"Hang in There, Baby!"

"Hang in There, Baby!"  Ballpoint pen on cotton handkerchief. 2013

Lesbro

The story so far...

The school year started with a dismantling of childhood and got steadily worse.
I'd managed to somehow make it through the 13 years of my life until that point, feeling as
though I were pretty normal. Of course I was an only child, and outside of school a loner, so in
truth I had no non-sitcom situations to base normality upon. But considering that I wasn't an
animal torturer, or the possessor of multiple Sybil -like personalities, I thought that it was a
safe bet that I was far from "weird".
But something had changed. Something outside of me was slinking into my life like a
malignant brain tumor that lived on the ceiling of my 8th grade classroom, whose tendrils snaked down into the
skulls of the boys around me.
You see, the nuts had fallen. Not from the trees to the ground but from the taints to the sacs. All
around me boys were succumbing to the chemicals of puberty, in a horrible way. It was like
watching a room full of werewolves in mid-transformation.
Boys that were reasonable kids just a few months earlier were now stalking jackals playing
Alpha. I watched in amazement as they fell into a pattern of leader and pack. I couldn't figure
out the thinking as those they put on top struck me as lacking in basic humanity. These were
my first lessons in "adult” socialization. The sociopaths rose to the top. Their lack of shame
and empathy
was a beacon of confidence to the
Betas, who in turn attempted their own manufactured versions of personality disorders.
Perhaps my inability to find a place at the top or the middle of the hierarchy could be blamed
on my mostly friendless life. I had no idea how to interact properly within a group. At least not
a group outside of an idealized comic book reality.
It seemed that as I spent the summer in the mostly white suburb of Homewood, Illinois: riding
bikes climbing trees and watching cartoons on channel 32, my black classmates were back in
the city, deciding that they wanted to hit things with their fists and put their dicks in vaginas.
We attended Immanuel Lutheran School, a three story scab -colored brick prison in a Mexican
neighborhood on the southeast side. The recess/exercise yard was a parking lot. Everything
was grey and overcast. Compare this to the sunny summertime lawns and open spaces of the
suburbs and you can almost feel the mind flexing its schizophrenic duality muscles.
I was in the eighth grade. Our classroom was on the top floor. The seventh grade class was in
the same room. The fifth /sixth grade was in the room on the south side of the top floor.
I'd spent the seventh -grade at this school the previous year.
Several elements combined in 1980/81 to mold the seventh grade into the perfect shit -storm of
artistic -angst.
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Firstly, being an over -protected loner, I'd missed the opportunity to ingratiate myself into the
confidence of the Alphas. I'd missed whatever socio -sexual alchemy that seemed to change all
the others into lead.
Second was my inability to play any sort of sport. Sports, it turned out, was the religion of the
idiocracy.
For some reason at Immanuel Lutheran School, gym was required of students and gym
consisted of a series of organized sports.
I was the son of a man that didn't like sports. A cop that liked booze and war movies and
comic books, but not sports. This meant that I knew nothing about sports. Kids don't learn
about group activities in a vacuum. Yet kids are expected to know sports rules by teachers. It's
almost un-American to expect a kid to have interests outside of sports. Especially a black kid.
Basketball was a religion as was football. Jordan’s were a sacrament. Bless me Ditka for I
know not what the fuck you did.
So my afternoons were spent trying to piece together the rules of softball while I was being
forced to play it. I'd tried to learn the only way I'd known at the time, by reading about these
sports in the encyclopedia. That had been an utter failure because the rules of the games as
described in the World Book Encyclopedia of 1977 were a damnable soup of sports jargon and
preconception. I prided myself on being reasonably intelligent back then, but even so I felt
from trying to read up on these games that I'd almost have to look up every other word in the
description, just to get to the point of being horribly confused.
That was my third strike (to keep with the analogy); it helped me not a bit that my hand was
always up to answer questions in class. I hadn't been informed yet that along with comic
books and drawing, participating in class wad now something done only by "faggots".
You know what "Black Pride" was? Neither did they. Not really. If you broke down the 70's
pride movement you had to come to the conclusion that first you had to define blackness,
which was something impossible to do, so they did the next best thing, they made blackness
the antithesis of whiteness. Unfortunately "whiteness" became communicating effectively
(talking white), doing well in school (acting white), and enjoying anything outside of the
predetermined art of interests of a street hustler (trying to BE white).
It wasn't like I needed this outside pressure. I'm pretty sure I wad cracking up even back then.
For example, I was deeply religious but my brain wouldn't stop fucking with me. I heard in
one of throw myriad devil movies of the 70's they saying the Lord's Prayer backwards was one
of the most horrible and Satanic things a person could do, so of course as I lay in bed after
saying my prayers, "amen forever glory the and power..." would force itself into my
screaming, horrified mind, and I would beg God to forgive me. I would wonder if I were
somehow inadvertently possessed, and if so would there be any reprieve for me from the
eternal roasting flames of hell.
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I spent the autumn days out in the empty parking lot with the others who were eagerly
swinging the bat or waiting to catch a pop-fly. They joked and talked as they waited for their
turn at bat, while I stood under the raised porch of a house that sat next to Immanuel
Lutheran Church, which was next to Immanuel Lutheran School. The porch was supported by
4x4's. I would lurk under there, behind the others, trying to will it all to be over with.
If we had been white students or black students in the 60's we'd have produced a large crop of
engineers or mathematicians, but being as we were riding the first wave of socially-mandated
nignorance that was never going to happen. Instead those sadistic savants used their Rain
Man-like geometry skills to fire pop-up fouls that would arc directly towards my daydreaming
head and shoulders.
As bad as it was that fall semester I wasn't yet a total loser. I still had my confidence in my
ability to defend myself. That was yet to be ripped away from me like a maniac cannibal
running off with a Downs Syndrome woman's newborn infant.
Our small class was ruled by a gang of four. Four friends who were practicing their lowestcommon-
denominator acts as though they were trying to isolate a formula for concentrated
niggardry.
Robert Graham: tall thin and dark, I thought for the longest time that Robert wad the alpha.
On the surface he had all of the visual cues. He was athletic, flashy and girls liked him. He
wore button-down satin shirts, baggy pants and skinny-ties. He wore designer glasses and
pointy shoes. He put tennis balls in his armpits so that hid arm-veins would swell up. He
always had a nasty mocking laugh for those of us on the outside.
Quinton Davis: Robert's best friend. Quinton was a perfect example of cool by association. He
was goofy and somewhat insecure and may have managed an independent personality if he
hadn't been so eager to please the crowd. I once, in the seventh grade, missed my playful
punch (which was aimed at his shoulder) and accidently knocked a Blow-Pop halfway down
his throat. It was terrifying to watch him haul it out.
Edsel Parks: someone actually named their child Edsel Parks. He was the tallest and biggest
kid in class. Easily as big as any of the teachers. He looked like a black version of Adam
Baldwin from the movie My Bodyguard, which was a dammed shame because it somewhat
ruined that movie for me, later when I so identified with the bullying-victim in the film. Resell
was the quintessential big dumb kid. He was a good athlete, a good follower and terrifying.
Kyle Scroggins: Kyle was actually in the 7th grade but he was still a full member of the gang of
four. This fact alone should give you some insight to the personality of Kyle. It took me heard
to figure out that he was probably the driving force behind my all-out rejection. Kyle lived
about three blocks away from me in a modest ranch house with his single mother. I used to
wonder if he was such a prick because he had no father to keep him in line. I had no idea
where his father was. I imagined he was in prison, or maybe he left because he hated his son.
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Things came to an ugly head in the early winter. Kyle had been taunting me, mocking me and
being a little prick. I didn't know why. I'd visited his house once back in the early fall, and
thought we were on speaking terms. But we weren't. Not at all. I was too naive to see what was
going on. He was trying to goad me into a fight.
There were two bus routes I could have taken home each day from school. Because Kyle lived
so close to me there was no escaping him if he wanted to annoy me on my way home. Not
really, but I tried.
It was a frustrating game of ghetto chess. The more popular bus we could catch in front of the
candy store, which was a block away from the school. The students would loss up on Lik-Em-
Aid or Funyuns or Bags of Jay's potato chips into which the Mexican shopkeeper would pump
squirts of hot-sauce from a gallon jug. If I decided to go this route then I had two advantages:
Firstly, I had an opportunity to try and figure out the exotic comic book "novellas", with the
lurid painted covers and Spanish words.
Secondly, taking this route made me seem braver, because I would have to sit through the
insults and teasing as we travelled down 87th street. Once I exited on Jeffrey, I'd be trapped
with Kyle as we took the Jeffrey bus down to our stop on 96th street.
The alternate route had its own positives and negatives. On the negative side, I had to walk
three blocks Roget to a stop where I could not be seen from the school. Three cold blocks in the
winters. Three quiet long blocks to think, "Did I leave at the right time so that Kyle can't
follow? Can I time it right so that I won't transfer to the same Jeffrey bus that he is on, or
should I walk the last four blocks and have to walk under the viaduct? How fired up to tuck
with me will he be since I took the Pussy route today, instead of my medicine? Were they
going to make fun of me on the other bus? Should I turn back and take the other route? Would
they still be at the stop, or would they have left already?" Leaving school every day was like
engineering a prison break.
The positives of the quiet (except for my head) route were that I was being left alone while I
was on the bus traveling down 93rd St. This section of the city was as strangely quiet as a postapocalyptic
wasteland of old grey 1930's style department -stores and the YMCA. Also there
was an old-fashioned news-stand on the way. Being 13, my tastes were varied. Mostly I read
monster magazines or humorous magazines liked Cracked, Mad, or my subversive favorite:
Crazy. Laughs and Gore aside, being 13 also meant that I was maybe not ready for actual sex,
but definitely ready to get my hands on a Hustler magazine. So at the age of thirteen I
presented myself to the old Jewish guy in the kiosk and very casually handed him a copy of
Fangoria, a Crazy magazine and pointed to the rack in the dim recesses of his cave saying,
"Gimmie one of those Hustlers too."
He looked at me for a second, all 115 lbs. of me with my book-bag and baggy Army field-jacket
and he said, "How old are you?"
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Standing up to my full five-feet-four, I intoned a nonchalant "eighteen"!
It was good enough for him. He got his money and I got my books. I guess he figured that my
black parents wouldn't be particularly upset by my choice of reading matter. I took my
magazines and (swallowing my heart) made my way to the bus stop.
The bus took. Me from South Chicago Street to Jeffrey, where I had to decide to either transfer
or walk under the viaduct. If I waited on the street to transfer I ran the risk of getting on the
same bus that Kyle was on. I also had a decent chance of having gang-hangers shake me down
and rifle my pockets. If I decided to walk under the viaduct I felt like anything was possible.
The viaduct ran for about a block under a train-yard. It was a noisy damp poorly-lit track.
There were two narrow lanes of traffic running in either direction on the brick streets.
Pedestrians had a walkway along the side.
It was frightening to a kid. Or at least to me as my mind conjured pedophile rapists, gangsters,
or perhaps worst of all, Kyle.
This was my daily choice. I usually just halved it out so that three days I'd go home alone and
two days I'd ride with the Four Horsemen and their diseased minions.
It was about a week after the first snowfall that things went past the point of no-return. As I've
said, I wasn't completely ass-out because I still knew I had the option of fighting. Yet somehow
I'd avoided it until then. I'd had s few fights as a kid and handled myself pretty well, but I
hadn't been physically provoked as of yet by the Gang of Four. Yes, they'd spitball me, or
thwunk my ears, but no punches had come my way. In my mind a person had to be swung on
first for it to be "self-defense". This particular day I'd decided to take the bus with the crowd.
There was the usual laughing and cutting-up as we all tried to be as loud and black as we
could be. A few of us stood on the corner of 87th and Jeffrey, and waited for the bus. The
bench was cold and dirty so we stood. The others were talking as I looked around me at the
filthy remnant snow, the overcast grey skies and dirty street. Living in that part of the city
seemed to be like being a smoker, living inside one of his own cancerous lungs.
The bus came slushing up and stopped for us in the shallow pool of dirty saltwater. We found
our seats. The basic rule was that bad (cool) people sat in the back of the bus if there was
room. I sat in the middle as the other three headed for the back. Just sitting by myself made
me an outcast. Who did I think I was? Did I think I was better than them or something? I
already talked "white" and had my hand up in class all the time, like a punk. Maybe that's why
Kyle hated me. Our other two classmates got off the bus and Kyle came from the backseat and
sat across from him. He stared at me. Taunting, mocking. What did he want? He was begging
for a fight as he sat there smiling evilly. I could have gotten off on 96th or 97th. Kyle's stop was
96th. I pulled the cord for the 96th street stop, looked at Kyle and said, "You want a fight then
let's do this." His shark-smile got wider.
We got off the bus and walked to the mouth of the alley across from Jewel's. My mind was
somewhere else as l dropped my book bag to the ground. None of this seemed real. It was like
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I was piloting my body by remote. I swung wide and grazed Kyle's shoulder. He landed a solid
right in my mouth. I'd never been hit in the face before. It was shocking. It threw me off as my
mind tried to make sense of it. My punches seemed to keep missing or else lacked power. It
was like I'd already given up. My mind was focusing on my surroundings as though this fight
wasn't happening. The hard ground, the galvanized trash-cans by the backyard fences along
the alley, the rat-abatement program posters that the city had stalled to the telephone poles.
Everything except the battle at hand. Maybe it was the look on Kyle's face. His permanent
nonchalant grin, like this was no big deal for him. Like I was nothing. I could taste blood in my
mouth and feel the tattered shards of my lips, which his fist had split open. Meanwhile he was
as fresh as a daisy. He leapt onto my back like a monkey and rode me. Was this his version of
prison-domination, this thinly-veiled humping? Was that what his father did in prison?
"Break it up! Break it up!" I heard a voice yelling through my haze. I looked to see an old man
in an overcoat. "Y'all know better than to act like this!"
I wanted. To thank him for breaking up the fight, but of course I couldn't. Instead I picked my
bag off the ground and walked shakily towards home. My mind was stuck in neutral. Racing
yet blank. No solutions were possible because I couldn't tell what was really happening. Had
that been a real fight to him? He was laughing the whole time and I'd turned in such a weak
performance that I wouldn't have fooled a pro-wrestling crowd.I'd only made it about half a
block when I was flanked by two older teen boys. Rough-looking ashy black motherfuckers in
dark clothes.
"Why you fightin' with our little cousin?" The one on the right asked.
"He was fighting with me." I answered dully.
"Your father the one got that nice van." Observed the one on the left, in sinister-fashion. "I
need to come back tonight and steal that muthafucka!" he intoned. With that threat they left
my side like two meaty jet-fighters breaking off an escort mission.
Every nerve in my body froze and shattered with the threat. This could only go badly. My
father was a trigger-happy cop. On a morning a few years prior he'd been awakened by the
sound of a car alarm and going out in pajamas, slippers and holding a service-revolver he
confronted a thief who was attempting to steal the radio from my cousin’s car. My cousin
Tootsie lived two doors down. The thief turned on him with a pair of hedge-clippers, with
which he hacked away at my father's lower-legs and feet, managing to sever a toe. My father
still chased the guy down the block and while falling to the ground managed to shoot the guy's
balls off. I didn't even. Know this for two days until I asked my mother, "where's my dad?" To
which she angrily replied, "You know he's in the hospital!"
I walked up to the door of our townhouse, thinking that my actions could get my father killed,
or someone else killed or his beloved extended-rear customized Dodge van stolen or damaged.
I unlocked the door and keyed in the alarm pad code. If anyone tried to steal his van he would
find out that it was my fault and put me in the hospital. But if I warned him he'd beat the shit
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out of me for getting the situation started.
I went upstairs to my room and fell onto my bed. Because I was no longer supporting my
vertical position I was able to fall apart. I began to shake. My body felt cold and sick. Hot tears
ran from my eyes and soaked into the pillow. I ran the fight through my mind in a loop. I lost.
I lost to a kid who was smaller than me. But I stood up for myself! ...but I had lost the fight. I
wasn't a fighter. I had no heart for it even as I was doing it. An analytical mind is the enemy of
the warrior. I'd been busy examining motives and surroundings and consequences whereas a
true fighter would have just tripped Kyle and stomped his head into the sidewalk. Somewhere
along the line, I fell asleep.
My mother was the first of my parents to get home from work. She worked downtown for
Chubb and Sons insurance. She rattled around for a while before coming upstairs. My parents’
bedroom was next to mine. I heard her ask me a question. I was slow to answer her. I needed
her to come to me and give me comfort. Instead she opened my door and asked, "Don't you
hear me talking to you?"
"I'm not feeling good." I replied through mucous heavy nasal-passages.
"What's wrong with you?"
"I was in a fight."
"A fight?" She came over and looked at me. "A fight with who?"
Kyle Scroggins."
"Kyle? That little boy up the street?"
"Yes..."
"Did you win?"
What was she asking me? I'd been in a fight. My mouth was bloody. I was crying and feeling
like shit.
"I don't know." I said.
"...you don't know? What do you mean you don't know? Boy don't you come up in this house if
you lose a fight to someone smaller than you!"
I was floored. I never expected this response. This was nothing like the mothers on TV. Not
even Florida Evans. This was terrible.
"Humph, losin' a fight to somebody smaller... wait 'til your daddy get home."
That was worse. The old man was unpredictable. She walked out of the room. I entertained
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wild fantasies of running away, although there was no place for me to go. I'd run away the
year before, when I got whipped for some imagined wrong. I got on my bicycle and leaving the
garage door wide open in a no-return "fuck you, made my way to the expressway, where I
headed towards my grandmother's house in Homewood. Actually my grandmother lived there
with my great-grandparents, an ancient great-aunt and great-uncle. I'd gotten maybe 20
minutes away when my grandmothers car stopped and picked me up. I stayed in Homewood
for a few days but decided that I didn't want to go through the shakeup of actually going to live
there permanently. The summers there were nice, but a permanent settlement amongst those
racist little kids and their parents was an overwhelming prospect. If I'd only known how
things would work out at Immanuel Lutheran...
My father usually stopped off for a couple of drinks before coming home. I was never sure
what he'd had to drink and therefore had no idea what his mood would be.
I heard him as he came in. His key turning the lock was always overly-noisy. It sounded like
large rocks falling down a cliff-face.
My room was dark. I hadn't turned the light on when I came in and the sun had since gone
down. I didn't know if the room would be more or less depressing with the light on. I could
hear my mother's voice downstairs, but I couldn't make out what was being said. My father
didn't come immediately in. He always hung up his uniform before he did anything. He was a
real anal-retentive, a cop through and through. He finally knocked and came in. He flipped on
the light. I was always scared of him like you'd be afraid of a rattlesnake or explosive device.
"You were in a fight?" He asked me.
I cleared my throat. I didn't want to show weakness in a soft response. I said, "Yes."
He looked at me evenly and said, "I heard you lost to a boy who was smaller than you are."
"We're about the same." I replied. "I'm a little taller."
He took a big inhale and spat out, "If you ever lose a fight to him again, I will beat your ass!
You hear me?"
"Yes" I replied. To which he turned disgusted, flipped off the light and left me in the darkness.
I decided to never again tell either of them about any more fights.
I got up and turned on my portable TV. The Dick Van Dyke show was ending. My mother
called up for me to come down for dinner. I called back that I wasn't hungry.
"Boy," she said "get down here and eat!"After dinner i sat in my room trying to anticipate the
next day. According to sit-com logic, since I'd stood up for myself I should have no more
problems. The next day I took the solitary bus route. I looked over my shoulder as I boarded.
The trip was a blur. It was the fastest that bus had ever gotten me to my destination. I walked
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the last two blocks to school, soaking in the quiet desolation of the neighborhood. If only I
were the last man on earth.
The basement was the staging area for the students. We gathered there until the bell rang in
the stairwell for us to trudge up the stairs to our classrooms. I was standing there, holding my
book-bag. I was trying to be nonchalant yet watchful. The little kids were running around
playing. I was looking ahead as I hear Kyle's voice behind me say, "Hey, punk!" I turn (trying
not to spin too quickly) and there was Kyle. He was sitting astride Edsel Parks shoulders. He
was way up there. Edsel was perhaps 5', 10" so Kyle's face had to be nine feet in the air. He had
to duck to avoid the ceiling as he balled his fists, smiled evilly and said, "You wanna fight? You
wanna fight?" They were a (in)human bully totem. It was over. I was beaten. I turned and
walked away to the rhythm of their laughter, pelting dryly against my back.From that day the
bullying intensified and personalized. Perhaps it's my imagination but I seemed to take the
heat off the other two nerds (fags) and the only Mexican student whom they used to refer to as
"taco-bender". I became the awkward one. The one to absorb the smacks to the back of the
head, the missing items, the threats and the assorted other forms of ridicule.
I sat in the back row of the classroom, sweating from the radiator. The bleak slate-grey light
coming through the window, through which there was a dank monochromatic view of old
grey wood-framed houses with black brown and grey patched tarred roofs. The empty parking
lot. The dead grass in the tiny backyards. I sat back there to avoid missiles. I sat back there so
that our regular teacher, Mr. Fiorentino, and our theology-teacher Pastor Foley, could keep an
eye on what the others were doing without my blocking the view. I sat back there so that I
would have the courage to answer questions in class and so I could draw in my spiral-binder
unmolested.
Pastor Foley instructed us in all things Lutheran. We memorized all the terminology, the
names of the books of the Bible, the Athanasian and Apostle's creeds, and many Bible-verses. I
took it all so seriously, these matters of my eternal soul and the minutiae of the religion. I
wondered why I was subjected to torment amongst supposed "Christians". Was I not praying
correctly? Not pious enough? I sat in the back of the room putting my whole heart into reading
and believing the words of the 22nd (the begging for mercy) Psalm:My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me? 1 Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My
God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, 2 by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are
enthroned as the Holy One; 3 you are the one Israel praises. [c] In you our ancestors put their
trust; 4 they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; 5 in you
they trusted and were not put to shame. Yet God didn't seem to be paying attention.This was
about the time that I first saw the movie My Bodyguard. As I said before, since Edsel
resembled the bodyguard in the movie I experienced some cognitive dissonance every time I
saw it. The movie was a new feature on Chicago's primitive pre-cable "ONTV" service.
I was wrapped up in that movie because I got to see another bullied bastard go through the "I
don't want any trouble" bit. After watching it a few times it occurred to me that perhaps it
would be possible for me to cut out the middle-man if I were to dress like the bodyguard. In
the movie his power came from the perception that he was dangerous based on his quiet
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intensity and outsider way of dressing. I realized that I'd be at a disadvantage, considering my
classmates already knew me, but really, what did I have to lose?
Because I asked my father for an old army field-jacket he was quick to give me one of his old
ones from his days in the National Guard. He was happy whenever I showed interest in the
things he liked. The jacket hung off me, but it served its purpose. We were still in the era of the
angry Nam-vet, and guys wearing old Army gear had an automatic edge to them. They all
seemed wise in violence and ready to snap.
I went to school wearing my Vietnam-era jacket and looking like a dangerous young loner.
Quiet and misunderstood, but deep...
That's when I got my first lesson in the differences of perception between white people in the
movies and urban black teens. To my classmates I didn't look like a dangerously psychotic
loner. To my classmates I looked broke. Broke was worse than gay. It was worse than being
poor at sports or answering the teacher’s questions. Broke was anathema.
Black people are all about shiny objects. Materialism is the main religion of black people.
Trying to convince others that you have money is the main art-form of black people. Whatever
culture black people managed to develop in 400 years of life in the Americas was willingly
traded in the late-60's for fancy cars and clothing. Identity and worth are held tightly within
the parameters of your possessions. Whatever soul was in the hearts of the people has been
replaced by desire. Whereas perhaps it might be possible for a person to find inner-peace,
there is never an end to outside things to justify your existence.Fear is a motherfucker. It can
turn solitude into isolation and isolation into loneliness. I'd been a strange kid in some ways
besides the obvious. I was the only boy I knew, (or at least the only one that made it obvious
through goofy facial-expressions and tripping over the feet awkwardness) that wanted a
girlfriend. Now, when I say "want a girlfriend" what I mean is want one in the romantic and
not sexual sense. Most boys seem to go from hating girls to wanting to stick their cocks into
girls with nary a transitional period. I, on the other hand, ha d wanted to hold hands and kiss
various girls since I was six years old. There weren't many girls for me to pine-over at
Immanuel Lutheran School. It wasn't that there were no girls; it's just that the girls in my class
were just as bad as the boys. The year before, when I was a seventh-grader, I remember
standing outside of the classroom at the head of the stairs. It was during an end of semester
party when I was approached by a popular eighth-grade girl named Trisha. Trisha was a thin,
chocolate-colored girl with almond-shaped eyes. She was wearing skin-tight jeans and a
striped -sweater. Smiling, she said to me, "You want to do it?"
That shocked the hell out of me. What did I know about sex? Nothing is what I knew. I'd
hardly started to incorporate masturbation into my life, as I'd only recently started producing
semen. In a split-second I pictured me and her in the cloak-room, lying on the dirty hardwood
floor. I could see us with our clothes off and together, but not actually fucking. I had no idea
how the actual mechanics of sex worked. Where was the hole? What did I do? I couldn't
picture us fucking, but I could clearly picture us getting caught fucking by Pastor Foley.
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I couldn't tell her that I thought it was a bad idea. That I was inexperienced and worried about
getting caught. That wouldn't be cool at all. I had to tell her something that would save me
face. Unfortunately I panicked and replied with perhaps the dumbest reply possible. I said,
"Do what?”
She walked away from me quickly and pityingly. As though I were a retarded kid that she felt
bad for. I was.
In retrospect, that incident was probably the impetus of my reputation for being a "faggot".
The girls were victims of hormones. Any personality they had as girls had been obscured,
denied and swallowed up by pretention and expectations of "maturity ". They became false,
like a warehouse filled with walking mannequins playing a permanent game of dress-up. I
was intimidated by their very being. But, even in the midst of a battlefield flowers can grow.
There was a girl that I liked. Her name was April. She was in the sixth grade. She was light -
skinned with long dark hair and a slightly baby fat frame that would probably in later life turn
to 30 or 40 extra lbs. But at the time she was perfection.
Being in 8th grade however I rarely was able to even catch a glimpse of her. Usually it would
be for a second of two before school started. So my eyes were doubly peeled, for beauty or
danger. Fight or flight? How about fight flight or finally speak to the girl? Not very likely. It's
not that I'd never said hello to April. I had. But beyond that there was nothing I could say. It
would be bad enough if she were to say no when I asked her if she would "go with me ", but
the fact that I had a permanent audience of hecklers waiting and willing to hoot and yell and
fall down laughing at my rejection would turn disappointment into trauma. April was, to me,
an ethereal being. An angel of grace. And like all ethereal beings, she was destined to remain
on a different plane, and I was destined to worship her from afar.
There was a temporary and chronic relief from the bullies that I must mention. It is tied to the
importance of materialism to my tormentors. If I were to come to school while wearing my
"good clothes" it meant a reprieve from torture. In my community of valued outward
impressions it was considered almost sacrilegious to disrespect fancy clothes. And pleated
slacks and church shoes were religious vestments in their eyes. Robert Graham was the bishop
of the school. He could often be found playing "basketball" in his pimpy pointy church shoes,
baggy slacks, iridescent blouse and skinny knit-tie. Since there was no hoop, basketball was
played by attempting to get a tennis ball between a steam pipe that ran along the outside wall
about seven feet up. I discovered the clothing loophole one day as we were preparing to do a
dress-rehearsal for some sort of school/church function. I'd come dressed in my Sunday finery.
The day was going along fine when Quinton bumped against me and said, "Sorry". On the
surface this may not sound like a big deal, but with this you have to take into consideration
that my days were routinely filled with these guys running into me on purpose and knocking
my books to the ground or tripping me. If any of them accidentally bumped me their
boilerplate response was, "get the fuck out the way!"
Later that day Robert looked at me and said, "Them some nice shoes, man!"
11
"Thanks!" I replied as coolly as possible. He nodded and walked off...
They give a pass if i wore my "good” clothes, but I only had a couple of outfits. In truth my
clothing options were pretty limited. Because my parents were so conservative their idea of
dress clothing was a crested blue blazer, grey slacks and round toed black shoes. Picture
Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. There was no limit to those kinds of clothes, had I
wanted them, which I didn't.
Thankfully through my grandmother I managed to wheedle a black shirt, a light grey tie and a
pair of more pointed -toed oxblood shoes. Along with the other stuff I was able to piece
together two respectable outfits. Unfortunately you can only wear the same thing on an
irregular basis. I didn't want them to get used to my dress clothes so I only wore them once a
week.
The class photo was taken in December. If you look at it you can tell me from the others by my
lighter skin tone and the look of numb depression on my face. There's a story behind the
photo. The church basement was used as catch -all area. It served as everything from school -
recital staging area, to student art contest gallery, to PTA meeting grounds. This particular day
the stage was being used to shoot the class photos. Because the 7th and 8th grades were held in
the same room and both taught by Mr. Fiorentino (whom everyone thought was wearing a
bad wig) we were included in the same photo.
We lined up in three rows. Tallest in back, medium height in the middle row and seated in the
front. I remember that day there was some trouble trying to organize who would be placed
where. The photographer made several changes that finally placed me next to Pastor Foley.
For some reason the photographer had trouble getting the people behind me. Why did things
have to focus on me? Couldn't I just be a fly on the wall, or white noise? Instead of moving me
Pastor Foley suggested They place a folding chair in front of me and I kneel slightly and the
Pastor would put his arm an my shoulder to steady me. Which they did. I already knew what
the boys were thinking. I was kneeling by the pastor. This equals blowjob. The fact he was
touching me didn't help. If he had only flipped and sliced my fucking head off then I would
have probably given him a grateful ghost blowjob before my soul disappeared into the
ether.The Christmas break was a welcome respite. Unfortunately it was tainted by the
thoughts of my bullies. I tried to keep positive though. Perhaps the season would have
softened their souls as visions of baby Jesus' and silent night holy night filled their hearts. It
would take a few days just for my brain to realize that I was free. Days that were like coming
home from war and sitting in your childhood bedroom, thinking how strange it all was. This
freedom.
The days went through the cycle of Chicago winter. Fluffy mountains of snow falling from the
steel colored sky. The cars come along and pack it down into slick ruts. The snowplows throw
cliffs of snow onto either side of the side streets. Leaving the parking spaces under a foot or
more of heavy, sooty, wet cotton. If your car is already parked you have to shovel it out. If you
are coming home you have to ramp your car over and into the banked space. Getting out is a
problem for the next morning. As the days pass the snow gets packed down. Then it gets
partially melted and refrozen, making a treacherous relief-map of dirty white ice. Over this
12
another blanket of snowfall or maybe frozen rain. This is repeated from November until
March or April.
Your nights (if you are prone to darkness) will be filled with visions of power outages from
frozen lines that remove the thin security of heat and phone. Your home becomes a freezer
surrounded by impassable roads.
The Christmas break, like all extended breaks tends to send the only-child deeper into his
private world. It's especially true for Winter -break, when the dead trees and ugly skies keep
you inside. Once inside you become so familiar with your surroundings that the outside
becomes a mirage. You stare into the impossible eternities in the patterns of your wood -grain
wallpaper. The screaming faces in the knotholes. The lines of the garages lining the alley
outside your window. The hills and valleys in a crumpled blanket that your Hot-Wheels use to
re-create the scenes from the Most Dangerous Race episode of Speed Racer. The knobs on your
Motorola portable TV. The intricacies of the mounds of toys and wires and rocks and game
pieces in your bottom dresser drawer.
Life becomes the comfortable pattern of cartoons and old TV shows on channel 32 and
channel 9. Lost in Space is something you look forward to. Wishing you could be like Will
Robinson and have adventures with a robot and a bizarre old man.
The Brady's become your surrogate saccharine family. The wisdom of Mike Brady more
permanent and deep than anything that ever came out of your natural father's cop-mustache
mouth.
Staring into the Christmas tree lights until you've almost hypnotized yourself with the colors.
The pure pre-puberty lust that is felt once you've said "thank you " and gathered your
Christmas toys around you behind your bedroom door in an orgy of fresh imagination.
The queer excitement of staying up past the New Year's mark as Marx Brother's movies play
on WGN and gunshots rang in the chill night. "Stay away from the windows!” my mother
would yell from the other room as I sat on the floor of my bedroom watching TV. Wondering if
the bullets would tumble through my window at an angle and get me.It's always hard to get up
at six in the morning. Especially so after not doing it for almost two weeks. My father had
bought me an obnoxious Howdy Doody alarm-clock. It was now 1981. If not for a parody in a
copy of The Inside Mad, I would've had absolutely no reference for the character. I'd be sound
asleep when suddenly Buffalo Bob would scream: HONK HONK HONK! IT'S HOWDY DOODY
TIME, SO PLEASE WAKE UP RISE AND SHINE. WE ALL HATE GETTING OUT OF BED, AND
CLARABELL'S A SLEEPYHEAD, BUT RISING IS EASY FOR ONE AND ALL, WHEN YOU HEAR
HOWDY DOODY CALL! ... HONK HONK HONK! IT'S HOWDY...
I'd stagger to the bathroom feeling horrible and my father would collar me in the hallway with
a mocking,
13
"its Howdy Doody time
it only cost a dime
to get your booty shined
on Howdy Doody time! "
He was full of energy, having just finished his tour on the night shift. I tried to make a face that
conveyed my pain, anger and frustration, without goading him into a repeat chorus.
The bathroom is cold compared to the loving embrace of my blankets. In the mirror was the
same soft face. Not even a hint of peach-fuzz. Not a face to deter bullies. I frowned, trying to
look "hard". No luck. Maybe in a movie, but not in reality. I got dressed, sighing like a leaky
air-mattress.
I went downstairs and turned on the television. The farm report was still on. Maybe five
minutes until the Ray Raynor Show. I didn't get the farm report. All that talk of "pork bellies"
going for so and so dollars. It was confusing. Surely there were no farms in Chicago.
My breakfast was on the stove. A slice of curled -up fried baloney on a piece of bread, toasted
in the oven. One side doughy, the other side browned and hard as wood except for the pool of
congealed margarine in the center. I opened the basement door that led into the kitchen and
released our Doberman "Duchess". I opened the back door on the other side of the room and
Duchess went out to add more brown heaps and yellow stains to the reeking snow. After she
finished I let her back in and stuck her back in the basement.
I tried my best to live in those moments before I had to go out. This was before anyone I knew
had ever heard the phrase "live in the moment ". I tried to absorb what Ray Raynor was saying
as he put together the day's craft project. As usual his attempt was a pale imitation of the
prepared in advance by the eponymous "Chauncey". He again reminded me to allow my
Elmer's glue to get "tacky" on both surfaces before I pressed them together. The CTA bus is a
purgatory. Especially if you are not looking forward to your destination. In the wintertime
they are reminiscent of a meatpacking house on wheels. Not freezing but definitely cold and
clammy. Every bump in the pothole pock-marked South-side streets would rattle loose metal,
like swinging meat hooks in an earthquake. Faces around you, sleepy, war-weary faces. Runny
noses. Bleary eyes.
When I got off the bus I noted my surroundings and remembered when the big building on the
corner of Houston was a giant toy-store. Or maybe it had been giant to little kids only. Two
stories are pretty big. "Bargain Town” was the name. Later to become Toys-R-Us, which
somehow ruined everything. I blamed the anthropomorphic giraffe "Geoffrey", and later his
wife Gigi and daughter "Little Baby Gi". The term I was feeling around for was "sold-out". As in
all the magic was gone after Bargain Town sold out to that goofy giraffe. The two things that
popped into my head when contemplating the building was the fact that I'd only been in there
14
once that I remembered. I was with my mother, who (like all mothers) was there for a purpose
that had nothing to do with my desire to browse. We were actually there to get something for
my cousin's birthday party, so there wasn't going to be any needless fucking-around. I was like
a starving man attempting to stuff himself at a five minute buffet. Except my meal was
colorful visions of toys. Monster Magnets, Big Wheels, Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots, miles of Hot
Wheels Track display and G.I. Joe's entire 1/5 scale world. I soaked it up as best I could while at
the same time attempting to figure out how to ask for something without annoying my
mother. I didn't get anything. And my memories of what I saw were muddied. To continue the
starving man metaphor, it was like I eaten so much so quickly that I just threw up on myself. I
do remember the science toys though. Probably because it was both odd and awesome that a
toy store would be selling preserved biology specimens in jars of alcohol. Guess who came
home one day to a worm, a grasshopper, and a frog?...In another block I was passing the
YMCA. I could never go by without thinking about two years earlier when my 5th-grade class
at Southeast Lutheran Educational Center (SELEC) was taken there for a series of swimming
lessons. I remember the guard-post at the pool entrance where the guys in the cage would sign
you in. The guys in the cage were old. Black men in their 50's or 60's. The walls inside the cage
were papered with girls from the Jet Magazine "Beauty of the Week". Girls with hideous
bikinis and afros or relaxed hair shining on their heads. I liked the light-skinned girls although
they all seemed to have blemished legs and dark knees. The other pictures were full nudes
from the black girlie magazine "Players".
The guy in charge was named Frank. He had a greyish black face with broad nostrils and
cottony salt and pepper hair. The follicles on his face were as big as pencil-points. The boys in
my class gathered round, as though he were a wise man. Perhaps out of respect for age.
"Breathing properly," he intoned "is very important. The body needs oxygen! Remember, deep
breaths through the nose!"
He demonstrated by whooshing several deep breaths through his cavernous nostrils. On the
last exhale he shot a huge glob or infected-looking lime green snot from his left nostril onto his
upper lip. He immediately snurfed it up but it was too late. We were all traumatized.
We changed into our trunks in the locker room. The air was hot, stuffy and thick with the
smell of chlorine. I was horrified to be naked in front of the other boys. Even for a second.
This was probably aggravated by my life as an only-child. It seemed unnatural. A group of
boys would never be naked around each other in nature. This is a situation that has to be
engineered. I don't know what disturbed me more, the fact we were forced to be naked
together or the fact that the others didn't seem to be bothered by being in a hot room with a
group of naked boys and strange naked men. The men, being strangers, were not as
disturbing, thankfully, otherwise their casual crotch drying and hanging meat would have
been intolerable. Strangely enough, I knew that if I were to voice these fears to the others I
would be immediately branded as "gay".
We stood by the pool on the water-slick concrete. Our limbs as thin and fragile as bird wings
waiting to be shattered. The instructor (Frank) was fully clothed. A fact that was not lost on
me. By the time he slipped out of his sneakers and khaki pants a potential drowning would
15
have become an actual drowning.
As instructed, we lowered ourselves into the deep end of the pool. Holding on to the edge we
went through a drill of kicking and blowing bubbles out of our noses. This was to prepare us
in an aquatic training-wheels way for the next step: letting go.
There was a row of us, maybe eight, holding on to the edge with our feet between our hands,
preparing to launch ourselves into a backstroke. Frank standing over us with his whistle
perched firmly between his meaty lips. I'm terrified of the water, of the depth, of Jaws or
"Alligator". The whistle blasts and I push off the edge, and sink. I'm not sure how deep the pool
was. It seemed that I sank forever. When I hit the bottom it was all a dark blur. I was upsidedown.
I was upside-down under water in the darkness. I hadn't expected to be down there so I
had no breath in my lungs. I somehow managed to reorient myself and push off the bottom. I
felt myself rising quickly for what seemed like about ten feet, but slowed for the last seven so
that it seemed that I would sink again before I reached the surface. My head popped out of the
water for a fraction of a second. I took a quick breath and started going under again. Before I
sank to certain doom my arm shot out blindly and my fingers made nebulous contact with the
edge of the pool. I suppose I could have been seen as cartoonish as I clawed for purchase, but I
was scared of dying. After I got a firm grip, I refused to go back. I sat on the edge until it was
over. Looking at the others I was convinced that they'd known how to swim before the
lesson....I crossed the street and passed the public library, which was next to the church. The
library itself was a pretty ordinary branch, but it had a Xerox machine that I was fascinated
with. For a dime you could make a copy. It was brand new technology, at least to me. I'd been
experimenting with copying my spiral-notebook comics. I was thinking that I'd draw a few
one page serials, make copies and sell my classmates a new episode daily for a quarter. I had
dollar signs in my eyes. There was no way they could resist!...The church was one of those
huge old Chicago masterpieces with arched stained-glass windows. Built by German settlers in
the 1860's, it was tall and ornate with a bell in the steeple and a huge cross at the peak. We all
took turns being acolytes but only a chosen few were allowed to be bell-ringers. Actually all
you had to do was ask, but I was never that interested. The ringers would have discussions
about how cool it was if you pulled real hard and held onto the rope because the bell would
yank you upwards like a carnival ride. Seemed dangerous to me. I was waiting for the day the
bell yanked one of the young daredevils up and into the mechanism, chewing off their hands
in the works. At least I'd hope it would happen, so I could justify my constant use of common
sense and basic safety as something other than craven cowardice. Mostly we just sat
obediently in our pews during the chapel services trying to avoid having to sit near Peter
Leftridge who had a habit of picking his boogers and pressing them within the pages of his
hymnal....I walked down the stairs between the church and school buildings. Chicago has
raised streets on that side of town close to the lake. I was told that the lake used to be at a
higher level but it was later dammed up or somehow controlled so that after buildings could
be built on the reclaimed land. Who knows?
I made note of the plastic-covered refrigerator box in the space between the stairs and wall of
the church. Santa Claus lived in the box. Actually his name was Ed, but he looked just like
Santa with his long white beard, big belly and wire-rimmed glasses. He was the first homeless
16
person that most of us had ever seen. I always saw him as somehow mystical, as though he
may really be Santa, or perhaps an undercover angel. How else could he survive the sub-zero
winters in a cardboard box? Pastor Foley invited him to stay in the church on bad nights, but
Ed always chose the box. Of course the kids made fun of him, but I only saw him get mad once.
He was using one of the basement toilet-stalls at the beginning of the day and the little kids
went in to knock on the stall door and run away laughing. He was pretty angry, but the most
he had to say as he emerged from the bathroom was "Stop knocking on the damn door!"
I worried, because even that innocent exclamation could turn into lies in the mouths of kids.
"He said 'shit'. Or "He chased us!" Or worse. Thankfully, nothing came of it....The holiday
seemed to have had a calming effect on my schoolmates. Perhaps they were just blue from
having to be back. The talk was mostly of what was gotten for Christmas. Air Jordan's and
sporting goods had taken the spot of toys. At least on the surface. I thought they were just
trying to out-mature each other. That's what the girls were starting to want: maturity. The
problem with forced maturity is that its affect is often cruelty. The neurotic middle-class
feeding on the outcast to transfer the attention of their peers.
I'd done it myself, the previous year. Drawing a heinous cartoon of another nerdy and
studious boy to get in good with the others. For those five minutes of attention I was thrown
under the bus by Robert and the boys. My graphically scatological and homophobically
Onanistic masterpiece winding up in the hands of Pastor Foley and the Principal, Ms. Smith.
I could have sweat blood from the worry as I sat in the office. I was handed a letter to give to
my parents, then sent back to class. For the following three hours I was at my desk, imagining.
I was the bad guy! What the fuck had I been thinking? The only foreseeable outcome (besides
a vicious beating) would be a ban on my drawing anymore. Which would be worse than the
beating by a thousand fold. I tried to make eye contact with the boy that I'd wronged, but he
kept his face forward. As soon as 3:00 came I rushed down to the office. The sectary asked me
what I wanted, but I broke into choking sobs and the most sincere apology of my life. I begged
her. I'd never been in any trouble before! I promised to be a quiet angel from then on! She told
me to wait there and went into Pastor Foley's office. I saw her speaking to him through the
glass. Moments later, the Principal Smith emerged. "Did you have something to tell me?" She
asked.
I tried not to cry as I repeated my promises to be good. I lied when I told her that I just didn't
want my parents to be disappointed in me. I didn't want to lie, but I felt that voicing my fear of
being banned from drawing would sound ridiculous, and more like a lie than the truth.
"So, “she said "you've learned your lesson? "
"Yes!" I cried "I'll never do anything like that again!"
She looked at me thoughtfully, and then asked me for the letter, and I gladly handed over the
accursed paper sword of Damocles. I thanked her and then her sectary and rushed out before
she could change her mind.
17
As I descended the front stairs I wondered if she had been playing a trick on me, and would
send the letter in the mail. I had to; however, remove that possibility from my mind as
something too horrible to actually occur....The back-to-school conversations continued up the
stairs and into the classroom. I stashed my baloney and mustard sandwich and chips under
my chair. I never kept anything in the cloak-room. It was too easy for anyone who wanted to
steal or tamper with your stuff. Besides, the narrow, drab, wood-floored room reminded me
too much of the punishment closet in the movie Carrie.
I moved around the room, coming into the orbit of the different talkers. Even without the
stigma of being a loner-weirdo/perfect victim if I never left my desk, I came near the others
out of a naive hope that one day I would be tolerated.
As I made my rounds I stopped at Quinton's desk, where he was talking to Kyle and Edsel. I
stood quietly by as he talked and tried to ingratiate myself into their presence slowly, by a sort
of nerd-osmosis. That's when I heard Robert's voice, behind me, yell,
"Dance fever!" felt the sting, and as I turned saw him smiling, and finishing the television
catch-phrase, "Comin' atcha live!"
Back then there was a method of peer degradation known as the "jack-slap". This was when
you took your index and middle fingers, put them together as you folded your other fingers
into a loose fist. You then would lick the palm-side of your extended fingers, reach way back,
and then slap the back of another person’s neck with the wet fingers. Robert had just jackslapped
me in front of everyone on the first day back. So much for the residual holidayspirit....
I've always been an explorer. No matter how often I'd been beaten for it I couldn't stop
exploring what was in my parent's dresser-drawers. In my defense my parents had a lot of
interesting stuff. At least stuff that would be interesting to a kid... or at least interesting to me.
I would, when they were away from home, go on my archaeological digs into the strange
world of adults. My mother's stuff was pretty utilitarian. A Ronco button-setter, A Ronco studsetter,
an Epilady, hair -rollers, makeup and etc.
I did try all of the above, including the makeup, being VERY careful to assure my father wasn't
coming up the walkway.
It's a tribute to individual tastes, the differences between my parent’s drawers and closets.
Whereas my mother's belongings were strictly above-board and useful, my father's belongings
were like a trip into a 1960's teenage boy. Tijuana bibles, huge fake diamond necklace the size
of a doorknob, a switchblade, condoms, erotic novels, brass-knuckles, novelty squeeze toys,
leather cold weather masks and on and on. It was because of this bounty that I was able to
start carrying weapons to school.
I'm sure that kids have been carrying weapons to schools since the beginning of schools. It was
just the deaths of a bunch of white high school bullies that made the carrying of weapons a
visible and histrionic phenomenon. Actually I'm quite shocked that there haven't been more
18
bully killings. The only reason I can imagine there aren't is that nerds lack the impulsive
aggression to kill their tormentors. Which is probably something bullies instinctively
understand. Which is the real reason that Columbine was so shocking. The nerds went offscript.
I made an educated guess concerning what things my father might miss from his dresser
drawers. For about three weeks I was armed. I wouldn't be able to use any of my weapons in
school, I knew that. There would be no way to plead self-defense in such a hostile
environment. It would be my word against the word of a group. No, I saved my weapons for
the afterschool trek under the viaduct towards home. I pictured Kyle as always trying to
follow me into the darkness, like some sort of monstrous bat. In the lower right pocket of my
field-jacket was a large black can of mace. In the lower left pocket, a set of brass -knuckles. I
carried a switchblade in the upper right pocket. Materially I was ready for Kyle. If he came up
behind me I would spray him with mace and then crush him with my brass knuckles. That
was the plan. But even having the upper hand I was afraid that something would go wrong.
That the mace wouldn't spray, or that it would spray in the wrong direction. I was terrified
that I would falter and that Kyle would get my knife or knuckles away from me and kill me.
Even armed to the teeth I couldn't quite picture myself not fucking up. I couldn't picture
myself winning. So my daily trek through the darkness was a nightmare kill or be killed
scenario. There was no middle ground. My mother had told me that when faced with a fight I
should get a stick and try to "knock their head off ". I had no fear of arrest for some reason.
Probably because I trusted the wisdom of my parent's head-knocking advice. Thankfully Kyle
never showed. I never had to make the choice. One day in school I showed Edsel that I had a
set of nunchucks. We were (for some reason) in the accursed cloak-room. Edsel had been
teasing me so I quietly opened my jacket and showed him the nun chucks in the inside pocket.
I was attempting to put him off by both proving that I was crazy, and a regular guy. His eyes
got wide and a grin stole across his face. Quinton came into the cloak-room just about then.
Was my hand being forced?
"Let me see them! " Edsel said and fished the nunchucks out from my pocket. I just stood there.
What could I do? Edsel started whipping the sticks around his body like he'd been practicing.
"They mine now." He said.
I panicked. I had to get my father's property back. My mind was going a mile a minute.
"Those are my father's.” I whined.
"Then he needs to get them from me."
Checkmate.
Mr. Fiorentino's voice then came from the classroom. "Find your seats people." he said. Edsel
put the nunchucks up his sleeve and walked out into the classroom and to his desk.
I sat at my desk as the class proceeded, unable to listen and silent in my rear-row seat. I was
scanning Edsel and his desk like the Terminator. Where were those nunchucks? In his bag?
19
Inside his desk? Maybe still inside the cloakroom? How to tell? Maybe I could go ask Mr.
Fiorentino to go to the restroom and then sneak into the cloakroom from the other side... My
hand went up....The only restrooms were in the basement so and they were accessible via the
stairwell on either side of the building. The stairs were gloomy in the winter, like some noir
tenement set. I made my way down the back stairs, crossed the basement, making my way to
the front stairs so that when I got to the third floor I would be at the classroom entrance next
to the cloak-room.
The front stairs were the mirror opposite of the back stairs.
No... that's not right. The front stairs were like a photo negative of the rear stairwell. A photoemo
negative. Whereas the rear stairs were always dark the front stairs were always light.
The sun poured in through windows in the front of the building, which was the West side, so
the front stairs had a wonerful afternoon glow. This also meant that the front stairs were
evenly lit from the side, whereas the rear stairs were lit by North/South light coming through
narrow windows. This light hit the steps right in the face. This put both sides in gloomy halfshadow/
half-light.
The front steps were where the offices and main doors were. Was this some sort of
subconscious mindfuckery put forth toward the students to inspire them? Ie: "If you are good
and work hard, then one day you too can walk in the sunlight. One day you too can walk
through the front doors and work in an office."
I made it up to the third floor and stood next to the doorway like a Detective expecting gunfire.
If I looked around that corner and Mr. Fiorentino saw me then the entire journey was in vain.
Unfortunately, there was no way to judge his position in the room. It was do or die, a matter of
guts and stealth. I focused myself, feeling the energy of the room, my ears bat-like, my muscles
like a cat. I came around the corner like a shadow and stepped on a floorboard that groaned
like the Three Stooges prying open a packing crate. Mr. Fiorentino looked right at me without
breaking the rhythm of his lesson. I nodded and walked into the cloak-room. With him having
seen me I only had seconds to make it through the cloakroom, find my nun-chucks, and exit to
the door at the rear row of the classroom. I scurried like a cockroach, hitting loose board after
loose board like a savant. Which was Edsels coat? I tought it was on the west-wall. Fuck it, I
went for broke, quickly groping every jacket like a row of distended tits... nothing. I exited the
room and found my desk. So much for any future as a burgular.
...
The thing about Edsel was that he seemed dangerous not because of his bulk, but because he
was so dim. His eyes were always half-open, as was his mouth. He seemed like the sort that
would be always in a state of confusion because he could never properly imagine the possible
consequences of his actions. I imagine he wound up in prison. Another musclebound semiretarded
repeat-offender.
After class I approached Edsel warily. It would have been tragically poetic to be smacked
around with the same nunchucks I'd packed in my bag that morning. He was standing outside
the goddamned coat-room. He had his coat on and looked like he was ready to leave.
"Hey Edsel, " I said as I approached, "I'm gonna need those chucks baçk. They belong to my
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father. "
"What?" He said.
"The nunchucks. I'ma need to get them back." I stifled a wince at my stiff attempt at street
talk.
"What nunchucks?" He said with dim eyes. I honestly couldn't tell if he'd already forgotten or
if he was teasing me.
"C'mon man," I whined. "I don't wanna get in no trouble! "
Edsel gave me a contempuous smile. Then pulling up his right pant-leg he grabbed the
nunchucks from his sock. He paused then shoved them at me saying, "Here, little bitch!" Then
walked away. I quickly stuck them under my jacket. I was trembling. I was useless with or
without a weapon. I didn't have the violence in me. I was the last one out of the room. I took
the long walk to my private bus stop.
...
Given my background the concept of hooky was as taboo to me as Satanism. I was a "good"
boy from a "good " family, not some street-nigger. I was under the thumb of a maniac cop who
made misbehaving seem like a self-destructive impulse . I liked learning. All these things
combined would have normally made me hooky-proof as an individual. Under normal
circumstances. My circumstances at the time were far from normal. Every day felt like a week
in a shitty job. The thought of a vacation, a respite, would be a normal reaction to any gentle
soul in a similar situation. In other words, truancy was inevitable.
It came to me in a flash, one icy January morning as the bus I was on passed 95th street. I had
a vision of the "Plaza". Evergreen Plaza was a popular shopping mall on the border that caged
the black population and kept us from contaminating the all-white neighborhood of Oak Lawn
with our dirty black selves. The Plaza itself being an anomaly as it's three block length was
actually set on the "white" side of the border. It seemed that black dollars provide a certain
amount of cushion to racist sensibilities. I remember my grandmother told me that in the long
ago 60's (at that present point just 10 years gone) if a black woman wanted to try on a hat at
the Evergreen Plaza stores she would have been required to first cover her head with a
handkerchief. We had overcome!
My vision was of walking the halls of the Plaza during school hours. Of exploring the book
store for the latest issue of Crazy Magazine. I could spend the day at the mall...!
The problem was my trying to work up the guts to actually do it. It wasn't as though the
motivation was lacking. I had motivation in a warehouse. But on the other side of the scale
from motivation was a balace of fear. I couldn't quite choose the side of hooky because of the
uncertainties that all led to my father's belt. It came down to anticipation of pain on both sides
which was what eventually decided me. I was heading to school one day on my private busroute
when it occurred to me thatthere would be pain under any circumstance, so why
shouldn't I defer it until a later time?
[Of course I realize now that there is no such thing as deferral of pain if you are afraid.
Anticipation of pain, itself is pain.]
I remember thinking that it might be possible to ride the bus all day long. All I needed was a
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plan. I spent that day trying to figure the ins and outs of something I'd never tried before.
Certain things were obvious. I'd have to wear my good clothes. This would be extremely
uncomfortable to do, considering the frigid weather, but the good clothes served a dual
purpose. I figured that if I was out all day that I'd look less like a truant and more like a kid
that's come from a funeral or going to a magnet-school interview, or some other important
such suit-wearing hullabaloo. The suit also served its usual purpose of keeping the bullies off
my neck in case I lost my nerve and decided to go to school after all.
I also needed a loose itinerary. I figured that riding the bus would take up most of the day.
Then the Plaza would take up a chunk. But that's where my mind went blank. My but-riding
experience was pathetically limited. I only knew how to get to school and to the Plaza.
The night before the big day I couldn't sleep. My eyes wandered the dark room. The light from
the alley lamps came through the window, but everything was shades of grey and black. It was
funny to look around me and remember. This was the room that I'd watched Speed Racer
cartoons on the 13" set on my buereau, rolling Hotwheels cars across the bedspread during
commercials. I'd make the Mach 5 and Shooting Star jump noises with my mouth: chock chock
chock chock P-THNK!
This was the room that I made forts out of blankets. This is the room where Micronauts came
alive in that quasi autistic trance that all only-children play in until they come to the age of
toy-shame. And now it was the room that was my refuge from ugliness, which pissed on the
other memories and obscured them like radio-static. I closed my eyes then opened them.
Darkness then the grey swirling wallpaper. Darkness then the frsmed clown paintings.
Darkness then the closed bedroom door. Darkness then darkness then darkness...
.....
The goddamned Howdy Doody clock went off but for once it didn't annoy me. That morning I
was a man with a mission. I went to the bathroom, pissed, brushed my teeth and washed my
face like a good boy. I went back to my bedroom and turned on the jaundiced ceiling light. I
opened the dresser and pulled out a fresh thermal undershirt, long drawers and socks. The
room was a liitle chilly on my flannel pajamas so when I got into the thermals it went a long
way to centering my mind. After the underlayer I put on my "good clothes". Grey tweed slacks,
white button-down shirt, conservatively patterned necktie, gold-crested blue blazer and
church shoes.
I head downstairs and toss my book-bag, pea-coat, scarf, gloves and navy blue ski-cap onto the
plastic covered chair in the living room. We have two chairs and a couch in showroom-new
condition, wrapped in plastic for a misty future when people no longer enjoy lounging stiffly
on sweaty crinkling plastic.
I enter the kitchen through the tiny kitchen through dining room. There is a small leaf-table
surrounded by four chairs, one of which is jammed against the back wall to make enough
room to walk around the table. There is toaster oven in the corner on a TV table. A small
television sits on the table in the back spot, like an honored guest. Next to it is a stack of comic
books my father has brought up from the basement. The basement door is held shut by an eye
hook. The hook clatters in the eye as the door is rattled. I pop the hook and the family dog,
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Dutchess the Doberman bursts into the kitchen with the frenetic energy of an animal that's
been locked in a cold basement all night. She danced while I unlocked the door that led to the
backyard, her nails beating stacatto on the linoleum. The door opened, she scatterd across the
backporch and into the filthy mounds of shit-stained snow. I closed the door.
On the stove-top was a saucer with a slice of one-side oven-browned bread. The center a
gummy bowl of congealed margarine. On top of this was a slice of fried baloney. the edges
blackened and blistered, slit at the four poles. I fold this into a greasy-salty sandwich that I eat
over the sink. Outside, Dutchess has added some fresh color to her scatological masterpiece.
When she's had the chance to run around for a few minutes, I let her back inside. Usually I'd
let her pal around with me for a bit, but this was the big day, so back down into the dungeon
she went.
WGN was the only station with anything good at 7 in the morning. Chicago wouldn't get cable
for another few years. We had the "On-TV" pay service, but that was upstairs in my parents'
bedroom. Even if we had a box downstairs it was only movies, sports and news. Not a cartoon
or old sitcom anywhere to be seen.
Ray Raynor was a morning staple to us 70's kids. A gruff-looking but kindly middle-aged man
who's show taught us how to make crafts projects, how to feed a duck he kept in a wadingpool,
how to sing the Unicorn Song. Things far removed from bullies and racism and drunken
fathers. Ray Raynor was a peace anchor, as were Underdog and Spectreman. Sometimes you
need to look away from reality to find examples of peace and kindness. You need these things,
if you are a child, to keep yourself from slipping into darkness.
...
After Ray Raynor's show was Bozo's Circus. I was able to catch the first few minutes before I
had to go. When I was six years old my 1st grade class went to WGN studios to watch an
episode being taped. I wound up being on camera in one of the prize-games. It was a scooter
race. My team came in second-place and we each received a half-gallon carton of malted-milk
balls. That had been a good day. But that was a world away for me as I put on my pea-coat,
scarf, gloves and hat.
Locking the door behind me, I stepped out into the world.
...

It was really cold, somewhere under 20 degrees. On those days the world for me was a yin-yang of sky blue and slate grey. The horrible crystalline wind would bleach the colors right from my eyes. As I walked down the block I could feel the frigid world attempting to molest me by crawling up my pants-legs and sleeves, wrapping around my wrists and ankles, forearms and shins, like a freon-python, slowly corkscrewing it's way along...
Back then bus-fare was less than a dollar. I would keep the coins and after, the transfer, inside the palm of my left glove. That way I wouldn't have to try and use my numb lifeless fingers to dig through my pockets for change.
When the bus came I paid my fare and sat near the front. I left much later than I usually did. I'd purposefully timed it so that if I chickened out I would be forced to walk into class late.
I took the Jeffrey bus from 97th and then transferred to the 83rd street bus heading East. I'd given myself a possible out by taking the long route. If anyone I went to school with saw me, I would be forced to go to class. But I was too late. Everyone that was going to school was already there. I let the bus pass my usual spot and Immediately felt both guilty and giddy. I was breaking the rules for once. The bus groaned along, rocking like a bassinet. I was sitting in the very last seat on the left rear. I ducked down to make myself less obvious to the driver. I'd been staring at the back of his head for a while. He was deformed. Whether by accident or nature I couldn't tell. He was wearing a driver's cap but his bald-head was obvious. He had deep dark chocolate skin and his ears looked like melted wax, only pointed identically. He looked for all the world like a black Nosferatu, or more precisely: Kurt Barlow. The bus headed further East until it hit the lakeside. It ran on the street parallel to the water, slowed and then stopped. The driver stretched. He opened his widow and lit a cigarette. I stayed perfectly still. His eyes raised to the rearview and their reflection caught mine.
"End of the line for you." He said ominously.
"...what?" I stammered out.
"End of the line for you." He repeated, then opened the rear doors. "You have to get off.
"But... can't I ride back the other way?" I asked, trying to sound pitiful.
"Not on this bus." He said. Then he said something under his breath as his eyes seemed to lose interest and fell off me. I grabbed my bag and walked to the edit, trying to look pitiful. I stepped down onto the street and the pneumatic doors clunked close behind me. I turned to look at the bus as he gassed it and drove off, leaving me staring at a nightmare of frozen grey and white water as far as I could see. Some blot of factory or something cutting blackly in on the right. It was like the bizarro version of the sunny peopled beach on the Threes Company intro. I didn't know what to do but the cold made my brain rush through possibilities. I had no Idea when or if other busses would come along so maybe walking would be good. But I had no Idea where the next bus-stop might be and if there were a next bus it would pass me by as I was walking. But the froxen expsnse in front of me was so oppressively huge and disheartening that I felt like I was somehow fading from existence. I made three false-starts down the street before another bus came by and picked me up.
...
I transferred to the 95th street bus and headed West. I was doing fine intil the bus yurned inyo the transfer hub on State Street. I freaked out a little because I thought at first that the bus was going to go down the Dan Ryan expressway, but the bus stopped and everyone else disembarked, so I did likewise.
I wandered into the glass-enclosed station and stared at the unhappy, dead-eyed passengers. All scarves and tweed and earmuffs; they reminded me of my mother, who made the daily trek from South-side home to downtown office. I twirled around in a circle and wandered back and forth for a few minutes before I worked up the courage to ask a man which bus was going West on 95th.
He looked at me with what i took to be a mix of astonishment and pity, then pointed to a bus standing in front of the one I'd just disembarked.
...
I flashed the driver my transfer and sat near the front. Having never taken this bus route before I wasn't sure when to buzz for my stop. The bus started down 95th and the passengers got on and off. The route took us from black neighborhood to white and the transition was like peeling layers of dirt from n onion. The red-brick liquor stores nd check-cashing places gave way to beige walled fabric stores and coin-collecting shops. As we neared the plaza I noticed fewer and fewer people, both on and off the bus.

I exited at the Plaza West Side and entered an internal hallway through a set of glass double-doors. I noticed that it was pretty quiet. When I got to the end of the hallway I had a good view of both levels of the Southern wing. I wouldn't see Dawn of the Dead for another 5 years so I had no idea how similar was what I was seeing to the zombie-mall. There were very few people and they all seemed to be wandering aimlessly. Then I realised that the shutters were still down on the shops. I was there before th place was open for business. Only a couple of places that served coffee and pastries were active. I asked a lady behind the counter at one of the food counters what time the stores opened. She told me they opened at 9:00. I checked my watch. It was 8:40. I weighed my options. I could wander back and forth in the mall for the next 20 minutes but I ran the risk of sticking out and I didn't know if there were really Truant-Officers like the ones I'd seen on the Little Rascals, or (if there were) whether they were looking for all kids or only for public-school kids. I could also get back on the bus and ride it for a while, but that seemed so bleak... and cold. I decided to risk the spectres of mall-bound truant officers. I had no idea what they looked like. Old Hollywood taught me that they wore 3-piece suits with fedoras and badges pinnedcto the vests. I'd never seen such in real life and deduced that the reality was probably just a guy in a regular church-suit. A chill ran all through me when I realized that they might just be cops. I hadn't thought of that. Cops spelled "father" and I desperately needed to avoid that. I hustled the horrible thought out of my mind as much as I could, reminding myself that I was, after all, wearing a suit.

The artist formerly known as Al Frank

An extreme case of the "angles".