Trust Not!
Nov 29, 2022 8:33:04 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 29, 2022 8:33:04 GMT -5
Trust Not!
by Radrook
Trust is a beautiful thing if it is expressed towards those who genuinely deserve our trust. However, when trust is placed in those who don’t deserve it, then when we are feeling the safest, we might very well be in the very serious danger of bodily harm and even of death.
It happened to that Roman General Varus in the German Teutoburg Forest when , he was suddenly attacked by Germanic tribes that had set a ambush for him and for the very same reason, trusting someone as a friend who was really an enemy- in his case, someone whom he considered as a an adoptive son, but who had secretly set him up for that ambush which cost him his life and the lives of members of three legions.
It happened to me as a kid in the following way. As usual, I was hanging out at the lobby of one of the eight tenement buildings of the Christopher Columbus Housing Projects with this Afro Puerto Rican teenager they called Big Ramos as opposed to his little brother little Ramos. He was about three years older than me, I was twelve. I had known him for years, and had no reason to suspect what was about to happen.
But that was soon to change. You see, there was this Latina who he was deeply infatuated with but lacked the courage to approach. So whenever he saw her, he would freeze like the proverbial deer in headlights.
That day as we were hanging out, he reacted the same way and I found it funny and chuckled. That’s when he calmly approached, no indication of anger or evil intentions whatsoever in his body-language, and suddenly grabbed me by my legs and lifted me off my feet, and placed my upper vertebrae on the bannister so it would act like a like a fulcrum to sustain my whole 135 pound weight.
Then, after approx. half a minute of inflicting severe agony, he shifted me further across the metal bannister so that the damage would also include my lower back. As the intense agony in my upper back and then my lower back rendered me voiceless, I realized that he was trying to cripple me. Right then and there I knew that I would never be the same again and that the damage was permanent. I had been an avid bodybuilder and my body had been strong and healthy- and I had these grandiose dreams of being the next Lou Ferrigno or Steve Reeves as all the bodybuilding magazines kept promising that I could be if I only kept at it long enough. But with those injuries, all that suddenly vanished.
In hind-site, I later regretted not having taken retribution by attacking him form behind and broken his back with a baseball bat or a dumbbell bar in return by surprise as he had done to me. An eye for an eye-as the saying goes. But that kind of vengeance was not part of my nature at that time. That needed to wait for several more years to develop. So he was lucky, otherwise his punishment would have been just as unexpected as it had been for me and far more severe. But as it unfortunately turned out, he damaged me for life and escaped totally unscathed. Well not totally, since he had a rock bounced off his ugly head by my friend Woodrow a short time later which partially compensated.
You see, my friend Woodrow, this African-American kid just recently-arrived from the deep south, and who considered me as a brother, was very handy at aiming and throwing rocks. So when he once saw Big Ramos mocking me, he took good aim at his silhouette in the thick Branchbrook Park foliage where he was hiding, and BAM! Right on target right smack-dab on his head. To me, it sounded as if he had hit a tree. In fact, I told him, “You hit a tree!”
So I was very surprised to find Big Ramos stretched out on the grass moaning in pain a claiming that he felt and nauseous dizzy. Woodrow burst out laughing at his every moaning complaint. To be honest, I was afraid to laugh since laughing at this dude had caused him to try to paralyze me and I imagined him suddenly coming at me again with the same intentions.
Of course, he was approx. three years older and I was smaller, so that must have contributed to his confidence in his attack. In any case, as he lay stretched out on the grass with a white handkerchief on his head, while Woodrow kept laughing right in his face several times. to my surprise, not once did this coward ever get up or say a single word to him about it.
I concluded that he was only extremely sensitive with kids who were smaller and that he really preferred not to take a chance of fighting someone his own age and size who had just cracked his head open and was openly laughing at him and seemingly taunting him to get up and complain about it.
Did I consider that busted head sufficient punishment for what he had done to me? No it didn't. Perhaps had he lost an eye, or had been permanently brain-damaged, then I would have. But as it turned out, since he recovered from that injury while I never recovered from the severe damage he inflicted on my vertebrae, damage that had caused me great agonies during my entire lifespan and numerous other side effects such as inability to lift weights as I had done before, permanent sciatica, lower and upper back spasms, permanently numbed feet and other serious symptoms.
In hindsight, would I have laughed had I known the consequences? Of course not. But thinking myself in the presence of a friend, I never expected that he would do such a cowardly, nasty thing over such a trivial thing.
But what really bothers me most is that I continued to associate with the scum bag even after that attack and was never moved to seek retribution once we were the same physical size. That bothers me far more than the damage itself because I can't understand it nor explain it to my own satisfaction.