He brought a bat to a gunfight
By: Shamontiel L. Vaughn
Tags: Manhood, Fighting, Fatherhood, Self Defense, Fathers

He brought a bat to a gunfight

Two lessons I learned from fathers

Photo credit: NeONBRAND/Unsplash

He sped up in front of the school and jumped out of his car. When he popped open his trunk, I wasn’t sure what was going to come out. I was first confused and then disappointed to see a baseball bat. The poor man didn’t know what he was up against. He ran past all the children standing outside in front of our school, with eyes focused on the entrance door, and we parted immediately — knowing we better not get in his way. I knew who he was, and I knew why he was there. I just didn’t understand the bat, considering who else was inside.

Less than an hour before, one of my classmates had had a verbal altercation with a few known gang members outside. Apparently one of them just didn’t like his energy and threatened to shoot him. They disappeared, and someone told a teacher. My classmate was taken inside to be protected. When the gang of boys came back, they examined the entire crowd trying to find him. While at least one of them clearly did not come with an empty pocket, they all risked trespassing and ran inside of our school doors, trying to find the classmate inside. (No one would tell the group where he was. They just took a guess.)

Although I’m still unclear about who was called first, the police or his parents, I found out later on that the school officials realized the gang of boys had run inside. So they locked my classmate inside of a classroom so the group of boys could not get to him. I wondered how long it would take before the gang of boys would turn on the teachers, too, if no one would’ve unlocked that door. But outside, that wonderment didn’t last long when the man with the bat pulled up. That man was my classmate’s father, who walked into the school cursing at the top of his lungs and swinging the bat. Shortly after, both the father and the boy swiftly walked out of the entrance door and to his car.

After a beat, that gang of boys came running outside after the two. While the son was told to lock himself in the car, the father got back out of the car and started swinging that beat fully intending to clock somebody like a baseball. The stunned boys ran backwards, one of them yelling, “This motherfucker is crazy.” And the father responded, “You try to touch my son again, and you’ll see how crazy I really am.” With that, he opened the door, handed the bat to his son, got in his car and drove off. I looked back-and-forth from the car to the boys until the car quickly disappeared. And just like that, the group of boys left, too, while numerous students stood outside with me watching this whole scene unravel.

We never saw that boy again at our elementary school. I never expected to see him again in life. But during my first week in high school, I turned a corner and there he was again, walking through the hallways. He was still pretty much the same kid I knew in elementary school, but slightly taller, with a football player’s athletic build and a few girls falling all over him. Besides the occasional hello and him teasing me about having a boyfriend at my after-school job, we didn’t talk much. As an adult, I knew he had dreams of being either a police officer or an attorney; I’m not sure which one won out. It was telling that he wanted to work in the Criminal Justice system so much though. I wondered if his own experiences inspired that.