Breakdown Freddie vs The World

BAKER STREET 

by Eric J Baker

The time to confess a dark secret has come: 37 years ago, I tried to kill someone. I do not know if there is a statute of limitations on attempted murder, but I’ll have to take my chances. The guilt is eating me up, and I’ve just learned that, to the new generation, 7 to 10 years in prison isn’t all that long.

My victim was Breakdown Freddie, a kid in my neighborhood. The scene played out like this: He hit me softly with a fuzzy slipper. In what might be described as one of the most unreasonable overreactions in the history of random kids from New Jersey overreacting, I kicked him down a flight of stairs.