| Subject: Bully |
Author:
Holly
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Date Posted: 17:01:31 05/09/04 Sun
It was summer. It always is in my memory. Hot, dusty, near sunset, and my brother was hanging from Bruce Anderson's flagpole.
By his underwear.
And I was doing nothing.
Charley and I had been army brats. Three times a year, we'd move to a new house, which Mom would immediately paint sky blue on the inside, white with blue shutters on the outside. The army brat neighborhoods and schools had been pretty much the same. We even ran into some of the same army brat kids here and there. Some of the neighborhoods had been a little worse than others. We'd been jumped in a couple of times, but the military is a weird place, and bullying reflected badly on one's parents. A problem kid could stall a career.
Nothing prepared us for the private sector. Dad took a job with a defense contractor when he retired from the army. We found ourselves, for the first time ever, new kids in a neighborhood that had never had any new kids. Ever.
We looked different. We talked different. I was a head shorter than anyone close to our age, and Charley was a head shorter than I was.
Bad news all the way around.
I developed an uneasy friendship with the other two girls on the block, but Charley had it rougher with the boys. They threw his shoes on the roof of the school. Mom went to the principal. When they knocked him down in front of her, she went to the parents, who, with one notable exception, were supportive. The notable exception had threatened to shoot my father. The notable exception was 15 years older than his wife, who was fourteen years older than their child. I now believe this is important, although I did not think about it much at the time.
The child of the unsupportive parents orchestrated most of the spectacle and all of the events that involved nudity or other quasi-sexual humiliation. When I was ten, I was invited to my "friend" Mary Jo's house to help plan a surprise party for my other "friend" Laurie. I entered the garage to shouts of "Suprise!" Then, "Lesbian Rape! Lesbian Rape" as Laurie knocked me down and started trying to take off my pants.
I remember two things about the rest of that afternoon: One, my pants stayed on. Two, and this one probably changed the course of my life, I scratched both of Laurie's arms so deeply that she still had the scars when we graduated from high school. She never touched me again, and no one from the block ever laid another hand on me either. There was still meanness, and there were times that I felt uneasy, but no one so much as knocked a book from my hand.
Whatever happened to me, stayed with me. Whatever happened to Charley went straight to Mom, who took very seriously her duty to protect her cub.
Problem was, she couldn't be there all the time. And her efforts to manage events that had already happened just escalated the level of torment for Charley.
Nobody was really looking to hurt him. Over the couple of years this stuff went on, they mostly just taped him to stuff. A support pole in the basement. A hockey stick (then they carried him around, until they saw me coming). And mostly, it did stop when they caught sight of me.
Not this particular day, though. Charley was up the flagpole, crying and cursing. They'd gotten his jeans down but not off. And the instigator kid was singing The Star Spangled Banner.
And I was standing there, doing nothing. Bruce - I hated Bruce - he used to call me "Titless" on the bus, in front of people I wanted nothing to do with. Bruce walked up beside me and asked, "Is this okay with you? Is it okay if we hang your brother from a flagpole?"
I just looked at him. I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I just stood there. Waiting.
When they finally took him down, Charley didn't even wait to get his pants all the way up before he threw a huge bike at instigator kid. I finally moved toward Charley to take him home, but he spat at me and kept fighting. Even though he couldn't win, he kept fighting. No matter how many times they put him down, he got up and made at least an effort (sometimes successful) to kick someone in the nuts. And he never stopped until they did.
I waited to take him home, but he wanted nothing to do with me.
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