Bullied

by Patrick Connolly

  In spite of those brutal family members, I feel very lucky that, after the death of my father, I have such a good and protecting immediate family. When my father died, I felt very alone, even though my mother was there to protect me. Having a grandmother and grandfather close by and in our daily lives gives me greater optimism about the life ahead.

  When first grade begins in September, summer vacation is over and it is time to get back to the grueling daily prospect of school. Even though now I am not happy about going to school every day, I hope to meet some new friends. As she did last year, Mom drives me to school on the first day but I will walk every day after that. Last year, Kindergarten ended an hour earlier than the higher grades, so there were not as many kids walking home from school at the same time. Now, many kids a lot bigger than me were also walking home at the same time I was. Most of them do not bother me but some of the bigger kids, walking a lot faster, hit me just for fun when they pass.

  When arriving in front of the school before the bell sounds and it is time to enter the building, we all chat and play various games. This is sometimes fun, but some larger kids seem to get pleasure out of pushing smaller kids. Since I am the smallest boy of the new first-graders, this happens to me often. I can do little when a person almost twice my size pushes me in the back or chest. When they do, they also call me names as apparent justification for their actions.

  I guess I am “different” than most of the other kids because of my red hair and short stature. So, some of the kids call me "Red". I also have these spots on my face, called freckles. So, some of the other kids make fun of these, too. I feel hurt by this but I try to act as if it does not bother me, but it does. Due to my small size, I seem to get a lot of attention from a great many bigger children from many grades.

  School is difficult for me because there are about 50 kids surrounding me in my class and the commotion makes it difficult for me to understand what the teacher is saying. I always want to look around at the constant activity since I am aware of this motion and sound all around me. I do not know why that is.

  My first grade teacher is a very nice Sister of Charity who helps me take off my jacket when arriving, and put it on before going home. Every school day is very similar to the last, as we learn many new things and take two short naps every day. I can hardly wait to get home but walking home after class with a mob of other kids is a new experience. Some of these schoolmates are nice, some are not and they come in all sizes. The four and a half blocks to home now seems like a much longer trip than it did last year. I have also met some older children that also live in my neighborhood and I see them on my journey twice every school day.

  Months later

  My time in first grade was OK, but I am glad that summer is finally here and I will not have to attend school for the next three months. Things are easier for me in the summer and Mom may even take us on a short vacation. I do see and recognize some local kids walking around or at the Boys Club. A number of them are always in a group, especially brothers from large families. I wish I had some brothers, especially an older one. My Mom told me once that she had a baby boy that came before me that was stillborn. That really is too bad because I could have had an older brother.

  During the summer, we have family picnics and other get-togethers with some of our extended family. When all the adults are together, according to family custom, they are all the boss of me. It is very surprising the way some adults talk to me. Because of my young age, even though I am already in school, many of the adults still talk to me using “baby talk”. I think I am smarter than they think I am.

  Mothers schedule during the summer is the same as in our school year, until she gets to the time for her two-week vacation. When she gets up to go to work, Lauren and I can stay in bed if we want to. Mom has to be at work at 8 AM so she has to leave about 7:30 AM. After we wake, wash ourselves and put on our clothes, we can go downstairs to Grandma's for a late breakfast. She is always glad to see Lauren and me. After we eat our breakfast, we go outside to play but have to stay in our back or front yard unless we get permission to go elsewhere. Most of the time, we stay home all day.

  After starting a new school year for second grade, I feel better about school because things are starting to make more sense to me. However, Sister Paula, my teacher this year, is not as nice as the two Sisters I had in the last two grades because she is much stricter and does not smile very much. The good thing is, now that I can read, I can enjoy books with lots of words and pictures. Sister Paula is relentlessly teaching us the multiplication tables and we have to memorize them. I am having a lot of trouble with that, even though she grills us every day over and over again about, for example, three times seven is 21, four times seven is 28 and so on. When I finally learn the multiplication tables, I do not think I will ever be able to forget them. When she looks at me for any reason, I feel like she is going to punish me for something. Luckily, most of the kids are potty trained now so she does not have to do many of the things that my teachers in the first two grades had to.

  Walking to school now is a lot more difficult than it used to be because it seems like there are quite a few children that want to punch or shove me. They call me names like Red, Freckles, Spots or Shorty. Many adults seem to notice these incidents when they happen on the sidewalk in front of their homes but they never do or say anything about it. Since I am still smaller than other boys are, this happens to me several times a week. I do not understand why. Here we attend Catholic school learning about religion and the 10 Commandments, but afterward my schoolmates hit me and call me names and no one does anything about it.

  One day, while waiting outside the school for the start of class after lunch, a kid who looks about a foot taller than my approximate three foot height walks up and says,

  “You’re a red head; do you have a bad temper?” Then he pushed me on the chest with both hands. I was scared because he was so big but I pushed him back anyway. He hit me in the face with his fist and laughed,

  “Red is a wiener,” he said. My eyes were tearing and my face hurt.

  “Red is crying. He’s a baby, a baby.” I went to lean against the brick front of the school building as he continued to taunt me. I wanted him to leave me alone, and he finally did. The bell rang and we all walked into the school building and went to our classrooms. Sister Paula noticed that I had tears in my eyes, and said,

  “What happened?” I said, “Someone hit me.” Sister Paula said,

  “Go take your seat.” I found my desk in the second row and sat down at my desk. I guess the Nuns do not care if someone hits me, I thought.

  Leaving school is always frightening now, not because of the walking distance, but because of the fear. When I came out of the school one afternoon, a big kid was there in the yard with three of his friends and they all taunted me. “Sissy Redhead, Sissy Redhead”, they said. I made it quickly to the crosswalk, crossed the street and started walking as fast as I could up the street away from the school. The big kid and his friends started to walk closer behind me so I quickly crossed the street and went into the Boys Club where I would be safe.

  When arriving at the game room in the Club, I decided to play my favorite game, flat pool. I got a pool stick and the wafers and went to the flat pool table where I knocked the wafers around for a while and then remembered that I was late getting home and Grandma might be mad at me. I picked up the wafers, put them in the box and took them back to the checkout window. They gave me my membership card back and I went upstairs. Nearing the front door, I first looked out the little window on the left, and did not see anyone. Opening the door, I did not see any kids around. Walking fast, I went across the boys’ club baseball field, made it to the corner, and knew I only had a block and a half until I reached home. Finally, I arrived home, walked up the five front steps, turned the egg shaped front door knob and entered the family room. Grandma was in the kitchen and she looked at me and said,

  “You are late. Where have you been?” I said,


  “I stopped at the Boys Club.” She said,

  “You are supposed to tell me when you are doing that.”

  “Sorry, Grandma”, I said. Grandma said,

  “You better mind me or I will hit you with this big spoon!” she said with a grin, waving a wooden spoon at me. I knew she did not mean it, because she always joked about hitting me with that big spoon but, when she did spank me occasionally, she would only use her hands.

  “Ok”, sorry,” I said.

  I went up the stairs to my room and sat on the bed. I was starting to spend a lot more of my time in that room these days. I am scared of going to school, I thought. What am I going to do? The teachers do not care and I cannot tell my Grandma, Grandpa or Mom because the other kids will think I am a snitch, but I am glad I am home in my room, and safe. This kind of thing happens to me at least once or twice a week now, but not every day. Lately, there seems to be more big kids that want to pick on me. I do not know why that is, but at least I am safe, for now.

  Second grade is not as much fun with Sister Paula because she makes us work hard all the time and is strict about the homework, too. She is the pushiest about mathematics and religion classes and does not act as if she likes me. She also grabs me by the ear or the hair whenever I am not moving fast enough at her direction. Nevertheless, every time I do mathematics or anything to do with the multiplication tables, in my mind, I see her unsmiling face in the big white bonnet. I did not know I would be seeing her face every time I recalled the multiplication tables for the rest of my life.

  Many months later

  Second grade seems like it will last forever, but finally it is summer and I can be happily on vacation and not have daily trips to and from school. The summer is always great but it never lasts long enough.

  Third Grade

  It is time for school again and this time I am in the third grade so I reluctantly trudge off to St Ambrose Elementary School and meet my teacher for this year, Sister Mary Elizabeth. Sister Mary Elizabeth is Irish born and it is easy to tell this because of her obvious accent. I kind of like it. My understanding is that I am approximately ¾ Irish but this Sister is very different from the others I have had. She looks at me not only as if she can see inside my brain, and know what I am thinking but also what I am about to think.

  Just a few days after we started the school year, Sister Mary Elizabeth noticed that I was easily distracted, always fidgety, and had difficulty focusing. I did not know, until many years later that this was something called, ADDHD. She said to me,

  “Patrick, come down here right now and sit in this seat, the first one in the second row. I have to keep my eye on you.” This was my first time in the first row, but unknown to me at the time, sitting in the front row, whenever possible, was to become a lifetime habit. My ability to concentrate was so much better in the first seat and, as a result, school became much more interesting. Thank you, Sister Mary Elizabeth.

  I am seven and a half years old now, and starting to feel I will be a real person someday. Third grade feels very different for some reason. Everyone is getting bigger except me and I am still the smallest boy in the class. When I started kindergarten, I was only four, but some of the kids did not start school and kindergarten until they were five, or even older. I am always trying to figure things out by myself because no one in my family seems to have the time to explain things to me. First, what is this with my beginning interest in the females? I had always thought that girls, except for my friend Patty, were screechy whiny creatures of no importance. However, now, I am starting to notice their flat chests and other body parts in their blue uniforms and white blouses.

  The subjects we have in third grade seem more interesting but the challenge of getting along with other kids seems more complicated now. This kid named Tim, who was a lot taller than I am, came up to me our lunch break and says,

  “I am in the second grade and I want to fight you.” I said,

  “Why do you want to fight me?” I asked.

  “Because you are in the third grade and I am in the second. I get a higher rank if I beat you.” This made no sense to me whatsoever but when I left school for home that afternoon, Tim was waiting for me in the next block. I tried to pass by him but he punched me in the stomach. Out of breath and having trouble breathing, I raised my hands but he gave me a right punch that, because of his longer arms, easily came around my left arm as I attempted to block it and hit me directly on the nose. I fell down and he jumped on top of me.

  “Do you give up?” he said. I said,” Yes.” He got up and walked away with a big smile on his face. I felt terrible and my stomach and face hurt. I walked home trying to get control of my crying before I reached home.

  This strange custom, of having some kid in lower grade gain recognition if he could beat someone in a higher grade was to strike terror in me for years. Even though it made no sense, it was what it was. There are, most likely other types of senseless violent customs in different schools, too. It is crazy, I thought, but, I am still the shortest boy in my class every year, and that means trouble. What can I do about this? There has to be something I can do. Every day in my life, the fear increases.

  This year, I made a decision to join the Boy Scouts. It looks like fun to go to meetings every week and well as going camping and hiking on some weekends. The local Troop just meets three blocks from my home and the Boy Scouts are to become a close and favored part of my life for years. Hiking, camping, archery and especially shooting firearms were some of my favorite well-supervised activities. I was relieved to find that none of the neighborhood bullies is in the boy scouts. I wonder why.

  Gangs routinely walk around the neighborhoods. A few of them are composed of multiple brothers from some of the large families. The most troublesome to my Sister Lauren and me was one of these gangs led by a big boy named Rick. There were five brothers in the family, but the oldest brother seldom traveled with his brothers. The second oldest but largest person, Rick, just liked to slap both my Sister and me around whenever he could. He was a lot bigger, heavier and much stronger than I was and two grades above me.

  “Hey, little Fag, come here”, he said. Hesitating, but not wanting to fail to face him, I came closer to him. Grabbing me by the arm with his left hand, he started poking me in the chest with the big finger on his large right hand. I tried to pull away, so he let go of my arm and gave me a shove with both hands in the chest. I fell down but as I was getting up, he gave me a powerful punch in the stomach. It really hurt. I cried. He laughed aloud and walked away, still laughing.

  Rick and his gang of four brothers traveled together quite a bit of the time. When Rick was not in the group, Freddy, Rick’s younger brother by two years, was the leader. The two youngest brothers of the gang of five were younger than I was. They were the type of family gang always looking ways to demonstrate why they are better than everyone is. This meant that whenever they met almost any child that was not a close friend or a member of their gang and family, they would resort to name calling and physical abuse. Both my Sister Lauren and I were to be frequent targets for years.

  Life at home has settled into a predictable daily routine. Mom gets up every morning and wakes Lauren and me. In the winter months, as we have in years past, we first sit in front of the stove and shiver until we are wide-awake while our mother gets dressed. When she is dressed, she comes back and takes each one of us, separately, and gets us dressed for school. Lauren is first, and then Mom helps me. After that, if she has the time, she makes a quick breakfast for us. This is usually Cheerios or some breakfast cereal with milk, or possibly, my favorite, oatmeal.

  If Mom eats anything for breakfast, she would generally eat while standing over the sink so she did not have to wash another dish. She usually looks a little stressed in the morning. I guess the prospect of taking care of kids, then going off to work at her job puts her under a lot of pressure. After the quick breakfast, it is time for her to leave for work. She either carpools with other emplo
yees or drives her old car to work. She really does not like her job but has no choice.

  Feeling the pressure, Mom looks forward to weekends when she can relax with family and friends. When the weekend comes, her sister Elaine might visit our Grandma and bring our two cousins. In addition, Grandmothers sister, also named Mary might also visit along with their family. Because of these family gatherings, some weekends are very busy. Of course, I always look forward to seeing Elaine and Ernie’s kids, Donna and Danny. My Grandmothers Sister Mary’s side of the family was a different story as far as I was concerned.

  My other cousin, John, was my age but his two brothers were much older. Tim and Tom, because they were a lot older, may or may not be included with their Mothers occasional visit. The family on that side seemed so different, especially George, Mary’s husband, that would end every sentence with Aya, Aya, Aya, as if he were assuring everyone he was telling the truth. John was very quiet and not much fun. Having lots of family around is usually somewhat fun but still uncomfortable because I never know when any adult family member might decide to discipline us, as Elaine and Ernie did often for their own amusement.

  The weekend routine with family is always the same. Daytime activities are lunch and dinner, followed by an adult only meeting on the front porch in the summer months or in the family room during the winter months. When these meetings occur, children have to go to another part of the house, usually upstairs. The adults would sit, and everyone would take their turn talking about family issues in the past and present. I am always interested in hearing everything I can during these meetings. During the summer months, I might hide in the bushes that surround the porch in order to listen. In the winter months, I had a special hiding place in the living room just off the family room. Before their meeting, I would go past the living room couch and hide on the left end of it, in the corner where no one could see me.