please wait...

iii

At this point in the story, some will be disturbed and might not wish to continue, while some might feel intrigued and want to find out more about my 'situation'. I will disappoint the latter as this is a story about my life, not just the 'situation'. And in fact I, myself, didn't know how to react to it and therefore just continued with my life as best I could as if nothing was up. In reality, it became an excuse to bury myself in my school studies and work activities as a means of keeping my mind off of it for the next few years.

But I wasn't in denial, per se, as each day I would wonder about it and debate what it meant.

Hopefully you've found all the preceding chapters of my life interesting enough to continue knowing that will be the majority of what you'll see with the odd note about my 'situation' jotted down here and there. For those badly wanting to find out how my 'situation' worked out, please fast forward about a decade where you will find my life has been totally destroyed and I face living homeless on the streets...

I'm sorry, I'm inappropriately foreshadowing again.

impatient?  Paper, eBook

The Situation

33

In my second to last year working at the main grocery store before moving to Colorado, I went for my break. The break room was the old upstairs apartment at the store where Joe and Dorcus had once lived, to get there one had to walk into the back room, past the long dairy cooler room, then turn left to walk past the sides of the dairy cooler and freezer room to reach the stairs. Once I went through the swinging doors on the start of this route, 'Betsy', a cashier, and her boyfriend were also taking a break and had settled atop a pallet of grocery boxes by the far corner of the dairy cooler. She normally wore thick lensed glasses but at this moment wasn't, for some reason. She shouted toward me, ''What sex are you?''

This question stunned me and I didn't know how to respond. So I chose to ignore it and kept on walking toward them on my way to the break room. ''What sex are you?'' she again shouted as I approached. And I ignored it. When I reached the corner where they were, I turned left toward the stairs and Betsy was dismayed because I hadn't said anything. Her boy friend told her who I was and she explained that, without her glasses she had been trying to guess who I was and she started-out with the most basic question of asking what sex I was. But I pretended not to hear her explanation, too, as I had pretended not to hear her question.

I went up the steps to the break room and found it empty. And I broke into a cold sweat and shook. You see, it wasn't that I thought she was trying to insult me with her question, but simply that I didn't know the answer...

By the last two weeks of seventh grade, my nipples started to hurt and chafe against my tee shirt. Lying on my stomach made them hurt more, so I stopped doing that. As I lived in a family that didn't talk about things unless we really had to, I just kept this to myself. A few weeks after school had let out, Uncle Ronny and Aunt Harriet came for a visit and as part of the visit was the obligatory picture that my mother took of me posing with them. When the picture was developed I saw myself in it and was shocked to see two round mounds pushing out from my tee shirt at chest level. Checking in the privacy of the bathroom mirror I discovered that my breasts were developing.

This came as a complete surprise to me as I thought I was a boy. I mean, I'd been peeing standing up for all those years! But even that was becoming more of a problem as the tissue around what I'll be calling the 'nub' was expanding and covering it up. But to me, that was the least of my problems as the breasts were the most obvious. Picking through my apartment closet, I discovered that my larger tee shirts were best as they were baggy and I could lean forward to keep them from clinging onto my chest. This also helped with the chafing problem.

Still, when time came for more pictures I felt the need to play it safe and lean forward and rest my hands on my knees if I was seated. When not seated, I would make a face, thus people's eyes would be drawn to my face in the picture, not my chest.

With the top half of the situation addressed, I found that all that extra tissue developing by the nub was very pinchy and uncomfortable. This was improved when I was walking with mother through a department store on one of our Saturday errand runs and saw that the guys' underwear section not only had briefs on display, but baggy looking boxers as well. As the baggy tee shirts seemed to help, I asked mother to buy me a set of the boxers. They helped too and so briefs were a thing of the past.

Summer time would have been the perfect time to have made new local friends in the area, but given my uncertainty about what was happening to me, I pretty much just kept to the tree house or apartment when not at my father's or working at the store.

August came and we reached my Thirteenth birthday. As I had turned down the offer to have another day of friends gather at the apartment, my mother arranged to have a gathering at my eldest brother's new apartment which he shared with his girl friend and my not as older brother. My not as older brother had moved into the family home when he returned from his Wyoming trip and taken a job at the main grocery store to save up money and go to College. He started out at a dorm room that Fall, which reminded me of the back room my maternal grandfather Bumpa had been in when he first went to a nursing home, but then moved into an off-campus apartment for the remainder of that year. College hadn't worked out and he returned to live at my eldest brother's apartment rather than move back in with our father at the family home. He had joined eldest brother's painting business and they all had used the apartment to experiment with color schemes and styles. With the fresh paint their apartment, the upper floor of an old house, was really homey unlike mom's apartment with its white painted walls, or the old family home with its now faded and peeling wall paper.

After dinner we sat at the couch with me in the center as I was given and unwrapped my presents. The present from my not as older brother was the ''Wings Over America'' three album set by Paul McCartney. Given my confusion by this, my brother explained that Paul McCartney was in the Beatles to which I became excited and said, ''Oh, a new Beatles album!'' No, it was explained further, that since the Beatles had broken up, Paul was now in a new band, 'Wings', and this was an album of their live concert. ''oh,'' I said and put it aside with suspicion. Though it turned out to be a great gift that introduced me to a new band that I came to love as the years rolled on.

To commemorate the event of my birthday, my mother took a picture of us sitting side by side on the couch and I was stuck. She was taking the picture from the side and if I leaned forward to make my tee shirt drape, it would block the view of a sibling, so I made a face just as she snapped the picture. A self developing 'instant' picture she only saw my face once it became clear and she was not happy. But she withheld her displeasure until we reached the apartment after we left my brothers'.

I went straight upstairs to put away my new gifts and she came up after me and demanded to know 'why I had taken up ruining her pictures' that Summer. At first hesitant, she insisted I tell her, and so I did. She seemed confused by my explanation so I lifted my shirt and showed her. She became quiet and pale. Then she told me to keep it a secret and not to tell anybody.

She avoided taking more pictures of me for the next few years and that suited me just fine.

Four years later I was in the break room at the main grocery store still stumped as to what I should say when people asked me what sex I was. Then it struck me to pull out my driver's license where it had an 'M'. So, legally, I was male. With the full force of my legal identification backing me up, when asked or filling out a form in the future, I would state 'Male.'

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Minuses And Pluses

32

By summer break between sixth and seventh grade, my mother told me I had a new job on Sunday mornings: Mowing the meat cutter's yard. He lived in the same town as the branch grocery store we worked at so I was able to ride my bicycle to his place. It turned out being the only meat cutter at a grocery store at that time was a well paying job and he had a huge house for just himself and his wife, and it was balanced by an even larger yard. When I say yard, I should probably say field as the first visit I spent mowing much of the expanse across the road from his house, it was effectively a hayfield taken over by weeds. The following week he had me mow the field surrounding the house itself and after this, he decided on keeping just enough area around the house mowed that used-up four hours of my time from eight till noon. Halfway through this time I was given a break, which was a new experience for me, and his wife would provide me a can of 'Tab' to cool off with. It tasted weird, but I didn't want to offend anyone so I drank it down. By the end of the two years I worked there I had actually come to like it, much like the acquired taste for my paternal grandfather's 'Moxie'. For my labor each week, I received a five dollar bill, this along with the five I received for my time at the grocery store left me rolling in dough and my bank account soon touched the triple digits.

I now suspect my mother 'found' this Sunday morning job for me so she and Joe, the grocery store owner, could spend more time 'counting the money' for the branch store. On my bicycle ride back to the apartment, the branch store was closed by Noon, but my mother didn't get home until around two in the afternoon...

Yet despite having four less hours working at the branch store itself, I did get more responsibility as I had reached the point that it was decided I should be in charge of my own section of the grocery store. It just became a question of finding an area of the store that was small enough that I could maintain it with my two hours after school each day and that lead Joe into choosing the beer case. An open face chilled case about twelve feet long and six feet tall, I would now be responsible for keeping the case filled, 'faced' when it couldn't be filled from leftover stock, and once a week I would make out an order for what was needed in the coming week. Facing a shelf was when one pulled the remaining stock at the back of the shelf forward to make the shelf look full when it wasn't. I found this practice morally dishonest and hated doing it until I came upon the notion that I was helping short armed people reach what was left.

With the start of seventh grade Beth was now in sixth grade and thus taking the bus with me to the Middle School. I made the mistake of sitting with her on the bus ride and saying 'Hi' to her when passing in the hallway, I soon learned it was like my old friend Peter: We could be friends when no one was looking, but in school related places and activities, we kept a distance. Still, as I had become used to this with Pete the previous year, I was willing to do this with Beth without concern. This gave me more time to visit with Brad, my new friend from the new town, and Jonathan, my remaining other childhood friend.

But it turned out Jonathan had a new friend himself, his name was 'Jonathan', too. For clarity I'll call him 'Van.' Van had moved to a house near Jonathan's that Summer and they had come to know each other. It turned out Van was in my 'Social Studies' class, so with a friend in common we hung out together. As time would go on he would become one of my remaining good friends through High School.

At the start of the school year, both new friends John down the street from the apartment and Andrew the younger kid who had taken-up tagging around with me at the apartment complex, moved away. In the case of John, I had forewarning as he knew ahead of time his family was leaving by the end of Summer. In the case of Andrew, I think he only found out the week before. With Andrew's family, so went the Friday night block parties at the apartment complex, apparently they had been the key people to organize them. In my adult years I've come to realize that all groups have key people with whom things can happen and without them things don't happen. Often, these people aren't the one's you'd think of at the time...

By the end of the calendar year, both Beth's family and Brad's family were moving away with short notice, suddenly my two remaining friends in town were gone. This would have been a good time to spend more time with Mathew, but as we didn't have any classes in common in Seventh grade, my out of sight out of mind problem kicked in and it simply didn't occur to me.

My eldest brother, though, had a new friend: A college girl he'd come across. On the rare occasions I'd see him, they now came as a pair, but this just added interest as his somewhat quiet nature was balance-out by her bubbly enthusiasm. And she, often with a beer can in hand, offered me one as well during my visits. As with Tab, it tasted kind of funny but I didn't want to offend by turning it down. It was another acquired taste, though I never truly warmed up to it.

With my apartment town friends gone, I took up a new hobby by Winter. For whatever reason, my mother got some cross country skies and shoes. As she didn't use them much, I asked if I could and went through the woods behind the apartment and discovered a cross country ski trail system was in the woods just beyond the apartment complex. This solitary activity took the place where time with local friends would have been and given my interest, my mother got me my own pair of cross country skies and shoes for Christmas... But unlike hers, which had a special surface underneath to stop the skies from sliding backward, mine didn't have that feature and it gave me a harder time going up hills. Still, with me as a companion, mother started to use her own skies more often as we would take the trails behind the apartment and she began to find other trail systems we could use for a change of pace. Much like the routine Saturday trips for errands and shopping since moving to the apartment, this became a second positive experience I could look forward to with her.

By the Spring of Nineteen Seventy-Seven, I arrived to the store and my mother and Joe had to have a talk with me. I could no longer be in charge of the beer case. The State Liquor Inspector had come and saw me working there. At age twelve, that was illegal in more ways than one. Joe had worked out a compromise where I could continue working at the store just as long as I didn't help out with the beer case. Later that night I was curious why my not working the liquor case, but still working at the store, was a compromise and asked my mother.

She said that there were child labor laws and it had always been illegal for me to have been working at the branch grocery store. In return for agreeing to not have me handle the beer case, the liquor inspector had agreed not to report my working for the store to the state's department of labor.

oh.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop

Seventh Inning Stretch

31

Seventh grade turned-out better for me, except for math class. All other classes had a mix favoring test results over pages of handwritten homework. Math class was with a teacher who came to loath me over time.

For 'Math', it was much like the first quarter of sixth grade math where every homework question in the book must be done before the test could be taken. The only differences to sixth grade was that there was no let up on that requirement over time and this teacher wanted to teach the class while having it self study. In order to teach the class, she would have a lecture overview about once every two weeks for the chapter she expected us to be on, for the first week that worked out fine as we all started on the first chapter. For the second chapter a couple kids had already started it by the time she gave her lecture. For the rest of the days it was self study and she would go around the classroom giving personalized help to those having problems with the concepts...

And then there was me, plugging along without need of help with the concepts, just the endurance to first copy all of the homework problems out of the chapter, then work through them on paper step by step, not because I needed to, but because she wanted to see it. I had tried to just copy each problem then put down the steps I needed to do on paper before I got the answer, this meant I was doing most of the steps in my head. Wrong! Once marked wrong due to the lack of steps for her to see, not because the answer was wrong, this meant recopying the questions. Recopying just the questions marked wrong and doing each step in detail for the answer was wrong as well since she wanted all the questions to be on the same sheet of paper. So it was recopying everything, including the questions I had previously gotten deemed to be 'right' onto a fresh piece of paper, showing all of the steps so she could feel good that I understood them, then ending with the answer.

She would ask me what I found confusing about the concepts as I was taking so long on the pages of homework problems. I told her: “Nothing.” She told me she knew I wasn't telling the truth otherwise I wouldn't be taking so long on the problems. I assured her I was telling the truth. When I tried to explain to her my problem writing by hand, it was labeled 'whining'. Normally I would try to save the majority of my handwritten work for home where I could frequently flex my hand to help relieve the pain or use my two hand method. But she demanded I spend every spare second in math class on the homework, so I would have to flex and stretch my hand in class. At first I would hold my hand under the table for this so the other students wouldn't see, but then I was accused by the teacher of being 'up to something' with my hand out of view. So I ended-up having my hand visibly in view as I would flex it between working on problems, that was noted as a 'delaying tactic'. So I would do the problems without any break to rest & steady my hand and the quality of my writing deteriorated from the resulting tremors. This was found to be 'too messy' and I was to do the whole pages again from the start. Finally, I abandoned any pride I had and did the trick I had figured out in fifth grade of using the fingers of my other hand to steady the trembling finger tips of my writing hand in view of the students. I was ordered to 'stop putting on a show'. Frustrated, I asked what I was supposed to do then? In return I was given weekly detention pretty much for the rest of the year from her.

Given that I lived so far away, detention could only be once a week when the late bus was available to take me home. Unlike sixth grade detention where we were to sit for an hour at a desk and stare at the front, seventh grade detention was like a directed study hall where you were to do classwork while a monitor walked up and down the rows of desks to make sure you were, in fact, working. I suspect the math teacher thought I was so behind in my math work because I wasn't spending time at home on it and thus these detention days would ensure I did spend after class time on it, but all it did was change the place of where I did the math work, not the total amount of time I spent on it. I had four other core classes with homework needs as well and I wasn't about to sacrifice any of them just to bring my 'D' grade in 'Math' class to a 'D+'.

During the first quarter, she had delayed when she would do the class lecture on the next chapters as she waited for me to catch-up. For the rest of the school year, she gave up on that and gave the class lecture for the rest of the class despite what chapter I was on. This again was a problem for her as I would be spending the time of her lecture working on the previous chapters' work. Thus I was ordered to 'look at her' while she lectured and effectively it became wasted time. After a couple times of this, I realized she couldn't assign me any additional detention than she already was, so I just went back to doing the math problems of the previous chapters and she decided to no longer tell me otherwise in class because, I guess in her eyes, my not following her commands anymore in class made her look weak in front of the other students.

'Social Studies' went without any hitch that I remember.

There was no longer a reading class with seventh grade as we were expected to keep on reading for pleasure on our own. Needing one less time period per day meant that it divided nicely at the hour and there was no period that got stuck with an extra few minutes that we would have to rotate the classes for.

Homeroom was in the science room, and in 'Science' class this year I really excelled. I remember early on when the teacher taught us about the classification of species and gave us a worksheet of mythological creatures that we were supposed to classify into a consistent breakdown of Kingdom, Phylum, Class and Order. Being at the front of the class, I got the sheet first and glanced it over then marked it up and handed it back to him as he was walking back once he finished handing it out to the rest of the students. This surprised him and he explained that it was pretty tricky and we were going to do it in class with him. But then he looked at my answers and smiled. Then he seemed to have a moment of fear, perhaps that the stuttering kid of a dubious racial background had stolen the answer sheet from his desk. So he went directly to his desk and found the answer sheet was still there and looked over each and every answer. I'd gotten them correct and he was very impressed. Any doubt he may have had about how I figured out the answers was soon dispelled as I continued to do very well on subsequent class work and tests. Very little handwritten reports were required, so I didn't have to make any compromises on which bits I'd do and which bits I'd have to abandon from the outset.

Seventh grade 'English' class was now another self study class. We just got a book at the start of the year, worked through the chapters at our own pace, and only had to do pre-made worksheets for each chapter as homework. Seeing English as an art form to learn about, rather than a chore of lecture, note taking, and handwriting endurance, really made me warm up to it and I have to say it was my second favorite English class ever. I even forgot to return the book at the end of the school year, instead keeping it as a reference book and keepsake.

Yes, I'm a thief!

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop

Friends

30

New friends Brad and Mathew lived in the same town as the apartment. New friend Tim lived in my home town.

And then there was another new friend, a 'John'. He was a year older than me and lived a couple houses down from the apartment on the way to the back of the town hall where the school buses would meet. After the first couple of months making the morning walk to the bus waiting area, it was obvious seeing him take the same walk a bit before me or a bit after me. One day it was pretty much at the same time as me and so we walked together and chatted. He was a friendly boy also interested in a new friend near his home and that was that. He visited my apartment a few times, I visited his home a few times, but mostly we'd meet to roam the surrounding woods and chat.

Still, there were the old home town friends as well and I don't know if it was my mother or me that came up with the idea that, since I had the spare bed in my room and it was too far to drive for just an afternoon visit, how about an overnight visit much like I was doing overnight visits to dad's house during the week. It was thought best to do these for Friday/Saturday where there was no worry of homework that needed to be done and it provided most of the following day for visiting and play. Once this plan was settled on, the first person I invited was Pete. Despite the fact that he had become distant at school, I was hoping the overnighter would mend fences.

He accepted and rode the bus to the apartment town with me after school. The branch grocery store was open into the evening on Fridays and so my mother worked late and then had to spend sometime with Joe after closing hours for stuff, so we pretty much had unsupervised free time from the walk to the apartment after the bus reached town until around nine thirty when my mother would get home. Frozen pizzas and making popcorn kept us fed as we visited and maybe played a game or watched a little Friday night television.

Sure enough, Pete's and my friendship seemed to be back to where it was in the previous years as we spent the following day exploring the woods behind the apartment, seeing the tree house, chatting and playing some more games. Mother actually made lunch for his visit. Then we got to take him home around three in the afternoon so he'd be there in time for dinner. All and all the sort of reunion I had originally hoped for once school had started and I could see my old friends again... But then the following Monday at school, it was the same distant Pete as he had started out the school year, again I presumed to not jeopardize his new friendship with the upperclassman. And yet, he was back to being my old friend again the next time I invited him for an overnighter. I, myself, had to work hard to switch how I interacted with people when locations changed. I wondered if it was easy for Pete, it seemed to be.

Given the success of this, I invited Jonathan for an overnighter and it was equally successful, though he had remained friendly during school hours as well so I hadn't any doubts before hand. Things roughly worked out to three overnighters with Pete that school year and two with Jonathan. By the following years Jonathan would be less able to come as his father would progressively want him to spend more and more time on his studies at home, which included doing homework Friday evenings while Friday classes were still fresh in his mind. So with Jonathan down to once a year for an overnighter, I thought I'd invite new friend Tim. Also a success, he reciprocated by inviting me over to his home a few weekends later.

Unlike me having a spare bed in my room, Tim shared his bedroom with his younger brother, so he was displaced and I got his bed... Which included a plastic under sheet as his brother had problems wetting the bed. Oh, kinda icky, I thought but I toughed it out sleeping in the bed. The following morning his mother made a fried egg breakfast for us, though apparently his family liked the whites of their eggs runny. It kind of grossed me out and I just ate the edges around the eggs and avoided the less cooked centers. The toast was good and having juice for breakfast was a novelty for me. Then, unlike with my parents, or Pete's and Jonathan's parents even, Tim's parents didn't like us leaving the yard of his home, so roving the woods was out and this was especially disconcerting as my family home was just a quarter mile walk away and I would have loved the chance to have shown it to Tim. So we did a couple of things in his yard and played games in his home and visited, but by the time three o'clock came along I was ready to be back at the apartment and have more freedom. I wondered if this was how my other two friends had felt during their overnighters to my place, but I concluded 'not' as they came for return visits over the years. In the case of Tim, I was afraid of inviting him back for another overnighter for fear that I would get a return invite and wouldn't know how to turn it down without offending him or his parents. Tim and I would just remain school-time friends for the rest of Middle School and then just acquaintances by High School.

My routine during the school year, for those days I was at the apartment town, was to return on the bus and go to the store and work for two and a half hours until it closed at six and then get a ride home with my mother. She soon encouraged me to only work two hours and walk home as she and Joe had to 'count the money' after the store closed and she knew I'd be bored hanging around during that. So I would work at the store two hours, then grab myself a frozen pizza for dinner and walk to the apartment. On Fridays when I didn't have friends over, I would work three hours due to the store's extended hours, have Saturdays off as did my mother, then work Sunday mornings as, unlike the main store, the branch store was open then and made a fair deal of money as the town included quite a few working class single parents who couldn't shop the weekday hours.

For this work week, I'd get handed a five dollar bill and I was rich! This I cycled into school lunches so I could finally find out what my other school friends had been enjoying all these years, yet I still had plenty of money left over. There was a branch bank across the street from the branch grocery store and my mother would go there from time to time. So one day I took that week's five dollar bill and asked to open an account. I was eleven at the time and the bank personnel met this with some good humor. The answer was 'maybe,' but they'd have to check with my parents first. I told them that my mother worked across the street at the store and so they opened-up the phone book and called. Being just across the street, my mother came from the store and quickly signed some paperwork and left and I completed the rest and had my own bank account with passbook showing my account balance. This spent most of its time in my keepsake drawer until it was time to deposit more money or less often withdraw some money. This was my primary bank account until I left New England and moved to Colorado seven years later.

For my twelfth birthday, my mother wasn't able to assemble the family gathering as she had the previous year, so she recommended I think of some friends to invite, though they'd have to be local ones, not from the old home town given the driving time. Further, when my mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I just told her money. The previous Christmas had been a disappointment for me as my wish list of things to have got translated into generic knock-off versions of those things. By having cash in hand, I would be able to make sure I got exactly what I wanted. She gave me twenty dollars the next time we visited the capital city, and I pulled another ten of my own from the bank. While she spent her time visiting the various stores on main street, I studied the aisles of the toys-only store on the back side of the block. Seeing all the things I'd like to have, I did the math and figured-out the combination of games and toys that would perfectly use up my money. Mostly games as I knew I'd be able to have a group of friends over for my birthday the next Saturday. This was my most rewarding birthday haul and I insisted on cash from mother for all my future birthdays... It would just be two.

As an additional surprise, when my mother came to pick me up at the toy store, she wanted to go back to the department store on the corner as they had adult sized ten speed bicycles on sale and she was going to get me one! While I could only pick from the style on sale, I did get to pick the color and we then had the scarey time at the loading dock wondering if we could actually fit the box of the disassembled bike into her car or have to leave it behind. We finally got it in, though the trunk had to be tied partially closed. The next day I assembled the bike on my own and was riding it around the apartment parking lot that afternoon. Unlike last year's bike, this one fit me without having to raise the seat and handle bars high into the air. When my father picked me up for my midweek overnighter, my mother recommended I show him my new bike and enthusiastically I did, riding round the parking lot for him to see. My mother smirked as my father frowned, then he got to load the bike he had bought for me the year before into the back of his wagon so I could now have it at my old home.

For my birthday, I had settled on inviting over John from down the street and Brad and got them confirmed. I wanted to invite Beth over but, as I had friends of both sexes when I was younger, I had noticed an implied division of the sexes as I had reached my preteens. So instead I was thinking I'd invite Mathew... but when my father brought me back to the apartment the following day my mother said she'd seen two boys with their families at the store and invited them! Oh, ah... okay then. Mathew was now out as she said that would be too many kids. The good news, though, was I knew the other two boys from school and liked them so my brief fear, that one or both of the boys might be from the final quarter of Science class, was dispelled. When the day came and the boys arrived we pulled-out the pile of games I had gotten the weekend before only to find that they were for 'Up To Four Players.' We debated how to handle this as with the boys and me there were five. As we began to settle on the thought that one of us would sit out each game as we went through playing all of them, mother intervened and pointed out that, as a good host, I should let them play the games and I could be the banker: “After all, you'll have plenty of time to play the games later, yourself.” It turned out most of the games didn't need a banker and I got to spend from noon into early evening watching the four boys play through the various games I had gotten for my birthday. I discovered the games were not very fun when I later tried to play them alone...

The following year, when my mother asked if I wanted to have another group of boys over for my birthday, I said ''No.''

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop

Poison In The Brain

29

What happens when someone urinates in your mind?

The Summer of Nineteen Seventy-Three, once mother had moved into my sister's old bedroom at the family home, she would invite me in and then use me as her confidante to tell me everything wrong with my father, and sometimes how terrible Aunt Harriet or Dorcus Giacomo were. Once we had moved to the apartment in the Summer of Nineteen Seventy-Five, this was not something that just happened in the bedroom anymore but the whole apartment and expanded beyond just derogatory comments about a couple of people, but all the neighbors in the apartment complex, various regular customers at the branch grocery store, some of my siblings, and of course my father, as always.

Whereas before I could just leave her bedroom to get a break from these stories, with the apartment the only escape was to be at the tree house or in the woods. The woods were better as with the tree house she could check for me there and tell me to come back inside where she could once again use me as a captive audience. One time I told her I didn't want to hear any more and left the apartment to go into the woods, only to find on my return that she had locked me out. Despite being in the apartment she ignored my ringing of the doorbell and knocking on the back glass doors and I ended-up spending the next few hours stuck outside, unsure if I'd ever be let back in.

Lesson learned: I just fell into the pattern of trying to do other stuff, like playing with building blocks while my mother droned-on about how terrible everything and everyone else was and of course I was supposed to remember not to tell anyone what she was saying. Of course remembering what I wasn't supposed to say meant remembering everything she was telling me and keeping in mind not to tell anyone. This crap would circle 'round and 'round my head like a toxic whirlpool and I was slowly drowning.

Once skiing season had started it occurred to me I could avoid a weekend dose of poison by staying at the family home and joining my father to the ski area when he went to work and I could ski. Having grown-up skiing at the park, this would have been a typical thing to do during winter and my mother couldn't find a reason to say no. But the months and months of stories of other people's incapabilities and inadequacies had taken their toll and once I got to the top of one of the lower slopes I discovered as I looked down the slope that I was terrified to go down it. I had grown-up zipping down these slopes, but now at age eleven, I couldn't. Confused and panicked by this discovery, all I could do was take off my skies and walk down the side of the slope as I fought off a case of nervous shakes.

I spent about an hour at the base of the mountain trying to gather myself and come to grips with the whole silliness of my being afraid to ski. Eventually I steeled my nerves, put my skies back on, and decided to start with the gentlest slope of the lower mountain. At the top of the slope I decided, rather than facing down the slope and skiing to the bottom so far away, I would ski across the width of the slope thus just seeing the nearby side as I slowly slid across and came to a stop. Then there was the scary moment when I'd have to briefly face the length of the slope as I turned one hundred and eighty degrees around, then slowly slid to the other side of the slope. Fortunately, the easiest slopes weren't in demand by the majority of the skiers and if another skier was coming I'd just wait at the side of the slope until they passed, then slowly slide to the other side. Doing this slow zigzag I reached the bottom of the slope. I had survived it just fine and went for a second run, this time not coming to a complete stop as I turned at each side. By midday I had built-up enough confidence where I could ski with the direction of the slope at its flattest points. By the end of the day I had finally worked my way up to taking the easiest slope that went down the full mountain.

Rattled by this whole experience, I decided not to ski the following day, but as my father felt I was too young to be left alone at the house, oblivious of the fact that mother had been leaving home alone for years, he had my mother pick me up and I was back at the apartment. I down hill skied very rarely from that day onward.

Soon after my eleventh birthday, my not as older brother decided to move out of the family home before he got his official disowning from dad. He took his savings from his various part-time jobs over the years and left for an extended visit with my sister out west. His plan after the visit was to go to Jackson Hole Wyoming and find a job as part of the ski industry there. It turned out many people also went to Jackson Hole for this only to find that those who already lived in Jackson Hole got all the jobs. He ended-up returning to the family home by Christmas.

That Christmas, for some reason my eldest brother decided to make some two by four furniture and asked to do so at the house using the basement workshop. By this time my father's disowning of my eldest brother seemed to have softened to the point that he was willing to let him do it. Perhaps it was also partially the case that he had felt a little lonely in the otherwise empty house as Pappy was in his apartment during the daytime. The two by four furniture comprised three coffee tables, colored through wood burning then sealed with a glossy clear coat. Once completed they were placed in the empty space where the dining room table had been, the table itself now at my mother's apartment.

One of these days, visiting my father on his day off, my eldest brother was there and my not as older brother as well. He and I were admiring eldest brother's work when suddenly all of the likely disparagements mother might make about them bubbled up into my mind. Like mental vomit, I fought to keep it inside as my eldest brother and father were wondering what was going on from the living room. Suddenly, all the poisonous things mother had been telling me over the years wanted to escape, but I knew they couldn't. Out of desperation I let the mildest comment of hers that I could think of loose: That my not as older brother ''...wasn't mechanically inclined!'' It burst out and I fled from the room to my bedroom upstairs where I hid until I got it all tamped back down.

By the following Spring, I had come to let the comments my mother made pass right through me and not take them in, personally. It occurred to me that if I didn't hold onto them in the first place, then I couldn't betray them by bringing them up later. This was a useful skill to have learned as the following Fall was when my mother told me about the circumstances of my birth and from that point onward she would feel comfortable directly telling me stories about my own incapabilities and inadequacies and I just let it flow through me and not take it personally.

But like any channel with a constant flow of effluence going through it, the edges of my mind did become stained and moldy over time.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop

Oh, Yes: Classes!

28

For me, sixth grade was an eye opener. Not for what was taught during the year, but for how it was taught. Gone were the box like desks and the separate chairs of Elementary School, instead to be replaced by chairs with built-in, right handed only, writing surfaces. But gone too was 'script' writing, we could now chose between longhand or print for our assignments and I never looked back. Homeroom was with the 'Social Studies' teacher, he remembered my not as older brother fondly and had high hopes for me. He would be disappointed.

I, too, was disappointed. Returning to school was going to be the first chance to see my friends since the end of fifth grade and, as luck would have it, none of them were in the same homeroom as I. Once classes started, I might see one or two in the same class, but that only left enough time to say 'Hi' before settling down as it started. It wasn't until lunch that we gathered for the first time to chat. It was cordial, but Pete seemed a bit distant. I would later find out that Pete had befriended an upperclassman and they had become the new best friends. If he was going to impress his new friend, letting him know he hung-out with a stuttering half-breed wasn't going to help. Jonathan, I had in math class, but as it had assigned seating I wasn't going to have much of a chance to visit with him.

So in the study hall time after lunch, in my homeroom, I decided I should try to make friends with some of the many new faces that had joined sixth grade... I would try to introduce myself but my stuttering would be the first impression I would give. This problem continued into my adult years at job interviews. Can you imagine how many call backs I got?

Still, I succeeded in befriending a kid named Mathew in 'Social Studies' class and since there wasn't assigned seating, we chose to sit next to each other at the back of the room. We spent the entire first quarter of the class visiting amongst ourselves and ignoring the class. This didn't make a good impression on the teacher and by the second quarter he had implemented assigned seating. Though no longer able to visit and thus my time undivided for class, the teacher still found me wanting and later in the year decided to assign my seat to sit before a kid with a known history of jabbing pencils into people's backs. Needless to say, that's what happened and the teacher wasn't interested in any complaints so I started to take up sitting sideways as I could keep my left hand ready to deflect any sudden pencil jabs. That, too, wasn't allowed by the teacher and I got to spend the next few days having to face forward while pencil tips were piercing my back. Then it occurred to me to try to befriend the kid with the pencils during non-class time and, sure enough, once we had a bit of a rapport going he was no longer driving pencils into my back.

The teacher noticed this within a couple weeks and promptly reassigned my seat despite the fact that we were in the middle of the quarter. Just my seat was changed with another unsuspecting student and I was now in the front row of the class. When it came to tests I always did well unless there was a question requiring a few paragraphs of discussion; then, with my hand writing problems, I'd keep those answers as brief as possible resulting in only partial credit for the answers. As my noggin seemed to soak-up class lectures and reading materials well, I didn't bother to take notes except for the occasional spelling of a historical name or the notation of a full date. Apparently that wasn't enough note taking for the social studies teacher.

One day, while he was pacing the front of the classroom as I watched him lecture, he walked up toward my desk and then suddenly lashed out his foot and kicked me and the desk to the side! Stunned, I just stayed there like that as the teacher continued lecturing as if nothing had happened. But now all the students were paying attention to me and not to him, so he ordered me to get up and right my desk. I did. From that point forward I paid less attention to his lecturing and more attention to his foot.

'Reading' class was simply a find a book to read and read it study hall followed by a one page hand written summary of the book to be turned into the teacher once you were done. The books you could read were based on those she had in the bookshelves of her classroom and only reading three books was required each quarter... I could read faster than that. By the end of the first quarter I realized that our class score was based on how many books we read in a quarter so from that point on I focused on the shorter books available and ended up with one of the highest grades for the class that school year.

For 'Science' class, I was sure I was doomed from the outset. The teacher explained her requirements and grading scheme quite clearly: We were to hand copy each chapter into our notebooks and that would comprise a third of our grade. Tests would comprise half our grade with lab work participation accounting for the rest.

Unlike previous science instruction in Elementary School, this science class was going to have 'hands on' experimentation and I was thrilled... But the copying of the chapters? Still, I gave it a try for the first two chapters. Effectively, she was going through one chapter each week and she would allow us twenty minutes classroom time to start coping the chapters, then we were to finish on our own time. I found that if I did no other homework but transcribing the chapters of the science book, I could do it using my two handed writing method in the privacy of my home; that was the method where I'd use the fingers of one hand to help steady the painful trembling fingers of the writing hand. But doing the science chapters only also meant doing no writing-based homework for any other class. I 'did the math' and realized that if I skipped transcribing the science chapters all together and focused on getting great test scores and correctly performing the lab work, I'd have a passing grade... Just barely.

And so it was a choice I made to insure I had a fighting chance to do the writing homework needed for all the other classes of sixth grade. The first week I turned in my notebook for her to confirm I'd copied the first chapter. The second week I turned in my notebook but forewarned her I'd only gotten two thirds done. For all other chapters, I flat out told her I didn't copy them and by the end of the first quarter she stopped asking. For the twenty minutes we had in class to start copying the chapters, I used that time for math homework, or finishing up reports for 'English' class or 'Social Studies'.

There was fall-out from this. Whereas the science mod I was assigned to the first quarter had my friend Jonathan in it as my lab partner, by the second quarter I found my science and reading mods had been swapped. As the same teachers taught the same subjects through the day at the same quarterly pace, we students could be swapped around which mod we were in and still have the same teacher, just different classmates. 'Reading', as it was solitary work, was the easiest to accommodate when other teachers wanted to swap a student between mods and thus I found myself with different 'Science' classmates for the second quarter. These were the science students that needed more attention, in reality the teacher just lectured in a louder voice. Though it made no difference as far as my boycott of copying chapters, it gave me a new lab partner who would become a new friend as well, 'Tim'.

Still, for the final quarter the science teacher again had me transferred to a different mod which was for her 'problem kids'. These were the behavior kids who just didn't give a rat's ass about science class. The class structure was slightly different too as she allowed more time for chapter copying in class, about thirty minutes instead of twenty and less lab work. I took advantage of the extra time to copy the chapters by doing more of my 'English' and 'Social Studies' work in 'Science' class. But with fewer of us in this mod, the teacher would rove our desks to make sure we at least had the science book open and were copying the first sentence. This was when she noticed I wasn't and I learned about detention. But as I was a student that lived in a town twenty miles away, I could only be assigned detention once a week when there was a late bus to take me home. Still I learned my lesson and from that point forward I had the science book open and the first sentence copied in my notebook so when the teacher glanced she couldn't assign me detention, but once the first sentence was done, I'd stare out the classroom window until the thirty minutes to copy the chapter was over.

But the new science mod also provided other challenges. Being filled with the problem kids, this was the first time I was openly mocked by classmates for my stuttering. While the teacher would tell them to knock it off, it was after the mocking had occurred; there was never any forewarning not to mock me. Further, when I would get back the science tests with 'A's, the other students would make fun of me, once they noticed. When belittling me for my high test scores didn't work, one of the students started to grab my tests from me once they were returned and tear them up. I assume he thought this was punishment for me as I wouldn't be able to show-off the good grade to my parents when I got home. In reality, my parents hadn't taken any interest in my class work since the first grade night I had to learn my last name by copying it all night long, so the torn-up tests just became a few less pieces of paper for me to take home and throw away there. Given the fewer number of students in the room, there was enough lab equipment for us not to need lab partners, which was fine by me as having one of these kids as a partner would mean not being able to do the experiment. Still, the kids tried to harass me from doing the experiments, but the teacher would intervene, presumably to keep the equipment from being damaged. While the 'Science' teacher had spent the school year disappointed and frustrated with me, I feel that by the end of the school year, hovering around me that last quarter as I diligently did the lab work, she just ended up confused about me and to why I was refusing to copy the chapters. She never thought to ask.

'English' class was with my previous year's fifth grade teacher. He was much the same, though he focused less on getting after me given that he had so many more students to keep track off. There were three memorable bits I took from his class, two of them positive, and one of those two was happenstance.

Alone at the apartment that preceding Summer, other than the time I'd work at the tree house, I started my first book. Writing that is, not reading. Having been pondering why I couldn't come up with original drawings on my own, it occurred to me that I could think of original tales of people interacting. And so I started writing ''The Infinite Voyage'' about three astronauts on a one way journey through space. Each chapter was like a television episode where they would reach a new place and find a different problem to face. My not as older brother actually liked one of the chapters so much he made a drawing of a scene of it into the pages of the manuscript itself. While it hurt just as much to write it by hand as classwork had, I at least enjoyed the creation of each chapter as a consolation. I had hoped that with the practice of writing it during the Summer I would somehow get beyond the pain writing by hand caused. It didn't help.

As the former fifth grade teacher had been so hot on us writing journals the previous year, I decided to bring in my manuscript for him to read if he wanted. He did and to my surprise actually wrote some positive comments in the margins! But once I needed to ration out my writing by hand for class work, the book was put aside and forgotten. Eight years later I got inspired and wrote a short story using the same three characters, but it didn't revive my interest in the book itself.

One of the segments the English teacher decided to do for class was a review and discussion of the lyrics of some Beatles songs from the White album. A record I knew well, I thought I was going to like the segment, but once again it became a session of his requesting others of what they thought the lyrics meant so that he could then explain to them why they were wrong and the only correct interpretation was his own. He assured us that if we thought it through, we would realize that he was right about his interpretations. In some of them he was flat out wrong as I learned in later years when I heard or read about what the Beatles themselves said they meant by the songs.

As far as classwork assignments went, I did well on the tests again, but had to strategically pick and chose the take home, hand written, work I'd do. I did all the shorter assignments and would typically choose not to do a long one or two during a quarter. As the long ones' grades counted as much as the shorter ones, once averaged out I was a 'B' to 'C' student each quarter.

The final good thing I got from 'English' class that year was another new best friend. 'Brad' had been randomly assigned as my partner on a project and as we had to work on it with after class time, this meant spending time at each others homes. This turned into my best new friendship and I saw Brad often throughout the rest of that school year.

'Math' class: Much like 'Science' class the teacher explained expectations right up front. A self study class like 'Reading', we were to read each chapter of the math book and do all of the homework problems at the end of the chapter. Once she had confirmed that it all had been completed and done correctly, she would let us take the test on the chapter. Our grades would be based on the number of chapters we got through combined with our test scores for those chapters. The answers for the homework questions were available in the back of the book, so the only challenge to the class was understanding the concepts and doing every page of homework. By the second chapter I tried to bargain with the teacher about doing every single page of the hand written homework, but I was told there was no flexibility, every page must be completed and turned in before the chapter test would be allowed. As a result, I only got two chapters done that quarter. That resulted in an overall 'D' grade. At the end of the quarter the teacher even felt the need to counsel me that, given that my tests were perfect, I just needed to apply myself more to getting the homework done. I didn't bother point-out to her that doing her work was the majority of my time for homework of any of my classes. Despite liking the material, my hopes for the whole class dimmed.

Second quarter started off with a surprise, we only had to do two thirds of the homework problems for each chapter, now, not all of them. As I'd already gotten much of the way through the third chapter, but just not finished it by the end of the first quarter, I was able to finish it and three more chapters by the end of the second quarter. This resulted in an overall 'C' grade. For the third quarter, she would only require we do one third of the homework problems, but she warned us that we should do more than that so we would be familiar enough with the material to get a good grade on the test. I just did one third, got through six chapters and received an overall 'B' grade for the quarter.

For the final quarter she wouldn't be checking any homework. We were to do as much as we felt we needed to do in order to pass the test, and nothing less. For me, this became one day to read the chapter, one day doing practice problems in class, no time needed at home, and one day to refresh myself just before taking the test that day. So I was clipping through about three chapters every two weeks. I finished the book a week and a half before the end of the school year with perfect grades on all my tests. The teacher felt the need to openly congratulate me in front of the class for not only being the most improved student of the year, but also being the rare student to finish the book before the end of the school term and the first for this year. My last week and a half I could use as quiet free time to do drawings if I wished, read a book, or work on things for other classes. I did. About a week later, a second student finished the book and by the end of the term a third student finished it.

At the end of the school year I spent some time pondering my score card as I reflected on just how much my problem writing by hand was directly defining my grades. And math class was the perfect representation of that fact for me with that string of 'D', 'C', 'B' and the final 'A'.

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop 

Joining The Mod Squad

27

At the beginning of sixth grade year, my mother let me know that she had made sure to only move us to a town that went to the same school district as the one I had been in thus, while I might be away from the original home, I would still see all my friends at school. She told me she would never be the type of mother that would take her kids from their school and friends. But of course she had done this with my two older brothers when they moved to the bigger house next to the hayfield a year after I was born. In just a few years, her actions would point-out that lie to me, personally. I would conclude upon reflection that the only reason she picked this town was simply because it was where the branch grocery store was that she worked at.

The Middle School was just in another wing of the building I had been going to in the previous five years, but that building was now twenty miles away, this meant getting up at my not as older brother's high school time to take a bus all the way from the center of this new town to the school building. We would gather behind the town hall where there were two buses, one for the high school building and one for the Middle School. The branch grocery store was just a small walk and a street crossing away, so I either rode with my mother to the store when she went to work, or walk the third mile from the apartment on my own during better weather days. This was the first time I'd taken a bus without knowing anyone on it. In the previous years I'd always had the same bus driver so at the very least I'd have her as a familiar face, but this time I kind of had to guess which bus to take. It was pretty easy as the younger kids were boarding one and the older kids the other. The drive to the school was up the interstate highway, a ride I'd already become quite familiar with during the summer drives when my mother was temporarily working with the night crew at the main grocery store.

Though in the same building, the middle school wing had its own entrance by the new gymnasium where we would gather on the fold-out bleachers. In time I would become familiar with some of these new kids that I rode the bus with and we'd chat, tell jokes, and horse around as we waited until the first bell rang to signal the start of the school day. One time a kid was showing another how he couldn't catch a dollar that was right between his fingers. The kid would hold the dollar from the end with his thumb and index finger, while the kid taking the challenge would be allowed to hold his open thumb and index finger horizontally with the dollar hanging in between. The first kid would let go and the trick was to close one's thumb and finger fast enough to catch the bill. And they couldn't. The story was one's nerves from the eyes to the brain then to the arm were just too slow to register the bill was falling and then order the fingers to close in time. After watching other kids fail at this, I took the challenge... And I caught the bill. This stunned the couple of kids watching and I feigned keeping the bill for a moment just to tease, then handed it back and they wanted to see me catch it again. So I did. A couple more kids gathered to watch this and then the bell sounded. In the following mornings those kids would be trying to make their fingers close faster so they could catch the bill as I could. I didn't tell them my secret: Rather than watching for the bill to drop, I watched the holding kid's forearm. The skin over his muscles would start to move before you could see his fingers loosen so as I saw the skin of his arm shift, I would then close my fingers, grasping the bill a tiny moment after his fingers let go. I was pretty good at Rock/Paper/Scissors, too, which I learned at the same time using the same method. Needless to say, if the challenging kid wore a long sleeved shirt or jacket, I was out of luck.

Sixth grade presented multiple teachers instead of one, each with their own subject matter. To make things easy they called class periods 'mods,' short for modules, and decided to rotate daily when the classes met. So your first class on your first day became your second class on the second day and the last class of the day before was your first class that morning. This was supposedly setup because sixth period -- I'm sorry, mod six -- was an hour and fifteen minutes long, not the fifty minutes long as the other mods. Thus with rotating, each class would have the extended period to teach with on a regular basis. But I just suspected they were screwing with our minds for this first year of Middle School as, by seventh grade, time periods were once again called 'periods' and classes stayed at the same time each day.

Of the seven mods per day, five were for the core classes of 'Social Studies', 'Science', 'English', 'Reading' and 'Math'. The two time periods that didn't rotate were the 'Specials' mod and lunch time/study period mod. Specials were Gym most of the time and Home Economics or Wood Shop. Effectively, to even out the load of sixth graders, half the kids would have Gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday one week, then Tuesday and Thursday the next, while the other half of the kids had the other days for Gym. For 'Home Ec' and 'Shop', the half not going to Gym would be divided again with one quarter of the kids at 'Shop', while the others had 'Home Ec'.

As the school had gotten into trouble in past years by shuffling off the girls to 'Home Ec' and the boys to 'Shop', they now had mixed sex classes which swapped at the half year mark, so I had 'Home Ec' for the first two quarters, then Shop for the last two quarters. While 'Shop' was a natural for me as I had grown up using wood tools at home, 'Home Ec' turned out to be my favorite of the two as it was something new and I got to learn how to cook and sew. For our sewing final project, I decided to make a bean bag chair, but rather than a ball, I was going to make mine a cube to be different... And sewing a cube was a hell of a lot easier to plan out than cutting and sewing the pattern for a sphere. Cooking was a handy skill to learn because, as it turned out, without a family to cook for my mother no longer made dinner once we lived at the apartment, I had to come-up to speed on how to cook for myself.

'Gym' class was with a parent of a classmate, a girl I had known for years and had a play date or two during our Elementary School years. Elementary 'Gym' had been run by our regular teachers over the years, but with middle school gym class we had a professional teacher who would shape us up and expose us to various activities, not just those games played with a dodge ball. Also with this gym class came locker rooms and showers. As the school had gotten into trouble the year before, using the showers now needed the written permission of your parent. As it was biting nails to get my parents to sign anything, it was really easy not to get the written permission to use the showers and so I didn't. Besides, the whole showering with your friends concept seemed kind of weird. So our assigned gym lockers effectively ended-up being used for the pair of shorts we would wear during gym class, then put back once class was over.

Lunch time/study period was just that, a mod that was divided in half with the first half being lunch time and then we'd go to our homerooms for a study period until the next regular class started. Study period could also be used for library time, but we had to sign-out for that so they'd know where we were.

Of course, with Middle School, we got to have our first hallway lockers. While for sixth and seventh grade we had to share, by eighth grade we got to have one to ourselves. For a deposit, you could get a combination lock from the office as our 'lockers' didn't come with 'locks,' but as money was harder to get out of my parents than a permission slip, I just brought a spare lock from home.

Anything I've missed?

impatient? Paper, eBook
help me break even: Shop