by Pat Conroy
In the summer of 1962, Skeeter had chosen me as his special project for the season. The advent of school integration had aroused Skeeter’s virulent hatred of black people and Skeeter’s daddy personally blamed my father, Judge McCall, for the coming of integration to Waterford. As a rising ninth-grader, I was a little too young for Skeeter to beat senseless, but I could never pass by without Skeeter putting me into a headlock and playfully humiliating me in front of a crowd of girls. He had taken to slapping me lightly and playfully in the face, but as the summer wore on there was a slight but constant escalation in the vigor of the slaps. I tried to avoid all the places where Skeeter hung out, but Skeeter noticed this and part of his pleasure was crossing the streets to find the places where I went to avoid him.
During Pony League that summer, I had nowhere to hide because Skeeter never missed a baseball game. I had just reached the height of six feet and the weight of one hundred fifty pounds, and I was gangly and not yet comfortable with my size. I felt soft and comic, like a Great Dane puppy, but Skeeter decided my size was a new threat coming up through the ranks. He had been out of high school for a year and working as an auto mechanic at the Chevrolet dealership when he heard that I had referred to him as that “zitfaced jerk-off.”
It was true. I was guilty of sullying Skeeter’s reputation with those exact words, but I had said it among friends, never dreaming it would get back to Skeeter. Walking one day with Capers, Mike, and Jordan, I was talking about a terrific game we had just lost to Summerville 1–0. We were replaying every pitch of the game when two carloads of last year’s football linemen screeched to a halt and Skeeter and five of his friends jumped out and faced us. We were still wearing our gloves and sweating from the game. Jordan was carrying a thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger that I had broken with a foul tip and Jordan had repaired with masking tape.
Skeeter went right to work and slapped me across the mouth with a swift backhand that sent me to my knees, tasting blood in my mouth.
“I heard a rumor you called me something bad, McCall,” Skeeter crowed. “I wanted to see if you had the guts to call me that to my face.”
“Jack told me he thought you were a prince among men and a credit to the white race,” Mike said, trying to help me rise.
“Shut up, Jew boy,” Skeeter ordered.
“Get lost, Skeeter,” Capers said. “We weren’t bothering anyone.”
“Button your lip, pretty boy, before I tear both your lips off and feed ’em to the crabs for dinner,” Skeeter said and rabbit-punched me on the back of the neck and sent me sprawling to the ground again.
That’s when Jordan hit the bat against the sidewalk, just to let Skeeter know there was a new kid in town.
“Hey, booger-face,” Jordan said. “You look like the Clearasil poster child. You got any cheeks beneath those pimples?”
Mike closed his eyes sadly and later would admit that he thought that Jordan had just uttered his last words on earth and that Skeeter, with his IQ of an Ice Age vegetarian, would think up new and gruesome ways for the California boy to die a grisly death.
“He called you booger-face,” Henry Outlaw, the punt snapper on the football team, said.
“Henry picked right up on that,” Mike said.
“Shut up, Hess,” Henry said, “or I’ll cut your butt and eat it raw.”
“I ain’t believing I heard that right,” Skeeter said, moving slowly toward Jordan, who simply held the bat more tightly. “Could you repeat it, pretty please?”
“No, penis-breath,” Jordan said. “I won’t repeat it you ugly, Dumbo-eared, gapped-tooth, hyena-faced redneck. And don’t take another step toward me, or you’ll be shitting out the splinters of this bat all night long.”
“O-o-o-h,” Skeeter’s crowd said in mock terror as Skeeter laughed out loud and pretended to shrink back.
“You some of that Marine shit they get in at Pollock Island every year?”
“Yep, I’m some of that Marine shit,” Jordan said. “But I happen to be Marine shit that’s carrying a baseball bat.”
“I’m gonna take that bat away from you, then kick your ass all over this town,” Skeeter said and his voice was a hiss, something mean of spirit and snakelike. “Then I’m gonna shave your head bald.”
“The bat’s your first problem, dick-head,” Jordan said.
“Don’t piss him off any worse than he already is,” I said quietly to Jordan.
Henry Outlaw said, “This shitbird’s dead meat, McCall.”
“You ain’t got enough guts to hit me with that bat,” Skeeter boasted.
“You better pray that’s true,” Jordan said and then surprised everyone by smiling at Skeeter.
It seemed unnatural that Jordan was not the tiniest bit cowed or intimidated by Skeeter. The fight was obviously a mismatch, a pure case of a full-grown man picking a fight with a boy. Jordan simply held on to the bat and stared Skeeter down as Jordan awaited the coming charge, balanced and composed. None of the boys on the street that day knew that Jordan Elliott had spent a lifetime being torn up by a full-grown Marine. Though he feared that Marine with all his heart, he did not fear young hoodlums and punks.
Skeeter removed his tee shirt, sweat-stained and fouled with oil, and threw it at one of his friends. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together and stood facing Jordan, bare-chested, his muscles deeply defined and cruel in their elegant arrangement.
“Jesus,” Henry Outlaw said in pure admiration of that honed, keenly developed body.
“Tell your friend about me,” Skeeter said, beginning to make feints toward Jordan. “He’s fairly new in town and don’t realize he’s about to die.”
Mike said, “Jordan, I’d like to introduce you to our real good friend, Skeeter Spinks. We’re all real proud of Skeeter. He’s our town bully.”
Capers and I laughed and for a moment it looked as if Skeeter was considering changing his line of attack.
“Me first, Skeeter,” Jordan said, getting Skeeter’s attention back to the business at hand. “Skeeter? You’re named for that little bitty insect that sucks blood out of babies’ asses? The guy we used to be afraid of in California was a surfer named Turk. We California boys don’t worry too much about dopes named after insects.”
“Oh God,” Henry Outlaw said. “This boy’s asking for it so bad.”
“It’d take a real chicken-shit to hit a man with a baseball bat instead of using his fists,” Skeeter growled.
“Yeh,” Jordan said. “It’s a shame you aren’t fighting a real brave son of a bitch.”
“Use your fists,” Skeeter ordered. “Fight like a man.”
“I’d be glad to Skeeter,” Jordan said. “But we’re not the same size. And we’re not the same age. You’re bigger than me. Just like you’re bigger than Jack. So what this baseball bat does is even up the fight a little bit.”
“My guess is that you ain’t got the guts to use that thing,” Skeeter said, charging Jordan suddenly and without warning.
That night, as Skeeter Spinks lay in the intensive care unit of the hospital, all of Waterford knew that Skeeter had guessed wrong.
Later, the town would learn about Jordan’s extraordinary sense of balance and his unflappable poise. His movements were lightning fast and that day I saw Jordan react with the speed of an Eastern diamondback when Skeeter made his ill-advised charge. What was also clear was that Jordan had been ready for the fight the moment he tapped the bat on the cement. And once he had primed himself, he glowed with a concentration that was nearly a state of prayer. What we had witnessed was not simply courage, but a form of recklessness that came from deep within Jordan’s spirit. He almost killed Skeeter Spinks with that baseball bat.
Jordan stepped aside and avoided Skeeter’s first headlong rush. Skeeter’s plan was a good one and he tried to sweep Jordan off his feet the same way he had brought down small halfbacks who slashed off tackles during high school games. The plan fell apart when Jordan avoided the tackle and brought the bat down solidly
against the back of Skeeter’s head. That first blow caused a concussion to the rear of his brain. The sound was like a hand ax cleaving through a chicken carcass. Instead of staying down, Skeeter staggered to his feet, humiliated and furious, and made another, though far less certain dive for Jordan, whose faith in wielding the bat had not been misplaced. The second swing of the bat broke three of Skeeter’s ribs and one of the splintered bones punctured his right lung. That’s why he was vomiting blood when the ambulance arrived.
Skeeter still did not get the point and made one last fruitless lunge toward Jordan, who stood his ground with that same chilling, imperturbable air of calm. That’s when Jordan broke Skeeter’s jaw. The broken jaw ended Skeeter’s career as the town bully. Never again did he provoke the nightmare of a young Waterford boy and there wasn’t a single young boy in town who didn’t know Jordan Elliott’s name the next day. No arrest was made and there were never any legal repercussions against Jordan.
I was later to discover that love and pain were synonymous in the life of Jordan Elliott. As our friendship grew closer and Jordan witnessed on several occasions my humiliation at the sight of my father’s drunken ravings, he told me about the time he had run away during seventh grade. His mother had hunted the surfing beaches of Southern California until she found him out in the Pacific looking toward Asia for the next wave to ride. It was soon after that Mrs. Elliott forced Jordan into the psychiatric office of a Captain Jacob Brill. Over and over again, Jordan repeated this story to me, word for word.
Jordan did not shake hands with Captain Brill, nor acknowledge his presence as he walked into his office and studied the decor of the room. The doctor and the boy sat in silence for a minute before Dr. Brill cleared his throat and said, “So.”
But Jordan was comfortable with silence and didn’t answer a word. He could sit for hours without uttering a sound.
“So,” Dr. Brill said again.
Still, Jordan did not speak, but turned his full attention to the psychiatrist. All his life Jordan had stared directly and inquisitively at adults and few of them could bear the silent weight of his scrutiny. “So why do you think your mother sent you here?” Dr. Brill said, trying to jump-start some kind of interaction.
Jordan shrugged his shoulders and just looked at the pale-skinned unprepossessing man who sat before him.
“She must have had a good reason,” the doctor continued. “She seems like a very nice woman.”
The boy nodded.
“Why are you looking at me that way?” the doctor asked. “You’re here to talk. I’m paid good money by Uncle Sam to listen.”
Looking away from the doctor, Jordan turned his attention to a modern painting of a square and a circle and a triangle, interposed on each other in different colors.
“What do you see when you look at that painting?”
“Bad taste,” Jordan answered, turning his gaze back to the doctor.
“Are you an art critic?”
“No,” Jordan answered, “but for my age, I’m something of an aficionado.”
“Aficionado?” the doctor said, rolling the word. “You are something of a show-off too.”
“I speak Spanish, so it’s not showing off, Doctor. I also speak French and Italian. I’ve lived in Rome, Paris, and Madrid when my father was stationed at the embassies. My mother loved art and got her master’s in art history from the University of Rome. She passed her love of art on to me. Believe me, she’d hate that painting of yours a lot more than I do.”
“You’re not here to talk about my taste in art,” Dr. Brill said. “We’re here to talk about you.”
“I don’t need you, Doc,” Jordan said. “I’m doing as well as can be expected.”
“That’s not what your parents or teachers think.”
“It’s what I think.”
“They all think you’re a very disturbed young man. They think you’re unhappy. So do I, Jordan. I’d love to help,” Dr. Brill said, and his voice was soft and Jordan could not find a false note in it.
Jordan hesitated, then spoke, “I’m upset. True. But not for what they think … I deserve better parents. God made a terrible mistake. He delivered me to the wrong people.”
“He often does that,” Dr. Brill agreed. “But your parents have impeccable reputations. Your reputation’s anything but. They say you have no friends.”
“I choose to be alone.”
“Loners are often misfits,” Dr. Brill said.
But Jordan was ready for him and fired back, “So are shrinks.”
“Pardon me?”
“Shrinks are some of the biggest losers in the world. I’ve heard my father say it a million times. He said it today.”
“What did he say today, exactly?” asked Dr. Brill.
“He said you become shrinks because you’re so incredibly fucked-up yourselves.”
Dr. Brill nodded his head and said, “In my case, your father is absolutely right. I endured a perfectly miserable childhood. It made me want to fix up the world.”
“You can’t fix my world.”
“I can try, if you’ll let me, Jordan.”
“I’m here under false pretenses. My parents don’t like who I am. But they don’t know me. They don’t know anything about me.”
“They know you only make C’s and D’s on your report card.”
“I’m passing,” the boy said. “My teachers could stop clocks from ticking. That’s how boring they are. Boredom should be one of the seven deadly sins.”
“What bores you?”
“Everything,” Jordan said.
“Do I bore you?” Dr. Brill asked good-naturedly.
“Brill,” Jordan said, fixing the doctor with his blue-eyed gaze, “people like you are death. You’ll never understand one thing about me.”
“I’m the fifth psychiatrist you’ve been referred to,” Dr. Brill said, consulting his notes on a clipboard. “They all take note of your hostility and your unwillingness to conform to the therapeutic process.”
“I don’t need a shrink, Doctor,” Jordan said. “Thanks for your time, but I’ve got something that helps me where none of you guys can.”
“Could you tell me what it is?” the older man asked. “I’d like to know.”
“I’m religious,” Jordan said.
“What?”
“I’m very religious. I’m a Catholic.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Of course not,” Jordan said. “You’re Jewish. A lot of shrinks are Jewish. At least the ones I’ve met.”
“I think it’s a positive sign you have deep religious feelings.”
“Thanks,” Jordan said, rising to his feet. “Can I go now?”
“You certainly cannot,” the doctor ordered, motioning for the boy to sit back down. “Your mother tells me you have some anxiety about your father’s new duty station.”
“I’ve no anxiety at all. I’m just not going with them.”
“You’re twelve years old. You’ve no choice in the matter. I think it would behoove us to work on strategies to make the transition easier.”
“Yeh, I’m twelve,” Jordan said. “Do you know how many schools I’ve been to? Ten. I’ve been to ten schools, Doc. Do you know what it’s like walking into a new school every year? It’s awful. Nothing good about it. Not one thing. That’s why military brats are so fucked up. They’re either a hundred percent ass kissers or they pull duty at the funny farm.”
“You learn to make friends easily,” Dr. Brill continued, his voice still charged with an undercurrent of irony. “It teaches self-reliance and flexibility. You learn about organizing your time and it prepares you to deal with crisis.”
“It teaches you how to be lonely,” Jordan said in a harsh whisper. “That’s all it teaches you. You don’t know anybody. You learn how to live your life without friends. Then I get to come into an office like this and someone like you starts asking me why I don’t have any goddamn friends.”
“Your father’s rec
eived orders to Pollock Island, South Carolina,” the doctor said, again reading from his notes.
“South Carolina,” Jordan said contemptuously. “Now there’s a dream assignment.”
“Your father’s pleased with it. You should feel okay because it’s good for your father’s career. A big step up.”
“My father hates me,” Jordan said looking at the bad painting again.
“Why do you think that?” the doctor asked softly.
“Observation,” the boy replied.
“Your mother told me that your father loves you very much. She says he has a tough time expressing that love.”
“He’s good with hate. He expresses that very well.”
“Has your father ever struck you, Jordan?” the doctor asked, and he could feel the shutting of all the gates around this boy, the closing down.
“No,” Jordan lied, worthy son of a Marine officer.
“Has he ever struck your mother?” asked Dr. Brill.
“No,” Jordan lied again, secret warrior of the Corps.
“Does he pick on you?” the doctor asked.
“Yes.”
“Does he scream at you and make your life a living nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s figure out a strategy for you in South Carolina. Let’s outflank and outmaneuver the military man. Your mother told me that your father might be at Pollock Island for all four years of your high school.”
“So what?”
“You’ll have time to make friends. Try to make some fast. Look for some boys you’d like to hang around. Some nice boys.”
“In South Carolina?” Jordan asked. “Get off it, Doc. I’ll be lucky if the kids there have teeth.”
“Play all the sports. Get a girlfriend. Spend the night out with your friends. Go on fishing trips. Your father’s going to have a lot of responsibility in his new job. He’ll be under a lot of pressure. Keep away from him, Jordan. Figure out ways to avoid him at all costs.”
“I’m his hobby,” Jordan said. “He wants me to be exactly like he is and I’d … rather be dead.”
“Why do you surf?” the doctor asked. “Why do you wear your hair long? Just to make him mad.”