High School

“He was such a beautiful little boy in kindergarten.”
“What happened?”
They didn’t even care that they said it in front of me.
They were choosing pictures for the yearbook.
It was my sophomore year in high school and they were doing a retrospective on our class.
“He doesn’t even look like this kid.”
“How can someone change so much?”
“And not for the good either!”
I turned them off.
I pushed the hurt away and turned them off.
I remembered years ago; the school wouldn’t let me study anything except basic math.
I checked out a book on algebra, it was a self-teaching book.
You would solve the problem and move to the page that matched your answer.
I walked home.
I wouldn’t ride the bus.
Even if I were late for school, I wouldn’t put myself through that again.
It was just a few days before that my art teacher had callously stabbed me in the heart.
I was sitting at the kitchen table drawing floor plans for an octagon house.
There was a large central room with eight smaller octagons connecting to it like the spokes of a wheel.
It would be earth sheltered.
My uncle bob was staying with us.
“Why do you always draw houses?”
“Can’t you draw anything else?”
“These do nothing for me.”
He had a copy of one of my nature encyclopedias that he had with him in the bathroom. And I was tired of his condescending attitude toward me.
So, I accepted his challenge. “Pick a page.”
He chose an eagle standing on a tree limb.
So, I started drawing.
With a still picture, it was easy to make the eyes and head.
But the body just looked wrong.
Even if it was real life, it looked wrong.
So, I drew the body slightly turned toward me with its wings closing like it had just landed.
“Ok that was an easy one.” He so graciously commented.
“Pick another one.” I spoke.
“I’d like to see you do it.” I thought to myself.
So, I drew a big horned owl protecting the rat he just killed.
Yes, he was the rat in the picture.
“Pretty good” he said.
Getting a compliment is like drawing blood from a stone.
At least for me it is.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
What could I expect from someone who openly didn’t like me?
So, I took them to school.
I thought, “Well maybe I can get some extra credit from art class.”
The teacher was really impressed. “What book did you trace these from?”
I didn’t answer.
I just turned and left.
Yes, I wasn’t one of the chosen children so I obviously copied someone else’s work.
When people hate you, you get used to being snubbed.
Well, there I was sitting on a bench in front of the bank on the four corners. I thought I would wait for mom to get out from work and read my book. It was a good plan, I was halfway through polynomial equations when a bunch of kids from fifth grade class, I was in sixth, came walking by. A thoroughly nasty girl was walking down the benches.
“Move out of the way you ugly troll!” she yelled at me.
“You’re a fucking ugly troll, now get out of my way!” she was all but ranting.
I was starting to move so I could get back to my book.
“That’s right pig, respect your betters!”
That did it.
I was no-longer a bully (after knocking out Dale Madorsky in front of the bathroom with one arm) (I thought I killed him and it changed Me.) and I wouldn’t fight, but I was not going to move!
She was livid!
“You pig, you fat ugly pig!”
“I’m telling my father on you, you fucking pig!”
“I’ll be sitting right here when you and your father get here.”
I guess I was supposed to be afraid.
He can’t be as bad as my brother or Randy.
I went back to my book as she and her friends stalked off down the street.
I had been called worse.
The other kids at school got away with calling me worse names all the time now.
Not to mention how many times my own family had picked on me.
When I was a bully, a lot of the kids in school paid for the honor with a bloody nose or black eye. And they soon found that doing it in front of the “teachers” wouldn’t stop me from getting to them either. Even when they ripped chunks of my hair from my head to keep me from the offending jerks; I didn’t stop till they were down.
A dangerous ability to have: and one reason not to fight anymore.
Almost weekly beatings from my cousin and brother and universal hatred from my aunts, uncles, and father had turned me into quite the monster, and now I had stopped it.
I wouldn’t fight anymore.
Then I remember my false friend Joe.
I was at his house after school (anything to keep away from my brother and cousin) and his sister had a friend visiting.
“Hi, I’m Tim.”
She started crying?
Or she was pretending to cry at least.
OK, I turned to Joe, “What’s up?”
She starts wailing.
“What’s your problem?” I ask.
She slinks as sexily as a ten-year-old can behind Joe and looks at me from over his shoulder.
Smiling like a snake.
“You’re just so ugly that you’re scaring her!” Jackie, Joe’s sister says.
I hear the quiet laughing in the next room.
So, your mom is in on it too?
It’s a put on.
So, I said, “I don’t need this.” And I left the house and started home.
I guess they hadn’t had enough.
Joe came running up behind me.
“Tim, come on she’s just weird.”
All that day, no matter what Joe and I was doing, she and Jackie would appear and she would start her wailing! And not just this day; she visited really often. There are too many times to count and too much pain for me to want to remember anyways.
At least it was better than being beaten up.
Joe, I could fill a book with all the lies and hatred you used against me.
In the end, you ended up in a mental institution for trying to kill your wife.
The wife I warned not to marry you.
I wonder how things would have been if the people you tricked could have seen the real you?
How does it feel to know you moved your life ahead on my bones?
I don’t think insanity is enough for what you did to a kid that only wanted friendship from you.
How many times was I that terrible person that did terrible things so you could pretend to be a hero who tried to help me?
Yes Joe, I know the stories, people talk.
I was lonely not stupid.
I don’t want to remember any more of that today.
Why did I look like I did?
Have you ever tried to smile when your heart was broken?
Have you ever slinked away from a conversation because of a mean look?
Have you ever known beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were ugly?
Have you ever known that the only one on your side was your mother and she couldn’t help?
Have you ever listened to people tell lies about you and not have anyone come to your rescue?
Think about how all these questions make you feel and ask yourself, “How could I look any other way?”