1 post tagged “stories”
My six years at Lafayette Elementary School were, for the most part, a fairly happy experience devoid of too many horrific memories. I had no trouble with bullies, had no behavioral problems and got on well with others. There are some vague memories in the second and third grade time period of being called a girl by some of the more popular boys, but nothing too traumatic and it doesn't seem to have been the start of a trend. Not that I was an especially girly young guy, I like to think, but mainly because for some reason in the first few years of school I tended to spend recess playing house or swinging on the swings with the girls, rather than participating in the hyper-agressive games of dodgeball or socko that the boys would play. And no, I didn't play the role of wife (that was usually Susan Garza) - I generally was either the husband, a son or the family dog.
By fifth grade I had reached the peak of popularity. My best friend was Rick Blakeney, one of the guys in the popular clique, so by default, I had made it in. I was going steady with Susan Garza. "Going Steady" was all the rage in 5th grade. It didn't really mean much, except you had to get up the courage to ask a girl to go steady with you, and then the news rapidly spread of who was going steady with who, but the actual couple hardly spent any time together and there was no hanky panky, although I did kiss Susan on the cheek. Once. And for Christmas of fifth grade we exchanged posters. She gave me a poster of a little old lady sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles and yarn on her lap, hair up in a bun, little old lady glasses sliding down her nose, an afghan over her shoulder, but instead of smiling, she looks mean and with her right hand is giving the finger. The caption says "Have a Nice Day." In return, I gave Susan a poster of a man sitting on a toilet reading the newspaper. The caption read "The Job Isn't Over Until the Paperwork is Done." Classy gifts! Even classier, I had stolen the poster from the restroom at my dad's office. Posters were all the rage back then. So were patches. Everyone had a sweatshirt with as many patches sewn on as possible.
So fifth grade progressed well. I was one of the cofounders (and it was my suggestion), with several of the other popular kids, of the "MSC Club." Which stood for Mixed Sex Club, because it was the first club that wasn't exlusively all boys or all girls - how progressive! Summer came along, and for some reason, I didn't hang out with Rick as much as usual, and didn't have too much contact with anyone from school. And when 6th grade started in the fall, I arrived to a different social landscape. It seemed like Rick wasn't as interested in being friends as he had been - he was associating with a different, scarier group. Susan Garza broke up with me. A couple new kids from the fringes of popularity had moved into the popular group. No one was interested in reviving the MSC Club. A new kid had moved to town, who became my new best friend, Barney. It seemed like I was being shut out of the top echelon of 6th Grade at Lafayette Elementary.
That's why I was thrilled to be invited to a Halloween costume party at Paul Volga's house. He was one of the new guys in the group. Kind of a bully, a little rough around the edges. For some reason I didn't think anything of the fact that the costume party was a full three weeks before Halloween. I just put myself full bore into getting a costume that would impress the group. This was my chance to work my way back in, maybe get the MSC Club going again, maybe even ask Sierra Smith to go steady. I had high hopes for a great costume, but Mom wasn't being too helpful. She thought it would be easiest to go with her old standby, the Fat Farmer. This consisted of a huge pair of overalls with a pillow for a fat stomach, a straw hat, a checkered red and white shirt, and accesorized with the rubber pig that mom kept in the dining room to put in front of anyone who exhibited bad table manners.
So that was it. I was going to the party as a Fat Farmer, with red freckles drawn on my cheeks and nose and a rubber pig under my arm. It was a Friday night. I got into costume, and got into the car for the ride over to Paul Volga's, wondering what everyone else was going to be dressed as. Mom and Dad were going to drop me off on their way to a dinner party. There was a babysitter over for my brother and sister. I was kind of sad to be missing out on the babysitter. I always loved it when babysitters were over, especially on Friday nights because the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family were on, and we were allowed to have popcorn and drink sodas.
The car pulled up to the bottom of the Volga's long driveway. I'd never been here before, but I could see the house at the top of the driveway, and I could hear music. I tucked my pig tightly under my arm, adjusted my hat and trudged toward the house. At the top, as I rang the doorbell and heard the voices of my friends inside over the music, I turned to wave to my parent's as they pulled away on St. Mary's Drive. And the door opened and I stepped into a living room full of 6th graders. And a couple of 7th and 8th graders who I didn't know but assumed must be Paul's brother and his friends. Everyone was sitting around, drinking sodas, eating chips. But what quickly dawned on me was that noone was wearing a costume. And while the music was blaring and everyone was talking, to me the room went silent. I looked around and it seemed that everyone was laughing at me and pointing. I was frantically hsearching to see at least one other person in a costume. My only hope was to find someone like me to go stand by. But there were none. This was a set up. I was the joke of the party. I heard people saying things like "nice freckles!" and "what's up with your pig?" And I could see people saying things to each other but couldn't hear. I could only imagine. But it seemed to me the whole world had turned on me. I was stuck on the other side of town. I didn't know what to do. I looked around for someone I could turn to. But noone was making me feel ok. My closest friends (all girls) were avoiding looking at me. It seemed that all the guys, the Paul Volgas, the Chip McNeils, all of them, were pointing at me and laughing. It felt like I stood there for an hour, when in reality it was probably just two or three minutes, if that. I didn't have it in me to turn this in my favor. I didn't have the confidence, the witty comeback. The guys seemed suddenly older, tougher, meaner. Turning to the girls didn't seem possible in front of them. So I turned and chose what was probably my worst option, the final nail in my social coffin. I turned and ran out the door, and down the long driveway. And I could hear everyone coming outside, could feel them pointing after me and laughing. And I didn't realize it then, but my decision to turn and run (well, it was more of a reaction than a well-thought out decision), probably sealed my deal for years to come.
About halfway down the hill I started crying. There I was, running and crying. On the other side of town. No cell phone to call my parents (they weren't invented yet, not even the huge ten pound versions). And St. Mary's Road is a narrow, busy road with no sidewalks and tons of cars speeding in both directions. And as I ran along the side of the road, on the narrow, dirt shoulder, my red painted on freckles running and my rubber pig dangling at my side, rather than anger, I just felt humililated and heartbroken. I just wanted to be home. And now it was getting dark and it was starting to rain. And I had a long way to go.
The Fat Farmer incident marked a major turning point in my life. It was that night I began a quick descent into what would be years of loneliness as a social outcast. Everyone ignored me when school started on Monday. Barney Treadway was my only friend, and by the end of the year he would be gone, Chevron transferred his dad yet again, this time to Indonesia. I spent the summer before Junior High secluded at home, buried in books. And I showed up for the first day of 7th Grade at Stanley Junior High without a single friend.
