The bully

When I was a kid, there was a mean kid that lived down the street from us. His name was Nicky, and he was older and bigger than the rest of us. He had a slight speech impediment, but no one ever mentioned it because he was bigger and mean. He had an awesome bike with a rear tire that was a little bigger than the front one, and a sissy bar that made it look like a chopper bike. None of use could outrun him, on foot or bike, so we just headed inside when he popped up around the neighborhood. Nicky's mom was an alcoholic, and when she stumbled outside to call for him, he ran like crazy to get home, cause he knew she was gonna start screaming if he wasn't there pretty quick. She screamed at him a lot, and we could hear her from outside on the sidewalk, but again, we never mentioned it to him. I remember a couple of times he and I actually just kinda hung out for a while over in his yard, just talking. He even let me ride his cool bike, till his mom made him come in. Over time we saw less and less of Nicky, till one day an ambulance came to take an old man away from his house, and we never saw Nicky again. We found out later that it was his dad they had taken away, and that he had died of Cancer there in the house. When I heard about his dad and remembered how old and small he looked as they carried him out of the house on the stretcher, a lot of things suddenly made sense to me, even at that young age. I felt really sad for Nicky, and wished I could have been better friends with him. I don't think he was really such a bad kid, probably just scared.