bully; a four part post

Brutally Rebuffed in the Kmart

We were in the shoe aisle. She had pretty brown hair and her outfit matched. My haircut was homemade, so my bangs were thick and crooked. My outfits never matched. Her hair was neatly braided and finished at each end with a hair accessory. My hair hung slack and stringy. When I saw her, I took a few steps away from my mother’s cart and said, “Hi.”
“Don’t say Hi to me.” She said.
Her mother heard. Her mother gave me a once over, lingering for a moment on my dirty feet in grocery store flip-flops (This was the seventies. Flip-flops were not in vogue).
“Come over here.” She said and took her little girl by the hand as if to protect her from me.
It was the first time I felt shock, humiliation and indignation. It was the first time I felt I was not good enough. I was five. I didn’t cry or react outwardly. I went back to our cart.
“What did that little girl say to you?” my sister asked.
I told her.
“Mom, did you hear that?”
My sister told her. My mother looked hurt then angry.
“Well, some people think they’re better’n others. I wonder what they’d think if I went by and knocked ‘em in the head? Clunk! Clunk!”
Mom always said something funny to try to make us feel better. I didn’t feel better, but I didn’t let it show.
“You don’t want to talk to people like that anyway!” my sister chimed in.
But I did.


Boogies

On the day before Easter, my mother took us all to the Kmart. Everybody got a new outfit complete with shoes. My dress was long and cream colored with short puffy sleeves. Pink flowers were embroidered at the neck. It had my most favorite thing of all; a sash. At the age of six, I thought sashes represented the height of elegance. That night, my mother rolled my hair up in my pink squishy rollers. I had to sleep on them all night. The next morning, I woke to find my Easter basket by my bed. We got dressed for church. I couldn’t wait for everybody to see my new dress and shiny shoes. Our Sunday school class was very crowded. We sat on the floor and sang. I felt something touching me. I looked back. A little black girl was behind me. I looked down at her hand. She was touching my sash with one finger. On the end of her finger was a boogie! I looked at my sash. There were more boogies squashed onto my pretty sash! I hit her hand. She didn’t react, just stopped touching me. It was time to line up. The little black girl broke from her place in line and shoved me. I grabbed her shoulders and hurled her to the ground. I was shocked at myself. I didn’t know I could do such a thing. The little girl lay on the ground and cried. The other children told the Sunday school teacher. She asked why. I was too embarrassed to say “boogies” to a strange adult, so I didn’t respond.
“Kass, the teacher said there was trouble in Sun-dee school. What happened?” my mother asked me while we drove home.
I told her about the boogies. I made sure to tell her it was a little black girl, ‘cuz my mom and dad always said things about black people that were not very nice. I knew if she knew it was a black girl, I wouldn’t get in that much trouble.
“She was a-doin’ whaaat?” my mother looked horrified, shocked and amused all at the same time.
I repeated myself.
“Well, she shouldn’ta been a-doin’ that! That is deesgusting! But you can’t be shovin’ people ‘round. ‘Specially on Sun-dee! Easter Sun-dee! At Sun-dee school!” she paused for a moment. “…even if they are black.”


Social Leprosy

“Wyonchoo ever invite Lisa to go do thangs with you and yer friends?” asked Lisa’s mother.
I would sooner die. Lisa wouldn’t fit in with my new friends at all. My new friends were the most popular girls in school. They were cheerleaders and class officers. They were smart and intended to go to college. They had houses in Long Beach with swimming pools and hot tubs. Their families owned businesses. Lisa was a high school drop out. She wore “stoner” clothes and still had flat feathered hair. She wasn’t pretty. No cool boys liked her. She was pigeon-toed and stoop-shouldered. She smoked cigarettes and marijuana. She would often go for days without showering, lying around in her pajamas. How could I explain this to her mother, a hard drinking, hard living woman from Arkansas who dated married men and fought in bars? I knew Lisa because our mothers worked together and we were neighbors. When I first moved back to Indiana, my mother offered me up as Lisa’s friend without consulting me first. I wouldn’t have picked Lisa for a friend. We had been thrown together. As I ascended the social ladder of Jr. High and High School, Lisa was left on the bottom rung.
“My friends usually invite me to do things. I wouldn’t feel right inviting somebody else along. Most of the stuff we do is school stuff anyway.” I lied.
Mary Jean was no fool. “How’s goin’ a da beach in summer ‘bout school?” She narrowed her eyes at me. I knew she wouldn’t be talking to me this way if my mother were around.
Mary Jean had no idea how hard it was to break into the ranks of the popular kids when you came from our neighborhood. There was no way I could try to get clearance for Lisa. It would jeopardize everything. I would be cast out. I had been a nobody. Loyalty be damned; I wasn’t going back.


Submersed

“You! Come up here, please.” I was speaking to a tall seventh-grade girl who had just thrown a pencil across the room at a small boy. When he saw me observe this, he flushed bright red, averted his eyes and tried to shrink down behind his desk. She looked at me defiantly as if to say, “What? What are you gonna do, sub?” I had spoken to her twice already. As she came into the classroom one half of a millisecond before the bell, she pushed the small boy’s head as she walked by and uttered, “Fag-o-saurus.”
“Excuse me?” I said to her. She paused on the way to her seat.
“Nothing.” She said.
“Yeah…that’s what I thought.” I said and gave her my stern teacher look. The class instantly grew quiet and still. Aha! I had found the Alpha female. I instinctively know my own kind.
The small boy blushed and tried to disappear into the books on his desk. I introduced myself to the class and explained my expectations for behavior as I always did.
“I expect you to be quiet and respectful of one another. I expect you to stay seated. You may use the pencil sharpener at your leisure. I have been instructed not to give bathroom passes, but I will ignore this instruction. Do not mistake this for weakness. If you abuse your restroom privilege you will be reported to the office. I expect you to work on your assignment/pay attention to the film/participate in the activity, etc. If you deviate from these expectations, you will be sent to the office. This is not an idle threat. Try Me.”
We set about following the lesson plan’s instructions. The children were busy with the assignment. I began filling out the class behavior sheet provided by the teacher. The stillness of the room was shattered by a loud snorting giggle; the cry of the Alpha female.
I stared at her until she composed herself. She stared back.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked. She smirked at me.
“Do you think you could control yourself while your classmates complete their assignment?”
“Yes.” She said in a manner that satisfied my question but was just snarky enough in its tone to retain respect with her peers.
“We would be very grateful.” I smiled back. Order was restored, she’d had her moment of attention, and I turned back to the form. I glanced up just as the pencil left her grasp. We watched its trajectory and its connection to the small boy’s head.
I handed her the written referral and she exited the room. Several minutes passed. The phone in the room rang. “Hello?”
“Yes, this is Jane from the office. Did you just send a student down here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, are you aware that if a student is sent to the office by a sub they automatically receive two days in detention during which time they are not allowed to make up any tests or assignments?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the student you sent, Susie Dadsacop…she’s a good student…she is well-liked…she’s on the honor roll…she’s never been sent to the office before...”