes, I did meet people who'd put weird things stuck up their butts.

There was a routine: We'd get an x-ray requisition via vacuum tube from the ER. I'd type up the necessary documents and walk over to the ER with the paperwork in my hand.

I would make a game of trying to guess what the person would be like from the little information on their paperwork. It was surprising what kind of profile you could build up from a name and age and an injury. The time of day and week was always a factor to be considered too.

One Saturday night, or early Sunday morning, I had received a req for a mandible and right orbit x-ray for a twenty-four year-old male.

Bar fight, I figured.

Guys who win fights have boxer's fractures -a spiral-like break of the fifth metacarpal -♪ is connected to the... pinky bone ♫. If it was closer to dawn, when people start getting really stupid, boxer's fractures belong to the dude who punches a wall when he can't get let laid. We got 'em every Sunday morning, like clockwork.

The guy I was about to bring over had an injured jaw and eye but no hand x-ray had been requested. That meant he was likely the one that got his ass kicked.

There was something about that name too, why did it seem familiar?

When I entered the room, sure enough; the disheveled young man had blood stains all down the front of his torn t-shirt and reeked of alcohol. His right eye was swelling badly under an ice pack he was holding to it. I announced myself and he pulled the ice pack off his face.

It was him! Matt, the Wegmans bully, my supreme Butch.

He painfully forced a smile over his clenched bloody teeth. There was no doubt that he recognized me and my witnessing his pathetic state was painful for him.

Awe!

Then I looked down and noticed that he was handcuffed to the stretcher and that there was an officer sitting not far away.

The moment couldn't have been any sweeter if angels had begun singing “Halleluiah” right then and there.

I pitied him... not in a good way.

I wheeled his stretcher over to x-ray and returned him after he had his films done. I never said a familiar word to him the entire time. I was professional and courteous as if he was any other person.

This was my moment, and we both knew it. I could have poured salt in his wounds at any time, and we both knew it. I was the shiny red cherry sitting majestically on top of the humble pie of his shitty day and we both knew it. I was the better man and didn't take the shot that had been given to me, and we both knew it.

He had been my 'Butch', now he was my bitch.

He wasn't the last 'Butch'—dudes that inexplicably want to punch me in the mouth—I've encountered but for a long time now I haven't even thought about them. I guess I've had enough adventures in life and the love of the World's most amazing woman, that the invisible “kick me” sign that only the Butch guys could see has fallen off for good.

I barely think of old Matt whats-his-name bleeding on that stretcher, but I'll probably never forget the way I felt when he saw me standing there.

It is indeed rare, but sometimes there is a cop, not to mention a small taste of justice, when you need one.