I'm About To Lose Some Friends Here...

The Palmdale baseball bat beating…
read about it here, then continue to --->

Now I’m not going to say that mouthing-off while in line at a snack shack should be punishable by death. But what I will say is that there are certain real world factors that are not being taken into account in the reports of this incident.
First off, Rourke (the dead kid) was a fifteen year-old player on the winning team (which had been 1-6 before the night of the beating). What most people don’t know is that fifteen is a little old to still be playing Pony ball, meaning Rourke was probably not very talented on the diamond. What most people DO know is that 1-6 is a really shitty record. Rourke was a shitty player on a shitty team. Not good footing for a person who’s about to start talking shit. So it appears that either a) Rourke was just as shitty at the game of talking shit as he was at the game of baseball or b) he was new to the game of talking shit and didn't have a strong grasp on the rules yet. Which brings me to my second point:
I’ve mouthed off a lot in my day. I like to express my opinion and sometimes I like to express it in loud tones, peppered with expletives and insults. There was one rule I learned very early on in my mouthing-off: don’t start shit with someone who has easy access to a baseball bat unless a) your head is bat-proof (mine isn't) or b) you’re willing to use that bat first. Most people know this rule even if they’re not given to mouthing-off. Apparently, Rourke did not.
Or did he?
On the odd occasion, I’ve mouthed-off to people who were more prepared and/or equipped to beat my ass than I was theirs. Now those were rare exceptions but sometimes I've felt those exceptions had to be made given very specific circumstances. For example, while in county jail, I yelled at, and subsequently got into a shouting match with, a guy who was in there for assaulting two police officers. Now this guy would've fucked me up, I was dead-set on taking one of his eyes (and I think I could've at least acheived that) but he still would've killed me... proper killed (as the Limeys say). So why get into it with this guy? Because three things kept running through my head during our argument: 1) fuck this guy, fuck him where he breathes, fuck him where he sleeps, fuck him where he shits, FUCK him; 2) I’m really glad he’s handcuffed to his chair; 3) if he somehow gets un-handcuffed from his chair it’ll be worth being beaten (probably to death) just to say this shit to this hammerhead (which leads back to thought #1). Now the third thought is the key here. If you’re going to mouth-off you have to be willing to suffer the consequences, and if you're angry enough to suffer any consequences: let haul. At least, that's what I do. So it's not inconceivable that Rourke (the dead kid) knew that what he was about to say to the thirteen year-old (the alive kid) would earn him a bat to the head. But perhaps what Rourke wanted to say was just so fucking good and he was so uncontrollably driven to say it that he thought it was worth a Louisville to the lug-nut.
So we have a situation where Rourke was either stupid enough (probable) or daring enough (possible) to talk shit to someone he shouldn’t have. If he was stupid: he got x’d out early before he could grow up, join a fraternity (or the Navy, or the writing staff at Maxim, or whatever) and date-rape a bunch of girls between viewings of “Boondock Saints” ---> in which case I say “no big loss”. If he was daring: he went out doing what he knew he had to do ---> in which case I say “Hooray to you Jeremy Rourke, next life: wear a helmet!”
There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this but I have to cut this short because my roommate is laying into me about not cleaning up the front room.
Apparently she doesn’t know the rules either, so I’m gonna go rearrange her dental work with a 7-iron.
Originally Printed 4/14/05
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J.J. Oblivian Los Angeles, CA Age: 27 I'm in a gang called California.

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