Kick Me (13 page)

All the guys burst into laughter and high fives.

Thanks, Mr. Wendell. You’re really an inspiration to us all.

So, everyone finished changing, throwing out various taunts at me for good measure. It was now becoming a means of peer acceptance to get a “good one” off at my expense. Even people I thought were my friends were bending their brains trying to come up with a humorous underwear quip.

“Hey, Feig, uh . . . nice
butt
-erfly.”

“Does your dad have one on his underwear, too? I . . . um . . . I bet he does.”

“I bet that butterfly . . . uh . . . wishes that it . . . was . . . uh . . . that it didn’t have to smell your butt all day.”

My underwear had turned the locker room into a comedywriting workshop. I couldn’t be prouder.

I was the last to finish changing. I seriously thought about just leaving and probably would have if I didn’t think that Mr. Wendell and the class would have hunted me down and dragged me in front of the entire school in my butterfly underwear. I closed my locker, barely having enough strength to do it. This episode had really taken it out of me and so I tried desperately to think of anything to make myself feel better. Wendell had said we were going to do something fun. Maybe we were going to get to watch a movie about sports or something else I didn’t care about, and then I could just sit in the dark and let the rest of this already terrible hour play itself out with no further incident.

I entered the gym.

“FAG!”
went up a loud chorus.

I trudged over and sat down with the group as I wondered if I could convince my parents to transfer me to an all-girls’ school.

“All right, everybody,” said Mr. Wendell, addressing the class. “Being that this is the first official day of gym, I thought we’d do something a little different. The game I’m going to let you guys play is a treat, and we’ll play it every Friday
if
you’ve done well all week. And only if you’ve all done your best.”

For as long as I can remember, my mother had been obsessed with “treats.” To her, the only way to get through life was to have treats to look forward to. The strain from a tough day at school or a bad guitar lesson would always be salved by my mother suggesting that she and I should “go get a treat,” which was usually some sort of dessert item like ice cream or cookies or something else that people really shouldn’t be eating in the middle of the day. And so when I heard Mr. Wendell use the word
treat,
my automatic response was that it was going to be something good.

“The name of this game is . . . Killer.”

It was
not
going to be something good.

“The object of the game,” said Mr. Wendell as he paced in front of us, “is to be the last man left standing on the floor.” In my book, anything whose description includes the phrase “last man left standing” is not something that should ever be used in conjunction with the word
treat.
But then again, I’m not a gym teacher.

“Aw, man, this is a great game!” said Norman, punching one of his friends in the arm. “I play it with my brother all the time!” Thoughts of Norman’s brother, whom I envisioned as a drooling giant who left a path of oafish destruction wherever he walked, flashed through my head as Mr. Wendell continued.

“What you will be using to get your opponents out of the game are playground balls.” With that, Mr. Wendell dumped about twenty of the dark red objects out of a large canvas bag. They bounced onto the floor noisily and rolled off in all directions. These were the same type of balls we’d used when we played kickball in grade school, but the ones we used back then were huge, the size of large pumpkins. These balls that Mr. Wendell had produced were small ones. Except for one big ball, which I later came to know affectionately as “Fat Man,” these balls were no bigger than cantaloupes. Very
small
cantaloupes. I’d seen playground balls this size before but had always assumed they were factory rejects that had no real purpose. And maybe they were, but clearly Mr. Wendell had found a new and, I imagined, much more sadistic second life for them.

“Okay, in order to play Killer, you will be divided into two teams. Each team will take one side of the gym. Then, when I blow the whistle, you will throw the balls across the gym at the other team without crossing the center line. If you are hit by a ball, you’re out. If you catch a ball, the person who threw the ball is out. Got it?”

Unfortunately, I did. And I realized that this was the last game in the world I wanted to play.

“These balls are too big,” said Norman as he picked one up and stared at it with disdain. “When my brother and I play, we use tennis balls. They really hurt.” Yes, I thought, that really does sound like more fun. Maybe if we’re really good, one week Mr. Wendell will let us use golf balls and Chinese throwing stars.

“All right, girls, grab a ball and choose a side,” said Mr. Wendell, clapping his hands together much the same way I imagine sweatshop owners do when they want their underpaid workers to sew faster.

Everyone scrambled to get a ball and then ran enthusiastically to opposite sides of the gym. Wishing I could just walk to the end of the gym where the door was and then continue walking through the door and out of the school and back to the safety of my bed, I sighed and wandered over to the side closest to me. As I approached, my classmates readjusted sides. I looked up and saw that almost everyone had gone onto the team opposite me. And they all had bloodthirsty looks in their eyes.

“Hey, Butterfly? You’re dead!”

Oh great, I thought. This is a real treat. I was about to be the star of my gym class’s production of “The Lottery.”

“All right, you clowns, you can’t all be on the same side,” yelled Mr. Wendell, looking like he was trying not to chuckle. “Even up the teams. Now, get moving!”

No one moved, so Wendell had to walk out and manually separate us into equal groups.

“Aaw . . . I don’t want to be on
Fag’s
team!” complained Karl Scott, a short, pudgy cohort of Norman’s.

It was at this moment that I had to reflect on the question “Exactly why do we
have
gym class in the first place?” Was it supposed to build morale? Self-esteem? To make us more confident about our bodies, our minds, and our abilities? That’s what my father always told me, but if that was the case, then my school district was failing goddamned miserably.

So the teams were set and we squared off, waiting for the war to begin. I looked around at the four walls that surrounded us. Each was covered with retractable bleachers, long slabs of dark brown wood, horizontal prison bars holding me hostage. I looked over at the opposing team and saw nothing but intense looks of angry determination aimed directly at me. Looking to my own team for support, I saw pretty much the same expressions. It was clear. Everyone in this gym wanted to see me dead. I guess putting a butterfly on your underpants was right up there with defiling the American flag.

I had only one strategy in my head for this game they called Killer and that was:
get out.
As bad as the game sounded, I had to remember that these were only rubber balls. Not big enough for the thrower to grasp like a baseball or anything. I’d already survived Little League at this point and had gotten used to having baseballs thrown my way. These glorified Four-Square balls would probably just get lobbed lazily around the gym and if I did get hit, so what? It would be a symbolic gesture that might help release some of these guys’ animosity toward me and then I’d be finished with this class and free to move to Oregon, where I could specialize in arts and crafts with my fellow societal escapees.

Mr. Wendell walked out onto the floor, whistle in mouth. He took a deep breath, ready to blow. The boys all tightened their grips on the balls. Hate radiated from their eyes as they looked toward me. My stomach started to hurt. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as harmless as I imagined.

The whistle blew.

And I descended into hell.

BLAM! A ball drilled into the ground right next to me as I saw the first round of ammo heading my way at the speed of light. My only reaction was to hit the floor. Just as I did, I heard this first volley whistle over my head. BOOM BOOM BOOM! The balls hit the bleacher-covered wall. The noise was incredible. The hollow wood being hit by the now solid-seeming balls made a sound like a sonic boom. A sound I could feel in my heart. I suddenly realized that these “harmless” balls were actually lethal weapons, veritable cannonballs, when thrown by my classmates. On top of that, I was convinced that a few balls from this first strike came from my own teammates. If competitive sports were supposed to inspire teamwork, then my butterfly underwear had apparently inspired this group of fun-loving lads into a lynch mob.

I knew one thing. I had to keep moving. Fast. The balls were coming in at a blinding rate. I ran back and forth with a sort of high-stepping circus-horse gait, arms and legs flailing wildly. I’m sure I looked like a cross between Jerry Lewis and a member of the Silly Walk Society with ice cubes down his pants, but I couldn’t worry about vanity at that moment. Keep moving. Keep moving. That’s all my brain could tell me to do. Life hadn’t prepared me for this type of evasive action. The worst bind I ever had to physically get out of before this was quickening my step to avoid an occasional swat on the behind from my father. But now, I suddenly found myself on Omaha Beach.

BOOM! The next volley came in. I dodged the attack. A few of my “comrades” fell. They had been hit. Ha. I had survived the initial surge. Maybe I would be okay. BOOM! Another hit. BOOM! BOOM! Now the balls were coming in separately. BOOM! Oh my God! That one almost took my head off! BOOM! I tasted rubber on that one. BOOM!

I noticed that the most impacted area was wherever I ran to. And my teammates knew this also. Every time I would run over to their part of the floor, they would yell “Get away from us!” and take off for safer ground. And always the volley of balls followed me. I never stopped moving. I ducked and bobbed and weaved whether something was being thrown at me or not. Just make yourself a hard target, I thought. Run serpentine. Do anything. Just
keep moving.

BOOM! I’m sure I was just a blur of limbs to the opposition but they kept trying nonetheless. BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOOOOM!

As the number of players on their team decreased from hits accredited to our side, more of them were able to get their hands on ammo. And that meant that the rounds were coming in faster and faster. Keep moving. I felt like I was going to puke. BOOM! I was in a frenzy, trapped like the ballerina in the red shoes in my spastic stay-alive dance. Every time I looked around, I noticed that more and more of my teammates were gone, taken out by the Playground Balls of Death. And because of this, I was quickly on my way to becoming one of the last players left, an honor I definitely
didn’t
want. Something had to be done. I quickly went over the rules of the game in my head. I knew I could get out if I was hit. BOOM!!! Forget that. I could also be thrown out if I threw a ball and somebody caught it. That’s it! I thought. I’ll get
myself
out.

As I continued my survival dance, I tried to focus my attention on the ammo situation. Were there any balls around? No. BOOM! One hit over my head but the impact was so great that it just flew back across the gym to the other team. Well, I thought, now what? I’ve got to get my hands on a ball. BOOM! Oh man. This might not be such a great idea.

I started to notice that the balls weren’t coming in as frequently as before. Was it possible that my oppressors were getting tired? Ha, the lightweights. I had too much adrenaline running through my veins to be tired now. I had the endurance of the
hunted.
I slowed my survival dance slightly in order to survey the situation. It was then that I remembered “Fat Man.” The only big ball. I hadn’t really noticed it in the beginning of the game, mainly because it was overlooked in favor of the more lethal “Little Boys.” But now I saw that it was being lobbed around the floor in big harmless arcs. That was the one ball I could get, I thought. I ran over to the part of the floor that Fat Man was occupying. Karl Scott was throwing the large ball at our team and then letting it rebound back to him. I figured that once that ball hit the bleachers, its velocity would be decreased and I could then step in front of it and stop it from rebounding back across the gym. So, I ran in to get it. Karl Scott saw me coming.

“You’re dead, ya big-nosed FAG!”

He heaved the ball and I ducked at the last minute. BOOM! Fat Man hit the wall and I went for the rebound. Unfortunately, my judgment was off and the ball glanced off my forehead before returning to Karl, filling the front of my hair with static electricity. Great. This wasn’t working. BOOM! He threw again. And again I ducked and let it go by. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the guys on the sidelines were now becoming interested in my plight. And this made Mr. Wendell take notice. I think he was surprised that I had lived this long. BOOM! Karl missed again. He was definitely getting frustrated now.

“Give up, ya fag. You know you’re gonna get it.”

From you, Karl? Not yet. Not without a fight. I was getting mad now. I think I’d heard the word
fag
one too many times this day.

Karl got a look of determination, wound up, and heaved the ball at me again, this time as hard as he could, delivering what he knew would be the Death Blow. The ball came straight toward my face. Suddenly, the world seemed to shift into slow motion. The ball was headed toward me, too fast to dodge, right on course to take my head off. I saw everyone on the sidelines. Their faces seemed to slowly transform from boredom to excitement at the prospect of “The Fag” getting pummeled. I saw Karl Scott’s face over the top of the ball. He had a real smug smile, happy to be the one to bring the Butterfly Boy down. The ball kept approaching. This plan of mine had clearly not worked. Another miscalculation on a day filled with miscalculations.

Then, suddenly, everything went back into normal speed. The ball was whistling toward me, a few feet from impact. In a last futile act of self-preservation, I held my hands out in front of me and closed my eyes. I felt the ball break through my fingers, skid down my arms, and explode into my chest. Is this what it’s like to be shot? I wondered. The force knocked me right off my feet. I slammed onto the ground, butt first, and hit my back against the wooden beams on the wall. A hot pain ran through my chest where the ball had hit. Everything was spinning from the shock.