You Don't Have To Read This: Bullying

 

                You Don't Have To Read This: A Short Series of Personal Reflections

                                                        Bullying

    When I was in second (or third) grade, the following true story happened.

    I was playing at Jewell park. There is a little duck lake there with a small playground my siblings and I grew up playing on. One summer day, two older boys were at the pond. One blondeish and one with brown hair. They were chucking rocks at the ducks.

    Without hesitation, I marched my ugly self over there---one moment, let's get a picture. I looked almost exactly like Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon: more freckles, worse hair cut, some where between her and Opie Taylor. We both grew into beautiful women---Tatum and I, not Ron Howard- so no reason to stop reading or sputter to reverse "You weren't ugly" because I was. It's OK. I'm good and now you have a visual.

    The boys were in fifth or sixth grade at the Patterson Main Building. I was still a tyke at the Patterson Cottages, which housed K-3. In fourth grade I had to schlep to the main building, but at this time, I walked a few blocks to school.

    So I marched over to the bigger boys and shouted at them to stop being dicks to the ducks.

    OK, so maybe I didn't use my teenaged spicy mohawk vocab. I said "Stop throwing rocks at the ducks." I know my demeanor suggests I was shouting "Don't be a dick" in the second grade, but I was not. I did not use foul language.

    Now, they stopped, but not because I told them. They stopped because I was the new target.

    Only a few pebbles were lacklusterly thrown---even a small person is more risky than a duck. So there was little heart in it, they just wanted me to leave. When I didn't move, they tossed another pebble into the pond and moved on.

    This is not the end of the story.

    My walking route to the Cottages took me directly by the blonde boy's house. Daily. I could have walked on the other side of the narrow suburban street but he would have seen me. He stood at his window and waited. Daily. With his buddy. 

    As soon as I came into view, they'd emerge. They wouldn't start yelling until they were on the sidewalk outside of the house--their parents might hear them, I guess? As soon as they were behind me, keeping a distance that was close enough for me to hear but far enough not to touch me, they'd start bellowing. "Duck Lady! Duck Lady!"

    This went on for at least a year. Either their schedule changed or they no longer cared. But at some point, they just stopped. One day I walked past the house and it was quiet, the door shut.  I went on with my life. Which includes my pride at standing up to duck bullies, and persevering their verbal torment on the way to school.

__________________________________________________________________________

    The year before, the playground bully Ricky Garcia had started in on me. I had a brown bodysuit and skirt combo I absolutely loved--largely because it was not underwear, it was a BODY SUIT and I could flip on the monkey bars.

    Until Ricky decided it was underwear, and began to bellow that kryssi had BROWN UNDERWEAR!

___________________________________________________________________________

    I attended O'Connell Jr High in 7th grade only. Most of my Patterson friends were with me, and I continued choir and band at first. Then the schedule changed and I had to choose. I chose choir.

    I also chose to love Mork and Mindy and the Beatles. My mom bought me Mork suspenders which I wore with Great Glee, accompanied by striped socks. I'd roll up my pant legs and sing "Yellow Submarine" with my friends in the halls. 

    I was not aware that this behavior enraged the popular girls. I was shouldered, pushed into lockers and called names. At one point, they lined up at the end of the hall to block my path. When I told my mom, she contacted the AP,  whose name I recall as being "Mr. Green" who told her I was making it up. When it continued, she scheduled an appointment with him. He wanted names. I didn't know all their names. The ones I passed on through mom apparently "Didn't exist", and besides I was asking for it. I really should just shut up and stop calling attention to myself. That's why I was being bothered, he said. In the same breath that he said I was making it up he said I brought it on myself. I needed to stop being...me.

    Instead, I continued. I participated in the talent show with my friend Karen, performing a silly song, while the popular girls---clad in tight Jordache jeans and scarves, dancing to "Le Chic"---mocked me from the wings. Not just mocked---threatened. They flipped their brown hair and stabbed me with their brown eyes and laughed, pointed, whispered "we're going to get you", etc. I had not seen West Side Story by this time in my life, when I saw it later it would cause PTSD. After the talent show, I was pushed in front of a moving car on my way to the school bus.

    I can't say this is why we sold the house and moved, but mom and dad sold the house and we moved. I did eighth grade at Dunstan, where my weirdness didn't seem to upset anyone.

     I don't have any patience for bullying.

                                Scene.