The Day I Punched My Childhood Friends Little Brother in the Belly

By Sean Patrick

Earlier today when I was riding my bike, I passed my grade school friend Jarod’s old house. Whenever I see that place, I am reminded of the time that I punched his little brother in the belly. 

It was the year I was in third or fourth grade, which means I was probably about nine years old. It was a Friday and my friend Jarod had me over for a sleep over party, an event we had been excited about for weeks. Jarod lived with his parents and his little brother, whose name I think was Josh. Josh was about four years old at the time, and unfortunately for him, he was being annoying as shit.  

For reasons unknown, Josh kept insisting that we play fight. When I think about it today, it’s likely that play fighting may have been something that he would do frequently with his dad and/or his older brother. But at that time I didnt have a little brother that wanted to play fight, and if me and my older brother were ever fighting it wasn’t out of playfulness, making this scenario quite puzzling to me.

For several minutes Josh kept innocently egging me on, and I kept wondering what the hell I was supposed to do. Now up to this point he hadn’t made any sort of contact with me, so although he was annoying, I didn’t really have a legit reason to strike him. But then Josh started hitting me. It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t want him to do it anymore, so I politely informed him that he should stop before I hit him back. Of course he kept hitting me though because he wanted me to (softly) hit him back. I reached my breaking point. After he hit me once more, I wound up and punched him with all my strength right in his gut, instantly knocking him to the floor.

Nine year olds are a lot bigger than four year olds, and I in particular was kind of big for a nine year old, and he in particular was a pretty tiny for a four year old. I’d say I outweighed him by about sixty or seventy pounds. By rule even professional boxers with that much weight difference are not allowed to fight each other, and yet I decided that regardless of our size difference, punching his frail four year old frame as hard as I could was not only necessary, but also deserved. 

After falling to the floor, Josh laid there motionless. Jarod, who had never tried to stop his brother from hitting me, looked at me with a shocked expression. The look on his face can only be compared to the expression A.J. Cowling must have had on his face the first time he saw O.J., after O.J. allegedly (allegedly = actually) killed his wife and wife’s friend.  In a frightened tone, Jarod said…

” You weren’t supposed to hit him hard…” 

“He told me to!” was my only defense. 

At that point the little guy sprang back to life: he got up from the floor, let out a bloodcurdling scream, and ran downstairs to his mom yelling, “Sean hit me!” My friend Jarod said he was going downstairs also, most likely because he was afraid to be alone with me after my sickening display of aggression. I told him I didn’t feel like going downstairs (translation: I’m scared to death to go downstairs), and he quickly descended to the downstairs area without me.

Here I was, a nine year old with a bad boy mullet haircut, left alone in my friends house because of my dangerous temper and trying to plan my next move. I thought maybe I could hide until either things blew over, or they moved out. But because their upstairs wasn’t very big, the cops (who I was sure were going to be called) would easily find me. I also contemplated jumping out the window, but my fear of heights wouldn’t allow me the balls to do so. My only choice was to take it like a man and go downstairs, leading to one of the most visual memories from my childhood.

I walked slowly down the stairs, and when I got to the first floor, I saw my friends mom cradling her youngest boy in her arms and yelling, “BREATHE! PLEASE BREATHE!! OH MY GOD!! BREATHE!!” Josh, who wasn’t screaming anymore, appeared unconscious. It was like a scene out of Apocalypse Now. I avoided eye contact and ran to their basement. Luckily the mom thought this might be the last time she saw her child alive, so she focused on him and didn’t notice his potential murderer stroll by.

I was sure I killed the kid. From the basement I could still hear her yelling frantically, and luckily after a while I could also hear Josh screaming again also… which on the upside meant that the kid was now breathing… but I still wanted to be nowhere around any of these people. But since I couldn’t escape from the house, I came up with the next best plan a nine year old could conjure up: I would pretend nothing happened. It was brilliant. I turned on the television they had in their basement and started watching Roseanne. That’s when Jarod and Josh’s dad came down. 

In an attempt to not look suspicious, I sat there ignoring his presence and laughing at all of the jokes on Roseanne. At that time I thought it worked great, but looking back I’m sure I was laughing at jokes that were way over my head: jokes about Dan and Roseanne’s financial shortcomings, Jackie’s sex life, and Darlene’s first period. These things were nothing I would have understood, yet I laughed hysterically at each and every one of the jokes. I probably looked guiltier than Hugh Grant.  

The dad sat there for a couple minutes without saying anything to me, which made me think that either I had pulled it off and he didn’t think I did it, or that everyone had completely forgotten about the whole wacky ordeal. The latter was a little tough to believe since I could still hear screaming from the upstairs, but there was hope. That hope was destroyed when the dad calmly asked, “Did you punch Josh?” I didn’t know what to say, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “I don’t remember.” 

For the life of me I cannot recall what happened after that. I don’t remember what he said next, or what we did at the sleep over. What I do recall is that I kicked that four year olds ass.