It’s unfortunate, but real life is not an ABC after school special...
Cheaters are not always caught (thereby losing their prominent football scholarships)...
Most kids can’t get mom to quit drinking by joining “ala-teen” with Kristy McNichol...
A socially-crippling stutter is not likely to be overcome by learning how to figure skate...
And god help you if you ever decide to confront the mongoloid who keeps taking your lunch money by offering a well-reasoned plea to help resolve his insecurities about being abnormally proportioned by taking him to a baseball game.
...especially if it’s “bat day”
Childhood just doesn’t usually work that way. Often, the same boys that are spitting in other peoples’ food, keying the teachers’ cars, and “pants-ing” the retarded kid in the middle of assembly are the ones dating the cheerleaders and getting jaguars on their 16th birthday.
It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is...
Apparently, the karma-centric idea of being rewarded or punished in life based upon personal responsibility for your actions doesn’t hold jurisdiction over anyone below the age of 20.
But one time... for me... it did.
Doug was an obnoxious little twit who had developed an aptitude for two things: playing soccer, and making my life a living hell (at least in as much as a middle-class white kid’s life CAN be a living hell).
This led to many days of torment and anguish (both on the field and off), the gory details of which I’ll spare you for now. Let’s just say that while he never actually physically abused me, Doug was able to make me heartily resent the fact that my school didn’t have a tighter “anti-dick” policy.
For a while there it seemed like I couldn’t turn a corner without hearing some sort of derisive soliloquy hurled in my direction. Monologues on everything from my clothing and my hair, to my actions, my music, my speech patterns, and even my parents’ car were commonplace. Anything was fair game... it was all but fuel and fodder for Doug’s ever-emotive onslaught of ridicule. Now I can’t say I was the sole recipient of these dishonorable discharges, but if Doug’s insults were Shakespeare, I was his crowning achievement... his Hamlet... only there was no question... the answer was always “To be.”
To put it mildly, I didn’t like the guy very much.
Then, as I made my way into high school, a funny thing happened... I started seeing Doug less and less. I’d like to say it was because he noticed the err of his ways and decided to leave me alone - becoming a reformed man, helping little old ladies cross the street and raising money for UNICEF... but that was hardly the case. The truth was simply that our schedules had drifted apart, and we weren’t crossing paths quite as much anymore. In fact, I probably went an entire year or so without ever running into him.
Then, it happened.
One afternoon in gym class they were short on staff, and they decided to combine a couple of sessions together. There were about 40 of us in the gym that day... 40 of us, including Doug. Now with that many guys in one room, you might think it would be easy enough to stay anonymous, but I’ll tell ya... it sure didn’t take Doug long to find me. And the joy and excitement on his face at that moment could only be likened to that of a cat who has discovered a mouse trapped in the open.
After some early verbal sparring (I was at least starting to get a little indignant by this age if nothing else), we were corralled into groups and instructed that we would be playing handball. Skip ahead 20 minutes, and there’s 4 sets of teams engaging in what some might call a loosely-organized sport, but what more would probably say closely approximates the sight of someone with “terrets” trying to ice skate in a shooting gallery... balls were flying... BALLS were flying... and general unrest was the order of the day.
Then, the gym teacher told us he had to step out for a minute, and my beautiful moment of retribution came...
At the time the teacher walked out, Doug was playing goalie for one of the teams. Then, not 30 seconds after he left the gym, a strange event started to occur. Without direction, without forethought, and without planning, the 38 other kids in the gym spontaneously began to gather around the area where Doug was playing. These 38 kids (including the members of his own team) assembled into a loose semicircle around the goal Doug was defending. And once in place, these 38 kids proceeded to pelt Doug repeatedly, using every one of the 12 or so handballs that were in the gym. It started with the jocks, but eventually almost everyone was taking part. Nerds. Preppies. Heads. Geeks. One by one they threw... harder and harder... until Doug’s arms and legs were red, his voice was hoarse, and a tear was running down his cheek.
And while it was all going on, the 39th kid in the gym was perfectly content to just sat back and quietly watch the whole thing... an enormous smile spreading across his face.
I still have no clue why the planets aligned on that particular day to make that wonderful moment happen. Much to my astonishment Doug had always managed to be a pretty popular guy, so I don’t know if he had pissed off the wrong person that morning, or if the jocks had just thought he might make a fun target (never try too hard to figure out “jock logic”)...
Either way, it was a moment that I knew instantly I would always remember.
One thing did surprise me though... while watching Doug get up close and personal with 8-inch spheres of educationally institutionalized vulcanized rubber, a strange emotion rose up in me... pity.
There he was... receiving exactly what he deserved... and for a moment, I actually felt bad for him.
But only for a moment.
And I never stopped smiling.
Now... a few more words from Hamlet and Uncle Willie:
“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! - Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.”
8 comments:
I think I need to see that stuttering figure skater one. That just sounds too good.
it's a 1975 classic!
"Scarred by the memory of watching his mother drown in a flood when he was only five years old, teenage Tuck Faraday (Stewart Petersen) lives a hardscrabble life on his family's declining farm. He is shy and insecure, shamed by a terrible stutter. Tuck even avoids riding the school bus because the other students call him stupid. While walking to and from school, he meets Pete (Jerry Dexter), a professional ice skater who was forced to give up the ice due to an injury. Pete is building a new ice rink, and Tuck is thrilled when he offers to give him free skating lessons. When The Ice Palace opens, Tuck impresses his family and friends with his grace and skill on the ice, finally able to express himself physically in a way he was never able to verbally."
sad to admit, but i never had enough confidence to really fight back against my tormentors
...of course, i was also a very small dude, and they were often taller and wider than most sumo wrestlers, so fisticups probably were never really an option for me
...or maybe that's just revisionist thinking to rationalize the fact that i would like have been too scared to actually do anything, and consequently would have been squashed like a bug had i attempted to engage in anything physical
...or maybe i just think too much. :)
yeah... i didn't have many actual "fights"
more often than not it was simply a rather crude and insulting dissection of my persoanl character accomplanied by hackneyed, cliche-ridden insults relating to the proclivity of my mother to indiscriminantly engage in various acts of fornication
YOUR MOM's A WH....
...very nice lady who reads this blog.
...and it almost sounds dirty.
you're a funny guy!
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