Slayer "show no mercy"

In the spring of 1985 I had been given a cassette which had Venom's "at war with satan" on one side and Slayer's "hell awaits" on the other.  That tape opened Pandora's box of heavy metal.  I searched out albums by both bands and at Cavages record store I found my own copies of #slayer "hell awaits", "haunting the chapel" and "show no mercy". I was already hooked on Iron Maiden but this was a whole new level of dangerous sounding music.  By the end of ninth grade I was ready to replace my Maiden back patch (I had shredded the jacket it was on getting drunk in a field behind the elementary school)  I went to our trusted head shop Pavillion International and got a back patch of this album cover.  A goat - headed sword welding satan in front of Slayer's original (and sorely missed) logo.  I wore that badge of confrontation proudly.  It led to confrontation.  That jean jacket never left my flesh and every day in the cafeteria there was a table of jocks that would mockingly exclaim "slayer!" as I walked past their lunch table. They had done it for weeks and laughed to each other.  One day one of them upped the humiliation and chucked a tater tot at me as I slunk past.  I was already an angry kid and the rage had been building over this incessant harassment.  The tot hit my shoulder and then ricochet to my head. I stopped and pivoted 90 degrees to my left, took three steps and smashed the closest dude in the face with my lunch tray. He tried to stand up and I punched him and he toppled.  I grabbed the chair he had been sitting in and threw it indiscriminately at the person who had been seated at his right. While I was enraged I remember time slowing to an almost serene pace. I threw some ineffective punches at someone's back, whoever I could reach and was then grabbed from behind by our gym teacher. He roughly and silently shoved me out of the cafeteria towards the school office.  I received a week of in-school suspension.  When the week was up and I returned to classes I was dreading lunch and the jock retaliation.  My head was on a paranoid swivel all day. Every guy in a letterman jacket a potential threat.  I anxiously waited for retribution all day.  None came.  Not a peep.  I nervously went to school the next day.  Still nothing.  No jeers of "slayer!"  Years later I ran into a guy I didn't know who was at that table.  He was bouncing at a bar on Chippewa.   He asked me of my name was Joel Menter. I responded that it was.  He then told me that I beat his friend in high school with a chair (not entirely accurate) and that it was the most bad ass thing he had ever seen.  He said they were all terrified of me and believed I was a satanic cultist.  He laughed and shook my hand and let me in the bar without paying the cover.  Man, I wish I still had that jacket.