Protection...

     When I started grade one, I was only five years old. My Mom told me she'd walk me the five blocks to Kitchener Elementary for the first three days and then I was on my own... 

     On the first trip alone, I had my first experience with people that were neither friends nor family... they were bullies. I was almost at school when these two kids confronted me saying I wasn't allowed to walk this way to school. Terrified and unable to really comprehend the why of what was occurring, I simply turned and ran for all I was worth. I still think of the bullies from A Christmas Story...

    These kids were two or three years older than me and continued their torments for what seemed an eternity. They would come into the bathroom and peek at my little mushroom cap as I would pee at the urinal, and if I was trying to go number two, one would peek over the top of the stall and one would stick his shit eating grin underneath... talk about stagefright. I was so scared to go to the bathroom at school there were a couple of accidents, sent home with your shitty gaunch in a paper bag. Every morning I was stressed about trying to go before I got to school and if I didn't, worried about being at school and the long walk home. 

    

   Then there was Valentines Day in grade three when I split my pants... 

     There was a party that day and not wanting to miss any of the festivities, I tried to remain in class-- quickly discovering in the first round of musical chairs I was too embarrassed (literally) to stay. Taking alley ways home to avoid detection, I came across my worst nightmare, Gary Hope. He must have been the most repulsive looking kid in school, think of a young Charles Laughton...

   That's probably a bit of an exaggeration but he was pretty scary--crazy orange hair and skin, his eyes were crooked and bulging, one a walleye so you couldn't tell exactly where he was looking. He ran out of his back yard towards me and said, "What are you doing walking down my lane, kid?" Paralyzed, I mumbled something about trying to get home and without any warning he punched me in the stomach as hard as he could and said, "Don't ever walk by my house again, kid." I had never had the wind knocked out of me before and I thought I was going to die.

   In grade six there was Shane. I always wondered why a kid you had gone to school with for years would suddenly decide to pick on you but he did. We were lined up to enter the portable for music class when he started to tug on the back of my shirt (Mom always made me wear the classic white undershirt... I hated wearing them-- the cool kids wore t-shirts) and said, "What's this kid? You wearing a bra?" as he pulled on the straps of the undershirt. When I got home I begged my Mom not to make me wear those shirts but to no avail, and to Shane I was now known as the kid with the bra... ouch.

   I'd never told my parents about any of these incidents until years later and as I was writing this I came to realize something and the blog took a turn-- my whole childhood I never felt protected. I had the three squares, some toys and a roof over my head, never lacked for anything but I felt abandoned, alone.

     I don't want to get too deep into it here but as a kid there was always a lot of drinking and Mom would often rage. I recall thinking she could probably scream in an empty room-- some of the rages seemed to last for days. I honestly can't remember what she was yelling about (I started to glaze over) but I do remember the peace, quiet and sense of relief when she would finally calm down. As this was happening I would always look at my Dad and wonder why he didn't tell her to stop, to just shut-up but soon I realized he had adopted the "peace at any price" philosophy... you don't tug on Supermans cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess with my Mom in the middle of a hollering binge.

    Lastly, when I was eleven my Grandpa Bill committed suicide (my Mom's Dad)...

   He had purchased a gun somehow through the mail out of Montreal and had performed the deed in Confederation Park in North Burnaby. The only problem being (among many) was that he had hidden the suicide note and when it was finally found under the iron in a cupboard it contained no mention of his whereabouts. The body wasn't found for six weeks and during that time I couldn't possibly convey the craziness that ensued but I can tell you about this one particular night. 

    I was in my room listening to the insanity happening just outside my door when I got on my knees on my bed (not to pray) to look out my bedroom window. It was a cold, windy November night and the moon was lighting up the trees in the back yard. I don't want to come off as melodramatic but as I was looking at those trees being beaten around by the wind something inside of me snapped, maybe it was the loss of childhood or the loss of innocence but I started to feel... nothing, I shut down. Through all that had happened not one adult had asked me how was doing, how I was handling things. 

   There is still a tendency here for me to want to defend the lack of real caring or protection from the adults, they didn't know any better etc. My parents and I have sort of discussed these issues over the years-- they are definite sore spots and wounds that are better left unopened. Good, bad or indifferent my folks have even admitted that they love my sister and I but they were never really cut out to be great parents... cop out or the truth? I suspect the truth.

   I do remember my Aunt (Dad's brothers wife) asking me how I was doing through all this ( I could tell she was genuinely concerned) but having never answered a question like that in my life I think I mumbled, "Fine..."