Bullied (4 page)

I see many ads in magazines for Charles Atlas’s Dynamic Tension program. The ads say, "Don’t let the bully kick sand in your face” .The pictures show a skinny kid on the beach getting sand kicked in his face by a bigger boy, and then, after the kid gains some muscles using “Dynamic Tension,” he beats up the bully. This is exactly what I need. After sending for it by mail with some of my paper route money, it arrived several weeks later and I was very excited.

Taking the thick brochure upstairs to my room, I closed the door and started reading it thoroughly. Many of the exercises shown in the brochure are difficult to understand at first, but I will come back to them one at a time. When finally finishing reading the brochure, I knew where I had to start.

Now I work out, almost daily, using many different techniques. Some of the exercises were for the floor; others require solid surfaces like walls or narrow door openings. Some of them involve exercises in a doorway with a bar to do chin-ups and other exercises so I send for the adjustable exercise bar and it arrived a few weeks later.

I could not do all these exercises in my small room, but I know exactly where I can do them, down in the cellar. I begin what would become a daily regimen. Since I now have a good reason to get home earlier, I have to start doing homework so I do not have detention after normal school hours. I will just have to duck the bullies some other way. In order to get home to work out before delivering newspapers; I develop a strategy of going to the rest room and hiding in one of the stalls, after my last class. Then, after a few minutes, I go down the stairway on the opposite side of the building and sneak out the Nuns side door.

Going the opposite direction from my home and passing the Nuns convent, I follow a narrow sidewalk that leads to the church, and to Washington Blvd. Turning left, I walk up Washington Boulevard to Main Street, then go west On Main Street until I get home. This is a longer trip instead of the direct route of four blocks, but it is better than having to fight. With all my heart, I will reach a point when I face every single one of these monsters and make them pay with extreme pain and possibly even death. I will spare no effort until this is possible.

Arriving home, after saying hello to Grandma, I go down in the basement almost every day, and start my exercises. Sometimes school events or other things get in the way, but I am consistent at doing them regularly. It is very important to me because it means survival in this cruel world. I am also very careful to hide the exercise instructions where no one can find them. After a while, I do not need the instructions anymore because I memorized every page.

Starting these exercises is very hard. When I begin working out, the exercises are very difficult because I have never done anything like this before. Except for a few arm muscles that I strengthened from my paper route, I do not know about many of the muscles in my body such as my pectorals, other chest and back muscles. The first exercises, leaning forward while pushing against a concrete wall with both hands is hard for me. The push-ups are also trying because I can scarcely do one push up when beginning Dynamic Tension. However, the hardest exercises are the chin-ups and the others using the exercise bar. When I began, I could barely lift myself off the floor as I grabbed the bar installed high at the top of the cellar inside doorway.

Grandma always asks me, "What do you do downstairs in the basement all that time?” I say, “Oh, nothing.” One day I was down in the basement with my grandfather watching him do woodwork, he took me over to my chin up bar which I had left in a doorway, and asked me," What is this Pat?” I said," I just use it for exercises, Grandpa.” He got a twinkle in his eye and said, "That's good.” Grandpa always knew a lot more than he let on. Later on that day, I heard Grandma complaining to Grandpa about how much time I spent in the basement.

“Lawrence, Pat is always down in the basement after school and he won’t tell me why,” Grandma said.

“Nell, don’t worry about it, there isn’t anything that he can get into down there,” Lawrence said.

“How do you know that, you have lots of sharp tools down there, don’t you?”

“He has an exercise bar down there and I asked him about it and he told me he was doing exercises. Maybe he is just trying to lose some weight. After all, Nell, he is becoming a teenager,” Lawrence said.

“Don’t you think we should make him tell us?” Nell asked.

“Naw, leave the kid alone, would you, Nell? Boys go through a lot when they are growing up. I can see from the marks in the concrete that he moves the bar around a lot doing different exercises. He is going to be a man someday and he needs his strength.

Please don’t ask him about it anymore, either,” Grandpa Lawrence said.

“Ok, - - - - I guess,” said Nell

After that conversation, whenever I am going down to the basement, Grandma gives me her concerned and questioning look, but does not ask me about it anymore.

These exercises were to go on for months, and then years. For a long time, I could not tell if they were doing any good, but then I did notice when I threw a newspaper that I felt muscles in my chest that, previously, I did not even know I had. Of course, nothing really changed about the almost daily violence I struggled desperately to deal with.

The one thing that I notice that comes from exercise is a little more confidence. Nevertheless, the occasions of threats, name-calling and necessary fighting seems to be increasing in spite of all efforts to avoid it. In addition, that feeling of warmth and passion is increasing in my chest, stomach and crotch. It seems like my penis is always hard and throbbing. Many of the other boys are also dealing with this problem and sometimes they show everyone their penis in the restroom and brag how hard it is, but nobody knows why this is happening.

The only words that I hear occasionally in school, that seem related to this issue, is “puberty” and "making love” but that was for “only a man and his wife, and never for people not married.” No one tells us what “making love”, really means so I cannot figure out why I have these feelings.

At the same time, many of the bullies still call me “Fag” and “Queer”. All those taller, good looking, popular kids are so concerned what other kids think of them that they are willing to do anything to enhance their image, even at someone else’s expense. I am beginning not to care what anyone thinks of me, as long as Bullies do not bother me. This is another attitude that was to last a lifetime.

I now spend a lot of time in my room analyzing how a fight works. I also make rules for myself about how to react. I have to do this because, one day in front of the school, a large boy came up to me with a barrage of intimidating questions and I could not think fast enough to answer him. During that encounter, I did not know if I had to fight him or if I could just walk away. My mind just does not work fast enough to understand my options. I now spend hours in my room thinking how these confrontations play out and deciding when I have no choice but to fight, even though I hate doing so.

The most important question I have to ask myself is, "Do I have to fight?” When facing a bully, I have to figure out when I have no choice but to fight. If the bully is just going to push me a little, or punch me in the arm, I can just ignore it and move on. However, if there are no Sisters around and the bully comes up facing me, then takes two hands to push me and then clenches his fists, I know what he expects. He wants me to push him back, and then he will hit me. Now, after thinking about this for many hours, I know that whenever I get into this situation with someone that is not too big, as soon as he pushes me, I hit him in the face, if I can reach it. I know now, from experience, that I will get beat up anyway. If I do not fight back, and even if I lose the fight, as I probably will, the bully will experience some pain.

When I started doing this, quite a few of those big guys were surprised. They all seem to react to this differently. The bigger ones will usually wait until I get away from the school later so they can give me a sound beating. Others are a little more cautious the next time they pick on me. It is easy to tell which of the bullies are going to persist; and I simply have to avoid them. Rick the prick is always in that category. When we are not both in school, he hits me almost every time he sees me.

A little while after I started using “Dynamic Tension” working out, I decided that, in addition to strength, I need to figure out what actually to do in a fight. I see ads on jujitsu instruction in several magazines so I look through them again to find the information for this training. After sending for it and reading it, I am surprised to find out how many of the strategies deal with choking someone, and grabbing or punching them in the balls. They must work, so I intend to use them.

Other techniques are how to grab someone's clothes and leveraging them on your hip so you can throw them on the ground. I did learn a few good tips how to do a hip toss and take down a big bully that comes up and puts his chest about 3 inches away from my face and looks down on me. I get this all the time and call this bully strategy as “big man, little man pose.” It is an intimidation used by many of the taller bullies. Obviously, punching the big person in the balls is an easy thing to do at that distance, but I preferred a move to put him on the ground, if I could, such as a hip toss. The difficult part of that move is to be able to get a good grip on their clothes to leverage him over my hip.

Someone who wants to be in a real fight with me does not normally use this “big man little man” strategy. The real purpose of that is just to intimidate me, and what they are really looking for is some acknowledgement that I am afraid of them. This means that, most likely, the answer to my “do I have to fight” question was probably no, but I have to watch their hands carefully so as not to let him make the first punch without having my guard up.

Studying the brochures, I learn many of the chokeholds and defensive moves to use when someone grabs me. Some of these, according to the brochure, could result in the offender ending up with a broken arm or, if I get him into a real chokehold, I could possibly kill him. I am more interested in defensive strategies because I do not want to kill anyone. Some of the strategies I am learning include ways to grip an attacker firmly. That meant if I had my arms around somebody, I should grab my other wrist instead of my fingers. Unknown to me at the time, this simple trick was to come in handy on a number of occasions, over the next few years.

Even though I am practicing jujitsu moves and increasing my strength, I wake almost every morning with that mysterious pain that runs from the middle of my chest to the middle of my thighs. This terrible pain and tension was because I knew when I left my house, kids will call me names or punch me and I will have to fight. What I am surprised to learn is that, assuming a kid comes up and punches me on my way to school, if I try to punch him back, I feel a little better. I also begin to feel another sensation for the urge to hit back that I call “the launch feeling”. The launch feeling seems to be giving me a reward for striking out physically against violent intimidation.

Eighth Grade

After a quiet summer and nice vacation trip with Mom, it was time again for school. This year my teacher is Sister Mary Elizabeth, again. Because she knows me so well, she assigns me the first seat in the second row where she can “keep an eye on me” as she tells me so many times. I now like the first seat in the row, too, because I am not as distracted as when in the middle of the classroom. It is also sometimes fun not to be so distracted and listen to Sister as she talks in a determined fashion with her Irish accent. Whenever she gets upset about something, the accent gets even more dramatic. Sister Mary Elizabeth is certainly one of my favorites of all of the Sisters, even though she is so strict.

If my life were just about going to school without violence, life would be more enjoyable, not the misery it is now. Unfortunately, as it has been over the last few years, life is very unpleasant and schoolwork is one of my last priorities. Working out, studying jujitsu, and doing my paper route all come before homework because they are so important to simply surviving in this cruel world.

Even though I am studying fighting, building strength and constantly analyzing encounters to be a better fighter, my daily fear continues to increase. I am terrified and in pain every day, and even though I hate violence, I know I have to be good at it to continue living. Because of this, I have a certain feeling that I am not going to live very long. The question is how far am I going to go to discourage and get revenge on the Bullies causing my constant fear and pain?

The thing I cannot understand is how this could take place in this professional community. It is not that I live in a bad neighborhood, or slum. This small town is where Thomas Watson founded IBM. The street I live on, Main Street turns into “Watson Boulevard” just about a mile from my house. Most everyone in town works either at IBM or at Endicott Johnson Shoe Company, and all IBM employees wear white shirts and ties no matter what their job is. This is a tidy, well-kept community where nearly everyone I know goes to work at 8AM and comes home for dinner at 5PM.

These major companies also sponsor many weekend and holiday activities. I know that the people here are also very observant about the things happening in their neighborhoods and especially in front of their own homes. Many times, I have seen neighbors looking out their windows when big kids bully me. Not once has any adult ever intervened. They just simply watch the process and even laugh. I guess they think that “kids are just kids” and we have no choice but to go through this violence. Do they have any idea of the pain and fear caused by it? I do not think they do. If they do, they do not care. Possibly, they are also entertained by watching the bullying of a smaller person, like me, just as the bully's friends are. Resentment is building within me against this pristine community and these bystanders, as well as the bullies.

Another thing I do not understand is that it is obvious that most of the people living here expect everyone to conform to a code of morals, behavior, dress, custom and politeness. All of us children walking to St Ambrose School have to wear white shirts and ties or a blue and white uniform depending on their sex. As far as adults go, very seldom do I see someone who is very different from the majority of white shirt clad executives, or the also well-dressed blue-collar Endicott Johnson factory worker. People here go to church every Sunday and have to “fit in” to live here. So, how can these people and their families ignore obvious violence on the part of some children against others?