There were a lot of guy's at Lincoln Junior High School looking to build reputation as bad-asses. So they picked on kids they knew they could whip. It made them feel tough. Most of these bullies were chicken-shit ass holes. Nick Stephanos was probably the worst of the lot. He was an asshole, a bully and a loud mouth wise ass. Nobody, not even the other assholes really liked him, but they tolerated him because he was one of them.
Nick was the kind of guy who would wait for a wimpy kid to be with a group of his wimpy friends then go push the guy around and make him look like a weenie in front of everybody. Nick was short and wiry, maybe 5' 2" 120lbs. well built and he was fast with his fists. Kind of a short guy's attitude on steroids. He thought he was funny and a bad dude. I was convinced he was a shit-head.
Then there was John Burra. Burra was a strange kid. At first we all thought he was really dumb. But he was actually pretty smart. He had no use for school at all. His grades were poor but that was never a good measure of brain power. Junior High School at that time was boring, stupid, and completely unchallenging. Kind of a huge teenager baby-sitting institution on the industrial revolution model. John was built like pear, (probably 5' 8", 180 lbs.) olive complexion, dark brown longish, unruly, and usually uncombed hair. Brown eyes but there was a light in them, more of a twinkle, like he was smiling on the inside. While most kids wore tees shirts, Levis and tennis shoes. He wore dark hued button front shirts, dark slacks, and black leather shoes. His hygiene was questionable, maybe not, but he looked dirty and unkempt. He looked like he didn't give two shits about how he looked. John was like a lot of kids back then, I'm sure he was picked on in elementary school and junior high was exponentially worse for him. He mostly chose to ignore it. Burra was in my seventh grade art class. I remember one day the teacher was droning on about the color wheel or some such boring shit. This teacher wasn't so bad that she stood out, she was just so vapid that I barely remember her.
Art is a fascinating subject and there may have been a few talented kids in that class. It is a pity that talented kids would succeed in the art world in spite of their school art exposure rather than because of it.
I don't think Burra had said two words in that class the entire month or so the it had been in existence. So out of nowhere John belts out in a loud and clear singing voice (Not a bad voice either)
"Ooooooooh, Viva Le Viva Le Viva LamoureÖ Viva La Compagnie. "
Then he sat back and smiled. The class was stunned, the teacher was momentarily speechless. I laughed out loud, it was way cool. The teacher finally recovered and lamely said, "John thank you for that but this is an ART class not a music class." Burra just kept on smiling. The rest of the class caught up and cracked up. All semblance of order was lost. Not a good thing when you are trying to teach junior high students.
Gym period in junior high was particularly brutal especially early on in the seventh grade. Coming from elementary school where Physical education was just a short period of time and played in your school clothes. The idea of having to change into gym clothes in a locker room full of other teenage boys was a very foreign concept.
The way it worked was at the start of the semester you were issued a locker and a cheap combination padlock That fit into the latching handle of the locker. This is where you kept your gym clothes. At the beginning of the period you opened your locker, took off your street clothes, put them in your locker and put on your gym clothes.
The gym clothes consisted of a tee shirt, a pair of shorts, thick white socks, and tennis shoes andÖ Oh My godÖ a thing called a jock strap. (referred to often as an around the butt nut hut). Most guys coming from elementary school had never even heard of one, much less wore one. All the tee shirts and shorts were the same color, dull grey, with a Lincoln Jr. High school emblem," printed on both and required for gym class. You could only buy them at Henshey's department store at fourth street and Santa Monica Blvd. downtown. (a great deal for Henshey's).
Then you all found where your class was that day on the athletic field or in the gym or swimming pool. Then you lined up by your coach. The coach was usually an asshole who thought he had to prove what a he-man he was to a bunch of insecure adolescent boys. Then you would warm up with stretching and calisthenics then play some sport or whatever. If you fucked up or pissed off the coach he would make you run laps around the track. So running and exercise were a punishment instead of something cool. Kids like Burra were picked on and belittled by the coach and by some of the other kids for the hour. At the end you were dismissed to the showers.
Burra had gym class at fifth period as did I. We were blessed with Coach Milovitch. Coach Milovitch was not only an asshole he was the biggest asshole I had yet encountered in short the thirteen years of my existence, and he was big. Not tall so much, maybe six foot, but thick with no neck. He was educated as well he also taught math at Lincoln. But none the less he was really impressed with himself.
Burra was more of a disaster on the athletic field than he was socially. He would lumber slowly around the track at a near walk. He seemed to perpetually piss off Milovitch and was often sent to do laps. Instead of doing the calisthenics with the rest of the class he would just flop his arms or sort of move in the direction of whatever exercise we were doing. This of course pissed Milovitch off. I'm sure he though of Burra as a threat to his cherished authority. So, being the prick he was he focused on Burra belittling him whenever he could. Burra mostly ignored Milovitch. Which, of course, pissed Milovitch off even more. More laps.
Then after class you had a very short time in which to grab a towel, open your locker, remove your gym clothes and take a shower. Then walk back to your locker, finish drying off, get into your street clothes, grab your books and make it to wherever your next class was.
The locker room had three islands of raised concrete reaching about two feet off the concrete floor with two rows of metal lockers, upper and lower, resting on top of the raised area. The raised concrete area was wider than the lockers and created a concrete bench like seat, below the bottom row of lockers. The bench ran all around the island. So you could sit and put on your shoes or put you books or clothes on the seat while you changed. The surrounding walls were likewise constructed with a concrete seat and two rows of lockers inset in them.
Now you have to remember these are young teenage boys all naked and wet with very slippery concrete floors. So it was a place that a lot of grab-ass and towel fights happened all the time. Most of it was good fun and nobody really got hurt. There were times someone would be chasing another guy and one would slip and hit the concrete pretty hard and the coaches would come out of their office and bitch and act pissed off at which ever fools were grab-assing around.
Nick Stephanos also had fifth period gym with Milovitch. He was kind of a suck ass with the coach and he volunteered to hand out the towels and shit like that. I thought he was a fucking weasel and had nothing to do with him. His gym locker was in the same isle in the locker room as Burra and I were.
You were supposed to take your gym clothes home each week so your mom could wash them. Most kids forgot or if they had gym early in the day didn't want to carry them around all day. But they got washed often enough. As far as I could tell Burra never took his home and they and his locker reeked. This was another endearing quality that made Burra even more of an anathema.
On one particular day we were all coming back from the showers and Burra was naked with his head in his locker rooting through his stuff. Burra's locker was on the bottom row so his big ass was sticking out into the isle. Nick Stephanos was walking buy with his towel wrapped around his waist. There is a certain way of inflicting pain with your hand. It is achieved by allowing your middle finger to be limp and by letting your hand drift down then snap your wrist back quickly close to the target. Your middle finger tip snaps into the target with pretty good force.
Nick, from behind Burra, aimed a flick at the back of Burra's balls dangling between his legs. This had to really hurt. Burra jumped and bashed his head inside his locker. Nick was really laughing hard, as were most of the rest of us were.
The next thing that happened really stunned everyone. Burra backed out of his locker rubbing his head, saw who obviously did it. Nick didn't try to pretend he didn't do it. Why should he? It was Burra and he knew Burra wouldn't do anything. This was a major miscalculation on Stephanos part. John Burra clouded up and rained all over Nick. Burra hit him square in the mouth with all his considerable weight into the punch. Nick's head snapped back and he staggered backwards into the lockers behind him. Burra kept right on coming, throwing machine like punches to Nicks head. Not flaying mind you but well thrown, aimed and solid punches into the face of the shit head bully. It was like Nick was the embodiment of everyone that had ever picked on Burra. John Burra had, had enough. Frankly most of us watching felt that it couldn't of happened to better guy than Nick Stephanos. There were only two sounds; Burra's fist smacking into Nicks bloody face and the back of Nicks head bashing into the metal locker door behind him. Burra had Nick by the throat with his left hand and punching the shit out of him with his right.
The guys in the locker room were starting to chant, "kick his ass Burra! Kick his ass!"
This brought the coaching staff out of their office and they started to jump in to break it up but when they saw who was beating the living crap out of whom they stopped in shock. They hesitated long enough for Burra to land a few more punches. Then they hauled the naked fuming Burra off of Stephanos. Who slumped to the concrete seat holding his face. They man handled Burra over to his locker. All the while Burra was trying to get back to Stephanos to continue kicking the shit out of him. The coaches finally calmed John down and coach Scott (the least asshole of the group) took Stephanos into the coaches office for first aid. Since they saw this happening the coaches couldn't let it go so they told him to get dressed and sent Burra to the dean of boys and later also sent Nick there as well. I'm sure they both were made to shake hands and were given demerits or detention or some other useless ineffectual crap.
As you can imagine the story went viral (even without social media). It was all over the school with in minutes.
This was the end of Nick Stephanos' rise to bad-ass stardom (as if he ever had the chance anyway). Nick just sort of slinked away. If he even tried to fuck with someone somebody would say, "Watch out Stephanos, we'll get Burra over here to kick your assÖ again." That would shut him up. Burra became sort of a celeb around school for a short time. But the best part was Nobody (even the asshole coaches) fucked with him again, even in High School. Kids just left him alone. Which I think was all John Burra ever wanted in the first place.