As Luck Would Have It (7 page)

This need to conform at school was constantly being reinforced in all aspects of our lives; our clothes, our hair, our speech, what we read and what we thought were all programmed into us, producing, they hoped anyway, young clones that would not question the mores and values that they cherished.  And nowhere was drifting from the norm more dangerous or more thoroughly loathed than from one's perceived gender role.  Psychologists had only begun to explore sex roles and gender stereotypes by the mid 1970s and the topic was totally absent from our curriculum and realm of discussion.  To the degree that the civil rights activists had paved the way for the now swelling feminist and gay rights movements, we were not supposed to be aware of it apparently and the subject was off limits.

*****

Jamie Dobbs was a greaser with a wicked mean streak.
 
I didn’t know much about him other than that his older brother
Chuck
had been expelled from high school because he showed up one day with a knife and threatened to use it on a particular teacher that gave him a bad grade or maybe a bad time.  Jamie led a small group of similarly minded punks
who
wandered the school in search of easy prey; apparently thinking they'd found it in Joseph.  I had overheard Jamie before making unflattering remarks about my friend, but we had managed to stay out of his way for most of our first semester.

Hey Andrews, is that your new girlfriend?
 
There he was behind us in the hall with two of his slimy-looking friends.  Classes had just ended for the day and the school was thinning out now, with just a few students scattered around and heading for the nearest exit.  He was an eighth grader and bigger than me.  I was afraid of him and we were more or less cornered and with no teachers to be found.  This was typical actually; once that final bell went off, the teachers were done with having to deal with us and we were on our own.  They scattered like
rats in the headlights
after 3:00 if they could and all the rules they had set in place that might possibly come in handy at a time like this were mysteriously suspended until the next morning.  I noticed that Joseph looked a little pale and was shaking slightly; I knew that he was scared by now, but I also knew that he would stand up to them if he had no other choice and would never run away to leave me to fend off these creatures alone.

Leave him alone, Jamie.  What's the matter, the little fag can't speak? 
Damn it,
I said leave him the
hell
alone.
 
I saw someone just then out of the corner of my eye; it was Mr. Strickmann coming towards us with a menacing look that for once I almost welcomed. 
W
hat did I hear you say Andrews?  You're a trouble maker, you know that?
 
Me?  How was I a trouble maker?  The worst thing I'd done was getting sent to his office for cracking a joke in
homeroom
; what
felony
had I committed by trying to drop a little humor into this stifling crater of a school?  You and Joseph both get your butts down to my office right now.  Jamie, you get your friends out of here and go home and let your mothers take care of you.

Oh great, w
e were going to get detention or maybe worse and the little storm troopers were being sent home to their mommies.
Strickmann called our parents, but only Mrs. Klein was home and she was flustered and confused when she showed up to take Joseph home, wondering I'm sure what I had done to get
her son
into such trouble.  She offered to drive me, but I told her I wanted to walk.  I saw that Joseph had been crying a little and I didn't see the need for him to suffer any further embarrassment just then.  There would be plenty of time for that over the next two and a half years.

Many things changed in middle school, not all of them bad.  In elementary school we had recess every day, our opportunity to go outside, weather permitting and just play wherever and with whoever we wanted to.  It was free time basically and unstructured.  It was as much of a break for the teachers as it was for us.  Now, a totally new and fascinating institution had emerged called gym class; intriguing in both its complex function and formalized structure.  If the school was like being in a prison, gym was like being in the army.  Uniforms were mandatory, no exceptions, and we had to stand in line for inspection, yes really, at the start of every class to make sure our uniforms were clean and otherwise to specifications.  The only thing missing was the M16.  Mr. Galloway, a good guy at heart, would bark out the orders just like a drill sergeant.

ATTENTION!   DRESS RIGHT!  AT EASE!  SOUND OFF, GENTLEMAN!

He always referred to us collectively as gentleman and individually by our last name only.  We each had an assigned number, which corresponded to the place in the inspection line where we stood.  We would sound off by yelling out our numbers in order and any silence would mean someone was absent and that person's number and name would be recorded on Mr. Galloway's clipboard and in that way, the attendance was always accurate and official.  Joseph would giggle sometimes during the inspection, his 13 year-old mind fully recognizing how ludicrous it all was.  I had to struggle sometimes to keep from cracking up. 

KLEIN, STEP FOR
W
ARD, DROP AND GIVE ME 20!

This was very serious stuff and no goofing off was permitted.  Some of you, who may have either been excused from gym class for whatever reason, or otherwise experienced something quite different at the school you attended, may think that this could not have happened the way I've described, but many of you undoubtedly can relate to my experience and you know then that I could not be making this up and that I am not exaggerating.  The activities varied from day to day and from season to season.  Sometimes we'd do calisthenics, play basketball, or learn gymnastics.  When it was warm, we'd actually get to play softball once in awhile, which of course I loved because Mr. Galloway was not the lunatic that Mr. McMullen was and he put me in the outfield where I belonged.  Unfortunately however,
sometimes
with minimal regard for the
weather
,
Mr. Galloway could prove to be quite a lunatic and would make us run instead.  He believed that running built both stamina and character in young gentleman, so we ran at least
a mile and a half
, which we hated.

But we did not hate Mr. Galloway because underneath the tough guy act, he had more class than
most
of the other teachers.  He was patient with the less athletic guys who could never make a free throw, and he went easy on the unfortunate ones in gymnastics who were tortured by the rings or parallel bars.  He saw some athletic potential in me and encouraged me to try out for the JV baseball team, which I declined for reasons you already know.  He knew that I loved football and though I was too small to play, he offered up the equipment manager's position to me on the ninth grade varsity team, which he coached.  That was an honor I readily accepted; me a punk seventh grader on the bench with the best athletes in the school, with the cheerleaders hanging out nearby or performing their routines for the crowd in front of the home team
stands
.

And the following season after the unimaginable tragedy that left me numb and nearly immobile, sometimes for days at a time, when I was invisible to the other teachers who preferred to pretend I was not there, when the school counselor's ideas had run dry, Mr. Galloway would find me sitting alone in the library and would talk about how badly the Bears were doing that season without Gayle Sayers, and he would invite me to have dinner with his family, who were very kind and always supportive.  So when I tell you that I hated middle school, you will understand that I did not hate all of it, because there were people like the Galloways who refused to abandon me during those years and they gave
whatever
they had or could dream up that in some way might help to get me through them.

I guess I would have to say that Joseph's experiences in school were mixed as well.  Despite his somewhat slight stature and occasional flamboyance, I knew of a toughness and determination inside of him that might not be
all that
obvious to others.  A lot of the guys avoided him, not because of anything Joseph did, but rather due to their own insecurities and their need to conform, as we've said, no matter what.  But his openness and amiability were refreshing and there was a confident style and sense about him that was comforting and attracted people to him.  He made friends much more readily than I did, especially with the girls, who were drawn to his somewhat sensitive nature, and of course they were not likely to feel threatened by him and were largely immune from any fear, although perhaps not from concern for what others might think about him.

He wasn't handsome exactly, but a slightly chipped tooth and a crooked smile gave his face a distinctive look, and his wavy
reddish
hair had a way of flopping itself down over his forehead, causing him to have to flip it back and out of the way with some regularity.  Sure, the girls loved to hang around him and I certainly wasn't about to raise any objection to that.  Some of their attention and fondness for Joseph was bound to bounce off him and quite possibly onto whoever was nearby, meaning me.  Like everyone else, we migrated into our little cliques where we felt most comfortable and connected; seemingly the ideal situation for my friend and me and the best of all worlds, in a perfect world that is, which this one was not.  The undercurrent of anger and resentment was always there, a nagging and pervasive feeling that there would be a price to pay for all of this, that there were those around us whose dislike for Joseph would eventually surface and whose actions would force us to retreat and to rethink how we felt about each other and what it all meant.

Joseph didn't
seem to
resent the oppressive rules of the school the way I did and though he would often agree that some of our teachers were basically useless, he refrained from ex
hibiting
much
lack of respect for them
, even if I persisted in doing it.
  This was smart on his part because he understood that resistance was a no win proposition; we were the prisoners and they were the guards, and for him, avoiding confrontation would prove a better strategy.  Besides, he had no choice but to pick his battles carefully and whatever confusion or frustration that I felt in school was trivial compared to the issues that he now for the first time had to sift through.  I was just beginning to understand in a real way what he had to face and what might lie ahead, and though bigger questions were to emerge in the coming years, things we could never have imagined back then, two questions were right there in front of us; how was he going to survive in this environment, and what would I do or not do to help save him?

We were not going to
wait long for the answer, at least with regard to the second question.  School was out for our four-day Thanksgiving
break
and we bolted from our last class that Wednesday afternoon before the holiday.  Mom was planning a big meal on Thursday, with 15 or so
of our relatives
invited,
an
d I told her I'd come right from school to help her with some of the mundane chores; bringing the folding chairs from the basement, rinsing and drying the china that hadn't been out of its cabinet since last Easter, and generally offering some company and support as she worked away in the kitchen.  She'd already started the day before with the three pumpkin pies and the scrumptious sweet potato and marshmallow casserole awaiting their cue in the refrigerator.

We were cutting across the field behind the school when quite suddenly Jamie and company materialized like banshees.
Where you going girls?  We're going home if it's any of your business.  Come on Clifford, I want to go.  Going to suck each other off more likely.  We tried to keep moving, but the four of them formed a circle around us and were very close.  I looked around but couldn't see any immediate way out of our predicament, this time the bad-tempered Mr. Strickmann was either on his way home for the holiday or bullying some kid whose situation would have seemed almost welcome to us if we could have somehow switched places with him.

I tried to walk past Jamie, but as I brushed by him, he shoved me backwards right into two of his foul looking friends.  That's when the greasiest looking of the group decided to take a swing at Joseph that sent him to his rear end.  I tore right into his rancid face, connecting a couple of times pretty good before he could recover enough to fight back.  We went at it for probably 15 seconds before he started to stagger backwards as I seemed to be getting the best of him.  He finally went to the ground right before I felt someone holding my right shoulder and arm behind me, then the blunt force of several blows from the biggest of Jamie's crusty friends, the last one landing solidly on the left side of my face
just
below my eye.  I was on the grass now in pain barely able to see Jamie kicking at Joseph's midsection through the blood that was running into my eyes.  I rolled over and tried to get up to help him, but I was seized by a wave of dizziness and nausea; I could only keep trying to breathe in more air and attempt to fight off the vertigo.  Then, as quickly as they appeared, I heard them laughing as they seemingly vaporized like some strange ghouls back to whatever hell they inhabited.