“The Truth of Kings”

My childhood made me independent, but most people would have despised it. I grew up in a place that made no sense. I was surrounded by poor people but I was not poor. My parents were not divorced, alcoholic, or uneducated like most of the families there. Instead they were just looking for a cheap place until we built up our financial security. They didn’t realize, however, that this financial plan would screw me over.

            I only lived Preyton for about 4 years: from kinder-garden up to the middle of third grade. Four years in a strange environment would normally not affect you too much, unless, of course, you were only six years old like I was. My school featured a strange cast of fellow students and teachers. I recall one incident where a teacher, an old teacher, decided to sit in a way where every first grader in the class could see up her 40 year old legs. It was an event that scarred us all; however, it is not the one that made me hate my childhood.

            It was my peers that really got to me. They grew up in an insecure environment. Many of them only had one parent because the other usually ran away from home. The rest often had to live with constant strife in the home, with an alcoholic parent who couldn’t stand being looked down upon by the people in the middle class. Unfortunately for the families, these angry parents would drink only to come home and take out their anger on the rest of the family instead of actually doing something about there position. The sad part is that these traits were passed down to most of their children. Children learned whatever their parents teach them: religion, football, and violence. Whatever they saw their parents do, they emulated automatically. It was my lack of these problems from home that made me alienated from my peers.

            The kids in my school did things that I couldn’t understand; if someone stepped on their shoes they acted as if they just got shot. If someone called out a bad name, they automatically assumed it was toward them and started to threaten the name caller relentlessly. They had so much fear it was like they were going to die any second. At this point I didn’t understand why they felt this way and I wasn’t close to feeling it as well.

            This caused me to become an outsider. I couldn’t relate to anyone of my peers. Unlike my peers, I did not have a low self esteem that constantly had to be protected. This lead to some strange events. Because of my stability, I was attacked. People realized I wouldn’t get defensive like everyone else and so they took the road with the least danger. I didn’t even realize what they were doing until it was too late. They were lowering my self esteem until it matched theirs.

            The first time this occurred on my school bus, where there were no teachers forcing people to behave. All the boys on the bus would always wrestle with each other in the back. No one really got hurt but it set the hierarchy of power on the bus. The strongest would be the king and pretty much had control over the entire bus. At first, I didn’t actually even participate. Other than video games, I had no experience in violence. I did always find the wrestling intriguing, but I found the unneeded violence strange and pointless. Since I didn’t participate I should have sat near the front of the bus; the higher ranked you were the further back you sat. I, however, had some strange pride and rebelliously sat in the middle so I could watch other kids wrestle. This pride probably came from of my parents constantly telling me how smart I was but to this day it feels like I was just born with it. So, I stayed in my seat and no one did anything about it because no one knew anything about me. You fear what you don’t understand. Until one day, a new student named Dylan entered the school.

He quickly adapted to the seating system and wrestled kids nonstop. He was actually pretty naturally talented. One day he challenged me. Dylan was rising so fast he didn’t care about my mysteriousness. However, after watching people wrestle for a year, I had actually built up some frustration from being isolated. I wanted to wrestle him. He was slightly taller than me but skinny. He was also a year older. To the spectators the outcome was obvious, I was going to lose, but they quickly changed their minds once the battle actually began.

            He pushed me up against the window, making it seem like I was going to lose right away, but I was just happy that I was a part of the community for once. I think I actually smiled at this point, because the pain subdued my anger. Dylan managed to pin me against the window for awhile before I got a proper grip on his upper body. This game required more technique than anything else, and since I had almost nothing riding on this other than some fun, my head was extremely clear and relaxed, like Tiger Woods before a swing. I wrapped my arms around his upper body and pushed upward. He was only pushing horizontally and so there was little upward resistance. This surprise attack evened up the playing field and we were now both upright. Dylan, being nervous because his rep in this new school would highly depend on the outcome of this fight, simply did exactly the same thing again. Except this time I was ready and my stance was too strong for him to push me up against the window again. I then slipped my shoulders under his and pushed him until his back was forced onto the seat of the bus. I then pinned his arms down with my body weight so he couldn’t move. Out of all things that could have happened to me that day, I had won my first wrestling match.

            This felt amazing. “Why didn’t I do this sooner” I asked myself. It was then, during second grade, that I started to become integrated into this strange land of barbarians. My surprise victory intrigued everyone on that bus. I became a new source of wonder. I was instigated into wrestling with more kids, and I didn’t mind, it was something that was new, fun, and I was good at it. Soon, I wrestled just to climb the ranks. It felt great to finally fit in and gain the approval of my peers. From then on, until I left that school district, I was happy. Sadly, however, this happiness wouldn’t last long.

            My parents had secure and well paying jobs at this point. It was time to move out of this dump into one of the richest areas in our state. This place had one of the best school districts in the nation. So my parents felt that, even though the houses were extremely overpriced, this feature would make up for it. I didn’t want to leave. I had become a popular in the school, and I was confident and finally understood how to act with the lower class but the move had to occur. “You can still visit your friends, and you’ll make new ones there” my Mom said. She was wrong.

            I was actually not that worried because I thought I could simply act the same and become liked there as well. Of course, it didn’t work. My new school was the exact opposite of my old one. My old school was filled with insecure, poor minorities, while my new one was all rich whites. In my old school I started out as neutral, there was no obvious indication that I was different. I was a minority, and I dressed pretty poor, so I didn’t stand out in my old school. However, I was the exact opposite of my peers in my new elementary school, and I was too old now to adapt as quickly.

On the first day I went to the school the kids were happy to have a new student. On the second day they stopped being nice because they realized I was different. Even my beliefs were different. I had not been raised to think that every person I came across that was lower class should bow there heads to me like most of these spoiled brats thought. I believed I was just an average person. Once the kids realized that I was not as pompously elite as they were, they assumed I was lower than them and treated me as such. I became well known, well known like shit in a perfectly green lawn. I was harassed every day but I didn’t realize it because it was all a game of subtlety. It was underneath the conscious perception of me and the other students. They had no idea what they were doing other then having fun. But after a few weeks it became obvious. I went from being the new kid to a complete exile.

            This hit me, hard. It felt like I wasn’t worthy to live, because that’s how these children treated me. But I had tasted the fruit of success. Even though most of my exterior self-esteem was whittled down to almost nothing by the time middle school arrived, I still had some sense of pride. I thought, “Middle school will be bigger, my horrible rep will be forgotten and I’ll be able to make more friends there.” This little fact kept me going. Even though I was being treated as a nasty worm that no one wanted to get near, I had hope of a better tomorrow. I survived this way until middle school began, I was a sixth grader now and it was time to make some friends.

            I actually guessed correctly. I made new friends, but also new enemies. Now strangely enough my bus became a place to fear. It had been a place of sport and fun in my first school then an isolating teasing place in my new elementary school, and now it became a place of outright fear. This was because of two older students that were on my bus stop. It was just me and them and they were totally looking for a victim. They were both overweight and had a dying look to them.  They probably were raised by brutes and only knew how to use their muscles to get what they wanted. Sad part is they realized violence was their only option which made them even more aggressive. And the emotional damage I received due to the torment that I was forced to go through in my second elementary school, made me the perfect target. I was weak, young, new, and it was just me and them on that bus stop. The bullies thought, “Finally, I can use violence to get what I want!” and the physical abuse began. The worst part was that I had no idea what they were going to do, sometimes they would only push me around, other times they would straight up hit me. Not knowing what to expect gave me the worst fear that you can imagine. Ironically however, I didn’t tell anyone.  My pride made me feel like it would be running away so I decided I was not going to pussy out… Until one day they went too far.

I don’t recall exactly what they did, but for the first time they made me outright cry. This wasn’t a whiny little cry, this was a hysterical cry. When my parents saw me come home crying, I couldn’t deny that I was screwed, so I spilled the beans. My parents went to the principal and the kids got suspended, it was extremely stupid. Stupid because it was so easy, I could have stopped it all along and I didn’t.

            My physical torture may have ended but the verbal and social torture got worse. I was now the kid who tattled. But like I said before, I had friends in middle school and so I didn’t care too much. But as luck would have it, somehow, by eighth grade, the last grade of middle school, all my friends moved away. Somehow, the entire group consisting of seven moved. I still had some acquaintances that I talked to in school, but losing my real friends still shook me up badly.

Then, it got worse again. The physical abuse started again on the bus as people became bored and desired a fight to watch which caused a new bully named Derek to rise up and take the job of the olds ones. It was ridiculous; here I was with no close friends, getting verbally humiliated only to come home on a bus that had a new bully to physically bother me. It just seemed like the pain would never stop. He bruised me in various places, convinced everyone I was physically barely a man, and even got the kids 2 years younger than me to make fun of me on a regular basis. I didn’t know what to do and then one day at home my emotions reached there peak.

            I had to make a decision. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I thought about it and I thought about it and a perfect option came up, giving up. “No one likes me” I thought. “What’s the point I’m just an ugly idiot everyone hates, I should just end myself right now no one will care, and I won’t have to deal with any of this”. Then all of a sudden something deep inside of me got pissed off. “NO FUCK THAT...FUCK what ANYONE thinks. MY opinion is the one that matters! Fuck giving up, and killing myself it’s just running away. This may hurt you more then death itself, but you know what sometimes running away is worse than death!” I had made an eternal promise; giving up, is never going to be an option.

            The pain just got worse and worse. Once Derek realized how pathetic and fearful I was he just made things worse for me, but now in the back of my head I knew I had no other choice running away just wasn’t an option. This led me to do some crazy things. “I’m going to try out my new hockey gloves on you” said Derek. I didn’t say anything back so he hit me repeatedly in the arm chest and stomach. After a little while he got tired and went back to his seat and laughed about it with his friends. “That didn’t hurt…” the words were barely able to leave my throat. I panicked I had no idea why I just said that. Derek immediately came back pissed, with his bare knuckles and repeatedly hit me again. I was stunned by how bad it hurt I could barely move after but somewhere inside of me I felt an uplifting feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Then one day I was at lunch with a few acquaintances and all of a sudden Derek threw some food at me from an adjacent table. I smiled because, out of nowhere, I knew what to do. I took my entire lunch tray stood up, went over to his table, stared him and his group down and said to them “Who threw that stuff?” There was silence and I said “It was you wasn’t it Derek!” He was a little shocked because I actually challenged him and became even more shocked after I threw my lunch tray right at him. The food didn’t hit him but he was covered in ketchup. I was glad I always put more ketchup on my lunch tray than I needed even though people told me it was a waste.

            Derek didn’t register what happened for a few seconds. He was now being pushed off his hill by a piece of shit. When the older kids graduated from middle school, Derek was the one to take leadership of the bus. We were both in eighth grade making us the oldest on the bus. He wasn’t as physically strong as the previous kings of the bus, but he made up for it in aggression. He was also good friends with the last king of the bus, who was an extremely muscular and intimidating person. That was how he managed to keep me scared for so long but I didn’t care about either of them anymore. I was never pathetic like they forced me to believe, if anything I was stronger than them. I wasn’t the one who needed periodic violence to feel like I was secure in life.

A crowd surrounded us screaming for us to fight. I looked at him, confident, ready for some excitement. He sat there looking down, doing nothing. A part of me wanted to be nice to him but I heard some of the battle shouts of the crowd “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!”, and remembered all the bullshit that he put me through. I hesititantly went up to him and flicked his hat off him and he stood up ready to fight. Derek actually had a strange love for his hat and got ridiculously angry and I wasn’t ready for his retaliation.

He hit my head with some fast punches but I was far too resolute to even feel them. I managed to get the courage to punch him back, but he managed to dodge it. I was about to strike again but out of no where some random idiot stepped in between us and pushed us away from each other. The random guy probably just recently saw the fight and thought it was an appalling form of behavior. We were both pushed back but unfortunately I was the one with the chair behind me, and I tripped over it. When I got up, ready to fight, the school faculty arrived and broke up the fight. I wanted to kick his ass but at this point it didn’t matter. Derek knew it was risky to try anything with me again.

            In high school I had some friends and for awhile no enemies. Then more new people started to show up. A familiar pattern emerged, physical abuse, constant put downs, and a feeling of hopelessness. It felt like I hadn’t learned anything.

Then, during senior year a new challenge appeared, one that profoundly made me feel bad about myself in a way I never felt before. I believed although I was physically and socially weaker than most others I had intelligence and that it was all I needed. This challenge was one requiring only intelligence and I expected to dominate it. On my first attempt I failed miserably. “I just need some practice” I thought, trying to make myself feel better. I got an expensive tutor and trained for months and yet when I tried again I didn’t move an inch. It shocked me to the core and my peers, teachers, mentors and my weaker side told me I should just give up “Its something you’re born with” they said. I thought about giving up, that I’m just too stupid to do this but I remembered I have strange beliefs like “giving up is worse than death”. Possessed by a strange combination of desperation and pride, I became invigorated to defeat this challenge. I trained and trained by myself even though the people around me and my past experiences told me it was hopeless. I was going to truly test if this was impossible, “Giving up is just way to boring” said an interesting voice in my head.

After two months of training at least two and a half hours a day I decided I was strong enough to face this challenge once again. However, half way through the battle, I realized I may have underestimated the challenge. The challenge seemed to be much harder in person than in training. I was performing at my best, I was completely “In the zone” but the challenge seemed much stronger than I imagined. Eventually, I unleashed my strongest assault but it seemed to have little effect. Strangely, I wasn’t worried, rather I was relaxed. “Humph, don’t worry, I’ll be back” I thought with a smile, “Your just way too much fun too stop fighting hahaha”. Then just as I was preparing to have to deal with months more of training, it was over. I misjudged the damage I had done. I had completely and utterly destroyed my challenge.