Tyler was ten years old. Three days earlier, six kids had beaten him so badly in the school bathroom that he spent two nights in the hospital. When his mom, Jennifer, collapsed crying on her front lawn, she told me something that broke my heart:
“He says he wants to die,” she sobbed. “My baby said he wants to die, and I don’t know how to help him.”
I’m not Tyler’s father. I’m not related to him. I’m just the guy who lives two doors down. I’m sixty-three, a biker for forty-two years, big, bearded, tattooed. Most people cross the street when they see me. But I sat down on that lawn and listened.
Tyler had been bullied for months. Lunch stolen, backpacks thrown in toilets, shoved in hallways. All because his dad died last year and he cried sometimes at school. He was called weak, worthless, a crybaby. And now, he didn’t want to go back.
“What if he wasn’t alone?” I asked.
Jennifer looked at me, confused.
“What if Tyler knew he had people watching out for him? Big, scary people who won’t let anything happen to him?”
I made five phone calls. By the next morning, forty-seven bikers confirmed.
That night, I explained to Tyler.
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