Previous: Licentious Intentions: A Shipwreck (the dirty mick) Series, No. 4
Grade school in the eighties was a petri dish for assholes, where brand names and lunch money made all the difference. Meant to be an island for little minds to grow, it was more a cesspool of personalities — ebbed and imposed.
My second day of first grade was a brand new start — it took place states away from the first. Two weeks prior, during morning recess, I Peter Porkered the wall they built to contain. My cohort and I hid out at the mall, and then against my advice, turned ourselves in.
That day’s worth of freedom cost two weeks in Max: Our principal, upset at the feds for retiring his paddle, and having a hard time abstaining from the use of his mitts, locked me in the closet that held the teachers’ library, where for seven hours a day I was an academic surgeon — transplanting thousands of pages from hundreds of manuals. It was a shot through the heart and he was to blame — that administrative punk gave tough love a bad name.
A week into bad medicine, with zeroes racked in damage, my mom sprang me like a dancer in pink. Rearviewing curriculums in the town of Disarray, her steel horse carried me north to reclaim old stomping grounds.
The morning Brother and I were to attend our new school, the same mom chauffeured us, late for the nursing home. Parked at the front entrance, with him riding shotgun and me in the back, she twisted in her seat to tender the moment: “I signed a paper that said they couldn’t spank you. So no one touches you, okay?” And then letting her eyes drift back to me, “You they can whoop the shit out of.”
Fortunately for me, a psychic injunction favored the fingers that started my last fire — staying someone’s knife from robbing my defense. Still as ready as ever to take the power back, I stepped out of her car in full view of the school, with Bon Jovi wisdom and clip-on tie, swearing an oath most sacred in text: ‘By the Power of Grayskull, you motherfuckers are gonna give me half a chance.’
When the bell rang, my tie didn’t take, and I knew right then it was time to get ill. In a war full of battles never meant for the playground, there was an everyday fight for my right to party. Brass monkey — that funky monkey — was a style I unveiled to be not like the rest. Slow and low, I let myself go, like a social disease, wanted dead or alive.
Methodically poised for nothing less than obscene, all lines drawn quickly were crossed. In my version of facts, only one thing was for sure: I’d finally found a place where I could feel right at home.
A year of gorilla warfare and they had to relent, leaving me naked for a party with no place to go. With Second Grade in view and full-on in groove, having reached the final bell from the first, I knew:
1) I’m the best around.
2) Nothing’s gonna ever keep me down.
…
“Eye of the Tiger (bluegrass tribute)”
— Pickin’ On Series
Holy jeans and a mullet, windbreaker — neon — Gremlins on the lunch pail and Happy Meal watch: Everything I need minus two front teeth. ‘There’s not enough sugar in the world to pour some on me.’
Hand-me-down pants look sweet when they’re pegged. But a few years away from Reebok Pumps, my XJ-13s are a still a target for the enemy. Which I don’t mind…really — I don’t. Because since kids could be cruel I’ve enjoyed a competition. Just look at the difference, us watching cartoons:
Their time spent in the glow of animation’s for laughter.
Mine’s studying the mechanics of a tactical vantage.
They’re remembering sound bites to use on the playground.
I’m channeling Tao for the art of escalate.
When opens a rift in my Second Grade door, she’s travelled time to be “Here!” at the beginning of class. Where she’s come from, I don’t know, but it’s apparently her who has discovered us.
Of the impression we’re a million friends-in-waiting, she’s a sheep among wolves — prey upon the animals. Excited, incautious, and completely unaware — their social dysphorics will welcome the game.
The hyenas cackle at the stripes under her coveralls. The tigresses growl at the mud on her boots. With none of her kind in this wild safari, no one’s to offer the knowledge that comes with apartheid.
Watching her escort leave her to the vultures with familiar abandon, I’m fueled with inspiration to tenderize the habitat.
Nurtured to the beat of an impetuous tune, I’m often inspired by their special-interest games. But there’s no chance as a stranger that she knows how they dig — how those old boys can do it from on top of their perch. Lucky for us both, I sense what they can’t — that her unique is unabridged, sonata’d in major:
…T’where the ladies have teeth, she’s pretty in the gums. Confidence in her strut like a filly on the track. Pep in her step, room for a boom, and more likely than not, she cuts her own hair…
I’m not so friendly that she’s drawn in — the desk next to mine has been empty for days. Hair flip and a skip and, bypassing formalities, I’m smothering-out — vice-gripped in a hug.
Our peers, jealous at the tender disruption, let it be known they consider her Strange.
As for me and how I’ll rule my position, my actions will speak, and when they do they’ll say: Intrepidly different, adoringly special, fist like a truck driven by a gorilla…
Robyn.
My friend.
Watch what you say.
Taking her desk to lock-in with cartoons, she’s unaware of the fact that the games have begun.
Getting hit with the bricks that she’ll never make sense of, I’m piling them high to go Masonic on them all: When the teacher leaves to report our attendance, I’ll erupt with the kind of wild aggression that she’ll forever make sense of.
In fact…snap…snap…this is an opportunity…snap…snap…to work on my Hasselhoff… snap…snap…and destroy the great divide…snap…snap…with a little…j-j-j-jitterbug…
Wham! The door hasn’t shut before my backhand makes contact. ‘You put the boom-boom into my heart…’ That’s one.
Taking to my feet to work down the row, the girl won’t get hit, but her desk will flip nice. ‘You send my soul sky-high when your lovin’ starts…’
The Starbright pencil once in her hand — ‘A jitterbug into my brain, yeah-yeah…’ — now protrudes from the head of her brother.
‘It goes a bang-bang-bang until my feet do the same…’ It’s while losing a shoe on his bestie, who’s taken to shelter under a desk — “Think you’re so fuckin’ pretty bitch!?!” — that his girlfriend reminds me there’s a time to use words.
And then it happens. ‘Somethin’s bothering me… somethin’ ain’t right…’ It starts to go dark…and I’m into the black again.
I’ve been here before. It happens anytime I turn a bright spark into a flame. It’s my young body’s way of dealing with an adrenaline overdose. Historically speaking, they’re brought on by rage. I’ll be down for a second, six if you’re counting.
Four.
Five.
Six.
“Is there a problem over here?” Mrs. Rice, “Do I need to break you guys up?” in echo.
Fading back in, eyes on the clock — sixteen seconds have passed: A good ten is all I need. But Mrs. Rice at high-speed only gives three. The rate she moves now might buy another two.
“Maybe you’d like this movie more” — closing in — “if I came over and watched the rest of it with– Patrick!”
And it’s over before it starts. “Your eye again…do you need the nurse?” whispering now.
And her whispers…
Inspires their whispers…
Inspires Robyn. “Ouch!”
Now touching my eye, “OUCH!”
“I’m fine.” And I am. “Except her finger’s in my eye.”
Studying me intently, trying to read the face that Robyn can read in Braille: “Robyn, please take your finger out of his eye.”
She does, and with some hesitation, Mrs. Rice returns to her desk. She’ll not be running our morning attendance now. But looking at my neighbors, they know it was close. Which means for a fact that I’ve ruined their cartoon.
Points: Me.
Watching me watching them, Robyn knows what doesn’t need to be said: From here on out, we’re dutch on the bill. No frills. No gimmicks. Just whatever’s in reach and old fashion erratics.
She reaches over again, with a kiss on her finger, in an aggressive attempt to put the heal on my eye.
“Ouch.” Me.
“Ouch!” nodding her head. Now she’s told me so.
“Nah,” shaking my head.
“Yuh-huh,” nodding hers, faster.
Cute, but, “Nope.”
Hers is turning into a thousand-yard stare. “Uh-huh.” Determination. Grit.
I wait seven, eight, nine, “Huh-uh.”
What!? She doesn’t believe it — is incapable of fathoming. “Uh-HuH.” White knuckles gripping the desk, flames in her eyes.
Steady. Steady. Nonchalant. “Huh-uh.”
Beads of sweat trickle her face. “UH-HUH!”
“Patrick! Robyn!” Mrs. Rice.
I knew it: Time’s been holding her down. If they don’t lift her ceiling, she might just tear up this town. That makes me the one — the one to tell her life ain’t passin’ her by. ‘Dear Jesus on the cross, please give me the strength to show her how to kick off the Sunday shoes.’
It only takes a minute for The Jesus to come back: ‘Well, give it a minute, and then check her retention.’
Acknowledged. I’ll hit her with a juke to see where she’s at. Like a slow clap, I start a new nod. And then, “Psst. Robyn. Uh-huh…”
“PFFFFF! ARRRGH! NUH-UH!!!”
Oh yeah, this chicky puts in work.