The Making of a Man — Part 6
First off, to any fans I might have, I apologize for the extended hiatus. Life sometimes takes over. With that out of the way, let us begin.
The day of the fight I arrived across the street at the park a little later than most of the others, it would seem. As I walked up with my sidekick, Billy, I observed quite a sizable crowd. It was uncommon to see this many people at an after-school fight, and even more uncommon that the size of the crowd had not yet attracted any adults to see what all the hubbub was about.
The reason I was late was because I had to prepare for this event. Even though I believed that the fight would either be broken up beforehand, or that it wouldn’t last much past the moment I revealed my armament. Thus, the preparation.
Immediately after the last class bell had rung, I met up with a couple of other kids who also engaged in the fights which occasionally took place. We gathered in the school bathroom closest to the doors leading to the park.
One had brought some fingerless riding gloves, which were passed to me. Another boy handed me the num-chucks I had given him earlier, which he then concealed in his backpack all day for me while I was off skipping school. And lastly, I was handed a roll of quarters to grip in each hand for weight. Since my hands were too small to close properly around a roll of quarters, and because it was more money than I was usually able to get my hands on, I decided to pocket the twenty bucks in change for another time.
As I walked up to the center of the crowd in the park, I was approached by two of the schools’ notorious fighters. For some reason they felt it was their duty to insure a fair fight. Why this occurred at this fight, and not ever at any other fight I had ever seen, I still do not know. But everyone was making a big deal out of this event for some reason, and I was enjoying the pageantry of it all anyway so, what the hell?
As one of the boys started laying down the rules that were supposed to be followed, the other boy began frisking me. This was my first moment of uncertainty. Apparently, the word had gotten out that I used weapons at fights, (which was not only untrue but also made it sound like I had been in many battles, which was also untrue), which made me look like even more of a bad ass, so I just rolled with it.
The obvious flaw in allowing these falsehoods to swell my ego is that I allowed it to affect my whole fight strategy. The frisker found my num-chucks and “held” them till after the fight. (I never saw them again.) I was also being told that I could not use the knuckle gloves for whatever reason.
As the arguing about the rules grew louder and people were grabbing at my gloves and jacket, I saw my opponent make his move. He lumbered through the crowd and when he was standing right in front of me, he punched one fist into his other hand and growled at me.
Thinking back, it’s humorous, but at the time I just remember looking so far up at him I was wondering how in the hell I was even going to be able to punch him. My legs were shaking as I stood there until he said, “you’re dead!”.
At that moment my brain told my hands to hit him in the face as hard as I could. So, I did. A right hand followed directly by a left hand. The crowd made an awed noise. Seriously. I had drawn first blood. However, the response I got let me know right away that I might be in trouble.
The big farm kid reached up and touched his mouth and saw that his hand came away red with blood. Instead of causing any fear or concern it just angered him. He yelled again that I was dead and rushed towards me. Rushed might be a bit of an overstatement of both speed and grace. It was more like a slow lunge.
One big paw swung at me and missed. I hit him again with the right-left combo and bloodied his nose, but it had no other effect whatsoever. On he came.
I did the only logical thing I could think of at the time. I turned and ran a little bit to put some distance between the giant farm boy and me. The crowd was not happy with this turn of events, and I began hearing all kinds of insults and teasing. But the worst part is that they all began to gather to impede my escape.
I wasn’t actually escaping, not just yet anyway, I was trying to keep enough distance between he and I to keep from being hit or grabbed while attempting to formulate a plan of action. Now that the option to flee was fraught with unknown obstacles I had to adapt another strategy and quick.
Within the circle of kids was a picnic table, the farm boy, myself, and…..I scanned the area. Aha! This was a park, with big trees all over the place. On the ground I spied sticks of many sizes. I snatched one up about two feet long and as thick as my wrist and jumped up on the picnic table.
I think the farm boy had gotten pumped up by the crowd and by what he assumed was my attempted escape because he walked right up to the end of the picnic table and lifted it up with both hands as if he was going to tip me off it.
I saw my chance and I took it. I ran up the slowly inclining picnic table and planted the stick I held firmly against the side of his head. The crowd went almost immediately silent. The farm boy dropped to his knees, dazed. I jumped down from the picnic table and attacked. I swung again, this time downward on top of his skull. The boy was able to avoid a direct hit, but the stick still gave him a glancing blow which bloodied his ear and the side of his face. The crowd was now dispersing in all directions. This was turning into something which no one wanted to be a part of.
I heard some yelling in voices that sounded like adults which snapped me out of my fight or flight mode. I looked up and saw the park rangers bringing their truck to a stop. The jumped out and began running towards us. Luckily for me they were more interested in the injured boy than in whomever had done the injuring for the moment. I threw down the stick and fled.
When I got home, I was shaken, to say the least. All the adrenalin that had flooded my system during the confrontation, and the flight afterwards, was beginning to work its way out of my body. Realization was setting in, and with it, a little bit of fear. I worried more about being caught than anything else. The years of getting into trouble and receiving pure disciplinary action for my behavior had conditioned my first response to trauma to be fear of retribution from authorities.
I often wonder if, somewhere along the way, had someone intervened and treated me with kindness and understanding, and perhaps a little encouragement and guidance in another direction, would my path have taken another route? I suppose that type of speculation is useless because ideas that include “if”, “should’ve”, or “could’ve” are not applicable to reality. It was the way it was and therefore could be no other way.
However, we can look at things like this, analyze it, and perhaps be more aware of what can be done for kids in the present or future. We need to change the approach, because I can tell you that the punitive method as a first response DOES NOT WORK. It only helps to drive home negative ideas and firmly embed ideas that are self-destructive at best. But I digress.
After a short while, when no authority figures came barging into my house, and no mob of angry kids or indignant adults appeared to chastise me, I stopped shaking and my day continued like any other day.
I was surprised that not even one of my fellow delinquent chums showed up to revel in the aftermath of the fight. I began to think that perhaps I had made a much bigger deal of it in my head than it actually was.
The next morning, I got up, messed with my little brother and both of my sisters, per usual, and left to meet my group of friends in the same park where the fight took place the night before. It seemed like an entirely different place and the memory of the fight was almost completely gone. Then Willy showed up.
Willy was one of my closest skippin’ school buddies and as he sat down at the picnic table where we had all piled onto, he began mimicking a scene from the fight and everyone started laughing and it became the only subject on everyone’s mind. My own mind started to race and think of all the trouble I might be in and what I should do about it.
Luckily, the conversation was interrupted by the warning bell from the school across the street which meant that students had five minutes to get to class before they were tardy. Everyone except for Willy and I jumped up, flipped everyone else off or said something nasty, and all of us laughed as they ran to the school.
Willy was telling me not to worry about anything because he had a day planned for us. We were going to ride our bikes down to the train trestle that crossed over a little creek on the outskirts of town. It was a place where kids hung out on weekends, mostly to drink beer and go swimming. Willy said he had brought a little surprise. He had taken his mother’s little .22 caliber pistol from the shelf in her closet and brought it along so we could mess around with it at the trestle.
We were getting ready to leave the park when the bell rang again signaling that the 15-minute homeroom class was over, and first period was about to begin. We saw a few of our friends on their way back over to the park, which was unusual, so we waited to see what was up.
They came running over and were out of breath. They were all talking at once and it was hard to make out what they were trying to say until one of them just yelled for the others to shut up and began a narrative that changed the course of the day. Indeed, it changed the course of my life.
Apparently, the big farm boy whom I had the altercation with had noticed I wasn’t in school, and whether by his own volition, (doubtful), or upon the insistence of other busy-body gossipers and story tellers, he was spreading a rumor as to the reason of my absence.
His story was that he had beaten me so badly at the fight the night before that I was in the hospital and needed surgery or some other nonsense. Now, I’m not sure if this is what came directly from his mouth or if it was what the story had morphed into after multiple telling’s, (which is most likely the case), but the effect it had upon me at the time was the same either way.
I was furious. There was no way that this unknown farm boy was going to go from complete obscurity in the school to instant popularity as a bad ass when it took so much work for me to get where I was. Back then I honestly believed that my reputation was something to be proud of. It was something which I had earned through many trials and tribulations.
It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what came next. I told Willy that the trestle would have to wait. I had to go to the school and straighten this thing out without hesitation. I was scheduled for math class the very next period. Ironically, so was the farm boy.
I made haste over to the school and Willy and I went directly into the bathroom where I told him to hand me the gun. I did it in full view of the students who occupied the bathroom at the time. This was intentional. It was a scare tactic. I figured that if word got out that I was not in the hospital, but rather, that I was in the school and armed with a pistol, this country boy would literally crap his pants.
I was 13 years old. Almost 14. I had no prior experience with things like guns or shootings or anything like that. I’d never even been hunting, except for throwing rocks and sticks at chipmunks in the park. I honestly had absolutely no intention of harming anyone with a gun. This was all fluff and I thought it was pretty damn ingenious at the time.
My adrenaline was flowing. I was so pumped that I missed the many signs that something was amiss as I headed up the steps to the math classroom. Had I been clear headed I would have noticed that the bathroom emptied out a split second after the gun appeared and changed hands from Willy’s to mine. I would have noticed the crowd of kids trying to pack themselves into the school’s main office as I passed it and headed up the stairs. And I definitely would have been more curious as to why the classroom I entered was devoid of students.
But I didn’t, and I wasn’t. I sat down in the desk which was two desks behind the place where farm boy was supposed to sit. I waited. I had no idea what I was going to do. I kind of assumed that the boy would have heard about the gun, become terrified, and must sit through an entire class period in fear while I gave him menacing looks and made gestures towards my coat pocket. I had to keep myself from laughing just thinking about it.
In my mind I thought this was going to play out quite humorously and I would leave the school after that class period, meet up again with Willy, and proceed toward the train trestle to complete another day in the life of Dean. My point would have been made, my revenge achieved, and all would be well with the world. Unfortunately, this was not to be.
Apparently, the school office was full of terrified kids who informed the school liaison officer (cop) who had called the Sherriff’s Department before notifying the teacher of my math class that an armed student was on his way to his classroom. He then headed to the classroom himself and both he and the math teacher appeared simultaneously, one at each door to the classroom.
Before either of them could speak, the realization of the situation came flooding in. Oh, shit. Oh shit, shit, shit, shit. I was in some serious trouble now. Again, my instincts took over and my only thought was to flee. But how? Both doors were covered. The school cop had his hand on his pistol. That scared me. I was on total autopilot. Nothing I did then was done consciously. It was a huge blur, and my only thought was to GET AWAY!
The report says that the math teacher tried to slowly approach me from my right rear flank while holding his hands palm outward toward me as a sign of surrender and peace. I can tell you I did not get the impression of surrender nor peace at the time.
It goes on to say that as I stood up and flung a desk away from me, drew the pistol, and ran toward the door through which the math teacher had entered. Although I don’t remember specifics, I would like to interject with two points of fact here. One, I was 4 feet, 10 inches tall, and weighed 105 pounds at that time. I have a hard time believing that I “flung” one of those desks anywhere, especially in the manner they describe since it would have had to been “flung” with one arm since my other hand was supposedly drawing a pistol. And two, I do remember flying down the two flights of stairs and out of the front doors of the school so fast that I couldn’t feel my feet touching the stairs, the ground, or anything else for that matter, and when I reached the comparative safety of the park across the street, I distinctly recall trying to get that damn pistol out of my inside jacket pocket where I had put it when I first had gotten it from Willy. It kept getting caught on the polyester lining of my cheap jacket. First the hammer would catch, then the grip would catch, it was such a hassle that I finally gave up and left it right in my pocket as jumped on my bike and pedaled my little rear end off until I reached the train trestle. Therefore, I also dispute the claim that I drew a pistol on the teacher and the school cop.
It took me quite some time to calm down once I was out there in the woods. After a while I was able to breathe normally again. Some time passed and, like any young boy, I began to grow bored. I figured I had to run away at this point, and I couldn’t return to town until after dark for supplies, so I had quite a few hours to kill.
I took out the pistol and looked at it. It was the first time it sunk in that I had a real gun in my hands. I had never even touched a gun before in my entire life. The next move was obvious. I looked around for a suitable target and, high up on the top of an old tree that had broken off, sat a huge hawk. (The significance of the hawk will come into play later in my stories, so remember the hawk) I took the little revolver and stretched my arms out to aim. Holding the pistol with both hands, I squeezed the trigger. The hammer barely moved a millimeter. I tried again with all my might. Nothing. I used both pointer fingers, one from each hand, and tried again. Still only the slightest movement. Finally, I put the first two fingers of each hand around the trigger and squeezed with everything I could muster into those little fingers, and slowly, very slowly, the hammer eased back. The hammer was moving so slowly that I almost ran out of strength in my hands. Then, right when my fingers were about to give out, BANG! The old pistol finally fired.
Amazingly, the bullet did hit the tree that the hawk sat on, only it hit about three feet lower than the bird. But for my first shot ever I was satisfied. However, it seemed like the hawk knew I was a novice, and posed no real threat, because it didn’t even budge. It looked at me and gave one of those shrieks that hawks give, as if he were calling me a derogatory name, and then he lazily lifted his wings, hopped off the tree, and glided away into the trees.
I felt bad for having shot at the hawk. I felt really bad. Then my situation began to weigh upon me quite heavily. I was alone, and it was getting dark. I felt even worse, and I was cold too. I wanted to go home. Never in my life had I wanted to go home so badly.
I thought it was close enough to dark that I could just ride home unseen. Surely no one would still be looking for me. Hours had passed. I thought that everything would have died down by that time. So, I began my journey home. I could already hear my brother asking me where I’d been, my mom telling me to eat (and I was starving too!), and a nice warm bed waiting for me that I could fall into and not have to think about this whole mess until the morning. When you’re a kid, tomorrow holds the possibility of everything in it. It did for me. All the way up until that very night.
As I rode through the outskirts of town, the streetlights were on, and the town was getting quiet for the night. Things were still and I was tired. I was about six blocks from home when out of nowhere there was bright lights. Spotlights and flashing red and blue lights. It scared the crap out of me. I was literally surrounded.
I stopped my bike in the middle of the road, I saw police everywhere with their guns drawn and pointed at me. This was outside of my realm of experience. Back in those days you barely even saw this kind of stuff on TV when you were a kid. I was petrified.
“Put your hands in the air!”
It blasted through the loudspeaker on one of the cop cars. I put my hands in the air. “Get down on your knees and put your hands on top of your head!” I’ll admit it, I was crying. I felt like everything in me had fled and left me with nothing but a paper shell to dwell in. I don’t know how else to describe it. I felt small, helpless, afraid, and strongest of all, was the feeling of being completely alone.
The rest of the it went like you see on TV nowadays. They rushed me and knelt on me and treated me like I was a 250-pound escaped murderer. Granted, they had to be cautious, but the response should be equal to that of the threat. At any rate, I make no excuses for my behavior. I did a very stupid and very potentially dangerous thing. And for my behavior, I was treated as described above before being taken to the county jail. The adult county jail. They put me in an empty cell block while they decided what the next step would be with me. I was a bit of an enigma to them. This was new territory in this little town back then.
That night I will never, ever, ever forget. The block was big, empty, and cold. There were no windows to look out of, and no people to talk to. There was not one single book to read. They would not even give me a pencil or a piece of paper. I was given a blanket and a jail uniform that was entirely too big for me. Then the only time I saw anyone was when they brought me some food that night and again in the morning. It was the longest night I have ever experienced. It changed me forever. 13 years old. 1983. Another piece of the puzzle in the making of a man.
