Authors: Patrick Connolly
The summer is coming but it is still a ways off. Maybe I can escape Bob somehow until then. I have never seen him around on the weekends so he must live in another small nearby town like Vestal or in the country. Many kids that attend Saint Ambrose come from miles away because their parents drive them to school every day to attend a parochial school. If I am lucky, I may not see Bob this summer, either.
It is now Monday, and I am walking to school. On the way, I run into Donald and his friends and they each give me a punch on the arm. They just want to remind me that I am at the bottom and they are at the top, in terms of popularity. They just like to show their superiority. The punches are not that hard or painful but they do create another type of resentment inside me. This happens quite often, at least every time I see them while walking to school. Arriving at the block across the street from the schoolyard, there was Bob waiting next to the door, again, but since he has not seen me yet, I quickly walk down the street and cross over near the second main entrance doorway on the other side of the building. Taking this route means, I will have to walk a ways down the second floor hallway but that is better than feeling another punch. As I enter the doorway one of the Sisters said, “You should be going in the other door!” Ignoring her, I enter quickly, walk rapidly up the staircase and make the long walk to my classroom. Great, I do not see Bob upstairs. He is still probably looking for me downstairs. Quickly, I go to my seat in the second row and wait for Sister Honorine to start the class. Phew, I made it.
As the day progresses, I am proud of myself because I ducked the bully this morning and did not run into him at lunchtime, either. Maybe I can still keep missing him. I have to because he is going to hurt me a lot, if he gets the chance, for hitting him last week. The day is going well, but now it is almost time to leave and, unfortunately, I do not have to go to detention today.
Our class ends a couple of minutes before the bell rings, so Sister Honorine tells us to stay in our seats until we hear the bell. She was busy talking to some other students about their assignments so I got up from my seat and walked very quietly toward the door. The bell rang and I raced out the door and quickly went down two short flights of stairs to the first floor. Kids are starting to come out of the first-floor classrooms but I manage to get ahead of most of them. Racing out of the front door I go to the cross walk and there was no traffic coming in either direction. I run across the street and up the block. I have to get at least as far as the Boys Club where I will be safe, I thought.
Even though I was carrying a few books, I walked and ran as fast as I could up the block. I got to the second block and only had one more block to go to get inside the Boys Club, and safety. I heard something behind me. I look and it is Bob. I run as fast as I can across the street and get to the Boys Club front lawn just as Bob tackles me. I fall on the grass and he sits on me and starts punching me in the stomach, chest and slapping me in the face. I start crying and he begins laughing. After laughing and beating on me for what seemed like forever, he got up and walked away back towards the school with his friends, howling with laughter.
This kind of experience is typical of each of my days recently. Over the years, the violence has been consistent but increasing every year. This is the worst year of my life. I will find some way of dealing with these people no matter what, even if it means that somebody dies.
After dinner, in my room, I tell myself repeatedly, that I have to change this feeling of fear into anger, so I will not be scared all the time. At the same time, I am thinking how this strategy could possibly work. Somehow, I know it will, but I do not know how long it will take. Feel that fear, Pat? Now feel anger. Get mad. I felt some anger and quickly hit the back of the door of my bedroom with my fist. My mother yells from the kitchen, “What you doing in there? Stop that!” I get very quiet. I did feel a little anger, just then, but I know I am a long way from turning that feeling of overpowering fear that I feel every day in my entire body, into anything else.
I know I have to take aggressive action to make these people, like Rick and Bob, stop bullying me and am feeling that I may have to do something very violent to accomplish this. Yes, I can just fix it somehow so I will not wake up some morning and then I will be away from the bullies forever, but that would mean they won. The pain and the fear is so bad now that, if I was in the old west, I could get a sidearm and, as Colonel Colt said, “The Colt pistol makes all men equal.” Unfortunately, I am not in the old west. I could just bring my gun to school one day and shoot the bastards. On the other hand, I could be sick one day, hide in the bushes across from the school and shoot the bullies Bob and Rick when they leave for home. Well, before I go there, let me see how the strength building and jujitsu work for me, if it does. If this exercise and jujitsu does not help me, maybe I will have no choice.
Thinking of my choices, over the past three years, in the Boy Scouts, I earned a marksmanship merit badge. When mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday last January, I asked for a .22 rifle, and we bought a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle from Sears Roebuck. It is my favorite possession other than my bicycle and baseball glove and sometimes I find myself staring at it in the corner of the closet wondering how I can use it to get rid of the bullies in my life for good. Yes, I could always shoot myself, too, but, even though I have thought about it, I will not. I will find another way and will consider all options regardless of the consequences.
I feel the fear and it is worse than ever. My whole body is shaking while I stand in my bedroom wondering what will happen tomorrow and how I am going to live through it. Whatever happens in the future, I am not ready yet but I know that I will be more than ready, some day.
In spite of everything going on and my increased desperation, the school year is moving on. This feeling of dread, mixed with the other powerful surges of sexual energy, occupies my thoughts and attention for the whole day, every day. I am relieved to hear from other boys that I was not the only one experiencing these new feelings, that some of their parents told them it was just part of growing up. Other kids would show me their boners in the rest room and tell me that for them, it was always that way, every day. “What do you do about it?” I asked. “Just rub it and think of Elizabeth’s breasts”, was the reply. I already knew about that strategy to get rid of this feeling, but, even at three times a day, it only works for just a little while and then all those feelings come back again.
The next day, I am in the boys’ rest room on our break. I stand next to Fred at the urinals and we are both relieving ourselves. Fred showed me his boner, and said,
“Did you see Barbara Taylor’s breasts today? The uniform she is wearing really shows them off!”
I reply, “Yeah, her breasts look really great today. Fred, what do you think “having sex” means?” I asked. Fred gave me his theory, that having sex had “something to do with girls ears”. I know that is not right because I have looked into both my Sisters and Mothers ears and I knew I could not get a boner in there. We both zipped up and went to our next class, Religion. I guess Fred does not know any more about it than I do.
Sister Honorine stands in front of the classroom as we take our seats. Fred was in the third row and I was in the second but our desks were right next to each other across a small aisle. When the class was ready, Sister Honorine said,
“Today we are going to have Father O’Malley come in and speak to the boys so we are going to have all the girls come with me to another classroom down the hall. Get up now and come with me, all girls in this class. Come on.”
The girls all stood up and slowly left the room with Sister Honorine. Fred and I saw Barbara Taylor in her tight fitting uniform get up and get in line to leave the room. Fred and I both watched her as she left. When she went out the door, Fred and I looked at each other and grinned.
At that moment Fred and I were grinning about Barbara, Father O’Malley came into the room, walked to the front of the room and slammed a book on the desk.
“Quiet, you boys! We have something to talk about today of great importance.” Appearing very upset and agitated for some reason, he seemed to look directly in Fred and my direction and went on,
”You are probably going to be familiar with today’s topic. In these days, we hear this awful music called Rock and Roll everywhere. Some of these songs are immoral and you need to know this, if you ever want to go to heaven! For example, one very popular song out there is the height of immorality! The name of this song is, Standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by, but then it goes on with the words, You can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking or that wild look in your eye. Well, you boys need to understand that,” He suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs“, you might not go to jail but you can still GO TO HELL for what you are thinking!”
I looked at Fred and he looked back at me with a very scared expression on his face. Oh my God, Father O’Malley knows what we were thinking! That fear of going to hell came into my stomach. We sat very still, with our hands clasped, looking straight ahead, as he went on. “Another really immoral rock and roll star, demonstrates how vulgar the music is, by swiveling his hips in a suggestive manner while singing.” Fred and I both knew who this was, it was Elvis Presley but I really did not know why Elvis swiveling his hips was “suggestive”. Father continued in a very loud rant about rock and roll music and why it should be banned and how it was going to “pave the way to hell” for all the boys in this room. The room was very quiet while Father continued to speak for almost thirty minutes on this subject. Fred looked very worried at the end of the talk. I knew how he felt, because I felt the same way.
When Father ended the talk, he said,
“Now we are going to ask the girls to come back into the classroom and Sister can continue with the scheduled instruction.” The girls started coming back in the room. Many had their heads down, some seemed to be blushing and a few of them seemed to search the faces of some of the boys for a hint of what went on in our private session. Evidently, they had just received a female version of what we just went through with the shouting and ranting Priest.
I know that many other boys my age are also very confused over why we have the overwhelming feelings in our chest, crotch, erections, and share a never-ending interest in the body parts of the females. It is a huge mystery and no one seems to want to tell us about what all this means. The only thing that they would occasionally say was that “making love” was only for marriage and that no one should “make love” unless they are married to each other. The main problem is that I do not even know what “making love” really means. If I had a Daddy, I would ask him. I do not have a Daddy, and I do not dare ask Grandpa.
One day, I heard one of the other kids say," Getting a boner and having all these feelings are just part of becoming a man”. I think he said that his Daddy told him that. Whatever the reason is for all these feelings, they seem somehow related to this noticeable change in behavior in boys my age.
One of the biggest examples of this sudden change in behavior is the son of one of my customers for the paper that I have to collect from twice a month. They have a kid who is a little older than I am and very tall. During the past two years, when I came to the door, he would just simply go get his mother to come and pay me. Now, when I go to his home he grabs me by the shirt and slaps me in the face two or three times. On the other hand, he may punch me in the chest or stomach if his Mom is not nearby. Like many kids I know, he has changed and this is bad for me.
It makes me very scared just going to his door to collect for the newspaper that I leave at his house six days a week. What makes it worse now, is that his mother is not home much of the time and I have to come back to his door two or three times, until she is at home. This is scary, because most of the time my paper route is an escape from the daily bullying that I experience at school. This is just another terrifying situation I have to worry about every two weeks and I do not know what I am going to do, but I have to do something.
One day in class, we are studying Geometry and Sister was talking about something called an “isosceles triangle”. If you take a regular, evenly shaped triangle and draw a line from the top point of the triangle down to the base where it splits the base evenly, and then take away one half of the triangle you now have an Isosceles triangle. What this means, according to the teacher, is if the distance from the lower sharp corner of the triangle to the bottom of the perpendicular line is the same in inches or feet or yards, the length of the line at an angle reaching the top will always be the same length. Looking at the angled line alone, it means that if the angled line is the same length, the line going from the bottom corner to the perpendicular line will always be the same dimension as well. Interesting, I thought, maybe this can help me punch that tall boy, Jerry that hurts me whenever I come to his house to collect for the paper.
After Dinner that night, I am in my bedroom with the door closed. On a blank piece of paper taped to the back of the door, from memory, with a ruler, I carefully draw the isosceles triangle and then draw another line directly on the door at the exact height where I think Jerry’s nose is. Next, I reach up with my right hand with a clenched fist and put it on the mark, indicating the position of his nose. After that, I take my ruler and carefully measure the distance between my chest and the door. So, what this means is that if I am standing this far away from him, my fist should be able to hit him directly on the nose, if I keep it stiff and swing it in an arc. Ok, I need to practice this and see if it works.
Putting down the ruler, I walk up to the door, look down at my chest and put myself the right estimated distance from the door. Swinging my arm in an arc, I strike the door. Missed the line, I thought. I made an adjustment by moving slightly to my left and tried it again. Close, I thought, but let’s practice some more until I get it right every time. Remembering and feeling the punches I had already received from Jerry, I started to feel anger. My knuckles hurt now and hurt more every time I hit the door, but I had to get this right. I did it one more time, so hard it made my knuckles start to bleed, but hitting the mark exactly and leaving a spot of blood on it.