The Poems And Confessions Of A Mad Man Read online

  One time she was picking on my older sister and my sister had finally had enough. My sister grabbed Sue by the hair and ripped her hair out of her head. Sue was in a state of temporary shock and so was my sister. My sister realized that this ugly bitch could feel pain and so my sister started beating on this beast of a girl. My sister was doing pretty good until some of Sue’s other high school friends jumped in, and started to beat up my sister. I was already fighting off some of the other high school kids that were trying to get involved in my sisters fight, so there wasn’t anything else I could do to help her out. When it was all over, my sister and I were hurting quite a bit but those kids knew they had been in a fight. We fought well and with tears in our eyes, I remember making eye contact with my sister. Neither of us said a word but I felt that at that moment, she and I somehow bonded like never before. We shed our blood in battle together and I think that was the bond.

  In 1979 I was an 8th grader and the brother of Sue Babzie was now riding the bus to school. His name was Mike and he was a real piece of shit. He would spit on most of the girls that rode the bus. I thought he was gay or something because it seemed like he hated girls and would always whisper to the other boys on the bus. I figured he was probably blowing his friends in the school bathrooms or something. I wouldn’t have put it past him. He really screwed up one time when he spit on my little sister and started to pick on her. When I asked him why his family always treated my family this way, his answer was, “Because you’re all Green’s and you’re trash.” When he said that, I went after him and his friends all jumped on me and they held me as a few of them beat the hell out of me. I knew this wasn’t going to be a good year of bus rides and I was going to draw blood one way or the other. None of those pussies could have beat me if it was one on one, but it was always five on one and I couldn’t get the best of them.

  As the bus driver would drop off more and more high school kids, their numbers became less and less which allowed me to single out the pack and then I would pound on them when there was only 1 or 2 of them on the bus together. They were the kids who would hit me when there were a bunch of kids hitting me at the same time, and they thought they would get away with it. Well, when they were alone, then I would pay them a visit in their bus seat and beat the shit out of them.

  On one of the last days of school, Mike Babzie spit in my sisters hair for the last time. He was finally alone on the bus and he didn’t have any of his friends to help him. When I got up out of my seat he said, “What are you going to do muscle man?” I punched him without warning in the face and the fight was on. Before I could really hurt him, the bus driver stopped the bus and threw Mike into another seat. That was the end of the fighting on the bus for my grade school years.

  I held grudges for many years into the future and whenever I saw one of those school bus bullies at a bar or out on the town as adults, I would end up pounding the shit out of them after introducing myself as the kid who they and their friends would beat up on the bus. As time went on, I had heard that one of these people was killed while driving a tractor trailer in South Carolina. You will never know how good that news made me feel. I hope all of the school bus bullies die the same kind of tragic death. I still hate them all and in my mind, I’m still fighting school bus bullies. They helped to give birth to the dragon that lives within me.

  If you are a bully, then don’t feel shocked if one of the poor souls that you tormented, one day walks up to you and tells you who they are. If that person you once hurt, stabs you in the throat and kills your children before your blood is cold, it will all be your fault. You were the ass hole that helped to create the beast that now resides within that tormented soul. Payback time will be when you least expect it and I hope the dragon kills your children and you live long enough to watch it all happen. Remember, it’s your entire fault. You made this happen so I hope you get all that you’ve got coming.

  BB Gun Wars

  By: Andrew J. Green

  When I was around 10 years old, I was given my first BB gun for Christmas. It wasn’t one of those Red Rider ones with a thing that tells time and has a compass in the stock. It was one of the guns that you could pump up 10 times and could generate enough energy to shoot through a phone book. This gun could be pumped up low enough, to feel like a hornet sting if you were to be hit with it, or could be pumped up enough, to be comparable to the ballistics of a .22 short. My big brother had the same kind of gun, but his was made by a different company.

  It all started in the spring of 1976. I was in my back yard shooting my BB gun at some targets that I had set up against the metal posts of our fence. I knew the BB could ricochet if I hit the post, but the angle that I was shooting was sure to deflect and ricochet into the ground. All was going well until I fired the BB gun and I felt a ricochet hit me square in the knee. I screamed in pain and cussed the way my dad use to when he got hurt. I said, “Man that hurts like a son of a bitch!” I knew that was a fluke and that it would probably never happen again.

  After shaking off the pain and recovering for a minute, I pumped up my rifle and shot the target again. Sure enough, I felt the BB ricochet again and clock me square in the opposite knee. I screamed with pain and knew that one would leave a mark. I couldn’t believe the BB could ricochet at the same speed that it left the barrel of the gun. I was a hurting unit and vowed that if it happened again, I was hanging the gun up for the day. In my excitement, I had forgot to pump the gun up full of air and instead, just opened the bolt and put another BB in the chamber. No air in the cylinder tube meant, the BB wouldn’t fire.

  Well, when I pulled the trigger I heard the hollow, “Twang” sound from the spring of the bolt. I knew immediately that I had forgotten to pump the gun. But at that exact moment, I heard a “Pop” sound coming from around the other side of the pool and I felt the BB connect to the left chin of my lower leg. My big brother had been shooting me the whole time. What I thought were ricochets, were in fact, a deliberate sniper’s assault from my brother with his BB gun. The battle was on. I began to pump my gun up 5 or 6 times and as I pumped the rifle, my brother was running towards the house yelling, “No more than 3 pumps! No more than 3 pumps!” If he hadn’t yelled that, I may be writing this story from a prison cell. I stopped pumping at 6 pumps, so I figured I would just put a few more BBs’ in the barrel to slow the lead BB down.

  When I fired, one of the BBs’ hit my brother in the back of his right leg while the other 3 or 4 BBs’ hit the neighbors aluminum siding. What an attention getter! My brother hobbled into the garage as I took cover so the neighbor wouldn’t see me if she came out to investigate the noise. I figured if I was caught, I would have just said that it was the neighbor kid who lived behind us. He shot our house when I was little, and my folks would have probably believed my lie.

  That day was the beginning of what would help me become one of the best Snipers in the US Army. My brother, whose nick name was Rodeo, my cousin, whose nick name was Streeter, and my best friend, whose nick name was Grimace, all would be involved in the blood sport known as, “The BB Gun Wars.” Almost everyday, when we were done with homework; or told our parents we were done, we would go up to some land that was kind of a plateau. This combat zone was referred to as, “The Hill.”

  We would usually pair up as teams. It was usually Rodeo and Streeter against Grimace and me. Even though my brother and my cousin were a few years older than us, the playing field was level because we all had the same firepower. Grimace only had a single pump BB gun that looked like a lever action gun, but his gun was equivalent to a 3 pumps from our rifles and that was the limit we were allowed to use. It was kind of like, the honor system. If I was caught pumping up the gun up more than 3 times, well, my cousin and brother would just beat the shit out of me when they caught me.

  I will never forget one time when Rodeo and Streeter had Grimace on the ground and were shooting the shit out of him. He couldn’t get away because while Rodeo shot him, Streeter would be pumping up his gun, and vice v
ersa. Grimace was screaming for me to help him, so I would pump my gun up and shoot at whoever I saw. I think I even shot Grimace accidentally once, because I heard him yelp after I shot. Sorry about the friendly fire Grimace.

  Anyway, I could see the BB fly through the air as I watched through my rifle scope. I was too far away to reach them with just a 3 pump. So I pumped my rifle up 3 times and then thought I should have pumped it up 4 times, just to make sure the BB reached its target. So I pumped it up 4 more times. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was now a BB in my gun that would be sent through the air with 7 pumps of pressure behind it. To give you an idea how much power that is, a 7 pump could shoot a BB clean through a squirrel sized animal at close range. I was afraid the BB wouldn’t make it to my cousin with the 4 pumps I thought I had, so I compensated for the arc and I aimed the scope crosshairs at my cousin’s head. The rule was that you could only shoot your enemies in the legs. Under no circumstances were we to ever shoot at the head or facial region of the body.

  When I fired the BB, I could tell from the sound of the blast from the muzzle, that this was no ordinary 4 pump. My conclusion was confirmed when I heard the BB hit its target, and my cousin started screaming. When I ran up to see the damage, my cousin was holding his right eye and I could already feel the ass kicking that my father was going to give me if I shot Streeter’s eye out. My whole life flashed before my eyes. It went so fast, I had to ask for reruns. But seriously, I watched as Grimace scurried away from the pummeling that he was taking, only to run up to me, his savior, and give me the news. He said, “Your father is going to kill you because I think you shot Streeter’s eye out.”

  Needless to say, we won the BB gun war but now I had to go and see what the collateral damage was. As I approached, I had Grimace close to me in case it was a trap and they started shooting at us. I figured I would just hide behind Grimace and he could take one for the team. Besides, if it wasn’t for me, he would still be getting his ass shot off. He owed me. I figured it’s the least he could do.

  When I walked up to Rodeo and Streeter, Streeter was holding his right side of his forehead. I heard Rodeo saying that it didn’t look like it is in the skin and that it seemed to bounce off of the skull. I yelled, “Did I hit you?” As though I didn’t know I shot him in the forbidden zone. Streeter yelled that I’d better not come over there or I was going to get my ass beat. I took his advice and as we walked home, I stayed about 200 yards ahead of everybody. Come to find out, Streeter was hit in the forehead, about 2 inches above his right eye. What a miracle. I would have never forgiven myself if I had blinded my cousin on that day.

  Even though the BB gun war was cut short on that day, we would get together for another war on the following week. Streeter was back in the battle and we all became deadly shots who could hit our targets, even in a combat situation. Whenever we get together, we laugh about what happened and talk about the great times we had at The Hill having BB gun wars.

  Poor Steven

  By: Andrew J. Green

  When I was a young boy, there was another kid I knew named Steven. He and I had quite a lot in common. We both had a lot of people in our families, our fathers both sentenced us to being grounded while drunk, and we both had a real hard time in school. Put this altogether, and you get a kid who gets grounded from one report card to another because he didn’t measure up to what the other kids in the family could do. Welcome to our life. Talk about being the black sheep of the family.

  Our fathers were both ski patrolmen for a ski area at a mountain near to us. We went all the time until the report cards came out. Then we knew we wouldn’t see each other until the following winter because we would be grounded. I only had the opportunity to know Steven for a couple of years until he did the unthinkable. When we would sometimes ride up the chair lift together, we would compare horror stories to see who had a worse father. My dad usually just humiliated me in front of everyone by calling me names. His dad did the same, but wasn’t afraid to throw in a beating for good measure. As though he would beat some sense into the kid or something.

  When my dad would drink with Stevens’s dad at the mountain bar after skiing all day, I was afraid my dad would get some pointers from Stevens’s dad on how to give a good beating. We both talked about running away, but to where? We were both around 12 years old and had nowhere to run to. He also had all older sisters, except for his twin sister. He said he really loved her, but as for his other sisters, they picked on him quite a bit. He referred to his situation as being, “Hen pecked.”

  I remember when talking to him, he said a few times, “I’m going to do something about this. I’m going to do something really bad.” I didn’t know what he had meant, but took that as a meaningless threat. You know, like when you’d say to your sister that you were going to kill her or something. I never really thought he would do something so drastic, that it would still be talked about in small circles today, and that was about 30 years ago.

  The story I was told was something like this. He was grounded as usual, no playing outside, no TV, no phone calls, nothing. The standard, run of the mill, report card grounding. It’s kind of like house arrest, but without the bracelet and as though you lived with the Hill Billy’s, except with electricity. I think he was serving 3 or 4 life sentences at being grounded for his school grades. Anyway, his parents were out for the evening and so he was watching TV. Sort of like the old saying, “When the cats away, the mice will play.” Well, his big sister came into the room and changed the channel while he was watching his show. She was an Amazon compared to him, so he’d never fight her. His only defense was to pull the TV plug out of the wall. Well, when he did this, he somehow ripped the rug. Apparently the cord was under the carpet and when he pulled it, the carpet ripped.

  His sisters all freaked out and instead of realizing this to be a catastrophe that could get their younger brother beaten hard, they started yelling that they were going to tell their dad and that their dad was going to beat him. As though he was the piñata at a Mexican festival that everyone likes to see get beat until the insides fall out. This was the preverbal straw that broke the camels back. Steven went up to his fathers room and grabbed the 12 gauge shotgun and loaded it. He wouldn’t ever get beat again by that old man, and he was going to make sure of that himself. He then went into his room and blew his brains all over the walls. I’m told the first person to find him like that was his twin sister.

  I remember when my dad told us kids what happened. I began to well up with tears but wouldn’t wale like I was inside of myself because I didn’t want my father to yell at me. Big boys don’t cry you know. I watched my father look for my reaction. I hid it pretty well but not the way I wanted to. At that moment, my father did something he has done very few times in my life. He hugged me. I can only speculate now, that he was thinking that it could have been me who was dead if he had pushed me any further. After he hugged me, I was still grounded.

  That part of New York was predominately Catholic and I remember so many people saying that Stevens’s soul would burn in Hell because he killed himself. This bothered me so much because he was already in Hell living under the rule of the tyrant that his dad was. When I grew older, I became a Biblical scholar studying the Hebrew and the Greek translations of the Bible. I don’t know who came up with that crock of shit about suicide, but it’s a lie. Biblically speaking, your sins, including suicide, don’t send you to Hell. Rejecting Jesus Christ as your savior is what allows your sins to drag you to Hell. Even in Stevens’s death, people still found something wrong with that poor boy. Their underhanded statements kicked him, even when he was in his grave. Shame on them all.

  The Ghettoins

  By: Andrew J. Green

  When I was 17 years old, I was driving back from my favorite duck hunting area up North. I was late leaving because the hunting was good and I didn’t want to leave when the ducks were flying so low. I had to be to work by 5:00 p.m., so I thought I would cut through the ghetto neighborhoo
d to save time. I was stopped in a traffic jam because 2 rival gangs had been in a street fight and the police were trying to break it up.

  When the police had broken up the fight, all of the ghetto people were just standing around in the road and wouldn’t let traffic through. You know how that type of trash acts, like the whole damn world revolves around them and as though they own the streets or something. I was already late for work and I couldn’t wait any longer. No one in the traffic jam had the balls to blow their horn and get these people out of the way. I finally said to myself, “Screw this. I’ve got to get to work”. So I leaned on my horn to get everybody moving.

  As soon as I blew my horn, every other car joined in. The Ghettoins, that’s what I call people who live in the ghetto, started to move out of the way. As the traffic began to creep along, the Ghettoins would punch the sides of the cars that were driving by and they would threaten the drivers of the cars. I could see a wall of Ghettoins on the left side of my car as I approached and I could see the drivers ahead of me rolling up their windows in fear. My window didn’t roll up without giving me a problem so I resorted to the next best thing.

  I reached under my seat and grabbed my semi automatic BB pistol that had a full magazine of 17 BBs’ and was charged with a CO2 cartridge. When a Ghettoin came up to me, he stuck his head in my car and said, “What chu lookin at boy?” As though he’s going to scare a guy whose mind is already half baked. I stuck the BB gun in his face and opened fire. I watched as the first BB caught him on the left side of his face and pealed his skin back from his chin to his ear. He jumped back and I shot him in the right eye. He went down. I began shooting all of the Ghettoins that were around my car and I stomped on the gas.