The still partially-blinded man dropped down into a kneeling position as Dwayne continued to wail on him hard enough that the man was eventually driven to the ground and was now lying on his side, arms over his face and several fingers already broken as a result of his futile attempts to protect himself from Dwayne’s continuous salvo of baton swings.

Me and Richie just sat there, our mouths hanging open and both of us looking utterly clueless. It was as if someone had hit pause in the middle of our best Keanu Reeves impressions. Dwayne reached behind him, pulling something from the waistband of his pants as he knelt down beside the whimpering man and rolled him over.

“Jesus, that’s not a gun, is it?” I said, finally snapping out of my stunned silence.

Dwayne held up a pair of handcuffs and replied, “He should be so lucky. That’d be too quick.”

I gestured at Dwayne as he cuffed the man’s hands behind his back and I said in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, they’re just handcuffs? Okay. Hey Dwayne, why the fuck do you have handcuffs?! …Holy shit! You’re not Twenty-One Jump Street’ing us, are you?”

“Twenty-One WHAT?” Dwayne asked, narrowing his eyes at me. This was well after the show had aired and long before the movies. The only reason I knew what it was is because my mom had a thing for Johnny Depp.

“Are you an undercover cop who just looks super young and they say you got held back so you can infiltrate our class?”

“Why would a cop want to infiltrate a middle school?”

“I don’t know. Why would YOU have handcuffs?!”

The man finally stopped whimpering and let out an unsettling giggle as he looked up at Dwayne and said, “Go ahead… tell ‘em.”

Dwayne raised his baton in a threatening gesture as he turned to glare down at the man and screamed, “Shut your fucking mouth!”

The man began to laugh even louder than before. It was one of the creepiest sounds I’d ever heard. He was still looking up at Dwayne as he said, “Go ahead, pussy! Do it! I fucking dare you! Crush my skull in!”

“You don’t think I will?!”

The man scrunched up his face and said in a mocking falsetto tone, “You don’t-thu-duh-duh?”

“I swear to god, I WILL kill you!”

“Then DO IT, you fucking woman! Do it or I’ll tell them how that girl ended up dead in the wo-”