Friday, April 18, 2008

• Sticks and Stones

  This is one of those stream of conciousness, reminiscing posts that risks wandering into narcisism.  Just thought I'd warn you.  Normally I catch myself halfway through writing such things and delete them before they see the light of day.  But I figure maybe someone can identify with this stuff, maybe even encourage them a bit, so I'll try to resist the urge this time.

   

  Thinking about getting picked on.  Right now I would say I've reached the point in life where I don't really feel like I'm proving anything to anyone.  Not talking about a spurt of self-confidence that's barely hiding, if at all, the iceberg of self-doubt that's just waiting for the next insult to come bobbing back up.  It's the kind of thing you eventually find yourself going along and it fades into your thinking and you say, "Huh.  Well, this is a good thing.  Kinda nice."  Then go back to whatever it is you're doing.  Unless you decide to  make a blog post out of it.  Or book.  Not motivated or talented enough for a book.  This will do.  My point is, it's not a huge "A-HA!" moment where birds sing sweeter, the sun shines brighter, and you doodle happy faces everywhere.  That's probably a sign that you haven't actually gotten there yet.  I've had my share of false starts too.

  So what do you say about it then?  I guess one option would be to look back on the messy road that got me here, consider some of the possible reasons why it took so long.  Until we actually get here (listen to this.  I'm really sounding like "Hey, I've arrived.  Check it out".  Not really.  Please bear with me), it's amazing how many different things we think will enable us to reach it.  The right person coming into our life.  The right job.  The right list of success stories.  But it misses the point.  You're still trying to prove something.  I'm not talking about getting something that proves anything.  I'm talking about being able to set aside that need all together.  I can name a number of ways I thought I could reach it.  But that's a boring discussion...

  So what does any of this have with getting picked on?  Told you this would wander all over the place.  Very close to that delete key right now.  I guess because it was a lot of what happened very early on for me that really fixed this craving to prove myself in my thinking.  Getting picked on.  Mercilessly. 

  I grew up a short, skinny white kid in an all-black neighborhood.  Okay, 98% black.  Inner city I guess.  Let's put aside racism here for a sec, okay?  Dad was still a drunk at the time and worked a lot.  We never wrestled, played ball, etc.  No, I am not commiserating on my lost childhood here.  Just setting a stage.  Point is, we never did that stuff you see lions do on Discovery channel, where the cubs 'play fight', but actually it's a very important means of learing the skills and confidence necessary later on.  What this means is I grew up scared.  And scared is something that really does show up on your face, your walk, your posture.  Very easy to spot.  In a neighborhood like mine, you may as well walk naked down the street with a bullseye on your chest.  But it wasn't just black kids.  Plenty of white kids at school. 

  Some examples of what happens to bullseye kids: getting cornered a lot.  In bathrooms, locker rooms, walking home from school.  I quickly figured out at least five alternate routes.  You get things thrown at you fairly often.  One place I hated: public pools.  Went there pretty often as a kid.  I remember getting cornered in the changing room by about fifteen kids.  They tried to tear off my shorts, presumably to then force me to run out into the pool area naked, in front of about a hundred other kids.  An adult walked in and broke it up. 

  Got sent to summer day camp once.  We were all supposed to be taking swimming lessons.  I remember everyone else being at the far side of the pool (which in memory looks about 500 yards across.  Probably only 20).  There I am, by myself on the shallow end, on tippy toe trying to pretend that I'm swimming so the instructor will leave me alone and we can get out of there.  Everyone else is standing at the other end shouting and catcalling telling me to hurry up.

  I was in boyscouts.  12 years old.  One kid, Chris, seemed to have it out for me.  I remember we were in a van (his dad's, I think.  One of those big ones with no seats or anything in back).  He wanted to fight me.  Three other kids there.  Never did take a swing.  Another confirmation that Jim is the wus of the group.  Had a bunch of similar situations.  Usually praying feverishly that an adult would show up so I wouldn't get creamed.  Then there was Cecil.

  I was 13.  Walking down the street with a couple friends one day when a kid named Cecil and his cousin walk up and he starts claiming I stole his bike (which I didn't).  It was just a pretext.  Again, bullseye in plain view.  For about ten minutes he tried to get me to fight.  I just froze up.  Wouldn't fight.  Not out of principle, mind you.  Just afraid of pain.  To top it off, my two friends disappeared.  I figured the embarassment was too much for them.  So finally I negotiated with the kid: if you don't beat me up I'll give you a bike, but it's at my house.  He thought for a sec, then decided yeah, why not?  Get a free bike, and I'll either beat you up then or just wait until I see you again.  Maybe then you'll have something else to give me.  So we started walking.  Got to where my friends' house was, and he runs out with a BB rifle, threatening to shoot Cecil (there were about six other kids with Cecil by this time).  My friend's dad comes out and makes him back down.  Doesn't grab me or anything.  No idea why.  Maybe he hoped too that I'd get a backbone at some point.  In any case, I didn't try to hide in their house.  Just stood there.   Besides, a plan was starting to form in my head...

  So we kept walking, Cecil running his mouth about what he's gonna do to me if I try anything, blah blah.  Then we get to my street and round the corner.

  Here's the scene: it's summer, so everyone is out on their porch or tossing a ball/frisbee in the road.  Fairly late in the evening.  I'd lived on this street now for a few years, so I knew pretty much everyone, they knew me, and I had a couple good friends there.  One of them, Eddie, spots me walking down the street with about 12 black kids (yes, they were all black).  Now, this was unusual in a very obvious way.  In my neighborhood, it wasn't a racism thing (we had black kids on our street too).  It's just that you had your various groups, and you just didn't mix much.  A territorial thing, I'd say, rather than a race thing.  So he walks up and asks what's up.  Now, Eddie is not afraid to fight.  Cecil gets in his face, tries to egg him on.  Eddie declines, but it's obvious this is only temporary because of sheer numbers.  We exchange looks, and he heads back to his house.  Now things kick into gear.  Cecil and Co.  know they're in foreign, and unfriendly, territory (you're starting to see my plan now, right?).  They start grabbing sticks, rocks, bottles, etc.  You see people running into their houses to grab stuff too.  We get to my house.  Everyone is on a knife edge, waiting to see who starts something first.  I tell Cecil that the bike is in my house.  So he walks with me up the driveway while his buddies wait in a huddle.  Upstairs, in our apartment, our dog, Sam, is barking ferosciously.  BTW, Sam was a boxer and a great guard dog by nature.  We go in the back door, I don't turn on the hall light.  Cecil is getting nervous, but for some reason doesn't figure out he's being led into a trap.  We get up the stairs and to the door to the apartment.  I just open the door wide open.

  As soon as Sam sees Cecil's face he lunges at him.  They go tumbling down the stairs and out the back door.  I run into my room and grab a pellet pistol I had stashed there.  When I get outside, Cecil is jumping up onto a parked car, Sam is trying to get to him, and all his buddies are scattered.  People from the neighborhood are chasing them left and right, throwing stuff and yelling.  My dad comes out just as I'm tearing down the driveway with what looks to everyone (it was almost dark) like a real handgun.  He didn't know I even owned such a thing.  As soon as Cecil hears, "Jimmy, gimme that gun!" he figures it's better to be bit than shot and jumps off the car and tears down the street.  My dad finally grabs me, the gun, and the dog.  Cecil stands at the corner shouting how he's gonna get me, gets about three bottles thrown at him, and someone chases him off.  My dad just stands there in shock. 

  If that gun had been real, I probably would have used it.  No.  I know I would have.  Every time I hear about a school shooting, some kid blowing away other kids, I hear all kinds of people asking, "How could this happen?"

  It really isn't that hard to understand.  If you only knew.  If you only knew how many thousands of kids come so close to the same thing.  You'd never send your kid to school. 

  After that incident, about a month later Cecil caught me walking home from school.  I ran across the street, ducked into a diner, and literally hid under the dishwasher in the kitchen until the cook found me and kicked me out.  By that time Cecil was gone. 

  But that incident on my street was a turning point.  It wasn't long before I realized that cowering wasn't an option anymore.  Fortunately, when a person undergoes an epiphany like that, it seems to show up, just like fear does, on their demeanor.  I didn't have too many moments of humiliation after that.  But now phase two started: how to prove that I'm not that shivering, frightened kid anymore.  It would take more than one incident to convince myself otherwise.

  And so the rest of my life until maybe a few years ago.  All the dumb, destructive things a person does to prove himself.  Prove he can drink like the other guys.  Prove he can get a pretty girl.  Find a 'talent' that impresses people and develop it.  In my case it was guitar.  Join the army and prove I can handle it.  Make money and show I'm a 'winner'.  Read lots of books and show how 'smart' I am now.  You get the point.

  And then one day it's over.  Not because I finally found a beautiful, wonderful wife.  Not because I'm now the father of a captivating, charming, and irresistably adorable little girl.  Not because there's a deed to a house with my name on it, two nice cars in the driveway, and plenty of grown up toys.  Not because I have a growing friends list on Facebook or a fair number of subs to this site. 

  Because I know Him.  The common thread in everything I described above can be found in a single word: fear.  I know Him.  There is no longer any reason to fear.

  There is a painting by Rembrandt titled "Storm on the Sea of Galilee".  A framed print of it hangs in our den, right above the computer I'm sitting at now.  I've had that print now for about 8 years.  If you're wondering what it is I'm talking about here, go find that painting, and really look at it.  And tell me what you find there.

   

  Well would you look at that.  I hit the save button instead of delete.

  • 5:26 AM
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