face melting (Island part 2)

The deadly face melting leaf of the deadly face melting plant, Amorpha cutis-fundo, landed squarely in the middle of my forehead, and burned into it a deep purplish-blackish leaf print.  It was my scarlet letter, proof I came from a strange background.  Growing up I tried to hide the mark, I was embarrassed and ashamed.  Kids would shriek and throw stones at the hated devil-face, the name I was given.  On more than one occasion I was pummeled mercilessly by small hordes and bastions of mischievous miscreants, simply for having that scar.  It was during one of these assaults I first met Susan Leonard.  She was the leader of a particularly ornery group of oafish assholes.  I was but a first grader, and her group were sophomores in High School.  Every day I would walk by the local seven eleven type store, I forget the name now it has been so many years.  Something like fast and easy mart, or the fast and sleazy as I would often call it.  What a place for bands of angsty teenage dipshits.  There were always at least a few out front, trying to fish for booze and cigarettes.  Frustrated with their failed attempts at procuring their beloved contraband, Susan's group was anxious to lash out at society, their fellow man, and most unfortunately for me, any young, vulnerable goober stupid enough to stroll past the fast and sleazy without at least a fat friend you could easily outrun.  I rounded the corner of Billings St, and took my usual turn onto Main, it was then when one of Susan's stooges spotted me.
"Susan, check it out.  Do you see what I see?  It's that devil-face kid.  No wonder we can't get no fuckin' brews the luck that kid brings.  I oughta kick that ugly lump, and teach him a lesson."  some burly, blundering bastard declared.
"You know what Shane, I think you should sock some sense into that slimy, salamander-skin face of his."  Susan slyly slithered.  Shudders ran up and down my spine, I tightened my grip around my backpack straps, swallowed a big gulp of saliva, and tried to remember the words of Dagmar, my German foster mother.  "Stop your fretting child, life ain't petunias, its thorny roses!  But roses ain't just thorns!"  This was a thorny rose type situation I was in.  But I wasn't seeing much rose, just a bunch of thorns.
"Fart faces!" I howled with all my might.  There was only one way out of this situation, running certainly wasn't an option.  That is what they were expecting.  I flipped the back pack off my back and held it in front of me with my arms locked.  Digging my feet hard in to the ground I began a dead sprint toward Shane hoping to knock him over.  A kerfuffle they were after a kerfuffle they would get!!!  I could see nothing except the black fabric of my backpack and all I could hear were my own howls of rage, confusion, and fear.  "Kerthwack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Shane did a quick side-step, save for his right foot.  I was tumbled to the pavement faster than a cheetah can run.  That was the least of my worries.  The feet of many a forlorn, booze-thirsty nitwit were soon smashed down on me.  What a whooping.  Lost two teeth and broke my wrist in the fall.  Susan's cackle rang in my ear, all else was silence as far as I was concerned.  Sure an oaf kicks your ass with his steel toed boots it sucks, but a strikingly beautiful babe's espadrille stings more.  And that is what she was, gorgeous.  She was the rose, Shane and the others the thorns.  How could the rose betray me?  Vengeance, the word spelled itself out in my head, and I had to have it.  My remaining teeth were what had to bring it, for the rest of me was too pummeled and broken to exact it.  Susan geared up for another stomp, and I was ready for it.  I grabbed at that dazzling ankle with everything I had, every desperate cell in me was churning at max capacity.  Eureka!!  The ankle was mine, now bite you fool, bite goddamnit, I thought to myself, your window is closing.  I took a bite out of that leg like it was the finest pastrami sandwich in the finest New York deli.  Oh if ever a leg could taste like heaven, this was it.  

"YOWWZZZAA!" Susan's scream was ferocious. Shane even shuddered.  Susan wrenched her foot free, at the expense of another of my teeth, but I didn't care.  Vengeance had come, the rose was mine.  A few more extra vigorous kicks and I was home free, sirens were blaring by now.  The fucking shits scattered faster than a Hippo's.