“…avoid foolish controversies and … arguments and quarrels … because these are unprofitable and useless.”   Titus 3:9

There was a time when freedom came. I remember it well. It was also a time of greater danger. It was a time when the air seemed just a little crisper in the morning, and the sun baked just a little hotter in the afternoon.

It was junior high.

In elementary school through sixth grade, lunch period meant you walked together with your class through the halls to the cafeteria. You ate as a class. You had no choice of what to eat, unless you brought your own lunch from home. Everyone ate the same awful cooked spinach and English peas with something that resembled meat. Beginning in the seventh grade – junior high – it was a different story.

You could order a hamburger or maybe one of a few other options, as well as the standard plate lunch. The real freedom, however, was that after eating, you were free to play on the school grounds, unsupervised, for the rest of your lunch period.

It was a freedom none of us were accustomed to. At first, just being able to roam around and talk freely was exhilarating. Then the danger set in. Bullies started to make their rounds, and everyone became a little more wary.

The Three Bears

Randy McGuire was not your typical bully. Mainly, he just wanted to have fun at your expense. You might say he was more of a prankster. One of the largest kids around, he was not mean-spirited, and yet he always thought something was funnier if it involved a little physical pain.

For instance, one day I was minding my own business when I suddenly found myself surrounded by Randy and two of his friends. He said “Charlie, have you heard the story of the three bears?” Before I could even say, “No thanks, Randy, I don’t like the sound of that,” he had kneed me hard in my right thigh while saying “One bear!” His friend then kneed me hard in my left thigh while yelling “Two bears!” As I crumbled to the ground, his other friend kneed me again on the left side, yelling “Three bears!” Then Randy said, “That’s the story of the three bears, Charlie!”

“Real funny Randy,” I managed to stammer as I struggled to get up. His cackling laughter trailed away as they looked for their next victim. The cramping went away and I stopped limping before the day was over. Just another day of freedom in junior high.

Dodging Randy and other boys like him was part of the daily routine, but just basic interacting also had its quirks. In general, hitting other boys in the arm was both a reflex and a message. The message could be complicated and ambiguous. It was also a ritual of junior high. It was like communicating with other boys and establishing your manhood at the same time. Sometimes a gentle punch meant “Hey, how’s it going?” Other times, a hard punch meant “There take that. I dare you to punch me back.” If you wanted to stop a persistent hitter, you really needed to hit him back. Some boys got talented at hitting with only one or two knuckles, making a more concentrated hit that hurt more and often caused a knot or cramp in the arm (also known as a “frog”). It was a skill.                                                                                     

 Splits

Another thing Randy McGuire liked to do was play “splits” and make other boys play as well. In splits two boys stand a few feet apart. At the beginning, they each start with their legs wide apart. A pocket knife is thrown into the ground as near as possible to the middle of the other boy’s stance. Then that boy has to move one foot to where the knife is, pick it up, and throw it back in the same manner. The knife is thrown back and forth, the distance between feet getting narrower and narrower, until one boy chickens out, declaring the other one as the winner. Randy especially liked to get me to play, because I wore tennis shoes to school, whereas most of the other boys had on cowboy boots – much safer for this game. Occasionally a knife got stuck in a foot, but I don’t recall any serious injuries. This game was one reason I got a pair of cowboy boots before junior high was over.

Anthony 

Was I ever the bully? Of course not!  Well, maybe I hit a few other boys in the arm when it wasn’t necessary, and maybe even one or two persistently.  After all, I was just figuring out my communication skills, right? As one of the most socially awkward kids in the history of the world, I had to do something to figure out my place and how to relate with others. But I wouldn’t be mean or anything like that. Of course not.

There was this one kid named Anthony Burns. Now I noticed Anthony when virtually everyone else ignored him.  He seemed like a happy kid, and yet he was even more withdrawn and quieter than me – more of a loner than me even. I sat right behind him in English class. Or was it History? I forget.  Anyway, it seemed to me that Anthony needed a friend, so I decided to talk and communicate with him. I employed the standard technique of flicking his ear with my finger when the teacher wasn’t looking. It was sneakier and thus more devious than just hitting someone in the arm. Painful and annoying, it nonetheless was an indication that the protagonist cared enough to bother with inflicting such pain. A start of a friendship, right?

I was sure that Anthony appreciated the attention, though when he turned around and confronted me he usually acted as if he wasn’t thrilled. Maybe it wasn’t quite a friendship yet. We did talk sometimes, though, of different things, even when there was no arm-hitting or ear-flicking involved. This continued until the last day of school that year. Just as we were being dismissed, Anthony turned around in his chair and socked me pretty hard right across the jaw. It didn’t physically hurt that much, as Anthony didn’t hit me with full force. He had calculated just how hard to hit me to make his point, without actually hurting me seriously. What was immediately obvious, more so than a sore jaw, was that Anthony had been planning this for a long time. It was evidently important to him. He saw me as the bully. Oh no! I couldn’t think fast enough to know what to say. Anthony just smiled at me (he was always smiling), turned and walked away.  Leaving me speechless seemed to be just fine with him.

I thought about Anthony over the summer, but I didn’t know where he lived and he did not play baseball, so I didn’t see him.  The first day of school the next year I looked for him to apologize. Maybe we could still be friends.  But no, he had moved away and was no longer in our school. I never saw Anthony Burns again or heard what happened to him. I thought about him from time to time. As silly as it sounds, when we were driving through another town, sometimes I would actually look along the street to see if Anthony might be living there and happen to be walking along that street. Silly me.

Anthony, I am sorry, and thanks for the lesson.

Matchmaker

Mike Cockrell was a good friend. At least he had been. He and I played on the same little league baseball team. We had each invited the other to be with our family a time or two on short trips. Jonathan was a good friend also, at times. I always wanted to be his best friend, but it was more like we were close friends when it suited him. And in fairness, he never signed up to be best friends with me. He had lots of friends, usually, and a lot of them were more socially adept than myself. Jonathan, Mike Cockrell, and I were all friends with each other. Or had been. And would be again, just not that year.

Junior high is a different deal. Sometimes the closest of friends become enemies, and vice versa. Frankly, Jonathan had written me off in sixth grade, but now in junior high we were buddies again. Mike somehow decided he was tougher than us and decided to pick a fight with Jonathan or me. Now Mike was a great guy usually, one of those guys with a can-do spirit, fun-loving, and friendly. But for some reason, he now seemed to believe he was better and tougher than us. One day during lunch period I had enough and responded strongly to his attacks, and we had a full-fledged fight. Sort of.

Mike’s main attack was a big roundhouse punch that I was easily able to block.  He seemed shocked, and I attacked him with a flurry of punches. At least I thought I did. Observers later told me that, although it appeared I was winning at that point, I was all elbows and not actually connecting with any punches. 

Mike was looking worried, but I didn’t effectively capitalize. Then he landed one of those punches after I had easily blocked so many. I fell down hard, then jumped up quickly. But before I was able to continue, an older boy had jumped between us and stopped the fight. Oh no. Then the bell rang, and we had to go back to class.

 I swear I was winning that fight – problem was, I was the one who got a black eye, and Mike was not. One lucky punch. So, everyone assumed he won. And maybe he did. Anyway, everyone in class stared at my quickly developing black eye. Lisa Brooks, always demonstrative, stared and gawked. She exclaimed, “I will never talk to that Mike Cockrell again!” The actual result was that they started going steady the next week, and after high school, they got married. They have now been married for over 40 years. I feel that I am owed some kind of matchmaking fee, though I never received any.

Witness for the Prosecution

My friend Jonathan and I were at a football game one Thursday night – it was the junior varsity game.  We were in the eighth grade and were just there watching and goofing around in the stands.  We were at one end of the stadium and a good ways from the rest of the spectators at the sparsely attended game. A ninth grade kid I will call by the name Manny Gilford, rather than use his real name, was a leader of a group of boys – mostly ninth graders, but also including his younger brother James, who was in the eighth grade like us.

I wouldn’t call Manny’s group a “gang”, more like just a group of boys looking for some excitement or trouble. Manny was actually on probation for beating up a girl, though I did not know that at the time.

Anyway, Jonathan and I were really not paying attention when Manny and his group walked up and surrounded us. Manny pulled a pocket knife out, addressed me, and demanded money. I think it was a quarter he wanted. The amount did not matter. I told him I did not have any money and looked away. I was not about to give him any money. First of all, I didn’t have much money, though I probably did have a quarter or two in my pocket. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but moreover, I did not think a quarter or even two was going to end the matter. I believe I rightly perceived that his goal was to make me squirm and appear to be the big tough guy to his buddies, and he was succeeding on both counts. If I gave him money now, what would he demand and what would he choose to do later? This was my thinking.

He kept opening and closing the knife blade – with his teeth. I guess he thought that looked cool. His demands got more persistent and louder but were interspersed with jokes and derisive comments that achieved great laughter from his buddies. His younger brother James was especially looking at Manny with pride and admiration. James must have thought his older brother Manny was really tough and cool.

I was looking down and away, trying to be inconspicuous as I thought through and looked for possible escape routes. I could sense that Jonathan was doing the same.  He had more opportunity as Manny was focused on me. We had a couple of facts that were working in our favor. One was that Manny was enjoying the moment so much that he often looked away as his friends all egged him on and laughed with him. Secondly, few of the other boys were really focused on keeping a circle around us. Some of them had their hands in their pockets, not in a position ready to fight or stop someone. 

I slowly inched my way out of the center of the circle, taking small steps, not looking at Manny or arguing with him. At one point, he angrily opened the knife blade, waved it in front of my face, and stated, “If you take one more step, I’m gonna cut your guts out.” So I stopped and stood still. I am partial to my guts.

The derisive laughter resumed and at some point, Jonathan managed to walk away. No one pursued him. Manny continued to demand money from me.   There were a group of high school boys about twenty rows and another section away from us in the stands. I knew Jonathan would go to them for help. Maybe I could wait for that, but then my thinking changed when Manny got more volatile. He was losing patience with me on the one hand, and then looking away for several seconds at a time to converse and joke with his friends.

I had inched further away from the center of the circle, and then I decided to just go. I walked quickly down the stands without looking back, knowing there was some chance of a knife headed at my back or that one or more of them would pursue me. Instead, as I had hoped and expected, only loud taunts and threats, and no pursuit. By the time I reached the high school boys, where Jonathan was just starting to explain the situation, I was shaking and I sat down.

It went to juvenile court, perhaps because Manny was already on probation. Jonathan and I had to testify separately. The District Attorney had heard our stories and worked with us to make sure they were consistent. I really hadn’t taken much notice of how Manny opened the knife with his teeth. By the time we got on the witness stand, we had the exact same story of how he opened that knife. That experience taught me that witnesses are coached by their lawyers and usually have plausible stories with consistency, whether they are telling the truth or not.

The defense attorney, on cross examination, tried to confuse me into confirming that Manny threatened to cut my guts out if I didn’t give him money (to make me look inconsistent), but the threat concerned whether or not I took another step. Nice try, but I was ready for that one.  An okay witness for age 13.

Manny was sentenced to one year at a correctional facility for boys, I believe in Gatesville, Texas. When his year was up, he was back in school, and then he was in my class, in the ninth grade, as he had missed a year. I was not afraid of Manny, and Manny was not afraid of me. Even so, Manny and I didn’t really have much interaction after that. That night in the football stands, he had only wanted to show off and make me squirm. It wasn’t really a big deal.

Muscle man

Algebra class was a place where I was comfortable. The work came easier to me than for most of my classmates, so I felt no stress there. Also, I liked the teacher – Mr. Rhiddlehoover. Moreover, the kids in the class were easy to get along with. I would get to class early, as it was right after lunch, and often play games with other classmates. Mark Dickerson and I would play a numbers game called “At Least One”.

One day I was there talking with some of the other kids. Mindy Joines, a beautiful girl and the head cheerleader, was in the middle of the discussion. The kids were talking about how strong people were. Since I was on the football team, some assumed I was strong. In reality, not so much. For some inexplicable reason, Mindy challenged me to arm wrestle, and for some stupid reason, I accepted the challenge. What was I thinking?

Well, frankly, to arm wrestle, Mindy and I would have to put our hands together – appealing since I had only been able to admire the pretty girls from a distance and had virtually no physical contact. A dumb reason, I know. Secondly, I assumed I could win easily. So, so wrong. If I had just once noticed the size of Mindy’s biceps instead of focusing only on how great her thighs looked, then I would have gotten a clue. It turns out that all those flips and pyramids the cheerleaders do require strength. Who knew?

So we started and Mindy almost put my arm down immediately. I was stunned and was struggling to avoid a significant embarrassment. I held strong and gave it as much as I could but barely budged her.  It was a major task, taking maybe a full minute, just to get our hands back to the starting point, and the outcome was still in doubt. This was when I finally took a good look at her biceps – oh my gosh, where did she get those muscles? She was a thin, pretty girl. I had no idea.

I knew now that even if I won, it would be a small embarrassment and humiliation to almost lose, and to take so long to maybe win. Adding to the embarrassment, we had now attracted a crowd, as more kids came into class. Mr Rhiddlehoover had taken notice as well. Evidently we were putting on quite a show.

Then Mindy started gaining again – oh no – got to come back. And I did. Finally after what was probably two to three minutes, I was winning. Mindy had played fair up until that point, but then she started shifting her whole weight behind her arm. This was a disaster for me, because if she cheated and beat me, no one would care about my excuses. So I quickly called her on it.  She sat back down, and a short time later I put her arm down. I had won, technically, but the moral victory was all Mindy’s. Kids were congratulating her and making fun of me.  Although I was relieved and embarrassed at the same time, I think the kids just enjoyed the show.

Mr. Rhiddlehoover smiled at me and said, “She put up a good fight.” I said “Yes, she did.”

The Rumble

The rumble that no one really wanted occurred just after noon on a regular school day, I believe it was between second lunch period and the beginning of fifth period – early afternoon. The designated spot – the parking lot next to the ball field behind the school. A new kid at school had been stirring up trouble. He managed to get one group of boys to threaten and taunt the rest of the class. What divided us? I am not sure I remember exactly, and I am not sure it matters. It mostly related to the two different elementary schools we had been to in the past. “Our group is tougher than your group,” and all that. There is always an excuse to be divided and attack those who are different or have different backgrounds.

What incident sparked this challenge to a fight and a planned “rumble”? Nothing, as I recall, just simply some mean and angry kids wanting to have a fight.

The parking lot was chosen because it was behind the school, and although not totally hidden, it was harder for teachers to keep an eye on us back there.                                                                                         There were maybe 40 boys on each side, glaring, sneering, hurling insults, facing off on either side of the gravel parking lot.  It was a clear day and the sun shone hot above our heads. The sweaty heat seemed to grow thicker. The two sides were both combative and defiant toward each other. Anger was vibrating around the space between us, even though the point of the whole thing was a little vague. It had now taken on a life of its own.

 On one side of us was the empty ball field and nothing beyond. On the other, the back of the school building, situated such that there were few windows from which one could see what was going on. Nonetheless, I suspect there were teachers who knew what was going on and were taking nervous glimpses out those windows.

Early in the cascade of threats and insults, some shouted “No knives! No Knives!” Some boys looked around their respective sides and emphasized “No knives.” I was glad that was established. It’s one thing to have a lot of bruises and a few black eyes. When knives get involved, it can be a totally different thing.

Hands in pockets, flexing of hands and muscles, dark stares, acting tough any way we could.

Insults were being hurled at a rapid rate. A lot of talk. Intelligent stuff like:

“I’m gonna hurt you, boy.”

 “Huh, when I get through with you, you’re gonna wish you hadn’t come to school today.”

“Well, I’m gonna hit you so hard it will knock you into next week.”

 “Well, when we get through with y’all, not even your mamas gonna recognize ye.”

“You gonna wish you never been born.”

“Well, when we get through with y’all, your mamas gonna wish they never been born.”

This went on for a while, with a lot of feet shuffling, nervous glances, more insults and threats, but thankfully no real action. Perhaps staring across at the other side caused some of the big mouths to realize that it would not be so easy to fight the boys they were now facing for real.

Then it became a more entrenched standoff. It appeared that, even though no one was really that eager to have a fight, the insults were still flying and getting increasingly uglier, escalating. After a while, a sickening and pregnant calm descended, when maybe everyone was insulted out, I guess. No one was about to back down or leave, lest they be deemed to have run away. The heat seemed more stifling. There was an uneasy feeling that this would not end well.

Stares got harder, and a few boys on each side raised fists, as if to prepare. A few tentative steps toward the other side. Was it about to start, then? There was indecision and hesitation on both sides and the clear feeling, perhaps fear, that it was. It was a pivotal moment. Then Randy McGuire, who had been standing silently most of the time, with his thumbs in his front jeans pockets and hands hanging down, looking over the scene, suddenly broke the quiet tension very loudly and with authority, “This is stupid!” And Randy turned around and started walking back toward the school building.

It was an indictment that strangely stuck. The air lightened, and the tension deflated. I do not know that anyone else could have pulled it off. No one was going to call Randy a coward, because everyone knew he was not. All the rest of us boys began to feel a little sheepish (and relieved deep down). What was the point? What were we really going to fight about, anyway? We all slowly shuffled back into the building, and that was the end of it. I overheard one teacher talking to another, saying “Nothing happened,” and giggling.

I cannot begin to understand all of the reasons, both rational and irrational, for people to be angry enough to want to fight. What is it that divides us?  Why do we seek or allow others to define us as groups that might oppose each other? To the craziness and inappropriateness of divisions among people who should be bonding together instead, I quote the philosopher Randy McGuire: “This is Stupid.” I have never heard a better argument or summary on the subject.