I can't tell you exactly when this obsession started and I won't tell you that this story has an ending where I'm cured. But I can tell that I've been kicking ass since I was in the third grade.
Back then family life wasn't that good; my little brother and I spent a lot of time running away from home, and when we weren't doing that getting beat by alcoholic parents. It generally sucked but even now I hold no grudges.
One day my third grade teacher was bent over to pick up a dropped pen from the floor and quick as a flash I rushed over and kicked her smartly in the ass.
Falling onto one hand she made an startled "uhmmffff!!" sound, then she stood up and stared at me with a surprised look on her face, all the while rubbing her butt with her left hand.
We promptly visited the principal who was an ex-military guy and generally regarded as a real dick.
For almost two hours I was lectured about what I'd done, told I was a real bad kid, forced to admit that kicking ass wasn't funny (I was laughing most of the time), generally threatened and sent back to class.
Ok Mr Principal.
By the end of that year I'd kicked ass four more times.
Lets see. I got my teacher again, the school janitor, my bus driver and - sweetest of all - that presumptuous principal.
Needless to say back in the late 1960's pre-Columbine era this was viewed as rather aberrant behaviour so towards the end of third grade I was sent to a Psychiatrist.
Dr Redmann was a nice enough guy and went spent a lot of time talking about my home life but he too became careless around me and one day my left foot connected (smartly!) with his ass when he turned and bent over to pick up a fallen magazine.
I remember his ass as rotund and as soft as a pillow, and strangely unsatisfying as far as a kick in the ass went.
He looked around with a bemused expression on his face, and promptly prescribed what turned out to be a powerful sedative.
Now as someone who has taken well over two hundred hits of LSD (documented, and the subject of a write up in progress) and generally believes in better living through chemistry, I wish I could tell you that solved that particular problem.
No way.
I became extremely uninhibited about kicking ass, taking aim at almost anything that moved. Unfortunately the sedatives really disrupted my accuracy and style.
I'm not proud of my ass-kicking during the three months I was forced to take these drugs.
Later when it turned out that Mom was taking my drugs from me (she got caught by the Sheriff while driving and lordy mercy would she get fucked up on beer and these downers!) he stopped the prescriptions.
But I'd learned something about kicking ass during that early, formative period.
You see, even now when I kick ass I choose my targets carefully.
It's important when someone is bent over, head under some table or desk that you KICK them smartly and be away BEFORE they can extricate themselves, and catch or otherwise identify you.
Repeat after me: kick ass sharply and be off!
After all, if I'd learned one thing in third grade it was to kick ass only when you couldn't get caught, and when your chances of a successful strike were maximised.
I know that it is not the lesson my teachers or the asshole principal intended, but it was what I came away with.
Now.
This brings us to the present; I'm an ex-pat Investment Banker, from the Lower East Side of New York and - literally - kicking ass here in London.
Ha!
My last strike took place Monday night.
I was in my play clothes (my girlfriend of ten years calls them "the Mutant gear") which consist of black jeans, a green T-shirt, one of my 666 caps, Doc Martens (beautiful shoes for kicking ass by the way!), a leather coat and a vest that I'd painted myself back when I was a practising artist. I hate the fucking shit I have to wear on the trading floor at work.
I'd been out at the pubs for the night, and had just fed a stray cat - a beautiful tortoise shelled animal - that I've been trying to socialise for the past couple of months.
I came around a corner maybe ten blocks from my home and what greeted my drunken eyes - not one but TWO asses bent down under a car that had it's front wheels on blocks.
HOLY SHIT!
I couldn't control myself. I moved back around the corner, and checked out street traffic carefully (almost none since it was rainy).
I timed my approach to coincide with their acquisition of additional and no doubt necessary tools that would keep them busy working on the car. I could hear them mumbling and swearing to each other as they worked.
I ran forward and with a quick left-foot-right-foot BUH-BANGED them both!!
"Uhhhawww Bloody hell!" and "EERE!" greeted my ears and I sprinted sharply from the scene of the crime.
I dodged through heavy Camden Town traffic and made my way quickly home. I paused about two blocks from my flat to make sure I hadn't been followed.
It was ok.
I went home, had a glass of wine and slept like a baby that night.
I swear there is no hope for me - I'm forty three years old and I swear that I'll NEVER fucking grow up!
Oh and another thing.
If you don't like this writeup please don't vote it down.
'Cause if you do I'll kick your ass!
Copyright D. A. Coker 2000