The Making of a Man-Part 3
A pattern of isolation and feelings of inferiority begin to be established at an early age, as you have seen. In addition to the incidents which contributed to this foundation there is at least one more important piece of the puzzle to add.
Without getting into the how and why, suffice it to say that my grandparents converted to Jehovah’s Witnesses when I was around eight years old, which translated to my mother’s conversion which, in turn, meant that her children were also Jehovah’s Witnesses whether they liked it or not.
So, on top of the feelings of being different due to a couple of unfortunate accidents, I now had to spend every single “pagan’ holiday in the hallways or empty rooms at the schools instead of joining in the festivities that the rest of the children participated in. Christmas, birthdays, Easter, Halloween, and every other celebratory activity that is considered part of a normal childhood experience here in America, was entirely absent from my life. These things are not allowed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was not just taboo in school, but at home as well. I did not have a birthday party my entire childhood, (at least not as far back as I can remember), nor did I have a Christmas that I can recall. No trick or treating, no hunting for easter eggs, none of that fun stuff. Just think about that for a moment.
The feeling of being the odd man out I know all too well. But there was something that came with being different that I am certain led to the behaviors that would follow. When you are the “strange” one, people don’t have the same expectations of you that they have for everyone else. They have no idea what to expect. In fact, they anticipate that the weird person will act weird, and I began to get a sense of this.
When you’re expected to act differently than others, it gives you a broader field within which to work. You have a greater range of behaviors to use, so you get a greater range of responses. The more behaviors and responses, the faster you learn what will draw the most attention. And, after all, what kids crave the most is attention. I was no different in that respect.
However, the attention I received was not the type of attention that I wanted. I was a victim, it seemed. I got picked on, made fun of, and bullied. In a few short years, my life had gone from bad to worse, and although I occupied much of my time alone doing schoolwork, reading, and thinking, I felt that I had no control over anything the things that were happening to me. I couldn’t stop the stares, the whispers, or the kid’s making fun of me. The bullying turned out to be the least part of my worries. I could either outrun the bullies or, as I soon learned, I could take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. The same could not be said for the psychological aspects, like the stares and the name-calling. Those things make scars you can’t see, and which don’t heal as fast as a fat lip. Getting physically bullied only hurts for a short while, and sometimes it hardly hurts at all.
In fact, during one of the many bullying sessions, I was getting punched in the face, and I remember thinking to myself, “this guy can’t even hit that hard”. I was bleeding, but I wasn’t really hurt. I had turned around to walk away and noticed a ring of kids around us watching the fight and cheering the bully on. As I took a step toward the edge of the ring, everyone grew very quiet. The kid who was directly in my path locked eyes with me and it was like he saw a ghost. He was instantly scared. Of what, I still don’t know, but whatever it was made him drop his lunchbox and retreat a few steps.
I can’t say what came over me at that moment. Perhaps I was fed up. Maybe I was just overly scared myself. I had tears in my eyes and blood in my mouth and nose. I felt the bully behind me slap me in the back of the head. Then, in one movement that seemed to happen in super slow motion, I picked up the dropped lunchbox and turned and swung with all my might.
The metal lunchbox crumpled against the bully’s face. There was a metal thermos inside of it which flew out, also hitting him somewhere in the head. He didn’t go down, and for a moment I thought he might be indestructible. Then, a good amount of blood began to stream down from several wounds. At the feel and sight of it, the bully’s hands flew up to his face and he ran screaming from the crowd. It was incredibly quiet as I looked around at the kids gathered there. Someone handed me my glasses and all the kids sort of spread out and just let me walk right past them.
The rest of the altercation, both before and after, is all hazy, and mostly forgotten with time. However, those moments of defiance seem just as vivid today as if it happened yesterday.
What transpired was more profound than a kid simply finding his courage. In those few moments I realized that people reacted to me the way they did because they didn’t understand my situation. That lack of understanding lead to fear. This kind of attention was more to my liking. I now knew that I could introduce control back into my life using fear. I also realized that I was capable of inflicting harm to do so. These weren’t conscious thoughts, but I certainly felt it. This was the day, the moment, when my feet got pointed down a path that I would walk for the next forty years, and I carried a BIG stick.
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