kids are assholes
and i was a kid
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I had this pair of “raver” pants with ribbons coming out the sides in middle school. They were metallic silver on top of cerulean blue. And the pants were made of parachute material. One morning, Chris B zipped by, ripped the ribbons off, and ran around the commons waving them like a flag he’d captured. A bunch of kids egged him on. Clapping and laughing, celebrating my humiliation and his bravado. I pretended to be unaffected. Like it was just another straw on the pile. But in truth, it sucked.
Later, before math, I saw a group of students entering another room that I knew to be a class for kids struggling academically. Having just seen Chris's ribbon dance's adoration and success while picking on me, I thought I could regain some social-footing by going after the low-hanging fruit. I shouted down the hall at one of the kids in that class, John, in a sing-songy mocking way, “someone’s in a special claaaass.” He immediately snapped back, “I’ll see you after school…”. The Jefferson Middle School seventh-graders around me erupted with a din of “oooooh shit!!”.
John was going to kick my ass, and my blood ran hot with fear.
Why did I pick on him of all people? John was literally a third-year eighth-grader. This dude was straight-up old in comparison to the rest of us. And his reputation preceded him. He was always in trouble, fighting, allegedly arrested. But I didn’t actually know him. I don’t think I’d ever even spoken to the kid, much less been friends with him or asked him about all the rumors I’d heard. And yet, there I was starting shit. Shit that didn’t need to be started.
After school that day, I got my bike from the rack as usual, and I started toward home. I made it not even one street away before I approached a group of boys that included John. As he saw me, he pointed and said, “there he is!”. The kids started chasing me and a survival instinct kicked in (flight) as I pedaled the bike to get home. I only lived about half a mile from the middle school, so the ride wasn’t really that long but crossing the few streets I had to and worrying that I would be beaten to a pulp made the ride feel like a millennium.
This went on for the better part of two years. Every day after school, I held onto my guts as tightly as possible, waiting for this little white gang to hunt me. The childish freedom of riding around on my bike that I’d felt growing up became a thing of the past. I lived in constant fear of running into John or the other boys from my grade.
For a while, it was bad. I didn’t always get away fast enough and sometimes I got jumped by these kids. Beaten up in the drainage ditches on Tropical Trail or punched in the middle of the hallway when I didn’t even know they were even around. I got called a faggot. A lot. A lot. …I could write a thousand essays.
It even got to the point that I needed help getting home safely. My brother, who is about three years older than me, came to get me from school several times. Once he rode his own bike and, in a move of glory, literally put himself between these kids and me so I could get a bit of distance. It was some real-life hero shit. And another time, my aunt sat across the street in her car to watch and make sure I got home safely. On most days, though, I went to the band room while waiting for the streets to clear so that I could make it home without incident. I became very close with my teacher Ms. Broadway (yep, her real name). I ended up learning three instruments (tuba, stand-up bass, and bass guitar) to a decent level of proficiency before I left JMS because of her willingness to keep the doors open for me.
In high school, things got a bit better. I had a girlfriend that gave me strength, I improved my friendships, found love of theatre, and slowly let go of the taunting. I also dyed my hair, pierced myself with safety pins, and fully embraced the dawn of Hot Topic culture. Self-distancing was pretty easy. Things got better each year and, though the nickname of “faggot” still comes back around now and again, I’m doing just fine.
I make no excuses for the things those kids did to me, but it’s hard not to wonder what life would have been like if things were not so painful during that formative time. More specifically, what would it have been like if I had not started it by taunting John for no reason? It only took one sentence on one day to start years of stress, pain, fighting, anger, fear…what if I’d just gone to math class?
I was an idiot for saying what I said to him. It was an awful thing to say, and I shouldn’t have said it all. But it has been a long time since seventh grade, so I try not to carry around true regrets for the stupid things I did as an actual child.
The biggest positive to come from my spewing of those stupid words is that their impact taught me that words could be truly hurtful to others. And that words have consequences.
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