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incarcerated

December 18, 2006

i'm sorry - i want to write funny for you, and not another entry that's just like a diary. and i know that funny is what will sell, if i can sell at all, but it's not what i have to say right now.

and coyote, i'm sorry, but this is going to be a long one. you shouldn't have helped me get to drinking.

i think i was in seventh grade. one of my class periods was football. growing up in texas, football was the thing. i watched it with my family, but didn't really take to it the way a lot of kids did. to me, football was an activity on the resume of the kids that other kids liked. and that is what i wanted and needed.

the austin school district began busing kids in my sixth grade year. i had gone to an elementary school in south austin, that was evenly integrated racially, and probably towards the lower end of the socio-economic scale. it's the school that can be seen in the background of the scene near the end of "dazed and confused," when the characters are sitting on the football field before dawn, pondering the futures that we, viewing the movie in the early nineties, were unfairly privy to.

i was to be bused to a school called, ironically, almost comically, "blackshear." we had a sort of odd cultural exchange program my fifth grade year. we went and visited their school, and i can't entirely remember what all we did. i remember we got to do the whole play-with-a-parachute thing. i believe we also put on our annual musical for them, which i think was called, "wheels." it was quite an incisive, thought provoking work on... wheels, as it was. my only line was "hey, dad, can i have the keys to the car tonight?" even at that age, i recognized that my theatrical potential was being vastly underutilized, so i added my personal comedic touch of a pretend trip as i exited stage left after delivering my line.

in due time, the fifth grade blackshear student busees-to-be visited our school, and performed a play as well. it honestly fascinated me with its review of black history, from africa, through harriet tubman, through martin luther king, jr. the final scene was of the not-so-distant future, when it was revealed to us that the new face of the world would be entirely black. this was a bit of a surprise to many of us, but not necessarily disturbing. since it was the late 1970's, many of us had seen logan's run, and that was disturbing.

afterwards, the visiting students came and visited our classes, where everyone sat in an uneasy silence until the end of what mercifully remained of the school day.

at this point, i was already intimately, and occasionally painfully familiar, with the real-world consequences of racial differences. but it still made me sad, and at the time, i felt their aloofness was unnecessary, though eventually, it would take more than a musical for me to learn why there were good reasons for the distrust, maybe dislike.

my parents couldn't have this. at a school like blackshear, in east austin, with those people there, i would surely get knifed to death in the bathroom on a daily basis.

so, with some deception and great effort, they got me enrolled in a school that was, in every way, on the opposite side of town. its own district, it was immune from busing. the suburb was still growing in affluence in the early-80's oil boom era, so its autonomy and increasing property taxes could offer an outstanding academic education and a safe white-bread homogeneity.

i didn't get it. i tried. i went from being a kid who understood we didn't have much money and didn't want to ask for a comic book to one who was desperate for polo shirts for the degree of popularity it would imbue on me. i played football more for that same reason than for any love of the game - an unusually bright kid, i played for an entire season before understanding that the whole system of "downs" meant that you had four chances to travel ten yards before you had to give up the ball. the thing was, i really just didn't care.

so, there i was, one day, the football class period over, where i had worked as hard as everyone else on the seventh grade football team, in that effort to be as much like everyone else as possible. the new middle-school locker room was nice - smooth, lacquered pine benches ringing the room, dark scarlet cage lockers two-high over them, the wire grate fronts slanted back at a leisurely angle, and there i was, in one of the corners, cowering, being fairly well pummeled by a "teammate."

i don't remember how it began. i know that there was no slight, perceived or real, that began it. remembering the kid, and the day, i know that it was a matter of whim. he hit me, and kept hitting me, because he could, because that's what some guys enjoyed doing with me. sometimes i tried to fight back, and failed. this was actually one of the rare times i didn't fight back, where i was just overwhelmed by the blows, by the cheering and laughter of my other "teammates," and by his slightly-high pitched, nasal voice, laughing and mocking me as he kept swinging.

later, i found my jacket and glasses in the urinal. today, i would have to ritually burn anything that touched a wall of a public restroom. at the time, rather than face the shame of explaining the loss to my parents, i had to fish things out and wash them the best i could. maybe i left the jacket - i can't remember. it was just a vest at that point, another kid having shredded one of the removable sleeves jabbing me with a power drill in shop class.

over the years, i grew stronger. maybe i'm no better a fighter, but i've grown enough in self-esteem and respectability that i'm unlikely to have to find out. but those moments still come, when i feel bullied, pushed around, and i'm in that corner again, with that guy sneering and whaling away at me, and all the rage, and all the other outcomes unrealized that day come back.

last week, i got an email from a high school classmate about our twenty-year renunion. twenty. so far away, so close. attached was a spreadsheet of contact information for other classmates.

there, near the end, two names, the contact status listed as "incarcerated." one of the names is his.

something deep in me cheers, but mostly, it doesn't feel good. i wonder if he now finds himself there in that place in my memory and psyche, if he ever finds himself cowering in the corner under the blows, if he hears the laughter, and feels the fear and the shame. it doesn't mean anything if he does. i don't feel any better, just a little more lost for it.

fear is not the same sort of revenge as regret, and fear teaches nothing but fear. it just builds a succession of prisons that we can't help each other get out of.

Posted by Rob at December 18, 2006 10:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: Lorrie at December 19, 2006 06:57 AM

Posted by: Joey at December 24, 2006 05:38 PM

Posted by: Coyote at December 25, 2006 09:10 AM

Posted by: Mike the same as above at December 27, 2006 03:32 PM

Posted by: LeftyMama at January 12, 2007 10:42 PM

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