Teasing is a weapon of self-defense, honed as sharply as any knife to slice through an opponent's armor. PNS commentator Charles Jones describes the moment at which he went from being teased to being a teaser, and how he discovered he was too good at it to stop. Jones is on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about young people published by Pacific News Service.

"Speck!" yelled Larry. "I'll call you Speck from now on 'cause of all those speckles (freckles) of dirt on your face."

The class erupted in laughter, but I quickly sized him up and turned the tables, asking if he was naturally bow-legged or if his father had molested him with jumper cables as a child. Everyone within earshot fell to the floor laughing. As I moved in for the kill, I realized just how good I'd become at this.

In a few months I'd gone from crying tears of pain to making an entire class cry tears of laughter. I'd started junior high as a quiet kid who kept to himself, but financially unfortunate as my family was, my clothing made me easy prey for anyone who wanted attention. Sometimes the teasing made me cry right there in class, and that was when they really let me have it.

One day it was just too much. I retaliated, verbally but savagely. I said everything I'd held in before. See, when you're on the receiving end of insults you're considered weak, and imagine what my classmates thought of me after they saw my tears. The only way to restore my dignity was to fight back. I found I enjoyed speaking my mind and began to do so more and more often. "Yo mama this, yo daddy that" went from a classroom defense mechanism to a means of building social status and a name for myself.

"Psst ... Speck?" When I turned to return the insult I found not a foamy-mouthed Larry ready for Round Two but Arlene, one of King Middle School's finest.

"Speck ain't my name, ol' stupid ass bitch!" I screamed.

"Charles!" cried Miss Wilmsmeyer.

"That's my name ... " I screamed, "bitch!" Just then, as fate would have it, the vice principal walked into the classroom.

"Young man, come here this instant." Her voice was dangerously calm.

Busted, but still mad as hell, I lashed out at the nearest target. "[Forget] this [stuff]. You always [messing] with me. Her dumb ass started this [stuff]."

"Two weeks suspension!" were Miss Wilmsmeyer's only words. They which probably would have been the funniest ones of the day, if I hadn't yelled out "So what! That's why you look like a tanned baboon's ass!"

All laughter stopped, but I didn't care. It wasn't fun any more. It was combat.

As soon as my suspension was up I was called into the office to meet with the vice principal. She rambled, lectured, threatened, pleaded, and questioned in an effort to get to the bottom of my bad behavior. I sucked my teeth, rolled my eyes, picked my fingernails, fake-yawned and slid in an occasional "whatever."

Even if I'd told her the truth, there's no way she'd have understood my compulsion to tease. The truth was, I couldn't stop any more. I had crossed the line from someone who spoke in self-defense to an instigator, a bully, a pest. I didn't like what I was becoming, but I hated what I'd been: weak. I was never going to be easy prey again. If every girl I capped on cried, and every boy wanted to fight me when his mother was one too many "black ass dungeon monkeys," so be it.

It took a long time to get to the point where I could speak up for myself, let alone become the aggressor. Now teachers were flunking me, girls hated me, and every boy in the class was out to get me. Hell, I was a teaser now -- what else could I expect?