A Boy Named Sue by Scott Taylor – Content Warning. A subject that some readers may find upsetting.

Yo yo yo, I’m here to tell ya about a boy named Sue.

Every day, Sue went into school, in the little pigtails his Momma put him in and his little blue bonnet on his head, and all the children sang, “FUCKIN’ PUSSY!”  They danced around him in tribal fashion, and spit bubble gum in his ears, and tried to make him eat dirt.  Every day he would soil his pretty little yellow dress, skin his knees and run home crying to Momma.

“Momma, Momma, it happened again!” Sue would scream, bawling piteous raindrop tears all over his cherubic cheeks.  Momma would tisk emphatically, and attempt to soothe little Sue with her favorite words of wisdom: “If they can’t accept you for who you are, then they aren’t your REAL friends.”

“But Momma, they shoved my nose in dogshit again, and jumped on my head!”

“Just ignore them, little Sue.  Just remember, they’re not your REAL friends if they poke fun at you and ridicule you.”

“But I KNOW that, you fat cow, whoever the fuck said they were my friends!  I’m just trying to explain that they keep beating the shit out of me every day because you insist on dressing me in women’s clothing!” Sue would scream.

Momma sighed wearily, as mothers often do when they are concerned for their children.  “All right, my little Sue, I know just the thing.  I’ll give you a little something tomorrow before you go to school that might help you to make friends with the other children.”

The next morning, as Sue waited at the door in his little yellow dress and blue bonnet, his pigtails bouncing up and down, Momma went into the closet and dragged out a heavy lead case that had been standing up against the wall.  She put it on its side, unfastened the latches around the edges and pulled a large tubular object out of the case.

“Now Sue, this bazooka was one of your father’s prized possessions.  He brought it back from the war on one of his breaks, about two months before he got his head blown off.  Now, if those little children give you any more trouble, you can use this to keep them away from you,” Momma said, beaming with pride, smiling down at Sue as he grappled with the unwieldy weapon.

So, the next day the boy named Sue dragged his father’s bazooka the two miles to school and entered the classroom.  Before anybody could see, he stashed the large metal object under his desk, then sat down quickly in his chair as he always did.

Recess came quickly and Sue dragged his bazooka through the halls and out into the playground, oblivious to the stares of mild surprise the large metal object drew from the faculty.  In short time, all the children came gathering around, as was their custom, and started screaming “FUCKIN’ PUSSY!” in their high-pitched little voices.  Finally, after much yelling and screaming, the biggest, toughest, meanest bully in the school, Spike, came rushing in to tackle poor Sue, so that everyone could then rub his nose in the dirt.  All the little girls squealed with delight.  But Sue lifted the bazooka with great difficulty up onto his shoulder and flipped off the safety catch, just as his mother had shown him.  Spike stopped in his tracks, confused.

“Huh?” he said.

Sue pulled the trigger and the bazooka went off with a loud explosion.  The recoil was tremendous, and little Sue shot backwards across the baseball diamond, smashing into the backstop and producing brown skid marks on the bottom of his pretty yellow dress.  When the smoke cleared there was a giant hole in the ground, and no sign of Spike anywhere in sight:  all that was left was one little high-top sneaker sitting at the bottom of the pit, along with the flat tin of chewing tobacco that Spike always kept in the back pocket of his jeans.

All the little children quailed in fright and ran away.  Sue gathered himself together, brushing the infield dirt off his dress, adjusting the bonnet which had slid off to one side of his head and was now covering his eyes.  No one bothered Sue for the remainder of recess, leaving him to spend the time happily counting flowers in the field.

When he got home that day, Momma cried, “Why Sue, however did you get those awful brown marks on the back of your dress?”

“I shot the bazooka at this kid and I went flying.  The recoil on that thing is ridiculous.”

“Oh, well I wouldn’t know anything about any recoil.  But I’m sure glad the bazooka came in handy.  Daddy always said he found it very useful during the war.”

Momma patted little Sue on his head, kissed him on the cheek and went into the kitchen to start supper.

The next day, the children again gathered round to taunt young Sue.  They had not yet learned their lesson – however, they approached a bit more carefully than before.  Again, Sue lifted the bazooka, took aim and blew Sally McCruthers into little pieces.  The children quailed in fright and fled.  But they soon regrouped and spent the rest of recess trying various maneuvers to outflank the one-child-army standing before them.  Sue continued to bombard the opposition with devastating rocket strikes, and the children cowered in the face of such relentless firepower.  Finally, finding no weakness in Sue’s defenses, they had to retreat for good, licking their wounds with their tails between their legs, returning to the classroom thoroughly demoralized as the bell rang.

Things were different at Sunnyville Elementary school from that day forward.  Sue was elected class president, and all the children spoke to him with kindness and respect.  The little boys even took to wearing blue bonnets and yellow sundresses, just like Sue.  Instead of referring to him as a homosexual, they yelled things like, “Three cheers for Sue!”, “Tolerance for all!”, and “Your neighbor is your friend!”

Sue stood at the front of the class as they cheered, beaming from ear to ear, clicking his Mary Janes, waggling his pigtails with delight, and remembered his Momma’s advice:  “If any little fuckers get in your face, you gotta blow them to hell right quick, Amen and Hallelujah, and THEN they’re BOUND to be reasonable.”  Well, okay, I’m paraphrasing, but you know what I mean.

Scott Taylor

Image – Pixabay.com