Sloppy Joes

Being angry is scary. The way your heart beat is heard in your ears like an obscure Beethoven symphony. The aftershock you get like an earthquake in a mid-spring California day, and the thoughts that run through your head as if they were a runaway slave, rushing through the underground rail road.

I am a man of pride. I am a man who loves and wants to be loved. I am a man who respects and wants to be respected. I am a man that doesn't think being bullied and made fun of is right. I am a man with unspoken thoughts, untold feelings, and a man who knows he is more than what his occupation holds him to be; and being bullied because of my job isn't okay. Society isn't making as much of a big deal about this as it should be, and that shouldn’t be admissible either. We need to make a change and make things for the better... like I did.

It was about a week ago, when I overheard some kids mocking me. Although they were young, and I've overheard it being said before -by my wife, by my mother, and by the staff- having it being said by the ones I do it for just baffled me. How could they? It’s so ungrateful, so ignorant, and so insolent! Why would they take it that far? Why would they see me or make me feel inferior about what I do if I do it for them, I do it to make them feel and be better. I don’t think its right that they treated me the way they did because of my occupation. And I definitely do not deserve to be punished for the consequences that I held for them because of their actions. What they did deserves punishment. Bullying is a crime. Only because their children it doesn't mean that their treacherous faults don’t deserve punishment. Children are our future, the last thing we want is for them to grow up and be bad people... I mean am I wrong for thinking like this?

I was a lunch man. Until a week ago I served lunch to grammar school kids. I was the only man in the job and I guess it was somewhat unusual, but this is what I wanted to become. I wanted a career not a job. I wanted to get up in the morning without saying "crap, I have to go to work". I loved serving food for the children. Make them healthy with foods and fruits and their bones strong with small cartons of milk. But that was until a week ago, until I overheard them mocking me... Because of the melody of my choleric heartbeat, because of the quivering from the roots of the little hair I have to the dirt under my finger nail, and because of the untiring thoughts running through my head, was why I did what I did.

Although I do not regret it, I guess I do have some sort of pity for them. I guess they are -better said, were- humans. They were young and made mistakes. I just wish that their parents were harsh on them when it came to knowing how to treat people that are different or live different, and didn’t do everything just like everyone else does. And because they didn’t learn from their parents, what’s right from wrong they were taught the hard way...

It wasn’t all of them. Just five students; Susie, Billy, Jon, Amber, and Gerald... Now have all been butchered; all chopped up, all seasoned, all cooked and all mixed into the schools Sloppy Joe. All five students mixed into three pounds of ground beef and served to all thirty-six of their classmates. Human Sloppy Joe, a carton of milk, and a side of cold canned peaches was served as today’s schools lunch...

See, being angry is scary. The way your heart beat is heard in your ears like an obscure Beethoven symphony, the aftershock you get like an earthquake in a mid spring California day, and the thoughts that run through your head as if they were a runaway slave, rushing through the underground rail road.