Life puts you in compromising positions sometimes. The line between right & wrong can often be difficult to distinguish. The blacks & whites become shades of grey, and what to do or what not to do becomes more a reflection of perspective & philosophy than it does anything else. I try and live my life in a just and fair manner. I want to be kind, considerate & friendly, but not at the cost of justice. I feel life at times can be vicarious, putting us not in win/lose situations, but instead in lose/lose situations where we have to make the most of two evils.
Now in my life, I have been an outright bully at times. I can think of times as a kid when without merit, I unsubstantially bullied someone. There weren't many times, as for the most part I was a good kid, but there were a handful of times. There were times when there was no question, I was a little jackass and I own those particular times.
In my adult life though, I have tried hard to never come across as a bully. However there have been a few times where I was put into a position where I felt & for that matter still feel that threatening someone was the best of the options I had put in front of me.
This was one of those times....
Professional wrestling was a world unto itself. I've met a lot of strange & interesting characters in my life, but abnormal was the normal in pro wrestling. One of the guys I befriended for a while during my six years in the whacky business was a guy named Kevin. Kevin despite his flaws, had a good heart & would often do anything for anyone. One of his good friends, also a pro wrestler was a guy named Alan.
I never knew whether Alan was just plain stupid or if he was malicious. It was hard to tell with him if he honestly didn't realize how shitty of a person he could be at times or if he was aware of it. His inconsideration for others & his ungratefulness did more than annoy me. It outright angered me. What angered me even more was Kevin allowing him to do this to him. Kevin constantly making excuses for him and justifying his actions. I let it go most of the time, but there was once when I couldn't let it go.
We were on our way back to Des Moines from a wrestling show. Kevin was driving, I was in the backseat and Alan was riding shotgun. A police officer got behind us and put on his lights. Kevin pulled over. We were all really curious about why we were being pulled over. Kevin never sped & as far as we knew all of the lights on the vehicle were working properly.
Much to our surprise, the officer wasn't interested in Kevin. He wanted Alan to get out of the car. I had never seen anything like this. I asked Kevin what in the Hell was going on. He didn't know anything more than I did. Next thing we know, Alan is being handcuffed & put into the back of the squad car. The officer comes back up to Kevin's car & informs us that we are allowed to leave.
Kevin couldn't have been more polite asking the officer to explain what was going on, but the officer's only response was that it was not of our concern and we were free to go.
Kevin was an outright mess. Hyperventilating and crying, he was in no shape to drive. I got into the driver's seat as we still had a good 70 miles or so to go before we reached our destination.
I tried to tell Kevin not to worry about it. I said that Alan had probably done something stupid & got himself into trouble. I said he'd be fine.
"Stephen I'm worried about him! I don't know what's going happen to him!"
I had to listen to Kevin's concerns for the next hour or so.
When we got back, Kevin shared the news with a few others as we tried to get to the bottom of what exactly was going on. If you know the pro wrestling community, it's not really much on sympathy. Instead they wanted to see if they could rile Kevin up more by suggesting to him that Alan might get beat up or have certain things happen to him in the shower. This made it even worse.
There was no Kevin going up to his room and me crashing on his couch. Instead we had to call around until we found out the real story.
Alan had apparently gotten into a physical domestic dispute with his wife Heather. As a result he was told that he couldn't leave Polk County. He left Polk County anyway, thinking he wouldn't get caught. Someone told the authorities where he was, who he was with and gave them the make, model & license plate of Kevin's vehicle. Now he was being held at the Polk County Jail.
It was like 2 a.m. or so when Kevin & I drove down to the jail. I waited in the car while Kevin went in. He came back out a few minutes later.
I don't remember the exact number but it was a fairly high bail. $300+ if memory serves me correct but shy of $400. I'm almost certain of that. It was not money that Kevin had to spend.
I tried talking him out of it. I told him that Alan put himself in this position & a day or two, or whatever it was gonna be would do the guy some good. Kevin refused to let it happen. He went to the ATM & took out the money. He bailed Alan out of jail that night.
Alan's words said he was grateful, but I knew his actions would prove soon enough that he wasn't.
It wasn't too long after that when the bank foreclosed on Kevin's house. He hadn't been able to keep up with his mortgage payments & as a result, the bank took his home. He had something like 72 hours or something to get all of his stuff out.
He found an apartment & he called up as many people as he knew to come help him move. Most everyone he called was from Des Moines or from the Des Moines area. The only guy who wasn't, was me. He wanted us all to meet up at his place at 2 p.m. to help him move.
I made the 90+ mile drive to Des Moines from Sigourney to help him move. Arriving at about 1:50 p.m. I waited with Kevin until 2:00 p.m. for the others to show up. No one was there at 2:00. No one was there at 2:15 either. By 2:30 I realized that this moving job was gonna be me and Kevin.
"Did you ask Alan to help?" I questioned Kevin.
He had, but Alan had informed him that he had something very important going on today & he couldn't help. Kevin wanted me to drive the Uhaul he had rented. I told him before we did anything else, we were going to go over to Alan's.
"I don't know why you insist on going over to Alan's," Kevin kept saying to me. "I already told you, he said he had something really important going on. I doubt he's even home."
Much to Kevin's objections, I made him give me directions & when I parked the Uhaul next to Alan's house, I told Kevin to wait in the vehicle.
I walked right up to Alan's front door. It was open with only the screen door. I could look right into his living room. There he was sitting comfortably on his couch playing video games. This was the "more important" thing he had to do instead of helping Kevin.
I didn't knock. I didn't ask if I could come in. I opened up that door walked right into his living room and sat down right beside him on the couch.
He was very surprised to see me and I think he could tell I wasn't happy.
We made small talk for a while. I asked him about the game he was playing. He told me all about it. I then stood up from the couch & put it to him very simply.
"I gotta take a leak," I said to him as I eyed where the bathroom was. "When I come out, you're gonna be one of two places. You're gonna be outside in the Uhaul truck with Kevin, ready to help us move him or you're gonna still be sitting here on the couch playing this game. You don't wanna be on the couch."
He could've called the Police
He might have had a weapon to defend himself
Yeah, yeah, yeah...I didn't care. Kevin had bailed him out of jail. Using money that he didn't have. Lawd knows how many times Kevin had spent money helping him out. Money that he could have used to pay his bills. Money that might have kept him from losing his house. Kevin did all this for Alan and he couldn't take a few hours to help him move a few things from his house to his apartment?
It wasn't an issue because when I came out of the bathroom, pumped and ready for a fight, Alan was no longer on the couch. I prepared for a sneak attack, but when I looked outside, Alan was sitting right beside Kevin in the Uhaul. The rest of the day went great & to Alan's credit he was very helpful in lifting things & carrying them. We got along fine & Kevin treated us both to a Chinese buffet.
Did Alan come to his senses & realize that he owed this to Kevin? Or did he only do what he did because he knew that if he didn't, I was gonna beat his ass? I don't know. I think sometimes the mistake we make with people in life, is that we assume everyone has a conscious. That everyone will feel a sense of guilt. That isn't true for sociopaths. The only way to get them to understand something is fear.
Now was I a bully? Yeah, maybe I was, but I don't regret it. I'd handle this situation the same way. There's nothing about it I would change. I'm glad that I didn't have to do anything, but I would have. Alan needed to help Kevin or he needed to have a consequence for not helping Kevin. If someone else thinks the right thing would have been for me to have let it go, I don't agree. I did what I felt was right & if this marks a time in my life where I was a bully, then good. In this particular instance I wear the badge with honor.
