The Eye of Thor Ch 3 " Both Sides of the house"

Let me tell you about my neighborhood to our right was the Winters, the biker family, the Baskings, the hippie family, I mean wicked professional old school hippie) had a daughter Andrea she had long golden brown hair and a gentle tan all the time we used to spent afternoons in the vacant lot next to the Jehovah-witness family who lived on the corner, chasing butterflies as a kid. I mean you could get all the butterflies, grass hoppers, beetles, centipedes, and other insects, back then in this little vacant lot was a gold mine of life in the 70’s. Next to the lot was Miss Tacoma and next to her the one middle class Afro-American family that was in our neighborhood. Across the street was Jacquie Park complete with slide, swings, sandbox, merry-go-round, baseball diamond where the neighborhood would gather every Sunday to play softball leading into a vast field bordered by trees and a covered open air log pavilion. A great deal of my childhood would be played out in this park. At the other corner of the park was the Ryan family. Philip Ryan was the youngest of twelve children and I could say my best friend from the ages of five to twelve. Two doors down from him was Curt and Cindy Sindilars house.

The block I lived on was large with many a deep back yard and to the left of our house was the Beaches; Chris was the elder son, three years ahead of me and, later twins girls were born when I was eleven. The next house was a big old southern style house where my house was tall this one was wide and took the whole corner bordering Baltimore Avenue. Across the street was the Campanulas’ who had a daughter named Lynn; her best friend Marty who lived down the block was always at her side. Baltimore Avenue was a steep hill going down for almost two city blocks ending in a small triangle.

 The Mitchell family lived at the top. I was told to stay away from this family for their father by no means tolerated “Blacks”. I remember one instance of my father flexing his verbal muscle when Mr. Mitchell decided to verbally remark that he didn’t want a little nigger climbing his fence and falling into his yard. Dad could get riled sometimes; it was something to see. He would start talking with his hands while going back and forth and reading it to someone. Considering he is a very amiable and pleasant man on most occasions and not very intimidating to other men Mr. Mitchell jaw went slack when my Dad fired a volley of “You betters” and “Who do you think you are talking to” over the fence. It was pure poetry. The Mitchell boys managed to even the score with me in several ways that weren’t overtly violent, but still managed to get me hurt on many occasions. Their father had told them in no uncertain terms not to put hands on me, yet they would often find some sinister way of getting me to do myself in. My very first bike was a “Bus” with three speeds. A couple of local kids had set up a bike jump with a cinder block underneath it for a base. I came to play and thought that it would be cool to try the jump. Little did I know that the boys were setting up the ramp with the cinder block turned on its side; as soon as my front tire hit the ramp the cinder block fell and so did I. I ran home crying not the first time not the last.

            As we go down the steep hill Jared lived on the right ½ down and next to his house was the “Halloween” house which got its name by the vast amount of ghosts, ghouls and creepy critters that they portrayed every year once even making the local news with their two kids who were a few years older than me. At the bottom of the hill around the triangle lived several families one of which was the Scott family with several kids who lived next to the Japanese family who had a son my age. I remember this kid had so many toys he had a separate room just for them. I was watched by the Scott family for a short time while my parents were both working one summer. The Scott family children were also told by their father right in front of me that racial slurs would not be tolerated. This instance came after a fight with their Kevin and his friend David Lazon. David had come from another part of town a half mile away to beat me up. All the kids in this part of the neighborhood were around us yelling and egging him on and throwing around the nigger word. After I fought both boys and was beaten up pretty well, again I went crying home to Dad. I had to wait for him to get home for some time. He took me back down the street to the Scotts house, and went inside alone. He came back out and we went home. I went back to the Scotts the next day. I was brought into the house, and Mr. Scott an x marine who I saw only at night was waiting for me with all his kids. He had taken the morning off work and he was mad. He blew his top right there in the living room and told his kids how allowing racial slurs and out right prejudice was an evil that no respectable catholic and a Scott would allow, and it was his responsibility to care for me while in his charge. Mr. Scott and my father were very well respected in the Catholic community and the neighborhood. This still did not stop the fights. That was the way of suburbia around Washington D.C. The Greasers and the Black gangs still had rumbles, but that to would soon stop.    

The 70’s had a very special feeling. The racial tension was slowly evaporating and a new sharing of cultures and tolerance of different religions and lifestyles were beginning to remake the American suburb. I became a catalyst for change and also of strife in this tight nit community. A community where the white children played together and parents shared their views over fences and from porches as we all new each other, whether their religions or beliefs differed. You may think big deal; it was after two decades of violence and hate the District of Columbia was still recovering from the riots that tore the city apart. The final rebuilding of the city would not happen until twenty years hence.

            We had several house keeper whose job it was to watch me during the time both my parents worked. I remember how proud the African American “Mammies” would be watching me, for in me they saw their future and hopes. I had all the gifts that a white professional household could provide many that Black professional families could not attain even though they had as much money the power of white parents far superseded that of money or professional status. The racial equality had been made law that law had not made its mark on the American people other that in the way of public institutions.  The racial communities still gathered together, in neighborhoods, in churches, and in social surroundings and in standings among one another. I had chance to read Chaos and Community by Dr. King. In this book written before the racial integration revolution and civil rights battles had begun spoke of a community that had within its self a way of thinking that removed its own self from the American public with its own internal handicaps and fears. The fact that within twenty years the next generation that would be the receivers of the social and civil revolutions fruits made the interim time a place of great hope as the parents and players of that era looked for their new leaders in the young children who were raised in select social arenas. I was one of those children.

The problem in my case was I had no idea about that hope and could be a little stinker. I got one maid fired because while she had stopped vacuuming to watch her soaps, she had left the vacuum out and I wanted to see how it worked, so naturally I got my hands on a screw driver and took it apart. Exit one maid; the next made it for one day. I had convinced her that my parents let me eat lunch on the roof, just the porch roof about twenty feet up, yet enough to get her fired toot sweet. The housekeeper that stuck was Philippe she came from the islands, and did not put up with any bull from me. I tried her once, just once, she had me sitting in a chair. I was told, “You sit right there until your father get’s home.” I was scared and crying. Then just short of my dad getting home Philippe and I came to an understanding. I whole heartedly agreed to not cause her any trouble. Case and point don’t cross Latin women. During the summer months I would have to tell her where I would be playing. It started with reasonably precise locations like Jacquie Park, the triangle at the bottom of Baltimore Street, or the Ryan’s house. Then I t moved to one side of the house or the other; Philippi knew my hang outs pretty well and by the end of the summer I would check in with her, for I still held her in reverence and say both sides of the house.

Philip Ryan was my closest friend and the goofiest by far. We would send time playing football with Brian and Mike who would always team up against Philip and me. There was a lot of pitching back when it’s two against two, with a permanent quarter back. Philip ran like a duck with big ears bobbing back and forth on his feet which kind of swiveled under him as he ran. We had a paper route, The Evening Star, for a while until we goofed off to much. Philip took over after school when we were in St. Michaels he was one year a head of me. I would steal one of his papers almost daily for a while until Mr. Ryan called my dad, and he would chase me through the park yelling, “You’re being completely unreasonable!” I would laugh so hard when I looked back I would fall over in convulsions of hysterical laughter. The Ryan family was the only group of people who would call me Johnny which I received as a term of endearment. Mrs. Ryan undertook my overseeing during a few months of my kindergarten year. She would be waiting at the large dinning room table for me to get off the bus at noon everyday were she would ask me about my day and then feed me a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese. I would be instructed to play or do my homework until later when Philip got home, or go across the street to Jacquie Park. Kitty the family dog would be wandering around and I would sit pat her for a while. I always thought went adults said pet the dog they meant “pat” so that’s what I did. That dog used to roam all over town she would be seen behind the junior high on Piney Branch, on the streets of Takoma Park, or clicking her tiny claws along Fenton Avenue in down town Silver Spring. She was a strange looking dog kind of barrel like body short haired and white with brown and black spots with little tiny skinny legs ending in long toes with nails that clicked with every step she took. She began getting tumors at the age of eighteen and it was one of these that could not be removed that eventually cut off her wind pipe and began to slowly suffocate her until her death at twenty two years of age. If you do the math that’s 154 in dog years, by then she was a pariah of the community and a small article made the paper with a picture of her walking because that’s what she did. Poor Philip was heart broken for awhile.

We spent untold hours in the park swinging on the swings. First we had to put our bellies on the saddle and push ourselves up into the air, for we were too small to get the big chain swings to swing, and the short ones still had wood boards encased in steel straps all in all at forty to fifty pounds a kid just can’t rightly build the momentum needed with knobby knees and spindly arms. Then one day after I crested fifty pounds and Philip had learned how to swing standing up from his sister he showed me. Philip and all his goofiness was fearless when it came to games of play, and therefore could share whart he learned with me which I could soon master and we would share our new game for hours on end. That’s how I learned to swing, standing up. You see, you climb up into the swing and start pumping the swing by crouching and pushing out until you got it going on a good pendulum then just drop straight down sliding your hands on the chains until your butt goes slap into the seat. Sounds scary but God sets thing up for children that often follow the laws of physics, which I’m sure mothers all over the world appreciate cause the species would have died out long ago. We spent weeks in those swings, flying our star ships through space naming the planets hitting the bumps as we passed planets and ran into the meteor belt eventually reaching the sun and coming back home before the street lights went on. One clear day we were practicing hitting our ejection seats at low levels and Philip says, “If you jump from the highest point I’ll give you a whole dollar”

 I said, “Really?”

He replied, “A whole dollar”. Cause a dollar could buy five candy bars back then.

I revved up my ship and took off just, and just as I left the earths gravity I pulled the ejection lever. I flew. My feet landed first right next to the big slide. My legs attempted to work and then said I quit as they buckled. The feet were holding fast and yelling at the legs the knees replied to the feet and said, “Abort! Abort!” but it was too late for the rest of the body had caught up and passed the knees head first.  Bam! The nose said, “What did I do?” The momentum of the flight after ejection had crumpled my little body beyond the point of my legs and even arms to withhold the impact and my head still being the heaviest and highest point on my body decided that the nose was to blame. Philip never paid me the dollar. O yeah and I ran home crying.  

I could run a theme on that action, running home crying. The boys had beaten me up in the park again. I ran home crying. A group of black kids came across the bridge and since I wasn’t white, for they could get in big trouble beating up a white kid and I was half black living in a white household they could beat me up. I ran home crying. Brian and Mike knocked me off my bike and began breaking the spokes out of it, just out of pure maliciousness: I ran home crying. The kids even got the one Japanese kid in the neighbor hood to beat me up. I was never the husband in house, not even if we were playing toy cars and the cars had girl friends, my car always was alone. I didn’t understand hate. My father had drilled into me that peace and love, friendship and acts of goodness, and the way of equality that I could be anything I wanted. I saw how strongly he stood on these principles, and it was reflected in the teachers I learned from, and the adult friends that saw in me as person not a second class citizen, so the fact that other parent’s white and black still taught their children prejudice views and the views were reflected on me was beyond my understanding. Dad said, “Always walk away from fights” So I did. I just didn’t understand why I was so hated, and not accepted. It became part of who I was. I told people I was ugly. I wanted straight hair. I wanted my legs to turn out cause Dad said I walked pigeon toed and would yell at me for not walking with my feet pointed out. The media told me I should be white, all the hero’s were white, all the cartoons were white, even Jesus was white. Most people in any job I saw that was respected were white and those few blacks Americans that had risen to a place in community were definitely not half black and white they were just black, and I never got to see them on my part of town. The Black people I knew were still fighting for equal placement, and their children were still street urchins. White was right and might. The names started zebra, Oreo, salt and pepper, skunk, half bread, zebra that got used that a lot, news paper, passing, high yellow, red bone and of course the ever popular nigger.     

There were a lot of people who came to the park some were nice others mean and others just evil. Some people have asked why I never really dated Afro-American women; no disrespect ladies, it’s the scent. They say memories are locked into scents. Afro-American people have a very specific scent. I was about six when this black man came to the park, and became my friend for the day. I was easy pickings for a predator; for, anyone who watched long enough could tell I just wanted to have friends. It took him about an hour to take me across the street and into the bushes between Harriet Tacoma’s house and the vacant field next to Jared’s house. He made me go down on him, after first pleading then threatening me. I would suck his dick for a while and then try to stop. Then he would grab me by the waist and suck mine for a while until he wanted attention for a while. This went on for a few hours. I have never been able to get the scent, and that mixture of feeling out of my head. I had dreams about Afro-American men forcing sex on me I kill them in my dream.

My first dog met me at the park his name was Twinkles. I met him while playing in the sand box at the base of the big slide. We played all day, and I didn’t get sick. You see when I was young I was allergic to grass, trees, pollen, smoke, rubber tennis shoes, chocolate, bananas, milk, and the dander and hair off of any shedding animal. Twinkles was a poodle and just a stray. Bands of roving dogs used to run in D.C. some were wild and dangerous others just wanted a meal and a place to be. We played all day he would come to me when the other kids called him. I still had my bus bike, and tried to get him to follow me home, and then I tried to drive him home by running my bike at him. He wouldn’t go and I rode my bike home crying. At eight o’clock there was a scratching at the door. It was Twinkles he had followed me my scent. My dad opened the door and said, “O my!” and sort of chuckled. It was his way of being surprised about something that made me happy. I looked at my dad and asked, “Can I keep him?”

He replied, “We will see in the morning.” We feed him some bread and milk and shut the door. I didn’t cry I just went to bed happy. The next morning we opened the door and Twinkles lifted his head off his paws and looked at me as if to say, “We play?” His name should have been puddles, for we had to put him in the kitchen at night and like clock work every morning he would have a big puddle of yellow pee waiting for my mom.

In third grade you were considered able to fight, this did not matter whether you wanted to or not so if you are a kid getting suckered punched or ran away with your hands over your head crying, “No no!” as you ran in whatever direction that gave the quickest escape. Yep that was me for the first and second grades, most of the time. By 1975 a school wide fight for the third and fourth grades was on during the Spring, and I was on the ticket, everybody was girls and boys, but mostly the boys fought. All the boys had a fight because somebody had to win. When my turn to fight came I went in flailing my arms because I had no idea how to fight what I did know was all the boys who ran away this time were labeled chickens in front of the whole school. I had enough problems with out that added to the mix. Bing Bang Bomb the fight was over and I had a fat lip. The two who finally won were two black kids a short stocky boy who punched from the floor and this tall lanky girl who was death from above. I remember how distinctly she had her pinkies out as her fists were raised above her shoulders and her long legs would help with her long reach as she dropped bombs against her assailant as he came in. The little black boy didn’t want to fight the girl but she has beaten two boys to get to this fight, and a girl deserved the title if she passed one more boy. The yells and cries of the group circled around the two fighters as the throng of kids of egged each fighter forward.       When came in he; he got closer and closer every time with every forward attack being met with blows upon his head and arms, until he catches her in a sideways motion and connects with her cheek. The fighters pause; the kids in a circle now a frenzy of movement and screams. The boy comes in again, slowly driving his fists and head forward, not allowing for side ways movement. The girls feigns to one side raining down blows and keeping herself from the dreaded close encounter, yet he doesn’t back off and follows through catching her in the temple. She stagers and the crowd went quiet. One voice then two yell out, “You can take him” the girls egg her on into one more melee. She changes her tactics and charges forward raining down blows pinkies tucked. He has been waiting for this, and lays an upper cut into her jaw. The girl falters, covers her head as he applies a few more punches as if to say, “Give up.” The fight is over. The rest of the children walk away some with the two fighters, others in groups chattering about the fight they have just seen, I was alone and quiet during the fight and that’s how I walked home.

I remember when I learned to read in the second grade. It just sort of clicked one day, and the whole world of books opened up to me. I moved my seat next to the book shelf, so I could read all day long. I no longer listened to the teacher or followed the class work. Every once in a while I would pop my hand up into the air. The teacher would call on me to answer the question posed to the class. I would in return ask my own question, “What does this word mean?” The teacher would sort of look at me with a strange curious look and then drop her shoulders in way of defeat, and come over to answer my question. I would reply, “Okay, Thank you” and go back to reading. This lasted for two months until my parents were informed during a parent teacher meeting of my rebellious activity. Again I have been labeled. My parents thought my reading was cool but, had capitulated my need to pay attention in class. In way of curbing my chaotic activity I was taken to the Takoma library and set loose on the children section of books.

I made it to the fourth grade at Takoma Middle School on Maple Ave. Maple Avenue was were the small amount of apartment buildings that were built in Takoma Park were built. Takoma Park was split by Montgomery County and Prince Georges County to the south. Montgomery County heralding one of the five richest county’s in America lay in juxta position to Prince Georges County which was full of vast sweeping projects full of the minority races, whether they be black, Hispanic, Central American or Porto Rican, or any other European or Mediterranean descendants they were a rich conglomerate of poor peoples. The small area on Maple Avenue was the small representation of those minorities and far from my house as a small boy. It was here that a boy began to grow up.

 

We had to switch classes in Takoma middle school after our homeroom class where we learned the three “R”s the school even taught Science, Swimming the school had an underground swimming pool and, Wood Shop run by Mr. Patty who everybody knew by the Patty Wagon a blue School bus with two eyes and a smile painted on the lights and grill. One day Mr. Patty was not there and a Substitute took over the class. Until the class took over the woodshop; I was there that day and can tell first hand of the wanton and rebellious spirit that griped the Fourth grade third period class. It stared almost instantly as the bell rang and we settled into the daily role. There was a stir in the air that bode of maliciousness a chaotic malevolence of wild thoughts that soon would be turned loose. Kids can smell fear. That’s how it started off, one of the real wild boys started pushing the envelope of common decency as in way of testing the boundaries of acceptable behavior. When no recourse occurred the template was made for the rest of period three. Saws began tearing into the carefully worked projects, drills routed out the table, I took a file and pounded my vice sending pieces of file steel flying across the room in all directions. Other kids were planning a direct attack on the Substitute by way of getting one of their fellow conspirators a talk in the hallway. The poor indefensible man, who just was willing to try anything to reach the kids in his charge, fell hook, line, and sinker for the bait. As soon as the boy got the Substitute out of the door he reversed running back into the room and grabbing the door knob and pulling the door closed behind him. This was a daring deed of rebellion that left the rest of us boys stunned into non-action. We stood spell bound by the action unfolding in front of us. Some boys chose their own way of dealing with the lack of structure for it triggered a deep fear of loss of control and they attacked their work often with stern words and ridged back. I just watched. I remember looking around at the different boys and the individual hells that each of them portrayed. It was a bizarre spectacle. I watched transfixed. The Substitute finally won the battle with the four boys who struggled to keep the door shut, and when he got it opened they scattered into the room. He stood there just inside the door with a look of total shock and defeat on his face. The few boys who would have been easily controlled by any teacher found this even more horrifying than the attack by their fellow students and some began to cry. The bell range and the next class began to filter into the room. The information of the Substitutes harassment reached their ears and we found out the next day the fourth period class made the third period class look like choirboys.

The next day all the fourth and fifth grades were called to a special assembly. We were all sat down on the floor in the large room. In the front center of the room lay a large wooden topped desk with steel sides and legs. Mr. Patty came into the room with a large hammer. He stood behind the desk and looked at the whole class for a long minuet. He picked up the hammer into his hand. A thick large fingered hand at the end of a powerful arm. Most kids see their father’s arms and Mr. Pattie’s arms in contrast had been conditioned and under the skin was a muscular set of pistons, one of which now held the hammer in this hand. The hammer was a large weighted hammer with a heavy rubber head. “Bam!” the first impact on the desk shook the whole room and every student jumped, every student. The next part was just sheer power, a demonstration of power as the hammer pounded on the desk. With each pound you could here gasps from around the room and the cracking of the desk as the hammer attacked it. Mr. Patty’s arm drove the hammer down on the desk in a fury never seen by any of the horrified onlookers. The kids up front backed up away from the noise, the violence, Mr. Patty. The desk too movement broke in half with a huge whole in the center. The steel legs and side were buckled and the drawers lay partway out in disarray from the attack.

Then three more blows with words to match “How!” “Dare!” “You?”

Silence shook the room with small stirrings of children as they flinched around the room accompanied. He began his verbal representation of the laws we had broke and how the whole school was to blame giving a long list of our infractions, and ending with a punishment. The whole school went on lock down. For an entire month no group of students was allowed to break lock down rules. No talking to other students. No, not following directions. No movement unless with a teacher. The students who would not follow lockdown rules were quickly put in, in school detention. The classes were suddenly cut down in size by 25% as kids break the rules. The final core of the children who remained I was one of. The teaching continued. If you may wonder where all the other students went all you had to do was break the rules once and get caught I got caught near the end of week two for talking. Keeping me quiet for two weeks is a trick. I was shuttled off to one of the in school detention class rooms. I looked at what the other side was. It was lockdown with no class, no teaching, and only one thing could change it the students want to learn again. I didn’t like it one bit, not at all, and after six hours in lock down I was ready to go back to class. The most terrifying part of this lockdown status was the help the school enlisted, parents; students’ parents now walked the halls and ran the detention rooms. Can you imagine? Getting in trouble and winding up in front of you mom or dad who had every right to punish you anyway they wanted which included spankings in front of the whole class. It was amazing the way the whole community stepped forward to help in the middle school. In one month most of the classes were full again and things went back to a semi-lockdown condition. The students were never allowed the freedom that they once held.

The school still held a heavy penalty for fighting and this I knew, so when David Lazon stated calling me names in class I returned the insults. I was a bit of a stinker at times and would push the issue. I did not realize that racial insults were becoming a taboo I still wanted to be white. Besides being a stinker I was a full blown clucking around the barnyard chicken so, when it came to fighting mostly I was the kid going, “No no” “Help” “Help” Today I had been a stinker and David said he was going to beat me up after school. I was scared and crying hanging out on the corner hiding behind the crossing guard, and she knew it. Every time kids would build up on the corner she would get out into traffic on the next light and cross with the kids. So back and forth I went with David right with me. Then the crossing guard questioned me for awhile about my clinging behavior and quickly saw the results of a child who was scared of a fight, and was using her as a barrier by following her back and forth across the street. That she wasn’t going to have so when an opportunity came to cross again she took it and told me to stay on the side she was leaving. David had been waiting for his opening and now that it presented its self he began to take off his jacket. After watching the “Happy days” episode where Ritchie had to fight and learned the dirty trick of attacking while the guy takes off his jacket. I charged flailing my arms. I agree this is still one of the worst ways to enter in to a fight, but I didn’t know how to fight. He quickly slipped into the coat and met my charge. We twisted and turned on the ground and somehow I got back on my feet. And zoom I was out of there like a chicken flying the coop.

I wasn’t scared of everything. I was pretty daring when it came to climbing, and could scale almost anything once I got my hands on it. Philip Ryan and I once spent all afternoon getting on top of the brick building at Jacquie Park. Jared and I made the tricky climb to the top of the log cabin one Saturday. We decided it would be fun to slide down the green roof, so we climbed to the top and down we went on our buts. We made three slides before the itching began. You see we were sliding down a roof made of fiber glass slates and by the third slide our buts reached a level of itchiness that rivaled any thing imaginable. We began screaming and jumping up and down on the roofs edge. My mind decided after a prompt yelling at by the skin surrounding my butt, “No time to be careful and climb down. Jump you fool. Jump” Jared and I bounded off the roof and into the grass, and we took off across the field high stepping and crying holding our butts as we ran scratching like mad monkeys with lice. Jared had less ground to cover and I saw him shoot into his house screaming and jumping up and down. The fear of my butt’s reprisals drove me to new speeds and my knees took it upon them selves to continue my high stepping run down the sidewalk on Takoma Avenue. I reached my house and danced in front of my mother while trying to tell her why I had both my hands down the back of my pants, and tears streaming out of my eyes. Mom’s eyes got real big when I told her what Jared and I had been up to. She called Jared’s mom and found he was already heading into an Epsom salt bath which would pull the shards of fiber glass out of his bum, and soon I was in my own bath getting my bum worked over by the soothing Epsom salts.   

In the fourth grade I had what could be considered a doppelganger his name was Patrick Ramon and his skin color was close to mine and so was his hair. His Parents both black were from France and he spoke perfect French, yet he was lighter than any of his siblings. We would often were the same clothes a red and navy blue shirt with a white collar popular at the time and blue jeans. The teachers would often confuse us, for I was the only mulloto student in the school. I took great comfort in this for I found a kindred spirit. We became close and I would visit his house on weekends. One day I went to his house knowing that I was supposed to go home first before playing at a friend’s house. We played and I felt a certain gleeful wild abandon knowing I was breaking the rules, and put the reprisal from my father out of my mind until.. I had to call home at the direction at Mrs. Ramon. I called my Dad and told him where I was. I was in big trouble. My Dad yelled, “Now you come home right now!” I started running home thinking that my speed could curb the spanking I was heading for, but as in show of the dreaded admonishment I cried all the way home. As I reached the yard my father was waiting at the front door. He said, “You’re getting a spanking. Now go to your room.” This tactic scared the hell out of me and I ascended the stairs and went to my room plopping face down on my bed crying ever the more harder. My father would soon arrive and deliver a quick fierce spanking. It was the anticipation of the spanking that left me in a state of terror not so much the punishment. Such was the corporal relationship that my father laid upon me, the fear of fear.  

One day a boy has to fight. My day came in the spring of my eight year in fourth grade. I was playing soccer with a bunch of neighborhood boys in the park when Jon Patrick a six grade boy knocks me down while we are playing. He was a bully and I was his target. I was fast and got the ball again and was heading down the field when Jon comes up behind me and punches me in the back knocking me down. I got up and ran home crying. I ran to my father and began to tell the story he had herd to many times at this point. He yelled at me saying, “I tired of you running home and crying every time some boy wants to bully you.” You have to fight sometimes, so you go back to the park and fight that boy.” He had a hold of my arms and shook the words into me as he gave me the directions that he never before had spoken. Fight, I had to fight. I would guess in retrospect; Joe Beckwith an Afro-American man who fell in love with my little sister and became an extension of our family had a talk with my father, and explained that I had to fight one day. He understood what it was to be black and when my ingrained “White Privilege” thinking was getting me beat up all the time; I could see him telling my father that one day I had to fight. I wish I had lessons before my first one, but it seems going crazy is some form of fighting ability. I ran back to the park crying all the way. I jumped into the game and right away Jon tripped me in a dirty move. Slam I hit the ground. I jumped up and a wild screeching scream issued forth from my grass and dirt stained face. I went after Jon and took him down pounding and pounding with my little fists. He rolled me off easily for he was in 6^th grade and out weighed me by 30 pounds, and got to his feet. Then I herd my Dad; he had followed me to the park, “Fight John, fight”. He yelled. I got up and Jon charged me swinging a hay maker which totally missed. I was fast and could dodge well, and backed up several feet. Then my Dad got involved; I saw something I had never seen from him. Rage pure rage. He grabbed Jon by his shirt and pulled him close. His face was contorted in furry. I can still see it pure as day. He held Jon in front of his and yelled; “Now you leave my son alone.” All the other kids stood and stared in disbelief. No father had ever done what he was doing. This support was like rocket fuel adrenaline to me and I charged forward tackling Jon and we rolled down the hill by New York Avenue and stopped by the bushes. I was on top and flailed my arms down in attack. By this time a large group of kids had joined the circle of on lookers. I felt some one jump on my back and start pounding me. It was Jon’s older sister and she began hitting and scratching my back and neck. “This needs to be a fair fight” I herd Fritz say as he hauled her off my back and tossed her into the bushes with one hand. Jon was crying and he had enough, and Dad yelled down from the top of the hill, “John that’s it let him go” Another boy ran at me and starting swinging. In my lust and loosing of years of anger from all the beating from both races I fought him to. That fight was over quick because some kids just don’t want to fight if they might get hurt. I was ready to fight anybody. One of the boys who lived behind my house jumped forward and said, “You want to keep fighting, come one lets fight.” This kid could fight he had been trained so when I went after him with my hands he danced to the side and punched me in the face twice. I shook my head because the power of the blows made me see white, and attacked again. He leveled two more punches on my head and one in my mouth that made me taste blood for it broke my lips and check. I was done. I backed up and went towards my Dad who was now standing up the street towards home. We walked back home for a ways in silence. He stopped and turned towards me gripping my shoulders so I would look up at him. He stood there for a minute and gazed down at his son. He said, “You learned two lessons today. Sometimes you have to fight, but as you found out you can’t fight everybody.” I looked back at him and silently nodded. He looked at me for a long second. His hair which was usually neatly combed over lay in disarray across his face his hands lay on my shoulders; he gave a little squeeze and we turned and walked home in silence.