My First Day of High School

I was never particularly fond of school. Then again, I did not like doing anything that I was required to do. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy learning. Reading and writing were one of my favorite pastimes. It was the institution of school that I despised. The cool teachers were few and far between. To reach the inspirational ones required me to endure the insufferable hacks who had no business instructing children in their myopic lies about history. Worse than that was the British colonialist approach of shouting ever louder when a student did not understand the logic of a lesson. Yet, I was looking forward to my first day of high school.

Whitman had two middle and four elementary schools in the days before condominiums exceedingly replaced every building. However, the high school was regional. It shared its name and students with Hanson Massachusetts. Homeroom was not too bad. Bill Quirk and Brian Reese were sitting in the front. Mr. Ballard’s stiff brown suit and haircut, circa 1963, belied his humanity. The other students were all from Hanson. I took my set and chatted with Bill and Brian. I thought I heard someone say “dirtball” but I was not sure whom it would have been directed at or if I even heard correctly, so I ignored it. Both of my friends were tough, so the three of us could easily clear out this dinky room. We were given our class schedules and dispersed when the bell rang.

Each class was smaller than the last. Although the amount of students remained large, the walls seemed to be closing. More names carried over the teacher’s discussions. “Dirtbag, Scumbag, Faggot, Queer”, and even the odd “Captain Caveman” resounded more in each period. There was no mistaking it; I was the target of the jeers. Whenever I turned to look at the perpetrators I was met with smiling faces. Not congenial grins on any level. They were laughing at me. By now my hair was a tangled mess of bushy waves and curly locks. When it was wet, my mane reached halfway down my back. But I am cursed with the kind of curls women spends thousands per year to achieve. In those days of Ronald Reagan’s Machiavellian war machine I was a throwback. In middle school I was called Captain Cavemen after a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character. This was not mean spirited at all. I was in on the joke. Kids would say it teasingly the way one teases a close friend. I refused to brush my hair and how could I anyway? The curls snagged every hairbrush and comb. Imagine trying to use a rake to straighten a briar patch attached to your skull. Now there was menace in the name and every label that ricocheted off of the suffocating walls. Catcalls shot across the room and hissed just behind my head. The teachers did nothing to reprimand the offenders. Some even chuckled. No one came to my aid. Some students sat silently. Their eyes were wide. They fidgeted and watched the clock. Their faces seemed to beg for the time to speed up and sound the next bell.

When I am nervous I smile. This is uncontrollable. Although it serves to diffuse hostilities now, this was not always the case. Many school administrators were hell bent on wiping the smirk off of my face, not realizing that I was scared shitless as they threatened, hollered and leered at me. I am also quick-witted and lack the internal governor that stops one from making social faux pas. This is not always a good combination to have. In elementary school my mouth wrote more checks than my ass could cash. This was not the case at Whitman/Hanson. I was devastatingly outnumbered. The more kids joined in the ascending chorus of abuses; the less my acerbic wit reared its ugly head. Between classes I walked a gauntlet of humiliation. Balled up paper was hurled at me from every angle. Kids turned and laughed in my face. Heckles raised crescendos of anguish. I did not respond. I did not cry. I did not stop to fight or ask them why. I walked facing forward. On the surface I calmly ignored them. Inside brewed a contempt that would fuel my actions for the next three years. As I walked towards the gym class I saw the coaches. Their large muscles and marine style crew-cuts would be of little comfort to me. They chuckled as I walked into the gymnasium.

The stadium seats were open. Kids were filing in to occupy islands of corduroys. I grabbed a seat towards the front. I barely knew anyone. The few that I did recognize ignored me. The shrill tweet of a whistle silenced the din. For a moment I was relieved that the taunts were not being chanted. The coaches discussed the militaristic nature of class. We would line up at the beginning. They would bark out the row call by last name first and first name last. We would shout “Here” in response. If anyone did not have a uniform (standard issue gym shorts, tee shirt, sox and sneakers) that person would instead call out “N.U.”: no uniform. The names began to punctuate the coaches’ instructions. Then came the cavalcade of snorts and laughter.

“You got gum in yer hair dirtbag,” a lone voice above the din shouted. I felt around my thick mop. I found the chewed wad clinging to my thicket of curls. More gibes filled the air. “Idiot, Moron, Get a Haircut, Scumbag,” now joined the chorus. Air could not move into my lungs. My hands shook. My legs were sweating. “Am I pissing,” I wondered. One of the gym teachers beckoned me forward. His large banana hands grabbed my puny arms and turned me.

“Yep, you got gum in your hair,” he said letting go of my arm. As I righted myself I saw that he was stifling his laughter. “Go to the nurses office and have her cut it out.”

“Do I need a pass,” I asked. My voice, barely above a whisper, cracked slightly. My chest was pounding. I felt fire inside my face. The large sneering smirk before me seethed hatred through my veins. I would not turn to face the bastards behind me. Instead, I focused on the white 200-pound gorilla, with a whistle around his neck, in front of me.

“No,” he snickered. “Just go.” As I walked out the door I heard the laughter. What I did not hear was any reprimands. No punishments came for the perpetrators of elitist torment. This would be the first of many times that I will be banished from class after being assaulted. Although, this would be the only time I would be sent to the nurse. The following years would see me escorted by the security officer to the principal’s office, in-school suspension and even being shoved out the door and told to leave.

Tears welled in the bottom lid of my eyes as I walked down the hall. I fought them back before seeing the nurse. I would never give them the satisfaction of breaking me. I entered the nurse’s office and explained what happened.

“This is disgusting,” she exclaimed. “I will cut this out today, but you need to get a haircut because I will not do this again.” She continued to berate me. Her tongue lashed at me, kicking a wounded dog in the ribs. Just when I thought she could not hurt my pride further, she un-ceremonially grabbed the offending tufts of hair and chopped a large chunk out. As messy as my tangled web of curls were, it was not hacked up. I left her office when the bell rang. My shoulders slumped down. My head hung low. I could feel a breeze in the spot she cut. I did not get a haircut after that. It would be another year before I would consider it. I did however, stand before a mirror bawling my eyes out, lopping large hunks of my hair. I was still a freshman. People were calling my house and threatening me. Others were jeering from cars as I walked down the street. The school had become Lord of the Flies and I was Simon. One day I went to gym class and was cornered by several jocks. Everyone carried buck knives in those days. They threatened that if I did not get a haircut by tomorrow they would cut it all off with their knives. So that night I stood before my mirror: crying, cutting and cursing.

“You want my haircut muthafuckas, you got it,” I choked out. From there forward my hair was a horrible mess. It was a cross between Robert Smith of the Cure and pre-afro Jimi Hendrix. When that wad of gum hit my hair on that first day, something inside of me awoke. I have always had a fierce anti-authoritarian streak but what came out in those years was a monster. I hated high school and did everything in my power to undermine it.