Bully Interrupted

Word got out quickly and the email was brief: "G.W. was killed in a motorcycle accident."

Reply: "I feel sorry for his mother's loss." Send.

That should have been the end of it. A polite condolence for the passing of my former classmate. We were not friends. I knew nothing about his family life. We did not talk about our hopes and fears. He never told me if he won or lost his wrestling matches. We never chatted about applying for college, going to prom, or if Julia Roberts made a convincing prostitute.

But the end has not come. Intermittent bouts of grief have continued for five years as I reflect upon a relationship far more complex than friendship and far more important than a romance. His words are still present with me: "You’re a virgin because no one wants to touch you. Not because you’re good," his goading continued, "I bet you have never been kissed." Staring at the fainted pencil doodles on the desk (mostly penned by me) and twisting my frizzy, Sun In and Aqua Net infused hair, I thought “fuck off,” but said nothing.

The intensity of my hair twisting increased with my level of embarrassment. I wrapped my hair six or seven times around my left index finger and jerked it repeatedly over my left eye. “You’re an ugly freak,” he said. “Maybe so, but I will get out of this shithole. You, however, will die here,” I never had the courage to say that to him. Instead, I stayed mute and escaped into my dreams of heading to New York to take over the astrology and supernatural beat at the Natural Inquirer after a four-year stint at a quaint private liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania.

G.W.’s taunts went on for years. Given the uninspired alphabetical seating chart used in homeroom, G.W. always sat in front of me. After the Pledge of Allegiance but typically before roll call, he would turn about 60 degrees left and glare at me with his hazel eyes protected by long, curly eyelashes—not suited for a bully. He slightly tilted his chin upward, showing his jawline that curved like the Appalachian Mountains, the landscape of our childhood. He then placed his right hand onto my left arm twisting my skin until his fingers were imprinted on me like a pink and white x-ray under tacky florescent lighting. This was just one of the ways that he let me know he was there, thinking about me. G.W. took pride in his role as a bully and picked on many kids – boy, girl, fat, skinny, tall, short, smart, dumb, shy, or obnoxious— but among all his targets, I was his favorite.

A large sinister laugh with a touch of naiveté always followed his taunting. Even at his most cruel, a playful innocence underpinned his voice letting me know that he picked on me because I could handle it, and I always suspected that he would never harass the truly weak or helpless. I liked having his sole attention when he was pinching my arm, bending my fingers, or calling me an “ugly bitch.” We needed each other. Picking on me made him look cool and funny. He was a boy who talked me. I think I even had a crush on him for a day or two, a few months before graduation, perhaps in April or May of 1991. I later concluded he was an asshole and moved on.

Certainly not an innovative bully, G.W. acted more menacing than violent. His attacks were no different than those implemented by any other bully in any other school. I never told; our teachers rarely noticed; and, classmates watched in amusement -- wishing they could be like him while giving thanks that were not me. This was long before the days of no tolerance policies and immediate expulsions for minor bullying infractions. Statistics show that targets of bullies often have low self-esteem and perform poorly in school; the teasing was just part of my high school experience and didn’t have much impact on my daily activities.

If you have ever listened to any John Cougar Mellencamp cassette twice, you know our story. We lived in a small town where everyone (with the exception of a few adopted kids) was white and everybody’s parents made about the same amount of money (with the exception of a few business owners). The only thing that separated G.W. and me were our class choices. I was college-bound, and he was not. So, we were from two different academic worlds, which meant after about 10 minutes of abuse in homeroom, we would separate and did not see each other again until the next morning.

Our limited contact makes our story pretty uneventful. There are no twists and turns. This is not a modern retelling of David and Goliath. This isn’t one of those sappy afterschool specials where the beaten-down but yet spunky and resourceful victim outwits the bully, showing him the error of his ways while simultaneously winning respect from classmates and the heart of the high school quarterback who always secretly loved her but wasn’t brave enough to battle peer pressure.

Nor is this a tale of high school revolution that results in equality for all geeks, weirdoes, and freaks, thus ending all tyranny for future generations of misfits. Yes, I wanted to be the Norma Rae or Ronald Reagan of the high school experience, but this was high school not a factory in the South or a Communist country. Sure, I wanted to be that individualist that stood on the tables and shouted, “Ugly people have feelings too. Ugly people have feelings too.” But the institutions of popularity and beauty can never be penetrated, and venerated bullies wield far more power than abusive factory bosses or Communist leaders. If you have survived the high school experience, you know (you just repressed it along with bad teenage sexual encounters and frightening bouts of underage alcohol poisoning).

Nor is our story a tale of unexpected romance. We never hooked up as teenagers, and didn’t get married as adults. We graduated and never again were in the same alphabetical line-up.

I only saw G.W. one time after graduation. I was working for a small local newspaper during my sophomore year of college. It wasn’t the supernatural beat for the National Inquirer, but on that day, I was covering something just as preposterous – high school football. I was in need of football player quotes, so I went to the place where any well-respected, small town reporter would go to chase a story – the local mini-mart on Main Street. The coach of our high school football team was going for his 100th win, and it would be coincidentally against the school’s biggest rival. The coach was far too modest to give me any real quotes worth printing. He said something about those records being silly and not keeping track of his wins (but oddly, he knew exactly why I was calling before the phrase “100th win” came out of my mouth).

While he hung out with a few high school kids right outside the storefront, G.W. spotted me in the parking lot and yelled: “Why are you dressed up? What are doing you?”

“Writing a story about Coach H.,” I said as I approached him.

“You a reporter,” he said.

“Yeah,” said I.

I then turned to a close friend’s little brother who was on the football team and asked for his thoughts on the coach’s upcoming milestone. Peter wouldn’t give me a quote. He said, Coach H. would make him run miles and sit him out if he talked to a reporter. That’s when G.W. showed that he still had school spirit at the age of 20, and as former football player, he gave me a few printable lines. Ignoring journalistic ethics, I changed his quotes slightly to make him appear articulate and knowledgeable about Blue Devil football. I think I used the phrase “striving for excellence” somewhere in the story.

Other than getting my quotes, I don’t remember much of our actual exchange. It was quite unremarkable. Most of my encounters with G.W. were unremarkable, so I hesitate to recall too many incidents because I don’t want to confuse his actions with those of other bullies that I encountered, stories I have read, or Molly Ringwald movies that I have seen.

Really the story is that the story ended too soon for G.W. – before he became a parent. Before he had to answer the question: “Dad, what were you like in school?” That is the moment when you have to face who you were, what you are now, and what you aspire your children to be. It’s in the next generation when bullying issues surface. Parents must bully proof their children, making sure they are not bullied and that they do not bully others. How you answer your child’s question means everything.

After my son, who was in second grade at the time, got grounded from his computer for intentionally ignoring a classmate at the school’s pancake breakfast. He said, “I don’t like that kid. Weren’t there kids in school that you didn’t like?”

I kneeled down to be eye-level to him and said, “Yes, there were many people I didn’t like. But, many people treated me like you just treated that little boy. They ignored me and pretended like I didn’t exist. And when they didn’t ignore me, they made fun of me, sometimes behind my back but mostly to my face while others watched and laughed. You will not do that. You will be nice to everyone. If you are not, there will be consequences.” That was my answer.

I don’t know how G.W. would have answered. Statistics show that most high school bullies go on to be adult bullies at work and at home. Many bullies abuse their spouses and children. Some end up in prison, and a good portion raise their kids to be bullies. I’ll never know what G.W.’s story could have been. If I wrote the ending, G.W. would have been loving father who raised his kids to be kind to others. And of course, my kid kicks his kid’s ass – in a game of chess.