When Life Comes Around on You

When I was a little kid around the third grade a girl moved in across the street. Her name was Julie. She was in the second grade and all girl. My brother and sister and I were introduced to her when she moved in because her dad was one of the new foremen at the mill and was one of my dad's new peers.

My brother Kevin and I took an instant dislike to her for no reason other then she was "all girl" and she befriended our sister. It wasn't long my sister had herself a new good friend and my brother and I had someone we could terrorize. I mean haraass the crap out of.

We constantly made fun of Julie and never missed an opportunity to make her visit at our house nothing short of hell. Even if our sister told our parents what we had done to Julie that day and even if they punished us it was just motivation to harrass Julie more.

Julie was in Kevin's class at school and his drive to give Julie heck even landed him in the principal's office a time or two. He once put glue in her hair and cut one of her hair ribbons with scissors during arts. He told me everytime the play kickball he always kicks the ball right at her because she was afraid of catching it. Whenever they played dodge ball he told me he always drilled her good with the ball.

Whenever I saw Julie I had to call her four-eyes (even though I wore glasses too). I made fun of her long plaid dresses she wore and the pink bike she rode back and forth to school.

Julie was a little taller then most of the boys our age so "Jolly Green Giant" always sounded appealing enough to yell at her as she went by and most often brought her to tears or at least brought her boiling blood to the surface of her face. Her ever skinny frame leant itself to names like "bean pole" or "praying mantis".

You could say that Julie's physical features and close proximity to the second and third grade boys who lived across the street from her brought a lot of unwelcomed misery. But to her credit she never wavered her friendship with our sister and rarly allowed our orneriness to dampened her smily personality. To be honest with you I would have to say my brother and myself were bordering on bullies when it came to Julie. We never physically hurt her other then the bouts of dodgeball with my brother but we did our damage with our mouths and our poor behaviors toward innocent girls that befriended our sister.

After a few years living across the street from us, Julie's father had a terrible auto accident and was left with permenant brain damage. He was a tall Dutchman whose body was strong enough to get him through the tragedy of the wreck but his mind was left to relive his childhood. He had grown up in Souhteast Asia in a Dutch colony that had been captured by the invading Japanese during WWII and he spent most of his younger years in a Japanese concentration camp. The medical attention and the nursing that comes along with such tragedy wasn't found in our little logging community so after a year Julie's mother moved their family to the valley and Julie was never to be terrorized by my brother or me again.

Several years later when I was in high school my brother and I were helping our dad put wood away for the winter and a big new shinny Chrysler pulled up in front of the house and out stepped the most beuatifully, tall, statuesque brunette I or my brother had ever seen. She gracefully looked around our place and then set eyes on the two of us both filthy and gruffed up from cutting, hauling and stacking wood. She ambled her beautiful self up to us and asked if we were Frankie and Kevin. Taking our hats off to show a slight amount of respect we both puffed out our chests and answered, "Yes we are. And who might you be?"

"I'm Julie. I use to live a cross the street from you two. " She delicatly smiled. "Do you remember me?"

"Oh, yeah. We remember you", slightly embarrassed and hoping she was into turning over new leaves and all.

She smiled showing even more of her beauty. "Good." she said and turned back toward her car. When she got to her car she turned back once again and smiled.

What revenge she must have felt.