All that is necessary for evil
to triumph is that good men do nothing ~ Edmund Burke
Brian Dubois was a troubled child
in that he didn’t really know how to handle the teasing that everyone gets at
nine years old. When he went to his
parents complaining of such things, his mom’s initial reaction was to try to
involve the cops. Given that being made
fun of is hardly a police matter, his parents resorted to teaching their son to
try to help himself. The father
promulgated this belief by instilling his child to respond violently to any
attack verbal or physical. Being an
attorney, Brian’s father was able to instill fear in others parents, schools,
recreational leagues or any organization that Brian participated in causing
them to never discipline Brian for fear of a lawsuit or the police involvement.
Like many nine-year-olds, Brian
played Little League in the summer.
During the year, a member of the opposing team, Lionel Honan started ribbing
Brian. Brian was big for a nine year old
and when sizing up Lionel, realized that he was bigger so it wouldn’t be too
risky to respond violently. He went up
to Lionel and punched him in the stomach, leading to his removal from the
game. The next week, Brian punched
another child, and when a parent exclaimed, “Didn’t he do this last week?” The father responded, “You weren’t even here
last week, so you can’t say anything.”
The concerned observer didn’t
reply. Since children only refrain from
doing things because they fear the consequences, the fact that adults held kids
back from retaliating, and his parents took care of the adults who protested,
there really was no reason for Brian to change his behavior so it continued for
the rest of the summer.
As summer ended and Brian went back
to school, his parents enrolled him in flag football. It was during practice where two of his
teammates were making fun of him calling him names such as “retard.” Given the politically correct society that we
currently live in, people cringe at this word, but this is athletics and these
are nine year old children and no matter what society tries to instill, and no
matter how hard it is fought, the fact remains that kids will be kids. Kids will tease other kids and more emphasis
in both school and home should be placed on teaching kids how to deal with
being ribbed rather than firmly discipline children who tease. Brian sized up the two teammates teasing him
and realized that they were around his size, much too risky for him to
attack. Realizing that their friend, and
fellow teammate, Dimitri Thanakis, was smaller than he was, he realized he
could take out his aggression on Dimitri without worry of losing the
fight. He punched Dimitri across the
face sending him to the ground.
Immediately adults rushed to the scene and Dimitri’ father, who was
acting as coach due to the head coach being in Aruba
on vacation, held back the two kids who were ribbing Brian to not escalate the
confrontation any more than it had. Dimitri got up and punched Brian twice in
the face and kicked him in the genitals.
Brian recovered quickly, however, and sent another punch to Dimitri’
face knocking out one of his baby teeth.
Mr. Thanakis grabbed Dimitri who was crying from the blow and
immediately took him home.
When Mr. Thanakis returned to the game
later in the day, he was infuriated to not only see that Brian showed up to the
game, but as the game went on, he was bragging about what he had done to Dimitri. Furthermore, Brian’s father told everyone
that he encourages his child to stick up for himself by any means necessary and
given that he was being made fun of, Brian acted appropriately. Mr. Thanakis didn’t want to confront Brian’s
father for fear that he would lose his temper so just made a note to try
everything in his power to ban Brian from all recreational sports in the town
he lived in. Dimitri had also participated in little league and knew Brian by
reputation. Mr. Thanakis, like every
other victims’ family, didn’t want the police to get involved, which the mother
was sure to do and didn’t want to deal with the father for fear of being
sued. Given this, he took the “moral
high ground” and decided to let the higher-ups of the recreational league solve
the problem for him.
Dimitri’
parents wasted no time in informing the league not only what had happened to
their son, but also Brian’s history of violence. The league, like all bureaucratic
institutions, was slow moving in deciding what to do about Brian Dubois. The week progressed and Mr. Thanakis kept his
e-mail correspondence with the league getting increasingly frustrated each day
that Brian continued to practice with the team.
What angered him more was that Dimitri had expressed to him that he felt
like a loser because he lost the fight.
Mr. Thanakis tried to tell his son that he was sucker punched and there
was no shame in what happened but Dimitri still felt bad. A couple days after the incident, Dimitri was
awarded the first-ever Theo Rozakis Toughman Award, which exemplifies the
qualities of someone who never picks a fight but if someone picks a fight with
him will give it to them good. Dimitri
was awarded the award for not staying down or backing down after someone bigger
than himself had hit him. Dimitri was
very happy with the award and even showed it off to his friends. This, however, did not stop the zeal of Mr.
and Mrs. Thanakis from imploring the league to suspend Brian from sports in Lincroft , New
Jersey
The
following weekend were the playoffs for flag football featuring Dimitri and Brian’s
team. Much to the dismay of everyone, Brian
and his family were in attendance due to the league still deciding on whether
or not they should suspend Brian. They
heard Brian’s dad’s argument that the kids were harassing him and Brian was
forced to react the way he did, but they just responded, “I don’t care if they
call his mom a whore, you don’t punch kids.”
Just as the
game was getting under way and Brian’s parents looked around to challenge
anyone who went against their son; a figure emerged from a car with New York
Brian’s dad
got up and faced the man and given that he had never seen this man before, assumed
he was not related to any of the children on the team, he said, “This is none
of your business.”
“Fuck you.”
The adults who were near the area suddenly weren’t really sure who the good guy
was. They abhorred what Brian did to any
child that made fun of him but they didn’t condone profanity among little
kids. Brian’s dad stepped closer so he
was eye to eye with the man and was a little unnerved when merely pupils stared
back at him but he wasn’t going to tolerate this man stepping up to him, the
mysterious character continued, “You’re son is a plague of this league and a
disgrace to little kids everywhere, and you condone his criminal and
animalistic behavior, he deserves to be in a zoo not among civilized children.”
Brian’s
dad, following his own rules he instilled in Brian, went to shove the man out
of his way. Nobody talks about his son
that way and he knew he could defend himself in court because he had great
ability in the court room. The figure
threw his left arm up and right arm down slapping Brian’s dad arms away from
him, his right hand was now cocked at his waist and he shot his palm up
striking Brian’s dad squarely in the nose breaking it on impact. Brian’s dad took a couple steps back as his
eyes naturally watered from being struck in the nose and brought his hand to
his nose and realized, it was bleeding.
Because he was too concerned with checking if he was bleeding, he didn’t
notice the figure shuffle toward him, wind up as far as his waist would allow
and step into a vicious jab that caught Brian’s dad squarely in the face again
knocking him unconscious. Brian ran
toward his father hoping to defend him. Brian’s
mother reached for her cell phone only to find that it was no longer in her
purse. She asked people around her for her
phone but all the parents knew that she wanted to call the cops and as far as
they were concerned, the Duboiss were getting exactly what they deserved. Seeing that she had no support, and realizing
her son was running toward a man who had now proven himself to be dangerous,
she ran toward the scene hoping to keep her son from harm. Brian wouldn’t make it as the two teammates
who had teased Brian before, chased him down and tackled him and started
kicking him before the coaches restrained them.
The mother screamed, “Somebody call the cops!” as she ran to console her
son who was now crying.
The figure walked toward Brian and
his mom hoping that the mother would try to attack him. The mother got up and tried to shove the
figure, but he batted her arms out of the way, just as he did to the
father. This time, however, he didn’t
follow it with any offense. Brian’s
mother, realizing that she wasn’t going to get hit, tried to slap the man only
to have him dodge it causing her to fall from her swinging momentum hitting
nothing. Brian tried to punch the figure
in the genitals but the figure thrusted his arm out around Brian’s neck holding
him at arms length, which meant that Brian’s arm wasn’t long enough to make
contact. Brian grabbed on the man’s arm
trying to pull it away but that just allowed the figure to move forward and
lift Brian with one arm around his neck and slam him to the ground. Brian rolled on the ground crying and
screaming holding his head. The mother
had yet to get up and looked around frightened as nobody was coming to help her
or Brian. The figure looked at her and
said, “You have two choices, one keep attacking me, and I’ll take it out on
your son, or tend to your son.”
This was a no decision, she crawled
over to her son and held him close as he cried on her shoulder. She blurted out, “You’ll pay for this.”
“Doubtful, for what goes around
comes around and I am the collector of the payment for your son and husband’s
sins” the man said as he turned and walked to his car and drove off. The surrounding adults were too shocked at
what transpired to take action before it was over. Nobody felt bad for what had happened to Brian’s
dad but they felt that harming the child was over the top.
Brian’s
dad came to shortly later, and they took their son and went home threatening
law suits.
The entire debacle lasted less than
a minute and when he drove off, nobody got the license plate number and nobody
heard from the figure again. When Brian’s
dad asked around to find out his identity, nobody claimed to have known him
because nobody recognized him. Cameras
in the parking lot revealed the license plate to have been a rental car and the
name given the rental car place was a fake complete with fake driver’s license.
Brian’s
parents withdrew Brian from recreational competition, horrified that none of
the parents came to their aid.
Ironically, it was the same passiveness from the same people that had
allowed Brian to get away with his brutal and unwarranted attacks. Brian was humbled by the experience and lived
in constant fear of the figure that took out his dad and him would come back,
so he was a lot more disinclined to attack a child.
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