The first time I ever got into a physical fight, I was six years old. My cousin Anthony and I were playing in the yard behind his apartment building, where we found an old stroller left for the trash. We decided to use the stroller as a toy wagon, and with Anthony being two years younger than me, I had him sit in it as I pushed him around on the paved walkways.

During our innocent play, my cousin’s neighbor came out and decided that he wanted to play, too. He demanded that we give him the stroller.

“In a minute,” I told him as I pushed Anthony around for a final lap. “We’re not done playing yet.” I had every intention of sharing the stroller, but Anthony was having such fun taking a ride that I sought to prolong our time with it.

His neighbor didn’t like my answer, though, and he elbowed me out of the way and took hold of the stroller. He was my age or a year younger, but with me being so small, he was as big or bigger than me. He was also known for being a big bully towards my cousin and other kids his age, so he knew well how to intimidate anyone smaller than he was.

“Hey!” I protested. The bully didn’t pay attention to me at all. He pushed the stroller in such a way to dump my cousin out of the seat, then he sat in the seat himself and gloried in it. I think he even wanted me to push him around on the walkways. I frowned and did a slow burn.

“It’s my turn to play with the stroller,” the bully declared. I looked over at my cousin and saw that he’d gotten quite upset at the turn of events, which in turn made me even angrier.

“You can have the stroller later,” I told the bully, taking hold of the handlebar. “Anthony and I weren’t done playing with it. Now wait your turn and get out of the seat so Anthony can ride.”

“No! It’s mine now. You can’t play with it!” The bully refused to budge.

Anthony was getting even more upset. “We saw it first,” he told the bully, but the bully only stuck his tongue out at us. The dismayed look on my cousin’s face, in addition to the bully’s rude attitude, was enough to push me over the edge.

“Get out of that stroller now,” I demanded.

“No!”

I saw red. I gripped the handle and heaved downwards, letting the stroller fall backwards with the bully still in it. The handlebar pinched my thumb a little bit against the pavement when it hit the ground, but that was nothing to the fury that came crashing on me when the bully fell out and recovered.

Before I knew it, I was struggling with the bully, who was attacking me like some girl—pinching me, scratching me, pulling on my hair. In the meantime, I tried to fend him off by grabbing onto his hands and pushing him away from me, then when that didn’t work—I swung at him with both open and closed hands. I landed a few punches down on his head, but his head was so hard, it hurt me to hit him there. He, on the other hand, kept scratching at me, and I had to kick him away. I was so angry at being bullied and then attacked, I did what I could to hurt and stop him. when I heard my cousin shout in fear during the fight, it made me even angrier, and half my punches were for him.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it ended. He simply stopped attacking me and ran away crying. He went straight to his own apartment and to his mother, who came out and started yelling at me for beating up on her poor defenseless child and making him cry.

I stood there, defiant and dry-eyed, taking what venom the bully’s mother threw at me while her son cried and cried at the window behind her, clutching at the curtains as he watched. When she finished her tirade and went back inside to tend to his bruises, I relaxed and sighed. My cousin and I looked at each other for a long, long time after that.

I don’t even remember ever playing with the stroller after that. All that I know is that it felt really good to beat up a neighborhood bully to tears.

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