ME by Owen Jones

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He could not understand how it had happened or why. It is the ‘bully's' incomprehension of his own actions, frailties and weaknesses which makes him vulnerable.

Marco had sought to teach the new kid, that would be me, a lesson. He did not watch and analyse my routine as would an assassin, he failed to see that flicker of something else my ego tells me I have. In short he fought a battle that would not win him the war.
"Hey newbie, your dessert belongs to me for the first month, then maybe I'll let you have a bit."
"Fuck off."
"Huh?"
"Which part of fuck off was never explained to you?"
"Give me your dessert or I'll beat you at free time."
"They say repetition is the resort of feeble minds but at the risk of being feeble – FUCK OFF!"

Of course he beat me at free time that day, and the rest of the month.
He never got my dessert though.
What the death of my parents did to me emotionally I got Marco to do for me physically. I, in my precocious desires, wished to be hardened but also to learn. Until I was bigger the necessity was always to avoid conflict unless utterly necessary, then make sure the lesson was a good one.
Marco and I fell into a routine. He routinely beat the shit out of me, I made up glib and offensive remarks so brilliant I don't think he understood them, it didn't stop the beatings but it was something to laugh a few teeth at.
I read a lot, seemingly random books that the guards were more than willing to hand over to keep Marco and I apart at free time.
I learnt quickly, the gestation writings of what would become physiology, neurology, kinesiology, plyometrics and muscle control. In doing so my knowledge of the body and its capabilities made me an expert in each of the fields, but who would listen to a thirteen year old ‘waster' kid. Application, of the methodology and techniques I inhaled, was more difficult. It took several months of pain staking trial and error to develop the forms, controls and movements I was looking for.

In that time my body changed shape rapidly. I was told in an excruciating conversation with the facility doctor that it was to do with my testicles dropping. I almost laughed in his face but I could not afford to drop the mask, even though I had already forgotten more than he would ever know.

Unlike Marco I plotted my revenge with extravagant care, getting caught would not have been acceptable and in all likelihood might have extended my incarceration significantly, if not indefinitely. His routine was monotonous, set in concrete, so that after just three weeks watching him every possible minute of every day, I knew his movements so well I could have been his shadow.
It was from the shadows I struck.