Chapter 4

Chapter Four
I remembered my first day of school. I never went to kindergarten and this proved to be a huge disadvantage. All the other kids knew each other, they knew about recess and raising their hand to go to the bathroom, and everything they needed to know about the delicate social fabric that all civilization seemed to hinge on. They also knew how to count to ten, the alphabet, and how to write their own name. I knew none of these things; in fact, I did not even know how to tie my own shoes. Whenever I was playing at recess and my laces were untied, they had to stay that way because I did not know how to tie them. One noon Dawn Jewitt brought it to my attention that my shoes were untied; “Your shoes are untied!” She taunted triumphantly, “HA HA! You don’t know how to tie your shoo-ews!” She sang mockingly at me. I already knew that, there was no need to sing a song about it.
Scot Behan a boy in my class, saw that I could not tie my shoes, we were playing ball hockey, and we were on the same team, and my laces were tripping me up, so he tied them for me. Ever since then, I would Get Scot to help me tie my shoes, and reluctantly he would. It was awful nice of him to do this for me, I knew that, and it was a little embarrassing for both of us. But I appreciated not having laces to trip over. I think it takes a special kind of person to be able to serve his fellow man so humbly that way. Eventually he grew tired of tying my shoes and taught me how, he just showed me what he was doing and I did it, it was easy, I had learned to tie my own shoes.
Scot did not stay in school long, some time through grade one he left. All the teacher said was that Scot would no longer becoming back to school anymore. I never saw him again. Jesus once said that the greatest people in heaven are those who serve. Five years later my grade six teacher told me that Scot had died in grade one, and that the teachers did not want to tell us.
I don’t know how he died, but every time I tied my shoes I remembered him. At least I would like you to believe that, however the truth is I forgot all about him until now. In fact I may even have his name completely wrong. If he was looking for earthly rewards for his acts of good he was cheated, but I am sure now that he is among the great in heaven. I can’t help but feel a little disgusted with myself for being so thoughtless. My family dominated Marklee Public School when I was in grade one. My little sister Shirley was in kindergarten, my big brother Dan and my sister Kathy were in grade five, and I Think my sister Lynn was still in grade six. With six of us all at once in the same small four room school, we were the predominate family there, and still no one to tie my shoes. The legend of those siblings that went before us was still fresh in the students and the teacher’s memories alike. By the time I got to grade two I had adjusted to school life, the secret was to not take it too seriously. Even as a six or seven year old kid I could see that the teachers compared themselves to our undeveloped grade one or two intellect and so thought they were pretty smart, I would have to humor them, I thought. The school’s highest-class room was grade six, and so by that time, only my little sister and I remained in that school to represent our clan. My time at that school displayed an interesting graphic of the baby boom generation. When I was in grade one, the four-room school had four portable classrooms to handle all the students. In grade two, they took one away, and left three. In grade three they took another one away and left us with two. When I arrived at grade four, the last two portables were gone, and all the classes from kindergarten to grade six barely even filled the school anymore. By the time I reached grade six, kindergarten was no longer available due to no demand for it, and the school had a total of seventy-five students. I was on the bottom side of the baby boom; that was for sure; my life would be one of foraging in a well-trampled field.

Suddenly a strong wind had come up, I could hear the pack ice smashing against the boat as it bobbed up and down and got knocked about in the icy sea. As I pumped the toilet’s diaphragm pump to bring in air it was now squirting in sea water when the intake of the pump would submerge with each heave of the boat. The cold salty water would spray all over my head as I pulled on the handle of the pump; it was giving me a powerful headache. I had to continue pumping to clear the pump of water so it would not freeze and so I could get some fresh air on the dry strokes.
It was so dark that I could no longer tell if my eyes were working, I would wave my hand in front of my eyes but I could see nothing. It was a strange feeling, it was as if I could not tell if I even had eyes, like the blackness of that hole just sucked my eyes right out. I could not tell where my eyes ended and the darkness began. I was not looking into the darkness; the darkness seemed to have flooded into me, as if I was submerged into some kind of liquid darkness.
It was hard to not let panic and hopelessness set in; I had to keep my mind off those destructive thoughts of imagining my death that was to come. Was that insane? Is it an act of denial to try to ignore the inevitable? To quench fear by holding onto a desperate hope or by preoccupying one self with whatever mundane tasks that one can do to prolong your own life? Something deep inside was trying to trip that cog of desperate hope and let the coiled up spring of shear terror and panic spin me out of control until death is the only thing that would calm me. I had to keep that cog in tight; if I was to allow it to trip I did not think I would be able to get it back in.
I thought of something Jesus once said; “Take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will take thought for it self, sufficient to the horrors of that day.” I took him to mean why fret over something bad that is going to happen in the future and live the horror of that day over and over, everyday from this day to that, instead live well today, and suffer the horror just once on its appointed day. So I decided it was not insane to try to keep my mind occupied with whatever I needed to keep my self from losing control. I reasoned that intellectually I always knew that I was going to die, and I did not let the thoughts of it consume me then, so why should I now? Still, I would welcome anything that could distract me from dwelling on its imminence. It was not denial; it was just good sanity management.
At the first flood of fear when I was first trapped in the hull of the sinking boat my memories were stimulated, and I saw things as real and clear as if I was there again. It was a remarkably complete picture; I saw as it were, “my whole life flash before my eyes”. I had heard that this happened to people before they think they are going to die. The first time I heard about it was in grade three when Paul Cooperthwait was telling the story of what his dad had told him about when he was shot down in his P38 lightening during the war. He had seen his whole life pass before his eyes in an instant.
Now however that had passed, no longer was the images of my life flashing before my eyes, but the memory of what had flashed before my eyes was still fresh. It was as if everything that had ever happened in my life had occurred only an hour or so ago, the memories were that fresh. It was as if in an instant my perception of the length of my life had more than doubled; like I had lived another lifetime in those short moments.
The easiest way to keep my mind off the inevitable was to reminisce with myself, since the flash back had given me the tools to do it so well. Although I had seen all my life only a short time ago it was hard for my brain to organize the information. By recalling what I had seen in the flash back I could slow that instant down to a speed so that I could relive every moment. It was as if I would be able to live another whole life time before I would succumb to the depths of the sea and cold. So I continued to talk to myself, reciting my memoirs into the umbra, fighting to hold the darkness from overcoming me.
I recalled every moment with incredible detail, discovering things that I had forgotten so well I would have taken an oath and sworn that they never had occurred. It was as if every memory bit of information had a life or rather a self-awareness of its own and was competing for me to bring it back to life. I wanted to share what I was seeing, all the tiny little moments that were the path of my entire life that led me to where I am now.

"In grade two I found myself all alone, I had no protection from older siblings, they had moved on, no longer was our family fully represented at the school. It was in this setting that the stage for how the next four years of my school life would be set. One morning at recess, we were playing in the sandbox, a few classmates and me. Along came three or four grade three boys, when you’re that young a year makes a huge difference in size. The grade three boys wanted to take over the sandbox for themselves and let us know that we were not welcome there with them. All my playmates, seeing their size and number offered no resistance and allowed themselves to be chased off, I nearly joined them. But something inside me made me stop, I don’t know what. I was scared, I wanted to run, but something overpowered my fear, and to my own terror I stood against them. It was the last thing that I wanted to do, I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I was experiencing sheer terror, my throat gulping, and my mouth dry. Fear was gripping me so tight that my vocal chords were stretched; I was fighting to keep my voice from squeaking as I tried to pull off the smoothest James Cagney act that I could. Sometimes I found that I had only mouthed some words because I was so scared I couldn’t properly coordinate my breathing with my speech so there was no air passing through my voice box for it to make any sound.
At first they bought it; after all, they were only eight. Then they would see through my act; after all, I was only seven. What would follow was a beating, well sort of; my brothers did worse to me at home, so it weren’t all that bad. I usually had my ears boxed a bit and ruffed up from being held in a headlock. They would keep up their attack till the bell rang. I knew the whole time they would stop if all I did was cry, but that was not going to happen. The words of my brother Dan always ringing in my ears; “Whatever you do, don’t let them see you cry!” this was the only advice Dan gave me when I first started school. I promised him that I wouldn’t, and I kept my word. It seemed that I had set the stage for the next four years of my school life, four years when you are seven is a long time, fifty seven percent of your life, still more than thirty percent when its all over. I knew that had I just ran away from them that they would leave me alone, probably forever. I would not have to run far, just a few steps, that’s all they wanted, and for that I would receive a safe peaceful recess time. I knew that, my friends all knew that, and they ran, and they got their peace. However I never ran, in four years, at least once a day, and sometimes every recess all day long, I would be in conflict with these boys. Every boy in that older grade jumped on the bandwagon, I would usually be facing down a gang of eight to ten boys; I was very popular. I got good at defending myself. I got so they could no longer get me into a headlock. My hands and senses got too fast for them to hit me with there fists, and I learned to block their kicks by lifting my leg bending the knee and flexing my leg muscle to absorb the blow. My injuries were always limited to defensive wounds. I wanted to go on the offensive, but I was afraid they would get really mad and pulverize me. So I continued blocking their blows and enduring their attacks, the whole time getting better and better at countering their moves. I was too fearful to strike back at them, but too proud to submit to their oppression. In grade four, after two years of the same pattern of conflict between the same bullies, and myself, I was at least the undisputed champion of grade four and down. I was never a bully however so the younger grades and the other kids in my class had no fear of me, but everyone did have some form of respect for me, but no loyalty. To receive acceptance from the older kids some of my classmates, fair weather friends at best, would join in with the older boys when they were assaulting me. These bullies however, were not to be trusted, and they would often in sport desert their new converts and leave them delivered into my hands. I was usually merciful, and would forgive my classmates indiscretion; although there were times when I would respond in kind toward them but with restraint. I always got sent to the principles office for that, but for some reason the older bullies that picked on me and fought me everyday enjoyed complete immunity for their crimes. Ronny Rowland showed up in grade four. He was tall, funny and a good-looking lad. All the girls thought he was so cute. Being the tallest one in the whole school and only in grade four; the same grade as me, but he was taller than all those bullies I had been fighting with that were in grade five and six. My classmates thought they had a new champion in Ron. They stirred up animosity between us from the very start. It was their desire that we fight, so that Ron would be their undisputed champion, he was much more charismatic than I. Even those whom I had actually considered friends turned against me, choosing the charisma of Ron over anything I had to offer. One day they managed to pit us against each other, I had no desire to fight him, he was charismatic, and I liked him; however the issue of who was tougher had to be settled, and so we squared off against each other; we both knew that this was inevitable. He attacked me rather aggressively, but my two years of training by that gang of bullies paid off; I had no problem countering his moves. He was trying to hit me as best he could, and I could see his frustration building, then he got mean, he was trying to seriously hurt me. He had big cowboy boots on with actual spur brackets on them and he would stomp at my legs with them to gouge me. At some point, although he was determined to hurt me, I was able to get his attention and I asked him “Why are we being pit against each others by these nerds?” pointing at our classmates that were gathered around for the show. He stopped and answered “I don’t know? Yeah what do I care about you! You bunch of Mezners’?” Ron said again addressing our classmates. Mezners’? That was my word; I had been the only one who called anybody a Mezner! An extreme insult was too be called a Claud Mezner! This was Ron’s way of extending an olive branch to me.
At that I suggested “Let’s get em” and off we went chasing them down and teaching them some respect. “The two us together can rule this school” we reasoned, and we were right, we became best friends and we did.
The grade five and sixes even though they were organized and bigger and they always fought in packs, never tried to take us on when we were together. On days when Ron was not at school they would resume their attacks on me, but they still were unable to breakdown my defense, and I was still too fearful of making them really angry so I never hit back. Ron and I had perfected the art of play fighting; we would play fight every recess. We would sing the theme songs from some action detective type shows that were on TV, Manix was our favorite theme song, and we would hum it as loud as we could as we fought. “Do DA do do! Manix! Do DA do do!” we would sing as we fought. We dropped kicked each other, and we would punch at each other, the one being hit would do a crazy tumbling back flip to exaggerate the force of the blow. We would charge each other and at the point of contact the one receiving the charge would deflect the charging one high into the air, often to impressive heights. We got very good at landing our falls without getting hurt as well. We had learned to fake punch better than in the movies, we would just swing at each other to actually hit each other. The one receiving the blow would at the point of contact jerk his head back and then do that wild floppy looking crazy back flip to exaggerate the blows force. This action actually removed the force of the blow from us, what would look like a solid hard hit, actually felt like a soft caress rather than a blow.
Sometimes however, we would get it wrong, solid contact would be made, that usually hurt and would stop the game and a real fight would be on, until the hit count was made square again. For the most part it was a lot of fun and one of our favorite things to do. This was excellent training, and there would come times that this training seemed providential. Ron was an excellent fort builder; we built some great forts. One was four stories high! These were actual forts, they had several kinds of defenses, including sling shot weapons, and the elastic band powered bobby pin launchers that were so deadly. We were only under attack one time, those same bullies and some other friends of theirs that we did not know attacked us one Saturday morning, we manned our battle stations, Jimmy Cheadle was there but he seemed too scared to stand with us to defend our fort. Jimmy was small for his age, I had known him since grade one and he had at times turned against me and stood with my enemies, and for this I never considered him a true friend. But he always hung around with my friends and I. Ron and I made sure that Jimmy knew that he was going to have to stand his ground or after these guys were gone we would turn on him; the old fighting fear with fear technique. From inside the well-armed fort we took our positions. They tried to call us out to fight fair, there were more than a dozen of them, and there were only three of us, a bully’s eye view of fair. The elastic bobby pin launchers were very effective, we also would throw rocks at them, but it was the sting of the bobby pins cutting through their clothes and into there skin that took the fight out of them. At first they thought they could just charge into the fort and attack us and drag us out. As they approached those who got past the rocks and the bobby pins did enter the fort. But the fort was four stories high; the bottom floor was unoccupied. We had a hatch that swung down and blocked the entrance to the fort, but it filled nearly the whole space of the bottom floor as its swing area, so that once you are inside it is difficult to lift the hatch so that you can get back out. When this hatch is lifted it covers the access to the upper floors of the fort. So once you enter you have to let the hatch down and let it block the entrance to the fort before you can climb up the ladder to get to the higher floors. Only two people could be in the bottom floor maximum at one time for the hatch to have enough room to swing. So the first two enemy troops to reach the fort pushed the hatch open from the outside and had to let it swing down shut if they wanted access to us. They lowered the hatch, making it impossible for their friends to enter behind them, and so they were in effect, trapped. There was a small hatch at the ladder that opened from above, and Ron was on the second floor, so he opened it. They tried to come up the ladder but Ron knocked them back by stomping on their hands and head with is now trademark cowboy boots and spurs. They were trapped in the first floor of the fort but were trying to climb up after us. They were much bigger than we were so I handed Ron my homemade elastic powered bobby pin launcher. My bobby pin gun was a two by four with two nails spread apart on the end of it; an elastic band was slung between these nails. A bobby pin, spread apart just right was then hooked over the elastic band drawn back and released to find its target. Not just any elastic band would do, although they all worked, none matched the velocity that the red elastic bands that came on heads of lettuce. These thin red elastic bands were the best, they were not just a little better; they were deadly better; they were probably more deadly than even a good BB or pellet gun. Ron had clear shots, literally like shooting fish in a barrel! Well it was literally like shooting a bunch of kids trapped in our fort; it was figuratively like shooting fish in a barrel. Three shots had these guys begging for mercy. But Ron was never very merciful and he let them have it several more times. They were screaming and twitching on the floor of our fort as Ron plugged away at them. The only thing louder than the sound of those bobby pins hitting them was the sound of their screams. Out side their friends made a valiant attempt at a rescue. But even when they did get to the fort through our hail of fire upon them they could not get in, the boys lying screaming on the floor were blocking the hatch from opening. They tried to break the hatch down but we drove them back with rocks and bobby pins. One of them had come back from collecting a bunch of rocks and they all began throwing them at the fort as hard as they could. We were now under heavy assault from rocks. Some of these rocks made it into the fort through the windows, but I don’t think any of us got hurt. They were yelling that they were going to get us later so we should give up. I yelled back “Tell me something new!” I was not as scared by their threats as Jimmy and Ron were, they had always tried to get me, so this was going to be no different, but Ron and Jimmy were not used to being one of their targets, but to me it meant nothing different. Eventually they grew weary of their attack, they demanded we release our prisoners and they would leave. I told them to leave, and when they are gone we would let them go. They began to argue the point but I had some special long-range sniper bobby pins, these were bobby pins that I had cut the tails shorter on so the would fly farther and straighter. I began firing at them and hitting them at a much farther range than they were used too. Since my firing got them moving that way they kept going and about fifteen minutes after they were out of sight we let our prisoners go. That fort was never attacked again. So we abandoned it. Ron and I knew how to make excitement. Often we would remark to each other that there was no way any two kids were having more fun than we were anywhere in the world. One time we were sitting on the Steps of Ron’s house looking across the road at this old abandoned house. It was behind a thick hedge that hid a wire fence within it, there was a large wrought iron gate that blocked access to the place. Surprisingly until that day we never gave the place much consideration. But this day it was time to explore the place, it would take courage and cunning, because the place would obviously be haunted. This old house looked just like the house in the movie Psycho, its second floor walled by a steep French roof and shingles, and a flat roof on the top. Tall six pained wooden sash windows all around with shudders on each side of all of them. Old red and yellow brick walls on all sides, it looked old, it looked haunted. The hedge around the house and the wrought iron gate added to the ma Bates feel of the place. We climbed the gate and on that side of the fence we could not help but feel trapped. We made our way in to the house, it was mostly empty, and the windows provided very little light into the house so that even in the middle of the day it was still pretty gloomy inside. We ventured deeper into the house and found it to be empty of any furnishings. We were not finding it all that scary because it was still the middle of the day. So we decided to try the basement. There were no windows at all down there so it was pitch black, and there were all kinds of stuff on the floor that we were tripping over. It was a little scary, but not too scary, to enhance the experience we worked each others fear level to a fever pitch and then ran out of the house screaming like little girls… I mean he was screaming like a little girl, I was just …yelling. Then we decided to go upstairs, by this time Jimmy Cheadle had showed up so Ron and I decided to act more scared than we were. We would get about one third the way up the stairs and Ron and I would turn and run down the stairs screaming “The Geek! It’s the Geek!” We shouted as we charged past little Jimmy leaving him behind us as we ran for safety. He came flying out behind us at a hundred miles an hour and as white as a ghost! Running right past us faster than sound, screaming at the top of his lungs, his eyes peeled wide open in stark raving terror. We would think that was a riot. We would do it over and over and it he fell for it he every time. Up stairs there was a hallway and two bedrooms, that were empty, that was about it. We went back to Ron’s place and we were back on his porch when we noticed that there seemed to be extra windows upstairs that we had not seen when we were up there. We reasoned that there must be a room upstairs that we had missed. So we went back to the house, sure enough there were windows we could see from the outside that we could not find on the inside. We searched for a hidden set of stairs or a secret passage, but found none.
We did find a small attic access that ringed the house under the eaves of the French roof. We crawled into the attic, more curious than afraid, but it still took several tries, fear drove back and down the stairs into the safety provided by the mid summers day sun. Eventually we were able to completely circumnavigate the house through the attic and still found no access to this missing room. It was at this point that we decided that we had to break into that room some how. Our curiosity was peaked; why does this house have a room with no way of getting into it? I recalled a Twilight Zone episode where an old guy was bricked into a small room to die. This seemed like the same situation, we were sure we were going to find some dead guy sitting in a rocking chair all dusty and dried up. “That would be so cool!” we all agreed.
We picked a spot in the wall and began to work our way through it. We kicked and hit the spot as hard as we could. Ron ran home and got a hammer. We smashed the plaster off and exposed the lath. We grabbed the individual lath slats and pulled off all the ones that we could. Then we kicked and smashed away at the hole until it was large enough for us to crawl through into the room. It was weird; there was a room behind that wall with three windows, two facing north, and the other west. There was a red royalty patterned typed carpet perfectly centered in the room exposing a foot wide border of the pristine hardwood floor all around. There was velvet type red and black patterned wallpaper on all walls. The windows were trimmed with white trim and there was a door on the one wall. The door was some kind of heavy oak door, well treated wood grain finished, with four inch wide trim painted bright white all around it. The door had no visible hinges, and no doorknob. There was not even a hole for a doorknob. The door obviously could not open, it never had opened it was made that way. The condition of this room was immaculate; it was like new, as if no one had been in there since the room was new. Except for the hole in the wall that we made and the plaster dust we tracked in, the place was spotless. What was this room for? Why does it have a door that doesn’t open? We all wondered. We brought Mr. Rowland in to look at it. Mr. Rowland seemed more upset about the room than curious; he did not like it at all. I think he thought there was something occultist about it. He never did figure out what the deal was with that room, he was very puzzled. However Ron Jimmy and I were pretty sure that the door in the room was probably just door that went into the next dimension, or Hell, it had to be something like that. Ron moved away some time in grade five, I thought I would never see him again. At school it was different without him, he was one of the only people I considered a trustworthy friend. Norman Koster was the other, Norman was of good character but not as charismatic as Ron. No one was. We were left with the task of filling the space of Ron’s departure. Norman and I never really had the same dynamic between us without Ron. It was the end of an era; our whole class felt his absence. In time we adjusted. I did not have a good play-fighting partner to fight with anymore. No one could do it like Ron and I did, Jimmy Cheadle and Cliff Severs, or Jeff Clydesdale or Paul Cooperthwait always ended up crying and getting Norman and I in trouble whenever we play fought with them. Soon the school made a rule against us play fighting.
The grade sixes now were feeling brave again with Ron gone and again began trying to make me submissive to them. And again I refused. All they wanted was for me to run away or cry for mercy, but I was not going to allow that to happen. At this point I was growing weary of their constant attacks, them seeking my fearful respect, me refusing to give it. I still was always too scared to retaliate, but at some point I realized that they were at a disadvantage, I had several years of intense training supplied by them, I offered no real resistance accept defending my self by blocking their blows. So they were not as well practiced as I.
My play fighting with Ron had taught me how to really fight; I just did not know it yet. I did not know for sure that play fight moves would work in the real world. I had a few scuffles with some no name brand kids who were my own age and I clobbered them using moves I had learned play fighting. But I was still fearful that hitting these bullies who had preyed on me since the second grade would make them really mad and they would seriously hurt me. Each time they would gang up on me I would try a little something, and it would work! But they did get mad and attacked me harder, and I would stop my offense and fall back on defense until they tired them selves out and left me alone for a while. This harder attack that they did against me helped reinforce my fear of hitting them, I needed to overcome all those years of being bullied and gain confidence in myself. My friends never understood why I stood up to those boys, I never even really knew why. They used to say to me “Why don’t you just run away like every one else? That is all they want!” I couldn’t do that, like a lot of things I never could do, like tying my shoes without making two loops out of the ends of the laces first before I tied them, or fill out a form, I still can’t do that. They were mostly puzzled why I would stand up to these boys and not hit them, Why I would just stand there blocking their blows till they tired out or the bell rang, no one but me understood. “If your going to stand up to them you should at least fight back.” my friends would say. They could not know that I was way too scared to. I hated being fearful, and I determined that I was going to fight back, I was just going to be prepared first. I began to visualize my moves, I would lie in bed going to sleep remembering their moves, and figuring out what openings I would have to provide them with some real hurt. But I would have to practice. I had heard my dad say that I trained boxer could hit so much harder than an untrained man, even if the boxer was small, and the untrained man was big and strong, the boxer could hit harder. I would practice punching, first against my mattress leaned up against my bedroom wall. Then I made a punching bag out of an old duffel bag that I stuffed with old clothes. I eventually graduated to hitting the willow tree out side our house. I would punch the rough bark until my knuckles were tenderized, to toughen them up. In the mean time they would still be after me at school, but now I would watch them, memorizing their every move so later that night I could visualize my attack plan. I would shadow box to the memory of each of their moves, as I fell asleep I would imagine how I would counter all their moves and when and where I would hit them. I would visualize every aspect of the fight, allowing contingencies for every possible situation. Still, as prepared as I was, and even with all those years of facing them and all that play fighting, I was not yet confident enough to implement my plan. Months went by, and nearly daily I would endure the relentless attacks of my enemies, too scared to fight back, and too stupid or proud to run. They began escalating their attacks; they began ambushing me regularly, as I would walk home from school. Even if I was just riding my bike on the weekend and I ran into them they would attack me again. Sometimes I would run across only one of them when they were all alone and when that happened to me the once tough bully was now a nice guy. Whenever I caught them alone they would pretend to be my friend, and sometimes I fell for it. One day, after a routine confrontation, I realized that I was not even a little shook up. I had not been fearful during the attack, yet I had not fought back, but this time not for fear, but rather I had practiced restraint, I had learned restraint, not aggression from all my training, what a waste! I would not let that happen again. Next time I would strike back! I decided, and I couldn’t wait. But for some reason the bullies left me alone for a while, longer than ever, and I thought I would never get a chance to clobber them like I was now prepared to do. Fall slid into winter, and still the opportunity never came up, it was the longest that they had ever left me alone. Then one recess we built a big snow fort in the schoolyard, the grade six boys did the same, and their fort was directly across the field from ours, so confrontation was inevitable. I was not paying too much attention to the fort one morning. When I looked up I saw the grade six boys attacking our fort kicking it down and rubbing snow into the face of one of my classmates who had either tried to defend the fort, or probably just couldn’t get away. By the time I got there it was all over, and the grade six boys were gone. We all set about rebuilding the fort, and before recess was over we had it nearly all fixed back up. During lunch hour we finished the snow fort and it was even better than it was before. But before that hour was over the grade six bullies attacked again. This time everyone ran and got away, except me. This was my moment; this was the appointed time I had been waiting for, I was more prepared for this moment than anything else in my whole life. The confidence I felt deep inside was like the strongest shield that could ever be invented. I invited their attack with great anticipation, I knew I would be victorious, I knew those poor boys didn’t have a chance. I began knocking them down to the ground, tossing them about, they felt weightless to me, I saw them flying through the air much farther than I had ever imagined that they would fly. I made what I thought of as a “kill zone” around me: If someone got within arms reach I hit them as hard as I could, all the practice paid off, I could hit really hard. Within probably seconds of this they thinned out considerably, they were turning and running away. I had not planned for this, I did not anticipate that they would turn and flee. I had never run from them, and now I showed just a little aggression and they all ran, like cowards they ran! Just like the long legged villain of my nightmares, that had tormented me all those horrible nights, they ran like it did when I stood up to it. The villain of my nightmares vaporized into thin air to escape my wrath, these guys did not have any such ability, and all they could do is run. I set after them, all those years of passing themselves off as tough guys, now when faced with a fraction of the stress that I had endured for all those years they ran like such cowards. I caught Eddy Kalvoda; however he was not my first choice. I wanted a bigger fish to fry, but he was the only one that I could catch, It was hard for me to hurt him, I was expecting to be fighting against these guys as they fearlessly attacked me, not whimpering for mercy. I was not a hard merciless person, I would not feel pleasure in refusing mercy, but justice had to be served. I made him cry like a baby, humiliating him in front of all like he had tried to do to me so many times. A group of his friends rallied their courage and charged in to rescue him. These guys were the biggest of the lot; they were the ones that I really wanted. When they arrived they tried to just grab Eddy and rescue him from me like they were rescuing someone from a burning building. But I was able to get a hold of the biggest one of them, and within seconds it was all over, this guy was on the ground bleeding and better still, crying like some big baby. From that day forward, I ruled that school, from time to time the grade six bullies would attempt a coup d’état, I would single handily crush it. I was big man on campus! There was a price to pay; the principle gave me the strap for it. It seems that although those boys could assault me daily and receive immunity, I was never granted such quarter, and so I was punished. Some would say that I was treated unjustly by those teachers, and to be fair, so did I. I got the strap for standing up to those bullies one time! While they had repeatedly attacked me for years right in front of their eyes and they never even said a stern word to these bullies. However, it was fair, I mean after all, I was me, and they were only them, so it all balanced out. Grade seven was a different setting, new school, I was no longer the undisputed champion of anything, those same old bullies had new friends and there were more of them, and it seemed my reign was over, and the old pattern would start up again. It almost did, one day they ganged up on me, but I fought back, and my old foes ran away again, and my new foes, seeing that those who had stirred the strife against me had fled, ceased their hostilities and said; “Hey man! ...We got nothing against you!” At that point, their disgust with those who fled was apparent. I never became friends with those boys, but they respected me and I them, they did not run, I respected that. I did not run, and they respected that. After that life at Mark II junior high was uneventful. Sometime during that year we moved to the cottage, and I started to go to a new school, Brechin Public School. It housed grades one to eight, and kindergarten. It was a big adjustment for me; Mark II was a huge school, with very laid back rules and attitudes. Brechin was very uptight, with weird strict rules. I was not adjusting well. My predisposition towards teachers was also hard to hide; I had lost a lot of respect for them and actually held some contempt towards them since grade five when I had gotten the strap for defending myself, while the bullies were all protected by them. I was new to the school and they did not have desks large enough to fit me. They were out of normal sized desks and only had extra desks from the lower grades, and they were much smaller. I had the proper sized chair but the desk was too small, so it rested on my legs if I tried to sit tight to it. One day we were to read some part of a history book in class quietly to our selves for a while. I was leaning back in my chair with my legs stretched out under my desk and slid my toes under the legs of the front of my desk. I was reading quietly. In Mark II they had taught us that when we were reading we should get comfortable to make reading a more enjoyable experience. That was about the only thing that I recalled learning in Mark II. As I read quietly to my self, I noticed Miss Doyle glaring at me. I decided to ignore it as best I could. I would glance up from time to time and still see her glaring at me. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes. Then she yells “All right stupid!” in her most contemptuous tone. I refused to respond I was not going to accept being called stupid that easily. Steve McCullach who was sitting in front of me responded “who me?” “No him!” she shouted. “Who me?” asked Robert Black Who was sitting behind me. “No him!” she yelled pointing at me. “Not me?” I asked. “Take your desk into the hall and write out five dictionary pages!” She demanded. “Which five?” I asked. “I don’t care! Any five!” she yelled again. I took my desk into the hallway and opened the dictionary to the first five pages; the first page had written on it “Webster’s Canadian Dictionary for schools” that was one page. The next page had written on it “published 1967 copy write first edition 1967 second edition 1971 Canadian School dictionary” that was two pages. The third page said something about how to use the dictionary but it wasn’t much, I don’t recall what was on page four. The fifth page would have been the start of “A”, but since no particular order was specified I searched for an easier page. I found that the on the last page of the Z’s there was only one word, it started with “Z” of course, but I can’t recall what it was, so that was my fifth page. I could have left well enough alone and just handed those pages in as they were, that would probably have been enough to set Miss Doyle off as it was, but I needed to push a few more of her buttons. She thought I was so dumb that I could not see that she hated me from the start, my friends would tell me that when I was not in class miss Doyle would talk about me saying I was some kind of weirdo. She told Harvey Mann and Robert Black that they should not be my friends; they actually got in trouble for being friends with me anyway. I never felt so much hate from anyone before or since than from Miss Doyle. Why? She never even knew me, but I got the feeling that if she felt she could get away with it she would have me killed. Some would call it paranoia; I thought I was just going crazy to think such things. Until one day, Cheryl Boag, Mary Lou Kennedy, and a couple of other girls that were from the preppy clique of the school cornered me and asked me why Miss Doyle hated me so much. They said that they had just come from working on some school play project and Miss Doyle was saying very nasty things about me. They said that she was trying to make sure that all the girls would hate me and treat me bad. “Well you don’t need her help for that!” I quipped.
At that Cheryl Boag or Bogie as we called her moved very close to me and said; “I don’t hate you”. You know, stuck in this sinking boat pumping the bellows of the toilet pump for air with my head stuck in the toilet it comes to mind that maybe she liked me. Damn, I was always too slow about stuff like that; she was hot! Oh well too late now.Having some time on my hands and some space to fill, since the five dictionary pages were shorter than anyone had anticipated, I took the time to craft a careful note to attach as part of those pages; I added this note;
“Here are your five dictionary pages, you never said which ones you wanted; you said any five that I wanted! So here they are five stupid pages for a stupid punishment!”
I handed the five dictionary pages and the note in to Miss Doyle. But she immediately said it did not look thick enough and refused it. So I gave it Rob Black and told him to give it to her, thinking that she could not refuse it and give it back to me if I was not there. Rob Black did not think it was good idea but he did it for me anyway. I came in from lunch hour, Miss Doyle was at her desk, and she was boiling, glaring at me, but looking quite satisfied at the same time. I was momentarily puzzled by her satisfaction, but then the answer came, she had gone to the principle with my note. Mr. Sinclair was our principle and he came bursting into the classroom. “Do you know of a better school around here?” He shouted shaking his finger at me. “I never thought about it before, I don’t know.” I answered as honestly as I could. “Then what’s the matter with this one?” He demanded angrily with a red face and veins popping out on his forehead, spitting his dentures half way out his mouth.
He began throwing desks aside clearing a path towards me, kids were getting knocked around by the flying desks and all the kids ran to the back of the class for safety. I stayed in my desk and held my desk down. He tried to toss the desk aside but I was holding it so he could not. He then swung his fist at me and hit me with a glancing blow, as I was able to move my head aside and back to absorb the blow like I used to when I would play fight with Ron Rowland. It didn’t even hurt a little bit, he swung three or four more times but each time I was able to either dodge the blow or absorb the blow like I had learned play fighting. Then he put his hands around my neck and began to choke me, I stood up and pushed my desk aside, He was squeezing pretty hard and I could not breathe, I could hear something crunching in my neck. I put my hands together and raised my arms so that both my arms were between his arms then I spread my arms so that now his arms were forced under my arms to my armpits, this effectively forced his hands from around my neck. He looked shocked that I had been able to break his hold. He then began pushing me around and taking swings at me, I wanted to hit him, I wanted to swing back at him, one hit and this skinny old man would be down, I knew that. But for some reason I did not want to hit the old guy, it was not fear, just respect for my elders, this guy did one thing right; he got born long before me. He tried to hit me but he could not, I was too fast for him. Frustrated he picked up one of the baseball bats that were always leaning in the corner of the classroom and came after me with it. He swung it at me hard! By this time we were at the front of the class. I jumped back and ducked a little and the bat whizzed past my face and connected with the chalkboard with a loud clap! Cracking it in a small spider pattern and leaving a dent t. This made him even angrier and he swung again even harder, this time hitting the back of the open door to the classroom and smashing its window. At this point I caught the look on Miss Doyle’s face, she had looked quite pleased, satisfied at it all, that “she showed me” look but she now was beginning to look a little afraid, as if the situation was now out of her control. I was afraid that he would eventually hit me with that bat and so I had to do something. I moved towards him so that I was too close to him for him to swing the bat at me. I managed to get a hold of the bat and I forced it from his hands, and now I held the bat. “You give me back that bat right now or I am gonna really let you have it!” He yelled, trying to intimidate me into giving the bat back to him, and I nearly did hand it to him, but I stopped myself.
“I am not going to give this bat back to you!” I told him as clearly as I could. Now the look on Miss Doyle’s face was even more worried. “Just put it down then!” he said, with a more pleading sense of reason in his voice. Part of me wanted to knock his block off with it, it would be self-defense, I had a class full of witnesses, I might get away with it, and it would make me feel so good. But instead I put the bat down and he immediately charged at me again and began swinging punches at me, but I continued to frustrate him by blocking his blows. At some point we ended up in the hall and Mr. Sinclair had picked up that bat again and was trying to hit me with it again. There was a kindergarten class in the hall for some reason and they looked terrified, some of them were crying at the sight of this crazed old man. The Kindergarten teacher was quickly getting the kids back into their class, Mr. Hancock another teacher was helping him, Mr. Hancock looked me in the eyes, and I could see he was upset at what was happening to me but that he couldn’t help me either. I can still picture the look on his face; I still don’t know what to make of it. Again I was able to wrestle the baseball bat from him and I tossed it aside. Then he stood to catch his breath; “You know what you need?” “You need a spanking Sinclair style!” “I’m gonna spank you Sinclair style!” he shouted. “Get down on your knees!” he ordered. I was at the point of breaking, I was ready to beat the crap out this guy, I could feel that if I loosened the lid on that anger even a little bit I would explode all over this guy, maybe even kill him. I had to tighten the lid on my anger even more, if I was to act in defiance of his demands; it would be like loosening that lid. I could not risk that, so I complied.
The emotional stress I was experiencing was crippling, and it took me years to overcome it. Everything inside me was in conflict. I was that four-year old boy facing that long-legged taunting monster of my nightmares. I had scared him off in my sleep, but this was no dream, and I knew that for my emotional health I should fight as hard as I could and subdue the beast of this day. But I also knew that he was my Principal, and so I had to show him some respect, even if at the expense of my own emotional growth and well being. “Now poke your head through there!” he said pointing between his legs. He then trapped my head between his knees and spanked my butt. “This is a spanking Sinclair style!” he shouted with glee. Then he noticed we were alone in the hall. So to humiliate me more he brought me back into class and again ordered me onto my knees, and began to spank me “Sinclair style” in front of the whole class, at some point the attacked subsided, his anger satiated. From that point on I had Mr. Sinclair and miss Doyle on the ropes, they were afraid of me now, Mr. Sinclair must have been afraid that I might bring charges against him or something. In that one afternoon I had gained so much, they thought that they had won, but then realized that they had lost, their very jobs were at my mercy. I could have made life difficult for them or even abused the freedom from oppression I had earned. But I did not; I just tried to make every day as normal as possible. I now could put my feet under the legs of my desk all I wanted, and I did. It drove Miss Doyle nuts, but she dared not say anything. I introduced the play fighting that Ron Rowland and I enjoyed so much to Harvey Mann and Robert Black. We would spend every recess play fighting, drop kicking each other flips and throws; we had a lot of fun. The best part came after the incident with Mr. Sinclair. We would play fight with each other and instead of singing the theme from Manix, we would shout “I’m gonna do’er Sinclair style!” We would fake an anger fit and punch wildly and do the Sinclair style spank on each other in a mock of our principle. Miss Doyle and Mr. Sinclair hated it but were powerless to stop us, so we had the last laugh.”