I’m 5-foot-9 and have been since my mid-teens, but I never had a growth spurt. I just kept adding inches, slow and steady, to everyone’s amazement. For one thing, I was a low birthweight baby. (Under 5.5. pounds.) Plus, everyone else in my immediate family is small-boned. If you see me with my father, mother and sister, the only conclusion to draw is that there was just enough food for one person and I got it all.
In grade school, however, I was smaller than my sister and wore her hand-me-downs much of the time. So new clothes were a huge deal to me. I invested new clothes with talismanic powers, capable of changing my life. They never did, but I never lost faith. This outfit, this pair of shoes, this rust-colored corduroy pants suit — this would do the trick and I would be . . . something.
When I was in sixth grade, my mother purchased me a jumpsuit (I know, ouch) from Atlanta’s J.P. Allen’s. Very quickly, I had added my usual annual inch and my ankles were exposed. Lorenzo — oh yes, I remember your name, you also used to call me Marcia Brady and ask if I was dating Harvey Klinger, a nerdy boy who was once Marcia’s lab partner — called out.
“The flood is over, the land is dry, so why do you wear your pants so high?”
Pleasure gone. I wince when I see photos of the offending outfit. Although, to be truthful, the exposed ankles were only part of the problem.
There were only two sartorial sins in the Balitmore school system in my youth: High waters and fish heads. “Fish heads” were cheap sneakers, defined as anything other than Keds or Jack Purcells in that pre-Nike world. (“Fish heads, fish heads, mama bought your sneakers at the Pantry Pride,” the kids chanted at Willard who had enough going against him. The name Willard, for example.)
In junior high, all humiliation was summed up in a single word, drawn out over many syllables. “Ti-i-i-i-i-i-ight.” As in “Tight face,” which did capture how one felt when embarrassed. Cheeks hot, skin seeming to shrink over the bones.
What pleasure became humiliation? What wonderfully cool thing was diminished by a classmate’s taunting?
And, admit it: Did you ever turn on another kid? I did and I just want to say: Mark Metcalfe, I’m sorry.
I was generally the one who got picked on, so when Jimmy Crosby–small, awkward, fey, probably emotionally unstable, probably with a terrible home life–annoyed me in junior high (as I recall, he kept butting into my circle), I wrote stories about him and circulated them among my friends. They lampooned everybody, students and teachers alike. I had a gift for caricature at the time.
One of the teachers intercepted one. I remember him exclaiming <i>Mr. Xxxxxx was lecturing!?</i> That was the first line. He was Mr. Xxxxxx.
I stood and waited to be beheaded as he read the rest. (And I have a faint memory of saying something like <i>No, keep reading! Keep reading!</i> so he’d find out it wasn’t about him.) Instead of beheading me, he turned red laughing, and took it with him. He showed it around to the other teachers before returning it to me.
This didn’t exactly discourage me from writing more stories.
As near as I can discern through the lens of adulthood, Jimmy was a genuine pest and genuinely miserable, and I was genuinely cruel to him. Now and then, I try to find him online, but there’s never any sign.
I can’t be the only person here who wants to read a short story about the briefcase. Or Jimmy Crosby. Or John Wiggins. Or — well, you see how I think this works.
Mark was collateral damage in my ongoing battle with Mr. Llufrio, my 7th grade geography teacher. One comment, pretty small potatoes, but I still cringe thinking about it because Mark hadn’t done anything to me. If I had a time machine, I’d hope in, go back to the class and say: “Mr. Llufrio, you’re a dick. A small man with a big moustache and a small . . . mind. I’m sorry that I seem to bring out in you what Rhoda Penmark inspired in the handyman in ‘The Big Seed,’ but I was not a bad kid, much less a sociopath. I was just a mouthy girl who didn’t much care for geography. If it gives you any pleasure, I’m still shockingly stupid about it.”
That great, painful briefcase story reminds me of a heartbreaking event in one of the early Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian. (Several of the early books in the series are masterpieces, worthy of Conrad, in my opinion. Um, did anybody ask?)
Anyway, Maturin meets a young girl living on the streets in India (I think it was), and gives her a set of cheap but gaudy bracelets just because he sees her admiring them. A day or two later, he sees some people gathering, and walks over to find that they’ve gathered around her corpse. The bracelets are gone–stolen by those who killed her for them. Only the marks they left on her arm remain.
One word: Briefcase. First day of second grade. My first day in public school. This would have been 1965 or so, and my mom sent me off to school in nice clothes, carrying a brand new briefcase. I felt like… my dad. I felt official and professional.
Moments later three tough fourth graders surrounded me and began the ritual beatdown. A teacher stood by and watched for a while before breaking it up. As she led me inside by the arm, she leaned down to my ear and whispered harshly: “What were you thinking?”
Or something to that effect. I can’t remember the exact words, but she was telling me that I wasn’t at private school anymore and I needed to toughen up.
After a long fight with my mom, I brought my lunch in brown paper bag and carried my books under my arm the next day.
I’ve never looked at a briefcase the same since.
Dear Laura,
I am glad you are finally a big enough person to admit your wrongs. But don’t worry about me, you never got to me. In fact, here in prison there are days that remind me of the old Baltimore school system. Except Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – those are my electro-shock therapy days.
I miss my parents. Some days I think perhaps I should not have killed them. But as one of my psychiatrists says, “Don’t look back.”
I have to go now as it is almost time for macrame class. They don’t let me make my little macrame Lauras anymore… something about disturbing the other inmates.
Hope to see you soon,
Mark Metcalfe
Thank you Laura. After more than thirty years, and hundreds of “t-i-i-i-i-i-i-ghts” directed my way (mostly by my more worldly twin sister) I now know what it means. In retrospect, the clueless look on my face should have warranted me being called a “SPED,” (SPecial EDucation student) but I suppose even a sister has her limits.
Life in Eastern Baltimore County was very similar to your experiences. I had the high waters and fish heads too, but did eventually manage to convince my father of the necessity of a pair of Jack Purcells. When someone finally explained to me in high school what those Adidas shirts were all about, my first thought was “Why would anyone want to wear the name of a shoe company on their chest?”
Thankfully, my parents never forced me to get a buzz cut. I think my mother’s experience with chemotherapy made her much more sympathetic to my desire to wear my hair long. But I did relish quickly sliding my hand across a fresh buzz cut and calling “Swipes.”
When I made the switch from parochial to public school in the seventh grade taunting was one of the few sports in which I was qualified to participate. If you were willing to take as well as you gave, and if you found opponents who would engage you, rather than punch you, taunting could be a challenging and enjoyable past-time.
Over time one of my regular opponents was a boy named John Wiggins. He wore glasses and was just a tad overweight like me, so we were evenly matched. We taunted each other frequently, but in a sort of innocent non-violent way. Then one day in eighth grade (or maybe it was ninth) I arrived at school and was approached by one of his friends, who asked:
“Did you hear about John?”
“No, what happened?”
“He’s dead.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, it’s true. Yesterday he went home and hooked up with some older kids in the apartment buildings by Fort Holabird. They got a gun and started playing Russian Roulette. He was shot in the head. They didn’t even call for an ambulance; just left him there bleeding.”
“Geeeeeeez.”
After John Wiggins died and I never did enjoy taunting.
I was never able to abide bullies. I patrolled the playground from first grade on to protect the weak and picked on. I’ll never understand why this “power” was invested in me, but other kids seemed to respect the effort.
Switched from public to private school in seventh grade. All girls Catholic school. No one can be more devastating than a teenage girl. We all wore uniforms, which helped a lot from a fashion standpoint, but hair then became fair game. We didn’t have a playground anymore, but I still felt it was somehow my duty to keep the bullies at bay.
The older girls tried to taunt me, but I was blessed with verbal skills beyond my years, so I was able to avoid the humiliation. We’d just gang up on the teachers. Authority figures were always fair game to me.
My god, this one’s too painful.
During my long career in newspapers, I’ve discovered that practically every reporter I’ve worked with was a dork and got picked on. Do we want revenge now? Only our therapists know for sure…
I was an outcast. The outcast.
I was in the fifth grade and still didn’t understand that raising your hand every time the teacher asks a question annoys your peers and causes them to wish failure and ruination on you.
One day, during a game of Seven-up, someone picked me, so I stood. There were two Johns, and both of us were standing, as we’d both been picked.
Miss Verderber said, “John, who do you think picked you?” I answered, “Pete picked me.” All of a sudden, Pete, who had picked the other John, starts accusing me of peeking and telling the other John who picked him.
Well, the whole class (and I mean everyone) started saying, “Yeah, that’s what he did.”
I tried to explain, but it’s hard for a 10 year old with a MAJOR inferiority complex to outshout 29 classmates.
I was given a punishment assignment and had to endure the shit-eating grins for the rest of the period.
And I carried a briefcase, too. Who knew? And NOBODY TOLD ME IT WAS DORKY.
My God!
I must admit, though, that I had previously won at Seven-up because I peeked at the shoes of whomever picked me.
<i>If I had a time machine, I’d hope in,</i>
This is a beautiful typo….
I’ll leave the typo. Actually, I think it’s leave the typo or delete at this point.
Another story from junior high. There was a kid on my bus, someone I’d known all my life. One day, I was babysitting in his neighborhood and he came over with two friends and — the delight of the two hellions I was babysitting — tied me to a tree. They then debated my fate. Their plans for me were probably bogus, but I didn’t want to find out. I know I got away by pulling and stretching until the rope loosened enough for me to wriggle out. I think I then ran into the house and called the father, who returned from his job — this was on a Saturday afternoon, he ran a store — to give a half-hearted lecture. But the main impression I had was that he was annoyed with me and boys will be boys, and why couldn’t I be a better sport?
Years later, the classmate got in touch with me via e-mail. I was polite, if noncommital. All I could think was: Dude, you tied me to a tree!
Oh, what a great thread. I will just add one. Those awful official t-shirts we had to change into for gym in elementary school! Mine was always too small–my brothers and I had shabby second-hand clothes because there was never enough money & new clothes were viewed as an unnecessary luxury. All very well, but… An evil boy called T., universally known as a wretched tormentor, stopped me as I passed by on my way to gym with the rest of the class and said, “How old are you?” “Eleven,” I said innocently. “You’ve got big tits for an eleven-year-old!” he shouted as he ran off laughing with his evil little friends. The horrifying sequel to this story is that he many years later was hired as a teacher at the same school. Which brings me to my concluding point. You know, most of us probably really WERE the picked-on kids. But the scariest part is that even the kids we thought of as bullies probably mostly remember the slights and humiliations of their childhoods. The point is that being a kid is really tough.
Exactly, Jenny D. (So glad you dropped by!)
That’s why my favorite Judy Blume book is BLUBBER.