Bullied Read online

  Going on to the real presentation at the Optimist Oratorical Society was also fun but nowhere near the thrill of what had I learned when making the presentation in the auditorium. We all walked away with little trophies from the final presentation and, according to the Optimist Oratorical Society, we were all winners. However, I feel like I was the biggest winner of all because I got a small but brief glimpse of the highly competitive world that I was preparing to enter. Speaking before that group did not have to do anything with how tall, attractive, or tough I was, it had to do with how hard I worked, trained and spoke plus my surprising newfound courage in participating and winning. I did not know it at that time, but this event changed my attitude toward life forever, thanks to Sister Mary Elizabeth and Sister Helen.

  Well, all good things must end and, before I knew it, I was back in my normal world of unpleasantness and violence.

  Chapter III – Thirteen, the worst year of life

  It is January and I am 13 years old. I am getting older but I am still the shortest and smallest boy in my class, as well as shorter than most of the boys in the lower class. I am not getting any taller, but there are things changing in my body and I do not know why I have so many overwhelming physical and emotional feelings. I thought things were going to get better as I got older; instead, they seem to be getting worse. I have this constant ache and warm glow in the middle of me and, as usual, my penis gets stiff all the time. Then there is that desire deep inside of me, for something having to do with females. In addition to the ache, I still have that awful pain that I wake up with every morning that goes from the middle of my thighs to the middle of my chest. I know that pain is from the fear of what I have to face that day in bullying, violence and more pain. Maybe it would be better if I just did not wake up. Life is uncertain, scary and pure torture.

  Now it is just another morning, I have to get through another day until about four o'clock. If I do not have to stay after school, I will be working out in the basement, doing my paper route, then have dinner and finally be home safe, for the evening. The thought of walking out the front door of my house and immediately having to confront Rick, Donald or any number of the people that want to punch me, hurt me and call me names is frightening. It seems that death would be preferable to having to face all this pain and fear.

  After what happened to my father, I definitely will not kill myself, as he did. I am determined that I will make things work somehow because I will do whatever I have to, no matter what it costs me. In spite of my determination to have a real life someday, I still have that familiar feeling that I do not have long to live. If I just go by what I am experiencing right now, a life full of fear, intimidation, preaching, people grabbing me, people yelling at me, punching me, pushing me, bumping me in the hallways, and hating me, I do not want to continue to live. However, I have another smaller feeling deep down that, life can be whatever I make it to be. I just have to make it happen, as my father could have, in spite of his personal pain.

  Well, if I do not have long to live, I am going to fix it so that I am not easy to kill. Maybe I will start killing my bullies, one by one, instead. I have to do something about my fear because it is so big now that I can hardly think about anything else. Some of the kids, when they call me names like “Redhead” and “Red” also taunt me that redheads are supposed to have hot tempers. Maybe I can change this terrible fear into real anger, which will make me strike back at the monsters that do these things to me. If I do this rather than being afraid, maybe they would not be so quick to push me, or punch me, and call me names. Yes, I am going to work hard on changing these feelings - - - - - - - - - - - - every day until I make it happen.

  On cold winter mornings, I have to get up, shiver in the cold, crouch near the family room stove with my sister to try to warm up while we put on our clothes and get ready for school. So today, I put on a pair of grey pants, white shirt, tie, and a thick dark blue pullover sweater to keep me warm. As long as the white shirt and tie show after I put on the sweater the Nuns will think it is okay to dress this way. I am always cold and have to have a sweater on or I will freeze, even indoors. This morning we are having breakfast at Grandma's house downstairs because Mom has to leave for work early.

  After Lauren left for her walk to school, I am still sitting at the breakfast table. The kitchen clock shows minute by minute, it is getting closer to 8:30 AM when the bell rings and we have to enter the school. As the clock moved towards ten minutes after eight, Grandma started suggesting that I should leave right away or I might be late. Only when the clock reaches fifteen minutes after eight, do I get up, put on my jacket, pick up my books and race out the door. At my age, I am walking faster than I used to but I cannot get there too early or it means trouble, but I cannot be late either, I thought. I have to time it just right.

  Things go smoothly as I pass the corner of my block, make a gradual right turn, go down Broad Street and past another short block towards the school. I pass the Boys Club on the right, go to the next block and pass the public school across the street. When I start to cross the street to the St Ambrose schoolyard, I notice one of the big kids named Bob, standing outside the school entrance watching me. Just then, the bell rings and everyone starts to go into the entry doors to their classrooms. I have to go in the door on the right, but that is where Bob is. He did not move and he smiles when he sees me coming across the street. He is waiting for me.

  After crossing the street, I wait near the curb until the other kids file into the school, then I know there is no choice but to try to pass him. As I get closer to him, he looks around real quick and then punches me in the stomach. "Queer, weirdo”, he said as I stand hunched over, and then he gives me another punch, this time in my left side. After that, he laughs, steps inside and runs up the stairs to his classroom on the second floor. I also had to go upstairs and so I run up the stairs as fast as I can but I am still last to enter the classroom, so I get a stern look from Sister. I go to my seat and sit down as quickly as possible, but my stomach and side still hurt. I have tears in my eyes but Sister does not seem to notice. After all, there are about forty-five of us in this small room with her.

  This is just a normal way for me to begin the day. At least I am safe for now. I try to focus on what Sister is saying at the front blackboard, but I cannot help fidgeting and looking around me to see what the other kids are doing in this packed room. "Pay attention Patrick,” Sister said. She comes over to my desk, looks at me closely and says, “Look up here at the blackboard when I'm talking, Patrick”. Trying to get through the whirl of commotion in my brain and the ache in my side, I focus my eyes on the Sister. She looks back at me several times, as she begins discussing the subject for our first period of class.

  Bored as I am with some of these subjects, the day is moving on. By 10:30, when it is time for our ten-minute bathroom break, I really have to go. When the bell rings, Sister dismisses us; some of us get up and walk into the hallway. When I get into the hall, it is full of the normal commotion with kids talking and some heading quickly to the restrooms. I walk towards the boys’ bathroom at the end of the hall.

  After entering the bathroom, I walked past the stalls on the right and left to the urinals at the end of the bathroom. There are several urinals not in use but I do not stop. I go to the last urinal in the corner. I know I have to use this one because if I stop at any of the others, kids might walk behind me and punch me in the back. When using the urinal in the corner, I can sense or see someone coming behind me and know he means to punch me.

  This time, bully Bob, who had punched me this morning, was with two of his friends and they came over toward me as I was just finishing. I saw them coming and turned around to my left with my back against the wall. I like the wall behind my back because then no one can get behind me. The three boys begin calling me names like “little redheaded fag” and “short weirdo” and others. These names might hurt some of the other kids or the girls, but I am so used to it that I do not care. I am only
interested in what they are going to do to me.

  I watch their hands and their eyes because this tells me their intentions. Bob had his hands clenched into fists as he stood in the middle of the group of three. The other two were just calling me names, hands unclenched, and laughing so I am sure they are not going to hit me. Some of my rules that I was trying to make for myself came into my head. The first one was," Do I have to fight"? Because I am against the wall, in the bathroom, and confronted by three people, one of which had hit me this morning, I knew there was only one answer to this question, “Yes”. There is no choice.

  I had told myself what I was going to do the next time I got in this situation and rehearsed it repeatedly in my room at night. Suddenly, I swung my right fist hard and hit big Bob in the face. The three of them were so surprised that one immediately started laughing loudly, and I ran quickly around them into the hallway. As I run, I can see the three of them come out of the boys’ room with Bob in front. I made it to my classroom and walked in quickly. According to school rules, these people are in different classes so they cannot come into this room.

  As I sit down at my desk, I think of what I just did. That awful pain that I woke up with and was in the center of me just a minute ago is now gone. I am always surprised when that morning pain suddenly disappears. For sure, hitting someone makes the pain go away! This is not the first time that I experienced some relief from this morning pain after hitting someone but this time I also feel another more pleasant, slightly exuberant feeling. I wonder if I could get that good feeling if I hit someone that was not bullying me. Probably, but I have never ever started a fight, and do not think I ever want to.

  I know for certain, that when I leave the school this afternoon that the three of them will be waiting for me. I take my escape route out the Nuns small side door on the other side of the school and walk quickly down the narrow alley next to the church to Washington Boulevard, north to Main Street and then home. It is a longer way home but safer. I see a few kids I know on the way but none of them bothers me so I am able to get home without incident.

  After getting home, I go down into the smelly basement, pull out my hidden brochures on jujitsu and start reading them one more time. As I read, I try to identify what other moves or strategies I could have used in that bathroom situation. I have been in that spot many times before but this was the first time I threw the first punch. It was effective getting me out of that trap, but I have to figure out more strategies that work. Now that I am trying to think about fighting, the fear starts to come back along with the pain. I am thrilled that I defended myself effectively and the pain disappeared for three or four hours. Many times when I tried to hit a big person, the punch did not seem effective. After all, I am still less than 5 foot tall and weigh less than 75 pounds. Bob is probably almost twice that weight, I bet. I know I will eventually get bigger, gain weight, and get stronger, but it will be a while and I still feel the all-consuming fear.

  I need to gain some more weight, especially since so many of these fights sometimes get into wrestling. In addition, when I try to defend myself from a bigger person, he always has longer arms. Even if I have my fists up to block a punch, he can easily punch me in the face by going around my defenses with his longer arms. One way I might be able to gain some equality is to grab him by the neck and pull him down to the ground where, if I am as strong as he is, I stand a better chance of hurting him, which is my first priority, even if I lose the fight. Feeling a punch in my face as often as I do is painful so wrestling might be better. I will start eating more food and maybe it will help me to gain some weight.

  I know that Bob the Bully will be waiting for me somewhere tomorrow as I walk to school and the thought of that is very frightening. I do not think he knows where I live but he knows what direction I come from when I walk to school. I will have to be sick, tomorrow because that is the only way around it. Since tomorrow is Friday, I will have the whole weekend before I have to go back to school and take the chance of running into him again. I hope he will forget about it by then, but probably not.

  The summer is coming but it is still a ways off. Maybe I can escape Bob somehow until then. I have never seen him around on the weekends so he must live in another small nearby town like Vestal or in the country. Many kids that attend Saint Ambrose come from miles away because their parents drive them to school every day to attend a parochial school. If I am lucky, I may not see Bob this summer, either.

  It is now Monday, and I am walking to school. On the way, I run into Donald and his friends and they each give me a punch on the arm. They just want to remind me that I am at the bottom and they are at the top, in terms of popularity. They just like to show their superiority. The punches are not that hard or painful but they do create another type of resentment inside me. This happens quite often, at least every time I see them while walking to school. Arriving at the block across the street from the schoolyard, there was Bob waiting next to the door, again, but since he has not seen me yet, I quickly walk down the street and cross over near the second main entrance doorway on the other side of the building. Taking this route means, I will have to walk a ways down the second floor hallway but that is better than feeling another punch. As I enter the doorway one of the Sisters said, “You should be going in the other door!” Ignoring her, I enter quickly, walk rapidly up the staircase and make the long walk to my classroom. Great, I do not see Bob upstairs. He is still probably looking for me downstairs. Quickly, I go to my seat in the second row and wait for Sister Honorine to start the class. Phew, I made it.

  As the day progresses, I am proud of myself because I ducked the bully this morning and did not run into him at lunchtime, either. Maybe I can still keep missing him. I have to because he is going to hurt me a lot, if he gets the chance, for hitting him last week. The day is going well, but now it is almost time to leave and, unfortunately, I do not have to go to detention today.

  Our class ends a couple of minutes before the bell rings, so Sister Honorine tells us to stay in our seats until we hear the bell. She was busy talking to some other students about their assignments so I got up from my seat and walked very quietly toward the door. The bell rang and I raced out the door and quickly went down two short flights of stairs to the first floor. Kids are starting to come out of the first-floor classrooms but I manage to get ahead of most of them. Racing out of the front door I go to the cross walk and there was no traffic coming in either direction. I run across the street and up the block. I have to get at least as far as the Boys Club where I will be safe, I thought.

  Even though I was carrying a few books, I walked and ran as fast as I could up the block. I got to the second block and only had one more block to go to get inside the Boys Club, and safety. I heard something behind me. I look and it is Bob. I run as fast as I can across the street and get to the Boys Club front lawn just as Bob tackles me. I fall on the grass and he sits on me and starts punching me in the stomach, chest and slapping me in the face. I start crying and he begins laughing. After laughing and beating on me for what seemed like forever, he got up and walked away back towards the school with his friends, howling with laughter.

  This kind of experience is typical of each of my days recently. Over the years, the violence has been consistent but increasing every year. This is the worst year of my life. I will find some way of dealing with these people no matter what, even if it means that somebody dies.

  After dinner, in my room, I tell myself repeatedly, that I have to change this feeling of fear into anger, so I will not be scared all the time. At the same time, I am thinking how this strategy could possibly work. Somehow, I know it will, but I do not know how long it will take. Feel that fear, Pat? Now feel anger. Get mad. I felt some anger and quickly hit the back of the door of my bedroom with my fist. My mother yells from the kitchen, “What you doing in there? Stop that!” I get very quiet. I did feel a little anger, just then, but I know I am a long way from turning that feeling of overpowering fear that I feel e
very day in my entire body, into anything else.

  I know I have to take aggressive action to make these people, like Rick and Bob, stop bullying me and am feeling that I may have to do something very violent to accomplish this. Yes, I can just fix it somehow so I will not wake up some morning and then I will be away from the bullies forever, but that would mean they won. The pain and the fear is so bad now that, if I was in the old west, I could get a sidearm and, as Colonel Colt said, “The Colt pistol makes all men equal.” Unfortunately, I am not in the old west. I could just bring my gun to school one day and shoot the bastards. On the other hand, I could be sick one day, hide in the bushes across from the school and shoot the bullies Bob and Rick when they leave for home. Well, before I go there, let me see how the strength building and jujitsu work for me, if it does. If this exercise and jujitsu does not help me, maybe I will have no choice.

  Thinking of my choices, over the past three years, in the Boy Scouts, I earned a marksmanship merit badge. When mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday last January, I asked for a .22 rifle, and we bought a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle from Sears Roebuck. It is my favorite possession other than my bicycle and baseball glove and sometimes I find myself staring at it in the corner of the closet wondering how I can use it to get rid of the bullies in my life for good. Yes, I could always shoot myself, too, but, even though I have thought about it, I will not. I will find another way and will consider all options regardless of the consequences.