I am for the most part an autodidact. I am my own teacher. I need to learn on my own, and struggle to learn when others are trying to teach me something. This would lead to some arguments between mama and me. She could not understand the heuristic value as a learning method. Why I was prompt to reject the things people were trying to teach me, or how I could learn quicker by simply being left alone.
One lesson, however, I learned very well from others is, people have an unlimited capacity for acts of cruelty. Enjoy watching harm come to others, and some take pleasure in creating such amusements.
For years, I was bullied for being different. I never fit in anywhere with any group of people. I dressed differently, and I lived in a world of make-believe. I would preferably read comics and other books more than engage in social activities. I was and still, am a nerd; a geek.
Many bloody noses, fat lips, and black eyes later, when I was about to turn 14, some boys jumped me on my way home from school. Beat me severely. Laying there in that alley watching blood pool around me, the taste of asphalt and blood filled my mouth, listening to my own groans and moans drowned out all the nasty things the boys were calling me, but I did focus in on the spectators' laughing at me. When they finished, I listen to them walk away. Laughing, calling me a punk, a sissy, a wimp, and a nerd.
I felt tears well up in my eyes, but would not let them fall. I slowly picked myself up. Stood to my feet, looked down at my school papers, white notebook sheets with thin blue lines, now brown and crimson, an American history book, soaking in a pothole filled with murky water, and my pencils laying as fallen timbers in my blood and in the mud. Looking around, through dimmed and swollen eyes, I saw that I was all alone. And felt all alone too. The laughter still reverberating in my ears, I went to lean over to accumulate my stuff, but only to tumble over. I could feel my lips swell over top of each other, I could feel the blood in my nose dry, I could feel the pain of my ribs expand and contract with every breath, but what I felt the strongest was anger, rage, and determination. While on the ground I gathered my things, much as a hen her brood. Digging deep I found the strength to once again picking myself up.
I made my way home. It was a slow, painful walk of shame. As luck would have it, mama was in the kitchen. I forcibly dragged myself up the stairs. I washed myself up in the bathroom sink. Spitting the blood into the toilet, and washing every wound with toilet paper and rubbing alcohol. Could not ruin the wash rags. The burning cuts were as the fires of hell, but I remained silent. I scrubbed the blood with a bar of soap from my mangled and knotted hair, watching bits of gravel fall as tiny balls of hail to the floor. The large gash on my forehead, just below the hairline, I sealed with the superglue I used to mend broken toys, which I inconspicuously covered by combing my hair down. I also used it to seal the large cut on my right elbow. Once the living broken toy was mended back together, I made sure there were no traces of evidence left behind. Almost as I was cleaning up after a murder. And in a way I was. A part of me died that day never to live again.
I came downstairs. I was hurting from my injuries, but I was not about to let on. I stood up straight and walked into the kitchen. Mama was looking at me, asked, “So, you got beat up again?” “Yes, mama, just the usual, no big deal.” I paused, waiting to get busted and for mama to call me out on fibbing. Preparing myself for another beating. But instead, I heard, “Eat your supper before it gets cold.” I do not remember what I ate, but I remember how the salt burned my mouth, lips, and throat. How it made me feel queasy as hit my stomach like a ton of bricks. But I cleaned my plate. Being finished with the meal, I excused myself to go to my room.
Once safely back in my makeshift hospital room, I laid down, still spitting some blood into tissues I would later flush down the toilet. I laid there telling myself, Don't go to sleep. Stay awake.” I knew I was not to fall asleep if I had a concussion. I also kept checking on my ears making sure there was no blood coming from them. I was told by someone as long as there is no blood coming from your ears, you are fine. I took a couple aspirin and spent the evening debating, maybe I should tell mama. Maybe I need to go to the hospital. But then, I could hear daddy speaking. It was as he was in the room with me, “Listen, boy, no one does that to you and gets away with it. I taught you better than that.” I don't know if what I heard was real, or a symptom of a concussion, but for the rest of the evening I imagined all sorts of ways to get even.
The next morning, the sun-washed over my face, gentle rays of her light were as tiny fingers tapping on my closed eyelids. I was still alive?! Every part of my body hurt. But the smell of bacon frying downstairs awakened the senses, beckoning me to rise up and walk. Slowly, I rose from the bed, cast off the night, and her clothes. Washed, and made myself ready for school. Scarfed up my breakfast, and gathered my school books and supplies. Upon them, they still bore the scars and remains of the tragic events of yesterday.
That day changed me. The scars in my flesh faded, but the ones in my spirit did not. The anger and rage I felt were fueled by alcohol. I become a bully beater. I fought and fought until I got pretty good at it. Eventually, the bullying had stopped, but the damage was done. All I wanted was to be loved and accepted. But alas, some people are meant to spend their life alone. I live with invisible scars that only I can see. They are my constant companion.
