Authors: Megan Kelley Hall
from the very real terror
behind the threats you kick at me.
In the darkness
I cry.
In the darkness
I wish.
In the darkness
I pray.
In the light of my family room,
I tell her of the coldness,
able to see
it’s not me
who is weak.
In the light of an office,
I tell him of the pain,
able to see
it’s not me
who is ignorant.
In the light of a new day,
we stand side by side
and we tell the world
we must not tolerate hatred,
able to see
it is us
who will bring change.
The Sandwich Fight
by Steven E. Wedel
The noise of the lunchroom was loud, rising and falling as the lower grades of Coolidge Elementary talked and ate, ignoring the illuminated red of the traffic light that indicated it was quiet time. Being a picky eater, I’d opted to bring my lunch. I took my sandwich—thin sheets of beef lunch meat with mustard on white bread—from my Charlie Brown lunch box and brought it toward my mouth.
“Give me a bite.” The voice belonged to Kevin. Something inside me squirmed, looking for a deeper place to hide.
A few days earlier, Kevin had demanded one of my mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. I refused. He stole one. When I complained to my mom, her response was that I should have shared my cookies. Now, I’m not opposed to sharing. Never have been. But it goes all over me when somebody demands I give up something that is mine. Kevin had stolen my cookie, and now he was sitting there in his yellow button-down shirt, his own lunch in front of him, insisting I give him a bite of my sandwich.
There was more to it, of course. This was second grade, 1972, and only the first year for Enid, Oklahoma, schools to have a hot lunch program. I tried a hot lunch the second day of school and hated it, so I took my lunch every day from then on. Looking back, I suppose it was fitting I carried a Charlie Brown lunch box, considering how much ol’ Chuck and I had in common. Something inside made us easy targets for harassment. Charlie Brown had his Lucy, and I had Kevin.
Earlier in the year, he’d stolen my eraser. Our teacher, Mrs. Patton, was leading a group of kids in reading while I was whispering to Kevin to give back my eraser. The girl next to me was trying to help resolve the issue. Next thing I knew, Mrs. Patton was swatting Kevin, then the girl, and then had me by the ear and was dragging me out of my desk and lighting up my butt with her wooden paddle. Hey, it was the early seventies and that stuff was still allowed.
Classroom, playground, he was always there, always picking on me about something. But nowhere was it worse than the lunchroom.
I lifted the thin sandwich toward my mouth for a second bite, and he grabbed my wrist. We struggled, him pulling my hand and food toward his open mouth. How long until a teacher noticed? Would I get in trouble for this, too? Another swat?
He got his bite. No way I was eating that after his mouth had touched it. I dropped it back into my lunch box and ate whatever else Mom had packed. But it wasn’t over. He loved the idea that I wouldn’t eat the sandwich now and amped up the harassment until, finally, I agreed to settle the matter with him on the playground after school.
The rest of the day was horrible. I was a bundle of nerves. We’d get caught. That was certain. I’d get in trouble at school. They’d call home. Mom would be mad. Dad would be mad. I’d probably get spanked and grounded and Dad—my Pentecostal father—would give me a lecture about turning the other cheek while my mom would settle the issue by making an extra sandwich or cutting mine in half so I could share it.
There were ways out, of course. I could tell on Kevin. However, Mrs. Patton didn’t approve of that. In fact, she usually pinned a long strip of paper to the butt of anyone who told on classmates; she encouraged and led the way in calling people tattletales. No joke. This is the same teacher who told the class’s only black student that he’d melt into a puddle of chocolate if he didn’t stop sweating in class. Remember, early seventies.
I could try to leave through a different door, but Kevin would most likely just follow me. I could pretend to be sick and go home early, but Mom would know I wasn’t sick and I’d get in trouble for that and probably have to explain why I really went home.
Not fighting was an option . . . but was it a good one? What was in store for me if I didn’t go through with the fight? There would be more bullies in later grades. Oh, and junior high. Is there a worse time in anybody’s life? Puberty lay in wait for me, and it had nasty plans. My face would become a constant mass of red, oozing acne. Blackheads, whiteheads, the works. I’d hit a growth spurt in which I seemed to grow taller by a few inches every month or so, making my jeans always too short and my shirts too tight.
Not standing up now would keep me from fighting back if some punk who used to be my friend dragged me out of the boys’ restroom while I was changing out of my band uniform, casting me to the hallway floor in just a shirt, socks, and my tighty-whities, right in front of some preppy girls. Avoiding Kevin now would mean I’d do nothing when clubbed over the head at my locker or when my face was slammed against another guy’s crotch.
If I didn’t fight, how would I handle the mob of boys waiting to torment me in ninth grade because I chose a girlfriend who was a year younger than me? How would I deal with the name-calling, the punch-and-runs in the hall, the tripping, and everything else?
I think both second-grade classes turned out for the fight. Word gets around. There were a lot of kids out there. They made a ring around me and Kevin on the playground behind the school. They were bloodthirsty in their plaid bell-bottoms and cotton dresses.
Oddly, I wasn’t so much worried about losing the fight. I’d never been in a fight before. I wasn’t even sure how it was supposed to work. My only fear was of getting caught.
It was time. Kevin and I closed in on each other. We locked arms in some kiddie wrestling move and held for a few seconds before breaking free.
I ran. I snatched my Charlie Brown lunch box and books off the sidewalk and ran all the way home.
The next several years were off-and-on hell as I dealt with one bully after another, always too timid to stand up for myself. Eventually I grew out of being the scrawny, acne-riddled kid in clothes that didn’t fit. Sometime after that, most of my bullies matured, but by that time I’d learned that I had to stand up to them, even if it meant a fight. Even if it meant losing the fight. Even if it meant getting in trouble for fighting.
I believe everything that happens to us goes into making us what we are. We are a collection of our experiences. Yeah, I suffered a lot of abuse because I chose to run away from that fight, but in the end I think everything I endured made me a better person and better teacher and certainly gave me a lot of material to write about.
At thirteen, I’m smart, mouthy, and fearless.
Overnight, I change.
Our junior high is a battlefield, the enemy line clearly drawn: me on one side, along with Dee-Dee and Diane, and
them
—Renee, Cathy, and Judith—on the other. We six spend our days trading sinister stares, snide remarks, and bumps in the hall. It’s not a popularity issue; we’re all equally unpopular. Not jealousy, either; as daughters of working class families, our wardrobes aren’t special, plus we’re
all
plagued with acne, bad hair, and iffy figures. No cheerleaders, no jocks, no honor roll members among us—just six average, awkward eighth-grade girls.
We simply hate one another. Without a huge circle of friends of our own, and linked by our mutual contempt for
them
, Dee-Dee, Diane, and I vow to always stick together.
One evening, a classmate I know casually calls to say, “I heard some people are out to get you.”
“What?
Who?
”
“I can’t say. But I thought I’d warn you.”
Click
.
Wondering if Dee-Dee or Diane know about this, I phone Dee-Dee first—
and she hangs up on me
! Baffled and uneasy, I then try Diane.
“People don’t like you anymore,” she admits after a long silence.
“People? What people?”
“
Everyone
.” Then Diane hangs up, too.
Sick with dread, I agonize over this all night long. In the morning, as usual, I wait for Dee-Dee’s mom, who generally drives the three of us to school. The clock ticks away. No one shows up. Nauseated, wondering what I’ll be walking into today, I rush to school on foot, barely making it on time.
When I stumble into Mrs. Z.’s homeroom, Dee-Dee glares. Diane averts her eyes. I mumble “Hi” anyway, but they both ignore me. Seated, I peek nervously around—and make a hideous discovery.
It’s not only Dee-Dee and Diane who are in on this game;
everyone’s
battering me with nasty looks! They whisper. They toss notes back and forth and then point purposefully to me. When Mrs. Z. calls my name, someone shouts “Horseface!” and the entire class screeches with laughter.
“Enough of that!” Mrs. Z. snaps, which only prompts a quieter litany of “
Horseface . . . Horseface . . .
” She pretends not to hear them.
So do I.
Shaky, sweaty, my stomach burning, I rack my brain to figure this all out:
Why is this happening? What did I do to Dee-Dee and Diane? We were fine yesterday!
The day straggles on, each class a rerun of the one before. People call me names, throw spitballs at me. At lunch, when I spot Dee-Dee and Diane
chatting
with Renee, Cathy, and Judith, my situation becomes horrifyingly clear.
Yes, my two best friends have joined ranks with
them.
Sickened by this blatant betrayal, I sit far away, yet not nearly far enough; I can still hear their comments about “what a bitch she is” and how they hope to “kick her ass!” When a balled-up lunch bag smacks me in the head, I ditch my uneaten lunch and slink off to the library.
After school, when nobody kicks my ass, I walk home alone, praying for a miracle.
Make tomorrow different. Make things normal again. Make it all a bad joke. Please, God, please!
But the next day, nothing has changed. Attempts by teachers to stop the harassment have little effect; what my new enemies can’t accomplish in class, they take to the halls. They snatch my books, push me and trip me, spit in my face, and jerk my hair. They call me “Horseface” incessantly. They tell lies, spread rumors.
And this lasts . . .
. . . and lasts.
Day after day.
Week after week.
One endless, unimaginable nightmare.
When Dee-Dee and Diane rebuff my timid attempts to make up—
for what? What? I don’t even know!
—I lapse into a numbing depression. I sleep as much possible, hoping I won’t wake up. On better days, I plot my revenge, fantasizing gory events I know I’ll never carry out. I frequently play sick, missing days of school on end. The only advice my distant parents have to offer is “If you ignore them, they’ll leave you alone.” They are so, so wrong.
Ostracized and alone, I’m sure of only one thing: People hate me.
Hate me!
And though I hate them back, I know I’ll forgive them in an instant—if only they’ll forgive
me
for whatever I did to them.
I try one last time and telephone Diane. “
Please
tell me why everyone hates me!”
“You’re too tough,” she says flatly. “You’re a tomboy.”
For
that
my so-called friends turned the whole class against me? I plead for more details. She merely hangs up on me.
Regardless of Diane’s words, I know I’ve
lost
all my toughness. I feel trapped and helpless, irreparably broken.
I’ll never survive the rest of the year
, I think.
Something will happen to me first . . . something terrible!
I do survive, and it’s my writing that saves me. Not only do I detail this experience in my diary, but I also plunge into writing fiction to escape my reality. I spend my lunch periods in the library plotting out new worlds. I huddle over my typewriter long past midnight, inventing characters less cowardly than me, ones with far happier lives.
Eighth grade ends at last. Ninth grade turns out to be nearly as insufferable. By sophomore year, the abuse dwindles, though I occasionally hear “Horseface!” directed at me in the halls. After two years, Dee-Dee, shyly, attempts to renew our old friendship. I’m polite but superficial; I don’t
care
about her anymore. Nor can I forgive her.
Writing now with a feverish vengeance, I finish my first novel by the end of tenth grade: the story of a girl who is smart, mouthy, and fearless.
I am me. I am whole.
No one can break me again.
“You’re the guy who writes about dead kids,” she said, her mouth tight. It wasn’t a statement or a question; it was an accusation.
I’ll admit the comment threw me. Obviously, I’d never been on a book tour before, much less a prepublication tour, and had little idea of what to expect. To be more accurate, I’d tried to keep myself free from expectations. Doing so allowed me to enjoy the process much more than if I had obsessed over everything like I usually do.
The downside of walking around open to the world, free from expectation, is that it involves taking one’s armor off. All writers have armor. Armor is required gear for anyone who willfully engages in a career path fraught with rejection, public criticism, or, worse, obscurity. I actually think my armor is pretty tough, battle hardened by far too many years trying and failing to “break in.” But like any other writer’s, it is patchy and cobbled together out of spare parts, rife with weak spots that could let deadly, near-mortal wounds pass through. Regardless, I’d left it home.