Karma is a Bi#@h
When I was young, I watched one of Adam Sandler’s movies, Billy Madison. It was fun as a kid, but I remember it for one specific scene. Billy Madison (Adam Sandler) calls up an old classmate, Danny McGrath (Steve Buscemi), whom he used to bully, to apologize. Now, it wasn’t the apology that stood out to me, but the fact that Danny had a hit list of all the people who bullied him. When Billy apologizes, Danny crosses his name off the list. And as the movie progresses, we kind of get the sense that Danny probably killed some of those people.
That scene hit me hard, and I began to compile my own list. Unfortunately, I was that kid in the golden age of bullying—something about my face just begged for punches. As a grown-up, I realize it was probably because I was too positive, a little too optimistic. People hate that. It reminds me of that Key and Peele sketch about a bully—you should definitely watch it.
So there I was, with my own list of people to kill when I got older. How would I do it? No clue. But these dudes deserved it. I think I even had my biological father on there too.
I don’t know what happened to that list. The more I grew up, the more I realized how dumb it was. Eventually, my mom and the whole neighborhood got involved to help me fight the bullies. The bullying stopped, but not because they were scared of me. I think they just realized I wasn’t afraid of them anymore—I just couldn’t handle them all coming at me at once like some mob.
Anyway, as a kid, you curse people for the things they do to you, in your mind of course. And, like most memes will tell you, it seems like nothing bad ever happens to people who do bad things. They just live their best lives until the end of their days. Sadly, it’s true—fate works in mysterious ways.
But for my bullies? Fate wasn’t so kind. Before I get into that though, let me tell you a bit about the neighborhood bullies, because those guys were something else. These were the dudes who dropped out of school and basically decided they were “for the streets.” And the streets, quite literally, became their headquarters. Every day, after school, they’d be sitting there waiting for their next victim.
If you’ve seen Everybody Hates Chris, you’ll remember the guy who always said, “Little dude from across the street, let me hold a dollar.” Yeah, that’s exactly what my neighborhood bullies did. If you didn’t have money left over from school, you were in trouble. And turning back once they saw you? Nope. That just guaranteed future punishment.
Their routine was simple but twisted. First, they’d “borrow” your money. Then they’d draw a bicycle on the road and ask you to “ride it” to the store to buy something for them. I kid you not. All their faces would turn serious, daring you to complete the impossible task. Of course, no answer was ever right.
- If you got on that imaginary bike and started “pedalling,” they’d yell at you, telling you to pedal harder while laughing and eating chips. When you obviously didn’t make it to the store, they’d turn serious and ask, “Where are the snacks or cigarettes we asked for?” You’d tell them, “I couldn’t get to the store.” Then they’d all get offended, saying, “So you think we’re idiots? This is a drawing, not a real bike!”
All the while, I’d be thinking, WTF? If you knew that, then why…? But saying that out loud would get you beaten for making them “look stupid.”
- If you refused to ride the drawing, you’d still get beaten—for disrespecting them and thinking you were smarter because you knew what a real bicycle was, just because you went to school. It always, at least for them ended up being that you go to school and they don’t.
Basically, you couldn’t win. My neighbourhood was a no-go zone because of incidents like these.
Now back to the title of this post. There have been countless times when I’ve bumped into my bullies in the years since. And boy, did karma work its magic. I realized recently just how much fate played in my favor. Sure, I feel bad for them now, but the child in me? Mwahahahahah! He’s feeling real satisfied.
Just the other day, I saw one of them—the guy who was twice my size back then—begging me for money, calling me “sir.” The words “Nice to see you today” no longer carried the same weight. Back then, it meant “Nice to see my victim today.” Now it meant, “Nice to see someone I can beg from.” And you know what? I looked him in the eye and said, “Fuck off, bro. I don’t have money for you.” I mean not in such a cruel way, I am not that evil, but what I am is petty.
Yeah, I’m petty. I have the money, of course. But I’m petty. I can’t give it to him. Plus, giving money to people in the hood? That’s a no-go. They always come back. You do it once, and suddenly you’re the local ATM. No thanks.
In conclusion, karma—or fate, whatever you want to call it—will come around. It might not come for you directly, but you’ll see it take its toll on people around you, and it’s going to be painful to watch. Damn, I know some karma’s coming for me eventually. But hey, I hope you enjoyed this read. More stories to come—I’ve always got some wild ones to share.