BROKEN

The Rage

Chapter 7

1st day of 7th grade, 30 AUG 1976

It was a hot, muggy Mississippi morning- hazy and overcast. I was scared about this new school. After all that had happened this summer, I didn’t know what to expect. I had an ominous feeling of dread about the whole thing.

I hadn’t seen Scotty since my birthday. We had been friends for so long to cut us off like that... We just didn’t understand. I was looking forward to seeing him at the bus stop but he never showed up.

What our parents had done was cruel to both of us. Especially since we lived right across the street from each other. I would see him but my Dad would cuff me if I acknowledged him. The things that he would say would cut me to the bone. I didn’t even know what some of the words meant. It was the way he said them.

My parents did a lot to distract me that summer. My Dad would take me fishing but it wasn’t the same. He was always angry and not a lot of fun to be around like he was before. We took a long road trip up North to West Point, New York where my Dad had gone to school. There was an obvious and conspicuous empty place beside me where Scotty had always been. I buried my head in books and, when possible took my bike out into the trails and stayed gone all day.

Ever since the second grade Scotty had been like my shadow. At first he had been like a pesky little brother. Whenever grown-ups saw us together, that’s what they assumed. We both had long, white blond hair and similar features. I was just bigger of the two and assumed to be the elder although Scotty was a little older.

He had been there for so long. Scotty had been like a member of the family. He was in all of the pictures of our family gatherings, every Christmas, every Fourth of July, every day since he moved in across the street five years before. It was like my brother had died but I could see him almost every day but I would be punished if I spoke to him.

Oak Hills was a huge school housing a couple of thousand students from seventh to twelfth grade. The original buildings dated back to 1870 during reconstruction. It had started out serving the small rural community but had grown in stages barely keeping pace with the size of the growing river town.

Mississippi public education had taken a huge hit during the previous decade with imposed segregation. Families that could, sent their kids to private schools. Education became politically unpopular in our state as it soon became synonymous with forced bussing, opportunistic outsiders seeking to score cheap political points at our expense and simmering racial tension. Public schools were left to wither on the vine.

My mom was a true believer in public schools. A long time teacher, she was on the front lines during desegregation. We were taught at home that everyone was equal- that color didn’t matter. In those days we were considered to be the liberals. My Dad even took some heavy flak at his office for enforcing equal employment guidelines handed down from Washington at his agency.

The stinky old diesel busses disgorged us students behind the administration building. There was a big bulletin board with homeroom assignments for all of the students. I waded into the crowd behind the seventh grade lists to see what homeroom I would be assigned to. After jostling through the crowd I found myself on the lists assigned to Mrs. Carraway’s homeroom.

I made my way from the Administration building to the Junior High building. When I turned the corner I saw him.

I walked up to Scotty and I could tell he was scared. He said, “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched. “I know. I miss you.”

I turned and walked on to class wiping my eyes hoping no one could see how bad that encounter had messed me up.

I walked into Mrs. Carraway’s classroom and took a seat in the back hoping no one would notice me as the students assigned to this home room arrived in ones and twos.

Trent Callahan, a tall red headed kid from my sixth grade class at McKenley, came into the room, saw me and took a desk next to mine. “What’s up Jimmy?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Back to prison. Can you believe this place? It’s like...”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. Reckon they could have found an older building to put us in? It’s not even eight thirty and it has to be a hundred degrees in here.”

Scotty entered the room and I turned white as a ghost. He took a desk on the other side of the room. I couldn’t tell if he was ignoring me or had not noticed me. Trent was talking but I was somewhere else altogether.

“Earth to Jimmy!”- Trent snapped me out of it. “Hey, there’s Scotty.”

I sank in my seat. “Yeah. Our folks are pissed at us and we’re not supposed to talk to each other.”

Trent looked concerned. “You two have been best friends forever haven’t you? What happened?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. It does. Big time. I’ll be back”

I got up and went out into the hall to a water cooler and splashed my face. Damn this is hard. Sitting right across the classroom from my best friend and I can’t even talk to him. I wiped my face off and returned to my desk.

Trent had a pro football preview magazine out looking at the Raiders. He looked up when I came back. “So are you going out for football this year?”

“Yeah. My dad would have a cow if I didn’t.”

Trent chuckled. “Yeah- I know what you mean. Our sixth grade team was good last year and Coach Harrison knows us. He would come get us if we didn’t show up.”

To my shock and horror Eric Rainer walked in the door. He looked around the room, saw Scotty and me. He got an evil look on his face and took a seat in the middle of the back row. I said a silent prayer that I might just disappear.

People were coming in bunches now as the bell approached. A clump of people gathered around Eric. They were talking and laughing and I noticed them looking at Scotty and me.

Eric raised his voice, “Hey Jimmy- why aren’t you sitting next to your boyfriend?”

Eyes from around the room locked onto me. I didn’t know what to say. I felt a rage building inside me.

Emboldened by my pause in responding to his challenge Eric poured it on. “I guess you guys didn’t hear that Jimmy is a queer. Him and his boyfriend Scotty over there were even too queer for the boy scouts. They threw them out. How can you be too queer to be a Boy Scout Jimmy?”

Scotty’s eyes were big as saucers. Trent looked horrified.

Something snapped inside me. In a split second I ran at Eric, grabbing his head in a headlock with my left arm, using my weight to drive him down into the floor pounding his smart assed face with my right hand.

There was a pause of shock and disbelief as soon as the fight broke out, then there was utter pandemonium.

I was on Eric in a killing rage that had been building up all summer. His friends tried pulling me off of him. I sent two of them sprawling while I continued to batter his face. One of the guys started kicking me in the back.

Satisfied that Eric was down and not getting up, I wheeled around and grabbed the foot that was kicking me and picking the foot up, putting Billy Wheeler off balance and kicked him hard in the nutz. I then pushed him hard into the back wall of the classroom.

A chair nicked my head and I decked some kid that I’d never even seen before.

Shaking with fury, I growled, “Who is next? Who is fucking next?”

People were backing off in confusion and fear. Scotty was gone from the room.

I didn’t even see Coach Thomas grab me and pull me out of the room. I was burning pure adrenaline and rage.

Coach T ordered; “Calm down. Calm down now, I mean it!”

I was shaking and broke free of his grasp. “Get off of me. I’ll walk to the office.”

He grabbed me by the back of the neck and turned my head to get in my face. Ordinarily such an intimidation tactic would have worked but it only served to fuel my rage. He got nose to nose with me and bellowed, “School hasn’t even started yet and you’re already the number one turd on my shit list. Now calm down.”

He looked me over and asked, “Are you hurt.”

I shook my head.

“What was this about? Who started it?”

I didn’t answer.

He put his hand on the back of my neck and guides me to the junior high office. I felt like some poor slob on the news doing the “perp walk” being paraded through the halls.

“Sit here and cool off.” He put me on a bench in the front office and walked into the vice principle’s office.

I sat there shaking. I wasn’t stupid. I knew the implications. I was in hell.