No More Bullies (5 page)

One Christmas, Mom and Dad surprised me with a ventriloquist dummy named Jerry, and that little wooden head became my alter ego, bringing out the ham in me. We entertained our family members and put on shows, and Jerry even went to school with me a few times to perform for my class. Jerry and I became pretty close. He helped me come out of my shell, we won ourselves some new respect from my classmates, and he never had a problem with my looks or size.

I will have to say that, all things considered, kids having a loving mom and dad has always been a great idea.

But even Mom and Dad had to wonder about another buddy of mine who came later.

Zenarthex was my most memorable creation. He was more than eight feet tall, with a jaundiced complexion, blue and red blood vessels stark and visible under his parchment skin, and a long, flowing cape that blew in the wind. His arms needed a little work, and he had no hair on his head, but his jaw moved, and his eyes—big, round, and bloodshot—gave him a chilling gaze. We still had several parts of him lying around the lab, but Terry and I figured he was finished enough for a test run. We threw him together and told him to stand out on the corner near the Graham Street Grocery late at night.

The breeze that night kept his big cape moving, and the cold blue of the streetlight made him look downright eerie. I couldn't have been more pleased. We gave him a thumbs-up and a quick slap on the back, then we hid behind some parked cars to see what passing motorists might do.

For his first time out, Zenarthex handled the job quite well. He stood there boldly, as an approaching car's headlights illuminated his huge frame and hideous face, his expression never changing, his big eyes never blinking, his toothy grin always steady. Most of the cars just drove on by—after all, this was in the middle of Seattle where most folks had already seen everything—but one car slowed down, and another actually stopped for a second look before speeding away with a roar and a screech.

Cool!

After about a dozen cars, we were satisfied. Zenarthex had had a successful debut; he had even scared some people! What more could we ask for?

Besides, Zenie was getting nervous. “It's after curfew.”

Mm, good point. Terry and I joined him on either side and helped him see his way home, taking him back to our lab in the basement of our house.

We had a great lab, full of jars, bottles (mostly empty canning jars and ketchup bottles with dyed water inside), and cool mad scientist gadgetry (a dead television, the insides from an old Philco tube radio, the chopper from a broken cider press). We'd crayoned a brick pattern on the concrete walls, hung some of Mom's nylon stockings from the ceiling to simulate stalactites, and provided Zenarthex with his own slab (a door lying on orange crates) and a super electrical heart zapper (an empty can of talcum powder fastened to a length of gooseneck conduit with duct tape). We thought it might have been cool to get a red light bulb for the ceiling or maybe one of those Christmas tree floodlights with a rotating, colored disk to add some mood to the place, but this was a low-budget operation.

Zenarthex was too tall to fit under the basement ceiling, so we had to take him apart and carry him inside in pieces. Our lanky, six-foot friend Glen was glad enough to get the stick and cloth framework off his shoulders. I'd used a lot of plaster in making Zenie's head, and Terry had used a lot of hardware to get his mouth to work, so Zenarthex was heavy. He looked great, though, lying on his slab, all put together again, staring at the ceiling with those big, Ping-Pong-ball eyes. A few more dollars from returned pop bottles, and we might just make that monster movie for which we'd built all this stuff.

Ah, monsters. My friends. My associates. My obsession. By now, I was just on the brink of thirteen. John F. Kennedy was dead, the Beatles had just invaded, skirts were short, and pants were tight. My younger brother, Paul, and I had expanded our territories to the point of war in our old room, so now he had his own room, and I had mine.

But I was not alone in my room, no sir. The Frankenstein monster was there, both as a wall poster and as a plastic model on my desk. I had other plastic models, as well, each meticulously assembled and painted: Dracula, gesturing hypnotically; the Creature from the Black Lagoon, poised to scratch someone's face off; the Mummy, all wrapped up and rotten; the Phantom of the Opera, singing an aria with his mask in his hand; the Hunchback of Notre Dame, bleeding from a whipping; the Witch, stirring up a potion in her pot. I had posters of monsters, monster masks (Terry looked better than I did in the Frankenstein mask; he was taller), monster magazines, and monster comic books. I wrote stories and drew comics about monsters and mad scientists; I told the neighbor kids stories about dead bodies and spooks, and I made audio dramas on my folks' old reel-to-reel tape recorder about devious, monster-stitching, body-snatching scientists with silly foreign accents.

I never missed Saturday afternoons on Channel 11 or
Nightmare Theater
on Channel 7, unique cultural opportunities to view some of the worst sci-fi and horror flicks ever made, all sponsored by our local honest and upstanding used-car dealer who would never lie to us.

I got to know by name the finest Japanese monsters ever to don a fake rubber suit and destroy toy cities in slow motion.

I marveled at the possibility of things coming from elsewhere: Martians all slimy and slithery; Venusians with tiny bodies and big brains; and hovering, whammy-eyed Brains with no bodies at all from some planet that starts with a Z.

I saw just about every plot idea that can be milked from atomic radiation gone amuck:

Things made
big
by atomic radiation: giant ants, giant grasshoppers, giant lizards, a giant praying mantis, an amazing, colossal man, a fifty-foot woman . . .

Things made
small
by atomic radiation, like the incredible shrinking man . . .

Things made
weird
by atomic radiation: three-eyed, four-armed atomic mutants, one-eyed cave dwellers, goofy underwater monsters that swam like people . . .

Things made
invisible
by atomic radiation,
invincible
by atomic radiation,
wicked
and
depraved
by atomic radiation.

I saw atomic radiation depopulate the world—except for the leading man and leading lady, who survived to start the human race all over again—several times.

My world was filled with scientists fooling around with things best left alone while a younger, wiser scientist tries to warn them not to, as the pretty girl—always in love with the younger, wiser guy—gets carried off by the monster while the scientists are busy arguing.

But through it all, my keenest interest was in the monsters, those ugly, misunderstood, abused, captive monsters who escaped from their cages, traps, and laboratories; scared people; broke things; and got back at the unfeeling people who abused them. The three-eyed, four-armed atomic mutants may have been victims, but they turned around and
made
victims.

The Frankenstein monster was tormented relentlessly by Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's humpbacked assistant, but the monster got even. The Creature from the Black Lagoon was captured and imprisoned in a huge aquarium, but he finally clawed his way out of there and got some respect. King Kong was captured and put on display, but he snapped his chains, escaped, grabbed the girl, and had a real heyday in New York City, at least for a while. The Mummy got a raw deal in his time, but eventually, he got a chance to even things up in ours. Dracula could give his victims the Eye and cut right to the chase. Both the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame were scarred, ugly, and misunderstood, but at least for one poignant, wishful, intense moment, they had the appreciation of the girl.

No wonder I kept those guys around. Somewhere in my head, planted there repeatedly over the years, was the notion that I was one of them—ugly, rejected, picked on, and somehow less worthy of membership in the world of normal kids. I was entering adolescence, that weird age when the size, shape, and appearance of your body mean everything, and everyone seemed to be growing except me. On the right side of my neck, a visible scar and a depression could be seen where once there had been a tumor. Because of the problem with my tongue, I spoke with an obvious lisp and often mangled words when my mind darted faster than my mouth could follow. I wore glasses and one of two favorite vests every day, and let's face it, if I wasn't a bona fide nerd, I sure came close. Girls? Hey, I couldn't have been better protected from temptation. Once I lamented to my mom, “I'm so ugly, nobody would ever want to marry me!”

So it was predictable that some of my classmates— all of them bigger and proud of it—would take special pleasure in making my life miserable. I was pushed, shoved, thrown, hit, insulted, badgered, manhandled, teased, and harassed, and just as any monster must get tired of everyone screaming at the first sight of him (Why can't they just skip that part for once and say hello?), I was tired of kids asking, “Ooh, what's wrong with your tongue?” before they'd even ask me my name. Increasingly, through the eyes of others, I saw myself as a monster.

But my monster friends had one significant advantage I admired and wished I had: Yes, they were trapped and mistreated, just like me, but they found a way out. They were scarred and ugly, just like me, but if anybody ever knocked their books out of their arms, shoved them in the halls, drew insulting pictures of them, or called them put down names, you can bet ol' Frankenstein or Phantom or Hunchback could do something about it. They had power over their situation. They had control. People were afraid of them and not the other way around.

Maybe you can relate. Ever been there? Maybe you're there right now, in a situation in which someone is constantly stabbing you with words, kicking you with cruel acts, hurting you, and taking away your dignity. You wish you could do something about it, get out of that situation, but all around you are those invisible walls, those axioms of authority that hold you in: “Well, you have to be there. You have no choice. You have to go. You have to be in that situation. We can't change anything.”

You have to go to that school, sit in that classroom, eat in that lunchroom, work at that particular job, endure the taunts of that particular group, or put up with that boss, supervisor, or coworker.

Maybe you're the one who lies awake at night dreading every morning because of the people waiting for you at school or work. They have a name for you—it's not your real name; it's the one they gave you, something that labels you as inferior, ugly, or stupid. And there are others whom you don't even know, who don't know you, who call you by that name because it's fun for them. They have never bothered to ask you what your real name is. It's their mission to take away your dignity. They spit on you, trip you, knock the books out of your arms, and stomp on your ankles from behind. It doesn't matter what you wear, they laugh at it. If you own something new, they steal it, spill on it, tear it, and destroy it.

There is no particular reason for the torment. Any reason that can possibly be found or contrived will do. They pick on you because you're smaller, because you have a rare blood type, because you pick apples on your way home, you sing a particular song, you wear a particular sweater, you can't throw or catch a ball, you can't run fast, you don't have the right clothes, or simply because you're different.

And in physical education class, your oppressors have the perfect opportunity to harass you, because they're in close proximity, and all the activity is physical. It's a convenient time to take physical advantage of you because you're small or weak or maybe not so great an athlete. So they push you and shove you, throw you, kick you, and trip you.

And there's nothing you like better than taking a shower with that bunch, being naked before your enemies, laid bare for them to spot your most intimate physical secrets so they can laugh at you, spread the word about you, torment you. Strangely, it's similar to a child being molested by a family member in authority. Parents and teachers—just like the stepfather, the father, the older brother, the uncle, or the live-in boyfriend—insist it's okay. They make you do certain evil things, simply because they said so; they tell you there's nothing wrong with it, but all through the obeying and the yielding, something deep inside you is crying out, “This is wrong! This shouldn't be happening to me!”

Those to whom you look for love, shelter, and protection tell you to ignore your tormentors, just to stay away from them, but the authorities do nothing to stop those who are verbally, physically, or emotionally abusing you. What's a person to do?

Ignore them? Let's be honest: Ignoring is
acting
, and nothing more—acting as though the words or actions of your oppressors don't hurt. You hear the words, you feel the insults, and you bear the blows. You can act deaf and impervious to pain, but the stabs and the arrows pierce you anyway.

Just stay away from them? Don't you wish that you had a choice? Can you choose which lunchroom to sit in, which squad to line up in, which desk to sit at, which bus to ride home, or which direction to walk home?

Remember? In P.E., “everyone is required to take a shower!”

If you say anything about the bullying you endure, you're a snitch or a wimp, and you only compound the problem. At least, that seems to be the universal, unwritten code of conduct.

If you had a choice, you wouldn't be there, but you don't have a choice. You are hemmed in by the rules and requirements of the adult world, the expectations placed upon you from birth. Of course, you obey, of course, you do what you're told, of course, you submit to authority and authority's axioms, and, yes, in many cases, that is as it should be.

When an authority tells you, “You have to go to school,” you go. You get dressed, grab your books and your lunch, and go. When an authority reminds you that your boss has a right to badger you at work because he signs your paycheck, you swallow hard and, with a sense of resignation, go about your work as though the belittling behavior by the boss never occurred.