I vow I’ve told some version of this story on LJ before, but the only person who might know where is Mark G. Harris, and I’m sure I’ve run out of free passes to Mark’s Eerie Memory Ride. I’ll risk repeating (maybe even contradicting) myself for the sake of a photo.
When I was in sixth grade at a new school, the school of nightmarish kickball games, forced square dances with The Nose Picker, and being generally picked on by people like Lynne–YES, THAT LYNNE, who would become my lifelong friend the following year, a testament to my ability to forgive if ever there was one–I was more specifically bullied by someone I’ll call Juanita, mainly because that’s her name.
Juanita was taller than everyone and so looked tougher than everyone. I’m sure she knew how to play kickball and probably never had to dance with The Nose Picker because he was white and she was black. The school was integrated, but it was still early days for that in the Deep South, so white and black kids rarely voluntarily intermingled. Her skin color would not have drawn my attention; as an Army brat, my world had always been integrated. She was just another person in my homeroom, where I was The New Girl trying my best to be invisible.
In defiance of our alphabetical seating chart, Juanita somehow ended up in the desk behind mine. That’s when her whispering campaign began. Day after day of “I’m gonna get you after school.” I would sit there rigid, pretending not to hear her, my mind racing with images of… What? What did that mean: I’m gonna get you after school? I never found out, because after school, I usually raced across the street to wait with my sister in my father’s old blue Falcon for him to get off work and take us home. Sometimes, if I was really lucky, I got to hang out with Pam R. and feed apples to her horse, or someone’s horse, or sit in her grandmother’s house and watch Dark Shadows. And over time, people like Teresa and Mark and Jimmy and Ray and Paula and John befriended me.
But each school day, it would begin again: I’m gonna get you after school. Staying invisible meant I would never tell anyone. And I never had the nerve to confront her. I kept her always in my peripheral vision on the playground or in the auditorium or when we walked from one class to the next. She never came near me. She never followed through on that whispered threat.
Finally, it was the last day of school. My mother let me take her camera, and my little group of friends used it to shoot photos of each other. (I still have those.) And suddenly there she was, in front of me. Juanita. My sixth-grade nemesis. She held out her hand, palm down, and automatically I extended mine, palm up. She dropped something about the size of a nickel in it, smiled, and walked away. I looked down at what she left in my hand and wondered why.
Until I found it the other day in my Barbie stuff, I assumed it was stolen when my apartment was robbed while I was in graduate school.
I still don’t know why she gave it to me. Maybe it should have served as a recommendation to face my fears. Or as a reminder that the other kid, for reasons of her own, may be just as scared as I am, just as unsure how to make friends when a stranger in a strange land. Maybe she didn’t want to be invisible; she not only made sure that I saw her every day, her gift provided a tangible means for her to linger in my memory all these years later.
What I usually think, when I remember Juanita’s offering on the last day of school, is that in the realm of human interaction, there may be things we’ll never understand. Still, we can reach out to each other, and that can be enough.
Great story!
We often forget that the world truly was a different place 30-40
years ago. Attitudes seemed unchangeable and divides impossible.
In early elementary school I was friends with two of the only black
girls in my year. I have pictures of them at my birthday parties,
etc. But as the years went by there was certainly subtle pressure
to find “other” friends. This was in a community where neighborhoods were still very unsubtly “restricted” for Jewish families, let
alone black families.
So they were still in my class, but no longer “friends” — something
I always regretted.
Flashforward to 2009 — and Facebook, of all things. Both women have
friended me and we are catching up. Jan is a political activist in
LA and Sherri is an academic (like me) in Chicago. Next step is a
way to meet again — maybe next year. Amazing!
Oh, I hope you do. I hope this story goes on with new and happy chapters!
The Ruby-eyed Terrier
A great remembrance!
When I was a kid the Catholic schools integrated long before the public school, but the area where I lived was still heavily populated by the descendants of the middle European people who built it. So integration was the O’Toole or Maggio in the midst of Teutonic surnames. Unfortunately my nemesis through grade school and high school was a white boy who really had a hard time pretending he was straight who targeted boys who weren’t “butch” enough. He prayed a lot when he wasn’t preying a lot. Unfortunately he hasn’t changed after all these years. The sad thing was, he really was and still is unbelievably cute.
Re: The Ruby-eyed Terrier
The crazy, sad, wrong things that divide us…
someone wanted to ‘get you’?! craziness…
My enemies are everywhere. I’m like Nixon that way. 😉
Beautiful story, Becky. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my childhood and teenage years after reconnecting with some of my school friends on facebook. Amazing how things that seemed so traumatic at the time can make us stronger.
Thanks.
Yeah, it’s Facebook that has been making me think, maybe too much, about the past. I keep wanting to do a post about that, but then I never do.
What a great story!
Thank you.
You are a born writer, Becky. That was compelling.
The only way I can even begin to relate to the integration you talk about is to try to imagine Catholic and Protestant schools in Northern Ireland integrating in the late 60s (which they didn’t and still haven’t, for the most part, to this day).
Thank you.
The things that divide us boggle my mind.
Being the timid girl I am, I would have wet my pants every single day…and never told a soul.
I completely relate to that timidity.
I really enjoyed reading this, Becky.
Thank you.
God, that chilled me… you drummed up the paralyzing fright too well.
(and I don’t think I’ve ever heard this story before!)
It’s like I’m telling scary stories around the campfire! Don’t drop your s’more in the fire. 😉
This was such a gift to read. Thanks. 🙂
Thank YOU. =)
People sure are strange.
…when you’re a stranger…
you write the most fabulous entries 😉
Aw, thank you. =)
“…her gift provided a tangible means for her to linger in my memory all these years later.”
And quite poignant that it should have been a dog, since they play such a huge part in your life now.
But, you’re right – who can understand the mind and actions of adolescents? Thank you for sharing.
Thank YOU. =)
“What I usually think, when I remember Juanita’s offering on the last day of school, is that in the realm of human interaction, there may be things we’ll never understand.”
And what I think is that Juanita was a bitch.
You cracked me up.
And P.S. Juanita’s gonna get you after school.