Another new school year. I'm big time now - 6th grade - honor society! Mr. Bebon, my first teacher crush. The dude was a coach and he was built. Still in the noisy school, but this year we have a new Principal and his son is in my class. What a problem child. Spoiled, fat and annoying as hell. Just my luck he has a crush on me. He won't leave me alone. One day he slaps my butt as I am handing out papers for Mr. Bebon, I of course slap him across the face. Boys don't do that to ladies, my brothers taught me that. This dork starts chasing me around the classroom, what a stupid ass thing to do. I of course run, it is quite the foot chase until he catches me and pins me against one of the cabinets that divide the classrooms. He keeps pushing and pushing like he's trying to squash me. He won't stop. Then I feel the cabinet starting to tip. I yell for him to stop, that the cabinet is tipping - he doesn't believe me. We all know what is coming - CRASH. Over goes the cabinet and lands on a desk on the other side. thank God there wasn't a student in it at the time, he/she would have been killed. For the first time, that school went quiet. It was shockingly still. We were all looking at each other and I was wondering how the hell I was going to get out of this one. You won't believe it, and sometimes I wonder myself, but someone chose that moment to pull the fire alarm. I was so relieved I almost peed my pants. I knew I could slip away during the chaos of the evacuation. I had it all planned out. I would run home and tell mom what happened so she and dad could help me. Just as our class lined up, Mr. Bebon grabs me by my neck with one hand, he has my nemesis in the other. No escaping this time. I don't remember what the punishment was and that is basically all I remember of 6th grade. The year to come would shadow all of the years to follow.
Dwight D. Eisenhower Jr. High School. I loved that place, I hated that place. Changing classes for the first time. Having lockers for the first time. Tons of new faces. Again, one of the few white kids in the school. I started out in the honor society again this year. The Deltas. Blue and white uniforms. Standing duty in the halls at class changings. I could definitely live without this, and eventually I did. My grades dropped to the point that I was ousted from the Honor Society. Who cares. It was just another way for me to stand out - even worse than I already did.
I don't know how many elementary schools emptied into this one junior high, but it was crowded - and the new kids - the ones I didn't know - had their own kind of mean. I remember being devastated at one point in the school year because some really nasty girls had started the rumor that my brother and I were having sex together. That cut so deep in so many different ways. It was probably because I wasn't allowed to date, neither was he. We weren't old enough, according to our parents. It really doesn't matter why they did it, once it was said there was no going back.
The only refuge I had at this school was the band hall. I can still smell the band hall. For some reason I felt safe there. In the band hall I could stand on my own two feet. My favorite place was the instrument room. It smelled of instrument polish and valve oil. It was safe. Mr. Sidel, the band director, was safe. Don't ask me why, I just knew. During my 7th grade year I played the flute in the 7th grade band and the french horn in the 8th grade band. Band was the only place I felt on equal footing with everyone else. It was the only time I really felt like a member of a team. It felt good. I think that this was the most secure I had felt since coming to the United States.
Little did I know, my world was about to change yet again....
Beautiful Bloggable Me
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