Ode To The 25 Year Grudge

"I forgive you."

That's what he said to me. A week ago today. That's what the train conductor walked to the other end of the packed subway car, excusing himself while squeezing and shimmying through all the rush hour commuters on the packed train car to tell me.

"I forgive you."

"Charles?" I asked.

"Mike." He corrected me. "That's what I'm talking about, brother. I forgive you." He then went back to the other end of the train, back to the conductor's closet, to announce the next stop.

How long did he have this on his chest? I wondered. Has he been waiting to see me for 20 years to tell me this? He caught me totally off guard so I was only able to stammer something like "thank you," in his wake. "Thank you?" For fucking what? Get over it, man!

Back in Junior High School, we'd play the dozens; snap on people. Make fun of them. Whatever you want to call it. We were all kids. It was a daily event. It was either Get or Get Got. Get 'em before they got you. Pre-emptive warfare. As kids, we were all susceptible. We all had our problems, growing pains, awkwardness. Everyone was a target. Especially me.

I had a lot going against me. My mother was known in the neighborhood for being very religious; I wasn't allowed to celebrate any holidays -my birthday included- which made me a total weirdo; for the first couple of years in Junior High I had absolutely no clothes.

Pre-emptive warfare.

Now back then, Charles, er, Mike was the kid that could dish it out but couldn't take it. He was a very dark skinned kid with the straightest, Chinese eyes. He also smelled like a band-aid for some reason. So naturally we'd do things like draw the Great Wall of China with a band aid on it; we'd call him names like Chan, Chang and Chong. Soon, it was any word beginning with "CH" hence, Charles.

But he wasn't the only victim. We had this kid in our class named Ahmad that had the biggest head and we'd call him "Headquarters"; I was extremely bowlegged so in addition to the religious jokes they'd call me everything from Jerry's Kid, Cisco Kid, bowlegged Lou, etc. We all got it.

Antonio was a black kid in our class whose family attended an all-white 7th Day Adventist Church so we'd take out a sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper, draw five tiny black dots and say "Antonio and his family at church". John Patterson climbed a tree, fell down and got a twig stuck in his right ear and punctured his ear drum causing him to be deaf in that ear. We had a field day with that one. We'd always talk extra loud around him, even when on his left side; we'd say something then repeat it in sign language for him; we'd repeat things even when he heard it right the first time; or sometimes we'd act like we couldn't hear him when he spoke to us.

So while it may have been cruel and disheartening, it was also fun and inventive. In fact, it still makes me laugh.

Is that wrong?

Even today I'll see someone and notice something funny about them and laugh to myself. The 12 year old in me still wants to bust on them but nowadays you might get shot and I've never said anything funny enough to die for.

He "forgives" me?

That was how we lived. The unwritten code. We were all fair game. I didn't think I was hurting anyone. And here I am on an otherwise ho-hum Tuesday and this guy comes over and makes me feel all bad and shit. What an asshole!

It's almost like the 12 year old me traveled to the future to get chastised by an adult Mike. But on the flip side, it's also a chance for the 30-something year old Mike to get dissed one last time by the 12 year-old in me.

What an extraordinary opportunity!

But instead I take the high road. I obviously had some negative affect on him and it's probably best to bury the hatchet after all this time. So when the train pulls up to my station, I get off and walk to the conductor's car. Mike had his head out the car, checking people getting off and on before closing the doors and announcing the next stop.

"Mike" I called out to him. I planned to say something like "good seeing you." Or make a lighthearted joke like "meet me at 3 o'clock by the flagpole". But the way he looked at me, with this smug look of disdain as if waiting for an apology, made me want to slap him instead.

"You still smell like a first-aid kit, you dick!" I heard myself say.

The train pulled off and he shook his head at me. Pitying my existence.

Some people never change.

Confessions Of A Potential Retard

For some reason, my mother didn't send me to kindergarten. My sister went. My younger brother would go. But for whatever the reason, my mother decided to keep me home.

So in order to be assigned to a first grade class, since I had no kindergarten record established apparently, I had to report to the school office for an oral exam. The woman administering the "test", a typical librarian-type: pointed rim glasses, sensible shoes, coffee stockings (yikes!), took me in the office and asked me one question. One question only.

"What's your favorite cartoon?"

That's it? I thought. I'm in. Too easy. Bugs Bunny! My man. Ace boon coon. Partner in crime. Do you want to know what my favorite episode is, too? Sheeit.

That was all going on in my head.

Like Einstein, I didn't start speaking when kids were supposed to speak. I kind of grunted, pointed at things, gestured with eye and head motions, but I didn't have the speaking thing down pat yet. At five, I was still trying to figure the verbal communication thing out. But she was waiting to hear an answer.

"Bugs...Bunny." I finally answered, pushing the words out with much effort.

I don't remember exactly what happened after that. I just remember my mother crying and being consoled by the other women in the office as we left the room. They were shaking their heads, pitying us both, patting her softly on the shoulder.

"It's what's best for the boy," they assured her. I was sentenced to the worst first grade class,
1 E-4.

1 E-4 was a learning ground for the city's future criminals. In that class we were taught shank sharpening; identifying 5-0, even when plain-clothed; there was a course, Pencil: Writing Utensil or Weapon? Typical first-grade stuff, or so I thought.

Every day I took the little, yellow, mini bus to what was called the Mini School across the yard from the regular elementary school where everyone else attended. There were like 9 of us on a bus that could seat 25 comfortably. Every day I sat next to the same girl - Lisa - and every day she smelled like salami. There was a kid name George that had a dribble cup attached to his chin and all he did was laugh and drool and ask Lisa for her salami. She didn't know what salami was and every day she'd tell him so. There was Charles, who was nicknamed "Trouble" even back then. He's been in and out of prison since we were 16. Eric, nicknamed Otty or Righty (his big brother, a future crackhead who would later be found dead of mysterious circumstances, was called Lefty) would be in and out of prison too and would be dead by 20.

Observation: when you're feared being retarded, people talk about you like you're not there.

"Does he like juice?" they'd ask around me.

And they'd talk slow and loud as if you're hard of hearing. "WOULD...YOU...LIKE...SOME...JU-ICE???"

But on the flip side, they were always extra encouraging for the smallest feat. Tying my shoe might get me a "Great job!". Putting on my jacket by myself might earn me a gold star. Counting to ten would get me a big, wet kiss on the cheek.

That was until I started speaking. Then I started acing all the tests. I knew my colors. I realized, without being told or helped that the round peg could only fit through the round hole; that cops, even out of uniform, have a certain walk to them; a certain smug air of authority giving them away for what they are. My first grade teacher, an Irish woman named Mrs. Evis, was forced to send me to the big school across the yard.

"But he looks so stupid!" she protested.

At the big school things would change. Now tying my shoe would be "So what?" Counting to ten would make them ask"Why'd you stop at only ten?" Putting on my jacket would earn me a "Yeah?...And?..."

A few years ago, I asked my mother about the whole thing. My brush with retardation. And all she'd say was "Oh that was a long time ago," and change the subject. "I hear the Yankees are building a new stadium."

My sister, four years older, should remember it. "Oh, I don't know...you'd have to ask ma about that. That's great about the new stadium though, huh?"

Figures. Stonewalled as usual. Going to have to do my own research. Maybe talk to an old classmate. Lookup a former teacher. Maybe visit the old Mini School.

In fact, whenever I get out of prison, it'll be my first stop.

Somewhere A Village Is Missing Its' Idiot

"Do you mind if I smoke?" - Ed Norton
"I don't care if ya burn!" - Ralph Kramden

I sit across from someone - at my job in Cubicle-Land - who's intensely bubbly. Bubbly ad nauseum. Every morning he greets me in his loud, cheery, sing-songy way "And how are YOU doing this morning?". And every morning he's greeted by my silence. It's the morning. How do you think I am? Idiot.

I don't mind nice people necessarily. Occasionally, I'm mistaken for being a nice person. It's just that behind his niceness, there's this insincere sincerity. Like he's trying too hard at it and it's not even necessary. At the job, we're all fast-talkers. I'm busy, get to the point. This guy, you ask him a question and he pulls up a chair, dissects the question, tells you an "interesting" totally irrelevant anecdote, then answers you three different ways to make sure you get the point.

A schmuck so schmucky that even other schmucks on my job call him a schmuck, this ass-clown of a man is insensitive to how unnecessary his existence is. He finds it necessary to say "hello" every single time he sees me. "Hey, big guy!" "There he is!" "How's it hanging there buddy?"

Infuriatingly fulsome, this unctuous asshole goes way out of his way to please as if he were born to do it. He walks around whistling and asks me if I need anything from the store; the refrigerator; the fax machine. Anywhere he's going is announced. "Just going to the head, big guy. Be right back."

Are you my butler or my co-worker? Beat it! Idiot!

"Let me know if my radio bothers you. If there's a song you don't like I'll change it."

He knows every word to every song ever made. That's not hyperbole. EVERY SONG. EVER MADE. Try him. My office is like a modern-day Name That Tune. People come by to try to stump him. It's like when Ralph Kramden was on the game show and all his neighbors would come by his apartment to quiz him. But when people come by and talk to him, I look at them like "What's wrong with you? Don't get him started."

As I type this he's singing along to his radio, swaying, eyes shut tight "She's got Bette Davis eeeeeeyyyyeessss." And his voice isn't half bad. Idiot!

He was on the phone the other day - true story, swear to God: "Yeah, I'd love to but I'm so fuckin' busy...Yeah, he's a real piece of shit, I know...yeah (laughs) fuck that...Okay, love you too, mom."

Now my first reaction was to laugh and say "What the hell?", but A: I don't like when people overhear my conversation in the cubicle universe and comment on it and, B: that would open the door to a conversation with him and that ain't happenin'.

Mind you - this isn't some young, straight from college cat. This guy's pushing 50. He's everything I don't want to be at 50. Kissing ass, trying to get a promotion that's not coming; working corporate and seemingly pleased about it. But perhaps that's his angle. Maybe he's so miserable that his defense mechanism with himself and the world is to act like everything's hunky-dory. Could he be that shrewd? I don't think so. I honestly believe he's just that way. And maybe this inner rage that wells within me whenever I see, hear or smell him is really fear. Could that be me at that age? God forbid.

You come in, he's there. You leave, he's there. You forget your house keys and come in on a Saturday to retrieve them, there he is, playing solitaire on the computer. He's like the office Bartleby except he's very accommodating. Does he have a life? I don't know. He has a picture of a woman in a frame on his desk. She's a brunette, with a way big smile and a carnation in her hair. She looks a little too perfect but at the same time, strangely enough, they seem to be a perfect pair. Two out of touch buffoons getting pimp-slapped across the face and saying "Yes, sir. May I please have another? "

Someone walks by and asks him "How's it goin' Ed?"

"You know, just surviving. I'm just a cog in a wheel, man."

Somewhere at this very moment, a village is out in search of its' idiot.

Between 5th & Mad

When I was in the fifth grade, I had perfect attendance. The only year I ever accomplished that feat. I was also the most improved student. Why? My teacher, Mrs. C, had perky breasts and I was coming of age. Mrs. C had perky breasts, I was coming of age, and she always wore these dresses that highlighted her ample bosom. She always wore dresses that highlighted her ample bosom and most of the time she went braless.

It was 1980. She was married. Her husband was the guy in the Crazy Glue commercial that wore the construction hat that was glued to the beam with him in it, feet dangling. Remember that commercial?

I hated him.

It was also around this time, not ironically, that I started caring about the way I looked. When I heard Mrs. C compliment Leslie Sealey on his shirt I got really pissed because it used to be my shirt that my mother gave his mother because I outgrew it. I wanted to tell Mrs. C that but Tim might have overheard and I was wearing his old shoes at the time. Damn these hand-me-downs!

I remember the way the other teachers would whisper around her, this hot young teacher, 'harlot this', 'provocative that'. I didn't care about any of that. I'd make her laugh and she'd squeeze my cheeks. She was young, had the goods and didn't mind making the other teachers jealous about it. A little lower Mrs. C!

Why is it that you read of all these kids - goofy kids - getting it on with their female teachers nowadays? Usually their teachers are hot, too. You didn't hear about that when I was in school. Damn these new-age teachers!

Not only that, the girls going to school now weren't built like the girls when I was in school. I'm on the bus in the morning, looking at this woman trying to think of something quick and smart to say, the bus stops and she gets off and walks into a Junior High School! Then I notice her book bag with Nick Cannon on it. Damn this high hormonal food!

So last year on Mother's Day I get the courage up to contact Mrs. C. I look her up, call the number and sure enough she picks up and it's really her. I tell her everything. How she made me feel. How she was the best teacher ever. How I love her to this day. How it's not too late to make it happen.

"You're the kid that wore Tim's shoes right?"

I explain to her that now I have a job, could afford my own shoes, and could probably afford to buy her her own shoes too. And that's when the other shoe dropped. Leslie, the kid I gave my old shirts to, HE was with her now.

"Oh yeah!" I explode. "Well tell him I want my blue Le Tigre, my yellow Izod and my burgundy Chams DeBaron shirts back!" I scream before hanging up in her ear.

First I'll get the shirts back. Then I'll get the girl.

Damn I'm good!