Before Life Ruins Us

I never had the gene for most major addictions (if you exclude caffeine and tobacco, the latter being a great runner-up for a slow death). You'd think my Irish heritage would naturally include a gene for alcoholism but I missed out on that one too. Though I love to drink beer for it's slow, manageable buzz, I'm no hardy drinker. I can't last and never could. In short, I am a light weight.

I used to get my nuts busted about this, though in reality, it's a positive boon. I was in the Celtic years back, with a friend when she complained that I'd never wanted a shot, even it was free. I told her what she already knew and that I didn't need it nor didn't want to be gooned by 9PM. She dismissed me as a “light weight.” Behind us, leaning on the wall and coming to my defense was a bouncer named Sean who then said, “Well, Deckey-Sue, Ron doesn't need half a bottle of Crown Royal to get 'started.'” To this she spun around in her chair to shoot a look at him that would char cat fur.

It's true. I'm a lightweight and it's cheaper, safer and I tend to just fall asleep in my own bed instead of the local jail vs. some others I have known. As I get older, this only gets worse, alcohol to me is Sominex now.

I've pretty much tried, at least once, all those fine pharmaceuticals that you can purchase legally or illegally, the exceptions being LSD and heroin. I wouldn't try LSD unless it was inside Butler Psychiatric hospital with four large goon CNA's and a board certified psychiatrist. I know myself too well to let that subconscious monster loose from my soul. That son-of-a-bitch will stay in that dank sewer system, with the sewer cover welded in place. By the way, YOU have one too, the subconscious is the place where we put all our ugly, reptilian natures to rot. As for heroin, I don't like needles or blood borne pathogens.

But with everything I did try, I managed to keep it on the weekends only and that was it. There was no desire on my part to do it again and again and again. If anything, it was a novelty. It was a ride on a Six Flags rollercoaster and once I got that under my belt, “Ok, I tried it.” One kid I knew just had to get on that ride, again and again and again and again.

**

When you're an older kid, even more so a young teen, you already know where you land in the pecking order of your peer group. What you want to do is move up, be “cool” and gain some notoriety (the good kind) to boost your street cred and status. To do this, you have to succeed at something that's deemed worthy by that clique you hang with. For me, my saving grace, was humor. I could come up with jokes, practical ones, observations and what not pretty damned quick. I told you about one involving a history teacher and his two girls a few stories back. I was good at it. I was a bit of quiet Class Clown that managed to divert all the blame from me. I'd sit back and enjoy the consternation of adults as they ran around trying to stem the damage I'd cause or go nuts trying to find the culprit. One day I'll tell you how I siphoned a neighbor's pool for fun, and got away with it, of course.

As a kid too, you tend to look up to, ape the Golden Boy or Girl of your group, try to be more like them, secretly wish you had some of their skills or personality traits. It's not until you get into your 30's do you realize that you generally, always had every skill needed to make it in life, but when you're 14 you know shit about yourself or the world. One of the kids I knew, who everyone naturally liked and admired, was Mark F. Mark was one of those boys who was born fairly good looking, smart enough but not geek smart and a natural athlete. His dad was completely proud of his boy as he could play street hockey (and real ice hockey) with an inborn talent. Add to this, the young teen girls of our group thought he was “cute enough” as well. He was lucky enough to own these skills, traits before we others had them.

In all, he was a “good” kid. A boy any Dad would be proud to have. He had a gift for social interaction that most of other boys were still trying to learn and we looked up to. We copied it, abused it, including me. I found him to be genuine, open and fairly honest about himself which proved to show some courage in him as well. I liked that. I found a lot of people, to this day, to be scared shitless to be open. Mark was not afraid at all.

Before I told anyone, because I knew enough not too, I was already smoking pot at a very early age due to my older brother introducing it to me. It was weekend thing when he'd share a joint with me or, I'd pinch his stash behind his back and save one for myself on a weekend. The main reason I'd smoke it was that I found music to be 1,000% better when stoned. So, if I was high, you'd find me in a darkened room around 2 AM with Steely Dan's Aja playing through the headphones.

But it slipped out that I did smoke after being busted by a English teacher who was a few rows higher than me at a Frank Zappa concert. Also, I admitted, sheepishly, to Judy T., another classmate, that I did smoke. My secret lasted all of 24 hours as everyone else found out I did. You see, very few kids I knew then “did it.” I was a vanguard, though a quiet one. Hell, I manage to hide that fact for a few years, cultivate the A student geekazoid personality. Well, as soon as you open your mouth or another sees it, the cat's outta the bag quick.

Mark F found his way to marijuana due to the two girls who sat across Goff Jr High on a low stone wall that supported the dirt, yard around a house next door to Jet Tours Travel. They'd be there every morning and we all knew why, they sold loose joints to the jr high school kids there. I never bought from them...why? I had my own free stuff. The girls maintained their business unmolested because this was 1978. No one cared.

I saw Mark F smoke his ever, first joint one morning at the SE corner of Goff. The next four hours had him acting like a 10 year old boy. He never got in trouble but the teachers were annoyed at his really immature behavior that morning. That was the only time I saw him smoke or get high.

When we graduated Goff, everyone else went to Tolman, I to St. Rays and I never did see many of the old school crowd, let alone Mark, for years.

If it wasn't the One Way in Slater Park, the other teen hangout was Pascale's Lot, a open dirt parking lot across from McCoy stadium. Jimmy, Mike and I drove there one afternoon and this blond headed kid comes up to my car, opening a brown paper bag full of “dime bags” asking us if we want to buy one. I looked right at the kid's face and recognized his teeth first. It was Mark. Mark had these well spaced, but slightly gapped teeth in his smile. I didn't recognize the new hairstyle or the fact adolescence had chiseled his features and erased that boyish face I knew well years ago.

“Oh God...Mark! Hey! It's been a long time!” I was glad to see him again.

We talked for a bit and it came to me that Mark was now a full blown pot-head/dealer. He had given up on hockey and joined the burn outs instead. His personality was pretty much the same but I was startled at how much he had grown up. The fact that he was hanging out with the Pascale's crowd didn't throw me much...my day to day friends and I were the Slater Park crowd that was none better either. We stayed at Pascale's for about 30 minutes before we left. This would be the year 1982.

2001.

I was working for a nursing home in Warwick whose FSD was a interesting butch/dyke/man-girl named Janice. She had that typical short haircut and was mistaken, more than once, by the residents as a man. She was there not too long before she had moved onto a place closer to her home in Pawtucket. One day while working, she had complained to us that he had to go to a funeral for a “friend of a friend” in Pawtucket.

“Dammit...I have to go the funeral home...I'm still dressed in my uniform...I'll look like a fool” she said. “Well, it IS for Mark...too bad his girlfriend won't ever attend his funeral though.”

You know, there are times when you get two, three pieces of information on a person you haven't heard from in years but it's the right kind of info and you KNOW who this is. You just nail it.

“Mark? Mark F” I ask Janice.

“Yeaahhh....how do you know him” she asks.

“He's DEAD?” I say.

“Yeahh..bullet through the head, self inflicted.”

“Whaat?” I am really confused now.

I get the later part of his life in a nutshell from Janice.

He had graduated from pot to cocaine and developed a real hard core addiction. I am sure this changed his brain so much that his life turned to liquid shit as that stuff never comes to a good end. He was working job to job, had an off again, on again girlfriend, who I inadvertently knew in St Rays but would never guess in a million years she'd latch onto someone like this. The relationship was marred with beatings, abuse and what have you. I found out also Mark had been chucked into the ACI for a time for petty theft and check fraud charges. I found all this information pretty startling as this was not the kid I knew at one time.

Well, one day, he had locked himself in the bathroom of his apartment to snort coke all morning long. His paranoia must've been on full bore because he came out, got into an argument with his girl and then successfully locked her, barricaded her in the bedroom. Why? I don't know. But the girl was resourceful and managed to escape out the window and call the cops.

When the cops arrive, I can only surmised Mark freaked out at the prospect of going back to the ACI. Holding anyone against their will in RI is “kidnapping” and that's a heavy charge, add to that he already had a record as a proven domestic violence repeat offender. To escape his miserable future, he shot himself.

**

Rhode Island is far too small and I don't have to tell you this, but crossing paths with people again and again is the norm here. I was talking, without knowing it, to an ex boyfriend of Mark's sister one night, who I had never met before and before you know it, I start talking of Mark for some reason.

The kid lit up and his attention zeroed right in. “That FUCK? He used to beat the shit out of my girlfriend (Mark's sister).”

I also find out the final hours of Mark's life too. The guy I'm talking to was on the rescue that responded to the call that morning. Now HOW small is Rhode Island? About the size of my fingernail!

He had gone into the apartment and found Mark on the bed with a huge puddle of arterial blood all over the pillow. The EMT's had been informed of the nature of the situation and of the wound. They started to work on him.

“You know he was still semi-conscious?” I was told.

“He kept saying, 'Oh Fuck! Oh Fuck, Oh Fuck' over and over again as we tried to stem the blood flow from the entrance wound.”

“He was still talking?” I found that amazing.

Well, he could, at first I'm told. He had used a .25 caliber pistol and that blew a small hole in the right side of his forehead but since it's such a low powered round, it traversed the brain and managed to only push through, just under the skin, on the opposite side of the forehead. The wound channel isn't that great, but it's enough I was told.

“I could see the round, that lump under the skin on the other side of his head, where it tried to come out but was stopped.” the EMT told me.

I wondered to myself about Mark's last words, “Oh fuck, oh fuck” I have to wonder if he was conscious and lamenting his worst.decision.ever.

They bring him to Memorial and the Dr's there realized what would happen next, the brain would swell, crushing itself to death inside the skull. The had told Mark's parents this and they opted to pull all life preserving measures. He was dead fore long.

**

I found myself at Merrick Williams funeral home on the morning of his burial. I sat in the car, still trying to decide whether I should go in or not. I was still trying to parse the information I got about him from Janice and the kid I once knew. It didn't make any sense. I watched as many older, white haired people went into the funeral home and I deduced his older, extended family was visiting. I saw few people my age...perhaps the people who knew him, his peers, were too busy being drugged up themselves that morning.

I chickened out. I never went in. One reason was that no one would know who I was and to explain my connection would take too much time, I'd be telling stories from 1979 to people who never went to Goff. I also didn't want to further my shock at seeing the wreck of a kid I knew to be “good,” lying in a casket with a marvelous make-up job concealing a quarter inch sized hole in his head.

**

That was about 17 years ago and I sort of can't get my head around it still. I knew this kid when he was just perfect, just fine, a great person to be around. There was promise in his future just based on what he was alone. Nope, all that went to shit. I don't know addictions all that well since I've never really experienced them at all and can't tell you first hand how life changing, personality changing they can be. (Quietly knocking on wood). Many, I'm told, hold Mark's memory as a # 1 Jerk. For me, I can't do that. I knew him when he was still a normal person and one hell of a great kid. To me, he was a fun person who had some bravery, a sense of chivalry and hope.

It's too bad. We all start off completely innocent as children, not guilty of ANYTHING really, only to have some of us wind up twisted and contorted beyond all hope.

Addictions. Some do and some don't. A long time ago, someone was goofing on my near constant ability of having a can of Coca Cola wherever I went. To answer this insult, I said, “Yeah, well some people have to have whiskey nearby all day long...I don't.”

Tom Catting

There are those great moments in your early to mid 20's where you can't help turning to gold all that you touch. They don't last long, days, perhaps a couple of weeks but everything you do is a wild success. I was reminded of them not too long ago and how great these memories can be. Is this sitting on one's laurels? BS! These are trophies you still keep on the mantelpiece! Every 20 Something guy should have at least one memory like this. 

An old college friend, of Polish extraction (and you know who you are!) once told me a story a while back about his tom catting episode involving a Katarina Quitino. He had been gone from his home for a few days and when he finally came back, his Dad swung open the door and had this knowing smirk on his face. He knew where his son had been and what he was up to. The next is paraphrased but it's close enough as the conversation stuck with me. 

Upon seeing his Dad's condemning look, KM tells me: “I just walked right by him, straight into the house and shot him a mile wide grin.” 

I tell him: “Yeah, your Dad knew exactly what was up. He was young once too! He recognized the look!” 

I go on: “Yep, you come home disheveled, hair a mess, smelling of cigarettes, beer, sweat, a bit of girl's perfume and you're probably missing socks, a jacket and you desperately need a shower! But you don't take one as you just go to your room and crash because you've been up for 36 hours! You look exactly like an ol' Tom Cat. Hair all ripped up in tufts, dirty, hungry and you finally walk into your owner's house, ignoring him as you go to your favorite napping place.” 

“Best feeling in the world.” KM says. True! He's right! 

You can do this because being in your early 20's affords you all the freedom you want, w/o having to pay for any of it! You are still living under the wings of your parents. A house, insurance, laundry and food are there for free. You DO of course, pitch in money and help around the house but you also own your freedom to do pretty much what you want. It's a great time to be alive before full adulthood takes over and YOU have to pay for everything....then suddenly start to get serious as cancer about managing your own life. Fun's over! But hey...beat the shit out of it while it lasts! 

 **

 Roy Carpenter's is a beach and summer home block down by Matunuck. They have homes that are the size of very large sheds and smell pretty much like one too. I had heard about this place but never seen it up close. That until one summer in '89 after seeing the B-52's in Miquamicut, which is further on down the road. We had spent the day on the beach, D'arby and I, getting buzzed before seeing the concert. 

After it all, we had gone to the Ocean Mist, my first time, to finish off some drinks. After they kicked us out, we spent some time by the retaining wall while she rolled up a joint. Even then, pot could blow my socks off but I partook anyway. It was another humid, sort of light foggy night there. We talked for a while and then D'arby says, “Ok...I'm ready to go back.” Then a short walk back to Roy Carpenter's and the fun that ensued there. 

The next morn she had driven me to my car in Cranston. I drove home around 7ish AM when everyone else was killing themselves to get to work while I was free. It was one of those great humid, sunny August mornings and I felt like nothing could ever, ever go wrong in my life again. Things were perfect! Everything fell into place w/o even trying! This is 100% confidence, but not a swaggering kind, this was real. 

I pull up in front of my house and my brother hadn't left for work yet and I walk into the front door, say “Hi” to him and go past the kitchen where Mom was when she chirps out, “Where were you? Did they have problems at work? Have to pick up a shift?” 

I thought, “Wow! Great! I didn't even have to spend any calories to come up with an excuse!” I kept walking, to the bathroom, when I answered her, “Yeah..two of them never showed up...I picked it up!” The whole time the confidence just flowed from me naturally. So natural that I barely closed the door to take a piss and let that OBVIOUS noise filter out to the rest of the house. I didn't care...I RULE! (Fist pump into the air!) 

After, I go upstairs, lie on the bed. I was dirty, covered in beach sand which was now getting into the sheets and I could feel my skin was tight, dried out and stinging somewhat from the sunburn I had gotten at Misquamicut. Also, that fine salt that collects on your skin from being in water had dusted me head to toe. I felt like scorched sandpaper. My hair smelt oddly of Obsession perfume and I had a slight hangover. Small time injuries from having too much fun. 

Much later, I get up, and I pass by the mirror. I see the sunburn, the salt stiffened hair that's pointing in every which direction and all I can think is that this, “is a perfect look.” I almost didn't want to shower as that might wash away all the memories, salt, her perfume and return me to “normal.” I liked the pollution that was all over me. I think you have to be a guy to understand this. It's a form of scarring, battle injuries...you want to keep them. I did however shower up and look virginal again. 

I hope, every 20 Something guy gets to experience this, at least once. It's a great time before you have to finally leave the nest or take on heavy responsibilities that always pervade your mind and keep you from completely having free, uncontrolled, abandoned fun...and get good and dirty while having it. The trophy from that MUST sit in the center of the mantelpiece above the fireplace!

Malice Aforethought....at Eight Years Old.

If you're old enough, perhaps you had to deal with bullies, the physical ones, in school or your neighborhood in general. Today they've outlawed it, but thanks to SnapChat, a group of 11 year old girls can reduce to tears one of their peers for wearing the wrong color leggings. Better mousetraps create better mice.

The one I had to contend with, actually most of us in the 3^rd grade was Sean Duda, a toe headed Polark who was in the fifth grade. He was two years older than us and a foot taller. He also had that kind of miss-shapen head that might lead one to conclude there was an addition of a 24th chromosome. What he lost in skull shape he made up in bulk. He had freak strength like Lenny in “Of Mice and Men.” Looking back on him, he had nothing but anger in him that was borne from God Knows Where. Perhaps Dad, every older brother, even sister, abused him? So, in order to get that poison out, you beat on others smaller than you. That's my armchair diagnosis.

Due to his being a bully, no one liked him. He'd pick his targets, torture them for a while till they howled in submission. Then he'd feel fulfillment. In addition to that, nearly failing every grade since kindergarten probably didn't help his self worth too much. Low man on the Totem Pole Syndrome.

Sean got ahold of me one day in a sort of ambush. I had been walking down Armistice Blvd when he came up from behind and kept repeating my last name over and over. “M*h*n! M*h*n! M*h*n! What kind of a name is that?” I almost wanted to say what kind of name is “Duda,” as it sounded like it described the person who owned it. Dud. I just kept walking forward hoping this wouldn't lead anywhere as I knew I wasn't going to win anything against this gorilla. No luck. Next thing I knew I was face down on the front lawn of somebody's house.

“Eat it! EAT IT! EAT THE GRASS!” he kept yelling. The funny thing was that he had pushed my face so hard into the lawn that it was impossible to open my jaw. I also was so thick headed then that I wouldn't do it, even though my nostrils were filling with dirt. I kept trying to get his bulk off my body but it was too much. After much shouting from both of us the owner of the house, an older woman, comes out to shout at Duda to stop it.

Duda does, but he's sooo rebellious that he starts yelling at the lady of the house. “You're not his MOM! You CAN'T tell ME what to do!” She responded by telling him it was “her property” and to get out. It took the kid a few minutes to relent and leave.

**

Now, I was born with arms far too skinny for use in many street fights. But what I had to do, what I found effective, with duels against kids my age, was to go NUTS on them. I needed to trip a particular circuit breaker. I may lose the fight, but I am going to injure that son of a bitch somehow, someway. After a while, most others learned it wasn't all that profitable to deal with me if my temper was finally lost. When lost, I knew of NO rules in fights...mud in the face, kicking you in the gut...whatever worked. The fight ended with the other in a bit of shock at seeing me wanting their liver on a stick. It was the switch to anger that worked...if I got there.

There was one move I learned from my brother. I learned it because that prick used it on me! He knew where your adenoids were located, which is just behind the ear, that soft spot in your skull and he'd press his finger into it as hard as he could. The pain is exquisite!

So, in one tussle with Chuck, I managed to jam my finger into his adenoids and the screaming was wonderful! That until he lost it and sunk his fist into my nose. The point being? No fight was going to have me lose 100%. Nope...I'll get my pound of flesh somehow.

But all of that was worthless against Duda. I was outmatched entirely by his age, size and mental instability.

**

After that tussle with Duda on the front lawn, I seethed for days. I mean SEETHED. I wanted that bastard to get hit by a truck, train...a group of apes carrying bricks. As many 8 year old boys will attest, fantasy is great and mine was seeing Duda dipped in molten lead. These fantasies went on but they began to change into a rational, cool-headed plan for revenge.

We kids in that neighborhood loved street hockey. We all had hockey sticks and if we didn't have one personally, we looked around and one would come up. All of them probably said “Bobby Orr Special” on them as he was a local hero then. Some of you are saying..”Bobby Who?” Aghh! I'm old!

If you take the blade off the end of a hockey stick, you have one hell of a strong piece of wood. We boys had those too and we'd turn them into guns, swords, canes, tai chi warfare sticks or whatever we imagined. These sticks were nearly indestructible! Because there were so many of them lying around in 1973, you could pick one off the street or garbage nearly anywhere in this neighborhood.

While walking to school one day, I passed a house on Bloomfield St and sticking out of the can was a nice looking hockey stick sans the blade. I examined it then tossed it in the narrow passage of a garage and line of thick yew bushes, knowing that it would be there to pick up and take home.

I walked home and forgot about it entirely. Till a few days later when I got an idea.

One thing I did noticed at times, and this was a survival tactic for us younger kids, was to know where Duda was if he was around. I began to notice he'd walk the same path as me on the way home, for about half of it and I worried that he'd find my hockey stick. So while he was busy, about 50 feet back, I stepped off the sidewalk and kicked the stick even further into the passage.

I began to dream of way to get him again and I thought of whacking him with the hockey stick. But I couldn't do that one on one. He'd be momentarily shocked, due to his having 3 brain cells. He'd come around then use the stick on me. I needed a smarter idea.

Here's what I came up with. I figured if I ran ahead my way home one day, I'd get to that well tree'd and hidden passageway by the garage before he did. I could ambush him there. Ahh...another problem arose. Identification. I can't have him know it was me that nailed him. He'd plan his own revenge and it would be merciless. I needed a disguise.

Back in the early 70's, we kids had a jacket called Lumberjack coats. They were cheap, bought at Ann & Hope and looked like a very heavy, rug insulated flannel shirt. I had one. Mine was autumn colored with browns, reds and oranges. I noticed that you could turn it inside out and only the rug insulation side would be exposed. I also had a few ski mask for winter. Hey! It's all coming together!

I got to the passageway way before anyone else did as I ran nearly the whole way there. I took off my coat, reversed it, took off my glasses and put them in my pocket and then pulled out the ski mask. I then got the hockey stick, crouched and waited. Kid after kid came by but none were Duda. Then finally, there he was! He was walking alone, lost in simple thoughts as he approached. I got up, went as close to the end of the yews as I could and I just tightened up, wound up like a bear trap. I could see him approaching through gaps in the yew and then...then..wait...NOW!

I stepped out like a batter on home base and I swung like I was going to crack this one out of the park. I probably had perfect from too. I knew enough not to crank him in the face so I aimed at his gut with all of my 8 year old arms.

WHACK!

I didn't stay long enough. I darted back down the passage way that opened into the next neighbor's yard. By the time I hit the opposite street, Hatfield, I had reversed my coat back to it's normal side and had pulled off the mask. The stick I shoved into another bush to be claimed later. I tried to calm down from that and look as normal as possible and look like just another kid walking home from school.  Hmmm..this sounds like Micheal Corleone when he hit McCluskey and Sollozzo, all planned and executed.

**

Duda hadn't shown up for school for three days and on the fourth, he finally did, with his Dad, just outside of our class with Mr. Collette, the principal. Our teacher, Mrs. Keough, goes out there to find out what's up and we can overhear the conversation. Duda's Dad was incensed that someone from this school ambushed his kid and ended up at our class because Duda fingered me. I guess Duda had seen just enough of me to whittle down the possible suspects. All three come into the classroom and then I'm asked to show my coat that I wore. To tell you the truth, I wasn't worried. I showed them. The Principal Collette then says to Duda's Dad, “It's a multi-colored coat...not solid brown like your son says.”

“But it's brown on the inside!” the moron retorts.

Collette looks askance at the kid and Dad when he heard this. Obviously an 8 year old doesn't have the frame of mind to turn it inside out when committing crimes. I stood there with this look of confusion on my face, just to add to the principal's doubt.

Duda's Dad has to say something, “Mr. Collette..someone has been going after my son and I KNOW it has to be one of the students here!”

Collette, who seemed annoyed that his time was being wasted says again, “THAT coat is multi-colored and your son said it was someone in a BROWN coat....”

They both left our room and I sat there with this beautiful, shit eating grin.

I had found out later why the Dad was involved. I had hit the kid so hard that I didn't leave just a red mark nor a raised red welt but a scary, half foot long deep bruise across his abdomen.

A week or so later, the same Duda kid comes to our recess period to beat on some other kids. He had one pinned in the corner of the school building, whomping on him.  Mrs. Keough sees this and runs over to stop it. We then ask her why he wasn't in class and she wondered the same thing as he was in 5th and this was a 3rd grade recess. The kid we found out routinely would wander off when he wanted too and torment others, go to the store or go home early.

Within a few months of this, we found out Duda wasn't in our school anymore. He had screwed up his grades, social standing and his misbehavior was culminating to his being thrown out of Potter's school. He was then sent to...gasp! Fallon School! Fallon School back then was where they stuck all the dimwitted ones. Fallon was the last stop before they shipped you to the Ladd Center in Exeter.

I never saw him again.

I don't regret one single thing I did.

This was 44 years ago and I fully admit my actions. You're the first to know!

Who Taught You THAT?!

Stories, stories, stories...here's another one about what dicks we kids could be at one time.

Mr. Kald was our 9^th grade history teacher in a particular Jr. High school in Pawtucket back in 1979. I have to change the names of the guilty because I'm pretty sure he's still alive and would like nothing better than to plow his fist into my mouth should he discover what really happened one spring day of that year.

Kald was then, a pro-Nixon, pro-Vietnam, pro-conservative and pro-bonehead at a time when it was decidedly un-hip to be so. We lost Vietnam four years earlier, Nixon et al were in prison or disgraced, or both and liberalism, especially in this school I attended, was a banner that was proudly waved. This irked Kald to no end. He looked like a linebacker, with a military crew cut and a swagger that seemed a bit out of place for a school. He also had some facial features that only worsened his look. He had a bit of a Neanderthal brow with deep set eyes that would open to a widened Holy Roller stare if he was pissed. This was quite often, due to his being a teacher of a bunch of 14-15 year olds. It was the piercing stare of the Saved, the Elect of Calvinism, or in today's terms, any far right wing kook who is illegally owning/trespassing on federal lands out West, cradling an AK 47 ready to defend it. It's the same mindset that triggers that same stare of DETERMINATION and self assured VIRTUOSITY.

I certainly didn't like him as a teacher and I came to that conclusion during the first week of his class. He taught world history and started with the Fertile Crescent area around the Euphrates. We quickly moved over to the Levant where he began to discuss “monotheism.”

While striding up and down the aisles between our desks, with his left hand holding an open book and his right hand and index finger pointed at the ceiling he said: “Monotheism! This is the belief in ONE God...One religion...One Savior...like Jesus Christ and Christianity! A true religion!”

My face must've dropped an inch or two when I heard that. It wasn't his description of it, it was his proselytizing of it. The demand...the enforcement of an idea that we must believe. That's how I read it. He said that with such conviction.  I disliked the guy immediately and judged him to be a Holy Roller with snakes, talking in tongues and all that crazy shit. At that time in my life, I pretty much gave up Catholicism and religion was horseshit.

Add to this, he ran his classroom like a prison. The authoritarian nature of his style really grated me and the other kids. This was 1979, we were used to a very laid back attitude that was at the time, held right and true. And here comes this guy with an attitude of “kickin' ass and taking names.” All we kids could do was put up with it and try to stay out of the way of his wrath.

But one kid, J. Wilson, got into an altercation with him after refusing to write out 500 times, “I won't do this or that in Mr Kald's class again.” Wilson felt he was innocent of the accusation and wouldn't do the punishment. We, in the rest of the class, watched as Wilson and Kald nearly went toe to toe, nearly shouting at one another about who as going to submit. Wilson's arms were cocked like a spring and so were Kalds. We all thought we were about to see a fight. Fortunately for Kald, he thought better and walked back to his desk and dropped the subject.

I later said to Wilson, “If he lays a fuckin' finger on you, Your Dad can sue him and the Pawtucket School Department...times have changed!” They did change. By the late 70's, beating kids, child abuse was really starting to make mention on 60 Minutes, the news and whatnot. It was also the time when Bing Crosby died and all of his sons came out to say what a son-of-a-bitch their Dad was. Had Bing thought of using a car antenna as a whip on his kids, he would've tried it. That's the kind of guy he was...and this provided fuel for the fire to the anti-beat your kids till bleeding crowd.

So, to sum it up, we hated Kald. The other teachers in the school, of which half were younger than him, and pot heads who were trained in the 1960's universities, let slip from time to time what they thought of him as well. None too well liked was he.

**

Here comes the fun part.

One day, while in science class, down the hall from Mr Kald's classroom, were were milling around, sort of lined up ready to go lunch. At a certain time, the bell would ring and 200 kids would fill the halls all moving towards the cafeteria to eat.

Mr Kald each and every day at about noonish, would see his two daughters arrive from the school across the street, Potters. They were around 4 and 5 years old respectively and he'd have them wait in the teacher's room before he set them up in his classroom to watch till school was out at 2:30. This was no problem for the administration either.

That day, as were were lined up waiting for the lunch bell, Mr. Kald brings his two girls towards our classroom and tells them to wait, by “this wall for a few minutes” till Dad was ready. The two girls stood dutifully there, staring all around as they did at all the bigger kids there when I opine, out loud to the kids in our doorway, who were waiting to go to lunch, this:

“Wouldn't it be funny if we taught those kids to say “Fuck You Daddy!”

Judy T. and Maureen M., two 14 year old classmates of mine, heard me and looked at one another with this wonderful realization. They then dart towards the two little girls. I discovered their intention quickly and under my breath, but loud enough, begged them to come back. They did.

I tell the two girls, “You have to do this right! Don't tell the girls what to say until you hear the lunch bell, get them to repeat it a few times and then quickly join the mass of kids going to the cafeteria....you, us, will be lost in the crowd!”

The bell rings and Maureen and Judy quickly go to the little girls and start a conversation in a very friendly way. I, being so brave....quickly moved into the crowd of kids moving down the hallway.

I get to my spot in the lunchroom with Pat, Mark, Dave and a few others and I start eating, talking and enjoying myself. We hadn't been in the lunch room that long when 88 seconds later who comes busting into the cafeteria ready to kill?

I sat there in smug innocence knowing that he was looking for two girls and I, being a boy...couldn't possibly be caught up in any dragnet. I probably had this shit eating grin while I shoved the PJB into my mouth. We all watched Mr. Kald, with his eyes brilliantly shining that Holy kill-kill stare, go up and down and in and out of the lunchtables, trying to find two girls who taught his little girls the worst word in the English language.

Finally he heads back to the main door, spins around and yells, “I'll find you two TRAMPS!...And WHEN I DO.....” He trailed off and left in a huff.

The entire cafeteria, including the other teachers who were there to police us, got reallll quiet and stared at one another over this very odd display. There were however, about five of us who probably, with all our might, tried to stop from busting out laughing. When we all filed out of the room, I spotted Judy and Maureen and we gave each other a great, knowing smile.

This was 38 years ago, think he's still pissed?