Liked?
I remember a gang of girls—which sounds like “gaggle of geese” but, given the possible pecking order, is much more serious. When you laugh at them.
A gang following me home from school (second grade), throwing stones (which mostly fell far short), calling names (I can’t spell—I’m not sure I know what they mean even now—cootie?!?). Thinning as one by one we passed another street where one of them lived, another one turned off, until only Rayleen and Patsy were left, somewhat abashed for lack of numbers. Embarrassed—Rayleen at least—because she lived the other way, she’d have twice as far to walk home now.
What had I done? How could I go back to school tomorrow? Early on, and always a mystery to me, my gift of aggravating people.
My mother’s story (one I conveniently don’t remember), how one day I walked home from school at lunchtime.
“What are you doing home from school?”
“I came home for lunch.”
“You—? Why?”
“Because it’s lunchtime.”
“But—school’s not over. School’s all day this year. Didn’t you see—? Did you see anyone else going home?”
“No.”
“So—why did you?”
Technical question. Much too sophisticated for me to answer.
“And why do you think Momma packed you a lunch? In the little brown bag—where’d you put the little brown bag?”
“Oh yeah.”
This by way of explanation, it wasn’t my lightning-quick wit, my grasp of the situation—ever—that caused my—ah—smoldering popularity.
The problem might have been (and if so, the fault’s with my erudite, outspoken mother) too big a vocabulary too soon. And better and quicker at drawing nasty stick figures. And better at remembering other peoples’ names (even if spelled wrong). Better at labeling with arrows and four-letter words (at least piss and poop). Born with a certain flair for artistic embellishment. Superior—though I’m sure I never said so. Damning when I loved to demonstrate.
One problem with the populations of this world (not much different with adults, I’ve noticed), everybody loves to laugh—at somebody else. But nobody likes to be pointed out (with arrows marked piss and poop). Rendered on paper, thinner than a bone, no resemblance at all except for a name—this kind of attention, this put-on-the-hot-seat center of guffaws, naturally the victim, the chosen one, starts fighting back.
Throwing stones even.
Yelling—too late to be the first and dubiously original—homemade epithets (“Cootie creeper!”).
My philosophy of life isn’t because you have nothing to say you say nothing. Like an open hand, ready to wave, to shake hands, an open mouth indicates—something, I’m not sure what. A different kind of dumb, this vacuous-ness, what “goes in one ear” comes out my mouth.
Or, in a drawing. In “art period” while the teacher’s busy at her desk.
But this fluid approach to things—when things are people (girls, a whole gang)—when things have their own complex set of feelings, this free-for-all exchange of ideas when—purely by accident, purely in keeping with the spirit of making the moment light-hearted and entertaining—like a bee working a rose and you sticking your nose in for one whiff—it stings when you least expect it.
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