Sans Fig Leaf
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"Downhill"
21 April, 2005
My second or third day at Roosevelt Elementary a kid named Joe knocked me to the ground, held me down, and proceeded to stuff snow into my clothes. The first show-and-tell day (the next week, I think), he took the model car I'd brought in and stomped it to bits.
Roosevelt Elementary was a school that believed in corporeal punishment. I mean really believed. So, for trying to stop Joe from completely destroying my model car, I got taken out in the hall and given just as many swats with the big wooden paddle as Joe was given for starting the problem. These weren't gentle little pats, by the way.
Being a well-trained abuse victim thanks to my home life, this put me into full avoidance mode. From then on I did my best not to come to the teacher's attention again.
Joe continued to pick on me in various ways. Some months later, during reading class where we had a different teacher, he did something to me again. I don't really remember what it was, and I don't remember what I said, but I somehow finally touched a nerve, because he suddenly started crying, and ran to the teacher at the front of the room and announced that I had called him a "dirty injun" and had been mean to him for months because I hated Native Americans.
There were several problems with that. The first one being that I didn't know he was Native American. He was lighter-skinned than some of my relatives. Now, one of these relatives was one-half Chickasaw, and the others were one-quarter Cherokee and one-quarter Chickasaw, but at the time I didn't really know that, because the family mostly talked about our French and Irish roots at the time.
The other problem was that, as far as I knew, I had never been mean to him except in self-defense.
It's possible that on my first day at the new school that I inadvertantly said or done something that hurt his feelings, but I don't think that was it. See, I've left one little fact out of the narrative that I believe is crucial. Until I transferred to the school, Joe had been the smallest boy in that grade. Once I arrived, there was finally someone smaller than him that he could pick on.
Roosevelt wasn't the first school I attended that believed in corporeal punishment, but it was the school where it was most prevalent. I witnessed a few incidents that would have resulted in serious criminal charges today--in which even the staunchest arch conservative would agree that things went too far. The punishments were severe and very, very frequent.
It created a climate of violence. There were far more fist fights in that school than I saw at any other school I ever attended. It was little wonder than that the kid who had been smallest for his age for several years would take out his frustrations on the new kid.
That's the way violence is. It never really solves anything. Occasionally it puts a stop to something, but there's always some simmering resentment or desire for revenge just waiting for a chance to burst out.
Joe wasn't the only kid at Rossevelt who picked on me, both verbally and physically, but he's the only one whose face I can recall with any detail. I think the reason why is that moment when I made him cry. It's when I first realized that inside every bully is a puppy that's been kicked a few too many times.