M Y S T I C�� T A C O�� S T A N D

Sweet Memories In Ratty Trenchcoats ... December 01, 2005

i remember the days back in angsty adolescence. those days when every lunch period was a panic over whether i would be able to brave another meal alone. i don't even know why, every day, it was such a big deal to me. i knew i'd be sitting alone, of course. there were so many days i skipped lunch at school and hid in the library or the bathroom just because i saw there were no empty tables left when they tried to herd us into the feeder line. i remember the kids fighting over whose team would have to take me in gym class. "YOU take her." "no YOU take her." "we took her last time." "nuh-uh, we did." then the gym teacher would chime in, "now girls, i do believe it was YOU who took her last time. this time, you take her." followed by groans from the unfortunate team who had to call me a temporary member. i remember every single last one of the volley balls, kick balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, basketballs and many other projectiles including baseball bats that were, over the years, thrown at my face/skull/torso/ass/back. i remember the time a girl called me over to her table in the lunch room to whisper a secret to me. she said, "*****, that boy over there told me he LIKES you." "really?" i had said probably too eagerly. "no." then laughter. i remember that one fat kid and how all his farting got blamed on me because he was far more popular than i, i suppose. i never recall any specific moment where i passed gas at school, but i DO remember the teasing. i remember one of the girl's mom's taking pity on me and inviting me to her daughter's slumber parties. i remember going, not understanding WHY this girl would invite me, hoping that she had perhaps decided to adopt me as some kind of pet, and then sitting up all night to avoid the other girls pulling pranks on me when i realized i wasn't really welcome there. "WE are going to play truth or dare. YOU are not." the birthday girl told me matter of factly once her mother had gone to bed. i said nothing. i only shook my head in submission and then watched them giggle and whisper secrets to one another from my place on the outside of the circle.

i remember feeling awefully lonely. i remember secretly wishing from around third grade through eighth grade that i might die and so end my pain. i wanted this so bad but didn't really know how i would go about it. i never really told anyone about these desires, though, because i was afraid they would misunderstand my intentions, take my words as a plea for help, and attempt to stop me if i ever figured out how to do it. i would pretend the ants in the dirt beneath my backyard swingset were myself, squash them, and then tell them that they were luckier than i was, being killed so quickly like that.

them were dark days, man.

and what's worse, if that's possible, is that i had no idea that those experiences were actual training for what my adult life would turn into.

god, i am jealous of people who have friends. sure, there seem to be the people i have had sex with. they're nice to me whenever i come around, sure, i mean, of course they are. but i would like to have a platonic friend. maybe a FEMALE friend.

but i can't like females, nor can i trust them. a woman walks into the room and instantly i bristle. THEY are the ones who did all that harsh shit to me back in my childhood. stuff that turned a mostly normal, extroverted and happy kid into an introverted, hateful freakoid.

heh. i've heard some people try to explain why, if women ruled the world, there would be no war, etc. women. us women can be just as evil, cruel, full of hatred, greed, violence and jealousy as any man is. we are just as easily corrupted by power. we listen to "yes" men or the approval of our peer group, no matter how improper that approval might turn out to be, as much as any man would.

all this distrust, all this hatred and unresolved anger makes things basically remain as they have been since i changed schools in third grade. i have none of those normal, socially acceptible things that people call "friends". the only people who listen are those who are trapped because they want something from me. to these people i do talk. talk talk talk. i was for so long forcibly made to silence every last word and thought for fear that someone would hurt me further if i told them or showed them. when, finally, i had something someone wanted and so they would allow me to talk, a torrent of words would burst out from me and wash them away again, drown them in a flood of stagnated moments and thoughts i was just DYING to tell someone about back when they first came to me. irrelevant memories of my thrilling triumphs long since rendered impotent by being kept locked within my mind though the march of many long years. at the times when some of these things had happened, i had wanted to rush home, call up my best friend, and tell her what GREAT thing had just happened. then i would realize i had no one to call, nor had i EVER. when i needed a shoulder for crying through these years, there was only the pillow in my bed. i would sob big wet tears into it, bite it, punch it, press my face so far down into it that i hurt my nose and then SCREAM so that i could turn over, finally fall asleep and wake to face another day of being defeated further and further still.

through all this wishing for an end, all these lonely days, at every passing moment i thought i had reached the bottom, the worst of human experience. day by day i was disappointed to discover that there were always newly concocted recipes for physical and mental pain awaiting me, deeper caverns of dispair to explore, more offensive insults to attempt to erase from my memory, purpler bruises to hide from my parents and redder blood to mop off my lip.

it was a lucky thing for the other students at my school that my parents removed me from school when they did. i wasn't doing well, anyways, and it wasn't a surprise considering how much time and effort i had to devote to defending myself from the onslaught i seemed to draw from all sides.
well, it is a simple fact that all human beings have a breaking point. sometimes, only a little physical pain is all it takes to coerce your victim. other times, even YEARS of physical pain will not do the trick. in some cases, physical pain will NEVER do the trick. and i do want to add that it is my opinion that, since i believe that every human being out there today has this "breaking point", i don't consider a person who crumples under torture and capitulates to their torturer to be weak. everyone's buttons are different, but once pressed in the proper order, EVERYONE will capitulate. those who do not respond to torture are able to resist only because the torturer has merely not discovered the correct configuration of buttons to press in this person's mind to MAKE them submit.

well, in my situation, my configuration of buttons was accidentally discovered and then pressed repeatedly by cruel children who merely thought my discomfort was funny. they had no real purpose in torturing me, other than to entertain themselves. they were in no way jealous of any real or imagined abilities i happened to have, as my mother tried to convince me. i was no genius, no moron, no beauty, no beast, and so being so normal, so indistinct, i was the perfect scapegoat. i was the perfect recepticle for all their negative energy, energy that if it were released into friends or family would cause a miriad of social problems that they did not want or need.

they happily poured it into me, no matter whether i angerly protested, or simply sat in silence and allowed it because i realized fighting would do me little good. from this, out of the rancid shitty goo of negative energy that i was slowly filled with all those years, i developed my own brand of negative energy and began to add to the potluck of indistinct hate, agression, and ugly cruelty already in my heart. it grew outward and, in my eyes at least, wrapped it's stinking tendrils around every person i met, inside or outside of school, my own family, even the non-human creatures i saw moving about.

i knew a breaking point was coming. not surprisingly considering that this was the place where i had been most bullied, it happened during a gym class. the weather was too cold to play outdoors, so the teacher had us line up and practice shooting hoops, one by one. it just so happened that one of the jock-y girls ended up in line behind me, one of the many who had a good time bullying me. so i get the ball. like i care. i shoot, i DO get it in, but just barely. the ball teeters on the rim for a second before it falls in. lucky me, i suppose, the first time i've got a basket in a month, not like i've been TRYING or anything. this must have not been good enough for the girl behind me though, because, after she catches the ball, she stops me. grabs my arm. i stop dead and look at her with a straight face. i think, "no touchie, bitch." she looks at me. her eyes are wide, exagerated, as if she is talking to a baby who can hardly understand English. She speaks to me as if i am something cute, cute and stupid. "Thyis, *****, iys how we shoot the bawl." She shows me, exagerating her every move comically. The girl behind her giggles. "You think you cyan do it too?" She shows me again. "Lyike TYHIS!" My face is straight, i can keep it this way from years of training at hiding my tears, my smile, or my anger. Inside, on the other hand, i feel as if i am filled with a thousand screaming, writhing voices. I want...i want so bad to throttle her. I want to choke her for making a joke out of me for all these years for no good reason at all. I know i would be acceptible at sports at this point if people like HER hadn't made it impossible for me to find enough friends to play with. I want to choke her, kill her if i can. but i don't. the voices fade. instead, i say in the flatest tone possible, "thanks." then turn and march away.

she must have seen it in my eyes, despite all my efforts to hide, because i never had one problem with her after that. she was, in fact, neutral towards me until i was removed from the public school system a few weeks later.

but i wasn't neutral to her. those last few weeks, especially once i knew i was leaving the system, i spent most of my time thinking of what i would do to all of them if i could. i wanted to pour all that angry, negative energy they had forced onto me BACK into all of them. i wanted to flood them with all those years of backed up shit and evil. i was a waste treatment plant, and they were the surrounding land. well, this plant is full to bursting...IS bursting...a wave of shit, YEARS of shit, an entire ocean of rancid shit is tearing down the hill and coming at your front door.

but i knew better. i knew i didn't REALLY want to ruin the rest of my life by hurting these people, these sons and daughters of influencial parents, these supposedly golden children. no matter how much shit they had made me swallow, i knew there was always more where that came from. their negative energy, their shit, it was NOTHING compared to the mountain of evil their powerful parents could create.

so i slunk quietly off into the obscure land of homeschooling, even further increasing my isolation from my peers.

and that was the end of my attempt at trying to like my fellow man, or finding a way to have my fellow man like me.

let me put it this way. when i first heard of the Columbine shootings, i was already in homeschool at this point by the way, the first thing i said was, "yes. good job." then i dug the black trenchcoat out of my closet and immediatly visited the school building here in town for the purpose of getting a work permit since i was under 18 and seeking a part time job at a local grocery store.

security followed me the whole way to the main office from where they distributed the permits, back out the front door, and into the parking lot. i just smiled. no guns here, kids. you are SO lucky i realize you're not worth putting up the effort. i've had a front row seat to your shit for years, and i know it stinks just as bad as mine does.

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