(Book Excerpt) If You Could Change One Day From Your Past...

You liked it.  Even with
Jim Belushi, right?

Similar to James Belushi, I too, have a baseball memory that I would like to redo.  I took a five pitch walk in the ninth inning in a deciding Little League game for first place.  Both batters after me struck out (which they commonly did).  I feel responsible for not even attempting a swing.  Like Mr. Destiny, I felt I could've changed fate with one wave of the bat.  Instead we got third place, my only lifetime trophy.

But this failed opportunity dwarfs in comparison to the one situation that I was an active participant in that haunts me to this day.   A day I failed at being a human.

The following is an excerpt from my first novel; and a true story (except that in real life inanimate objects don't speak out loud).  This story takes place in the fourth chapter, but the only pertinent background information for this mini-story is that I was out for an early morning jog. (Yes I can run, even with my weight issues).
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Okay, maybe not this worn out.  

Turning the corner onto a narrow side street my ankle went left as my body went right, compliments of a morning shower’s residue on the mossy street lane.  I careened to the ground, more bruised by my own stupidity than by the impact of gravel into my palm.  I re-laced my worn $35.00 Nikes and hinged my ankle up and down to see if it was sprained.  It was fine. 

“You fat slobbering idiot,” the road roared in laughter.  “Look around, your neighbors just saw you for what you are, an uncoordinated unworthy lout.”  

Just another day in Mr. Wood's Art class.  

I looked around.  A few young grade-schoolers looked at me from a fenced gate, more concerned with my well-being than with adding insults to my injury.  “When does it hit us then,” I thought, “is it third grade or fifth or seventh that we crumble to the societal demands of cruelty.”  

My own moral degradation hit a low point in eighth grade.  We were in art class; the teacher Mr. Wood wasn’t the brightest of fellows, and his dog and father had both passed away that year—details our class reminded him of, cruelly, unsympathetically, almost daily.  Our class was unrelenting in its inventive mischievousness.  We punctured all the oil painting pints with a compass point, letting them bleed rainbow colors on the floor below.  We broke other classes clay sculptures after they cured in the kiln, leaving only fragmented mugs and armless figurines and ashtrays that wouldn’t hold ash (why did they teach us how to make ash trays anyway?).

In this devilish class was a very annoying girl, a “well-actually” girl.  The kind that would raise their hand and say, “well actually, Mr. Wood, the correct way to hold your watercolor brush is technically…”  She would butt in on conversations, was way too book smart for her own good, and she had the misfortune of sitting next to a group of  my impish friends.  We developed a mutual      

Oh, I'm sorry, the correct punctuation is "Well Actually"
not "Well Alex-tually," like you vindictively said.  That's
going to cost you $1000 and a spot in Final Jeopardy.

hatred of her dissimilitude, and stooping to a brief moment of pure unadulterated cruelty,  someone created a secret classroom club devoted to her mockery.  I designed a patch.  It was called the 4F-Club.  As for what it meant, it was merely a sophomoric acronym, each of the four ‘F's were descriptive adjectives of her persona.  One stood for “fat,” one for “four-eyed,” one was a harsh expletive, and one was a slang term for sexual preference (even though I didn’t know then what that word meant).  In fact we knew nothing about her.  I don’t even remember her actual name.  I cringe when I think of our callousness (understand that this was truly group mentality, and in middle school, group mentality is to cling to the lowest common denominator). 

One day, this poor pathetic girl, this girl who never did anything wrong but not learn social conformity skills early enough, saw me creating another patch.  At this point maybe 13 kids in the class were wearing the badges of dishonor.  I felt apart of something when another classmate I barely knew would ask me to craft them a new patch.  Like I was some grand scoutmaster. 

She looked me straight in the eye, and asked, “What are these badges, and why is everybody wearing them?” 

I looked up, instantly my quick wits were coming up with some stupid anecdote, some harmless lie as to not face this confrontation, but another student named Joey simply peered right back at her and deadpanned, “It’s a club devoted to you, or rather the hatred of you.  It stands for the ‘fat, four-eyed…”  I was astonished at Joey’s sadistic honesty; and I was dumbfounded. After an awkward moment I 

Even hipsters can't make these glasses look good.  

caught her soul staring back at me through 1/8” thick cheap lenses: there was no distortion through the convex glass.  We killed her.  I saw her die right there in front of me.  She looked at me, and said without saying, “I…I…I can’t believe you would do this…I can’t believe you would spend so much time…to make a fool of me.”  Then without saying a word, and before the beginning of what must have been hours of tears in the bathroom, she turned and walked out of the classroom. 

I wonder how long she looked at me.  Was it 5 seconds, a tenth of a second; was it a single frame of film in a movie?  I don’t know, but it is ironed on my retina.  I killed her.  I was a part of her death.  Maybe she got over it that day, maybe later that year, or maybe never.  All I know is that look.  The look of someone who just lost everything.  Job must have had this look after Satan took everything.  Maybe parents of kidnapped children.  Perhaps only one in a million people might experience this emotion, and I caused it.  I probably put this girl through years of therapy, and I can’t even remember her fricken name.  I wanted to apologize to her.  I wanted to go cry with her.  I wanted to shred up my patches; I wanted God to smite me.  But I just stood there while Joey laughed.  I don’t think I moved the rest of the period.  She didn’t return to school for a few days.  When she did, she was sullen and robotic.  She looked drugged, and unhuman.  I tried to go up to her, to say sorry, or something, but how does one approach someone they emotionally raped?  How do I apologize for slapping her soul?  I didn’t have words strong enough to break through the walls she had already constructed.  

Bullies are rarely this recognizable.  It's often words
much stronger than "Ha Ha" that truly damage souls.  

The fall of man is often portrayed through moral excess, debauchery like a Roman orgy, but all one must do is spend a day in a middle school (public or private, religious or secular) and watch the true results of original sin.  That is the one event I want over in life.  For years I prayed for forgiveness for me, and later when I truly understood empathy, I cried and prayed for her.  Prayed for healing for her.  Prayed she could move on.  I didn’t need forgiveness; I needed to know she was okay.  But shortly thereafter we moved to a different state.  This was in 1993, the internet was still in diapers, and even if I wanted to know her name, I wouldn’t be able to find it.  I forgot my friends and enemies at old schools, but I don’t forget her face.  I don’t know her name, but I know her face, and I watched her die.  God, I hope she is still alive. 

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Comment below about how you were bullied--or a time when you failed to step up to somebody being treated unfairly.  Or let me know what you think of my book excerpt (the book isn't all this heavy, just this little part).   Or you can get all high and mighty, and share how you stood up to bullying and are considered a hero to a select group of people.