I am fascinated by the sensitivity of human fingers. When reading a book, I am able to tell if I have accidentally turned two pages, instead of one.
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Dodge ball has been described as “modern day stoning.” That’s the definition stated in 2012, by the character of “Kurt” played by Chris Colfer on Glee. The thought process makes me laugh. I am by no means some pain enduring, butch boy. I have only been punched once in my life, when I was a pre-teen. Ironically, the person who knocked the wind out of me was the same guy who defended me a decade later in high school by punching someone else (coincidentally named Kurt) in the stomach. This was my cousin, Glenn. I don’t consider us to have been close in our youth. But by the time he and I were in the same high school, we built a relationship that stands strong to this day.
Glenn’s daughter, Sarah (that makes her my first cousin once removed, or maybe my second cousin…I can never figure these titles out), lived a few blocks from me for a short while. I felt very protective of her, though she sure didn’t need my protection. She ended up leaving New York City and moving to a warmer climate in a southern state.
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I haven’t played dodge ball since I was in elementary school. Maybe it was banned, though I don’t think there was any political correctness uproar back then. I loved playing the game, both as the pitcher and the target. To play it correctly, throwing the big, rubber ball took power but not a whole lot of skill. I don’t even remember if the game was scored. It could be an accurate explanation as to why I am able to toss mooring lines with great strength for the motor yacht on which I work.
We played dodge ball at Montrose Elementary School in South Orange, in front of a wall at the rear of the building, next to the stairs leading to the gymnasium.
A few years after I graduated from my three years at Columbia High in the sister town of Maplewood, the system of grades was rearranged. Starting a year earlier, junior high became middle school before sending students on to high school to complete the final four years. The elementary school I attended closed its doors due to a decline in the childhood population. The building sits vacant and ghostly. When I used to travel from Penn Station in New York City, to see my parents in New Jersey each week, the train passed the school building ahead of pulling into the trestled South Orange Station.
At the end of my time at elementary school, where I had been popular, there were rumblings of my soon being alienated. Fortunately for my own survival, I didn’t know, let alone notice. Still, entering junior high was like walking into a field of landmines I had not been warned I would be forced to travel. For the next 6 years, I would be verbally attacked every day. I’m not sure this will make sense but that became my expected norm. I never saw any of the kids with whom I went to elementary school so didn’t consider that they too might have begun treating me differently.
40 years later, Jim, a neighbor and friend from my days growing up, reconnected with me. He explained by way of apologizing for his part in something I was not even aware was being mapped out. The winds of change were set before we all graduated to the new, pink brick building for our years of junior high. I had been under the delusion that my elementary school friends would have been allies. Jim’s confession confirms that this was the case. I almost wish he hadn’t said anything about it. Since none of the kids from my elementary school were in my junior high school “cycle,” I didn’t know anything about their turncoat discussions (Cycles were how our school system grouped students in junior high. You stayed together, traveling to different classes throughout the day).
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This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my experience at school before moving to the city to go to university. It’s become repetitious therapy. After six years, I had gotten so used to being a target that it hadn’t occurred to me that it would end once I left the suburbs for college. There were times growing up when it was unbearable — particularly my first year in high school. It was also something I began to believe was how it was always going to be. Oddly, if I recall correctly, the verbal abuse didn’t color my daily moods. What I mean by that is not that I ever became used to it. It often was brutal. But I knew it was coming, so it became part of my daily reality. I was called a faggot multiple times each day, while walking the school halls and sometimes even while in an active class when a teacher wasn’t paying attention.
Having nothing to do with the taunts, I did not allow myself to be with a boy sexually until my second year at college. I believe the adolescent verbal attacks were a result of my being flamboyant and feminine. I don’t think the abuse had much to do with the idea of some boy-on-boy sexual behavior. But I definitely stood out. Friends, adversaries, defenders and bullies: everyone in school seemed to know who I was. Sometimes I wished I was invisible. This was the 1970s. I ignorantly imagine it might have been like being the one student of color in a sea of white kids.
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With the exception of a woman named Darryl, I haven’t maintained any friendships from college. She and I also attended high school together. During our senior year, we were in a few of the same electives and so began our friendship. I currently have a selection of friends that knew me from those volatile days. I look back and consider how much peer pressure had to be part of their existence. It may have been different for girls, but for the boys who were my friends, they may have been ridiculed for associating with me. To my knowledge, all these guys were straight. They possibly had to defend themselves. Seen as wearing a metaphorical scarlet letter on their chests, I don’t know if any of them thought of being my friend as having guts, but I do. In particular, one boy, a jock, who was a year older than I. Doug. I know our introduction by his girlfriend, Anne, initially helped in forging our friendship during the roughest era for me. She and I had been in each other’s lives for years. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember with clarity the first time Doug invited me to his house. Anne was there when the invitation was offered on a street corner, a few blocks from his home. It was a casual gesture that meant Doug had begun considering us friends. For me, it represented something very significant.
It may seem strange that events from a lifetime ago still affect me. My mother would be very annoyed at the emotional dwelling. She saw it as a waste of time. Mom used to spout how much she couldn’t stand it when people lived by the memories of the past. A statement I find both fascinating and worthy of eye rolling. She once told me she didn’t want to return to the shores of Chappaquiddick, where our family vacationed for years when I was a child. She would find it to be too painful.
Enduring cutting words or accepting the physical pain of being hit by a blood red ball thrown hard with intent, have both found a permanent place in my psyche.
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For years, I would visit a bartender named Brian with regularity. When I stepped up to his station, without fail, he would cuff me in the left shoulder. It was his way of showing affection. To be clear, after the first time, it was at my invitation. It hurt, but I loved it. So I guess that means I have been punched more than once. Just not in the stomach.
On the day my dad died, Brian bought shots for anyone hanging around his bar. He then asked everyone to raise their glass, as he toasted the memory of my father.