remembering insults

There was this one kid, year older than me, I called Bother Cheeks, shouted victoriously across the playground, myself a fat swine in school-crested sweatshirt, polo shirt, simple shoes, the works. It was a comprehensive animosity borne of nothing verifiable. His horde of mindless friends were each as bad as he, though none were that bad. We were just kids finding our way I suppose. One of them looked slightly like a gryphon, which is what we named him, another looked like a human foetus at 7-8 weeks, slightly (mythic) reptilian. “Foetus,” I honked from behind a copse, “go to your womb.” It was a tremendously proud moment for me. After weeks of limp insults Bother Cheeks got me in a headlock and I had an asthma attack, over within minutes.