well that wouldn’t fly anymore

I was a quiet kid. Being raised with an angry drunk Dad meant that I had my personality whittled down enough to be a completely non-offensive, cautious kid with no opinions. A quiet kid is a safe kid. 

For this reason, as well as us picking up and moving every couple years, I was a fairly lonely and distant, but imaginative kid. 

Since I hadn’t yet figured out how to make friends I was in a bubble all my own, happy to keep my mouth shut, and always reading or falling in love with some hero series like the ‘Power Rangers’ or ‘Ninja Turtles.’ The first time I saw ‘Karate Kid,’ I privately committed to completely immersing myself into the sweet karate moves that I absorbed from the movie in my room and yard for hours until I was a pro. 

I was sitting in Mrs. Harris’s third-grade class one Spring day at Nestle Elementary. I don’t remember if I was bored or what, but I took the bathroom pass to go wander around our dusty little outdoor schoolyard. I got some water from a fountain, roamed a bit, inserting some movie or tv show into my reality and acting it out alone. While I was skipping along I noticed a taller boy grip a little boy, the little boy pinned up against the building that housed the bathrooms and water fountains. It looked like a scuffle, an unfair fight from tall and older to short and younger. In the blink of an eye my ‘hero syndrome’ kicked in and my brain, still thinking I was the hero in some movie, approached this bully yelling, “HEY! YOU LEAVE HIM A-LONE!” I imagine I put my tiny fists on my hips, a bold position considering I was a slight kid, wearing an oversized blue neon T-shirt with matching leggings and silly uneven bangs my mother cut in. 

The bully whirled around to meet my voice. His angry face disappeared into annoyance once he saw who had interrupted him, and started winging some schoolyard names at me. Once the bully was distracted, I was happy to see the picked-on boy had immediately started scurrying away, his Velcro shoes scraping the asphalt as he ran for safety. My heroic deed had worked but not having an exit strategy I froze.

The bully ran up to me and shoved me, hard, and I went down and back straight on my butt. Suddenly, he walked away like he lost interest. I looked around, perplexed as to how I got out of this so easily without a teacher to break us up, or me to take a total ass-kicking. Warily, I stood up and looked around. No one saw it, and no one ended it. He just left.

In that same confused moment, a jolt of panic hit me – I had been gone way too long! Fearing retribution from Mrs. Harris, I messed up my hair, pulled at a pre-existing little hole in the top of my T-shirt to a larger, more obvious hole, rubbed some dirt on my face and high-tailed it back to class. I burst in the door at a very quiet moment in the classroom, and all eyes flicked to me instantly with surprise. But none were more surprised looking than Mrs. Harris. 

Mrs. Jackie Harris was a powerfully intimidating woman to a quiet girl like me; she was maybe 5’5″ but her personality made her seem 10′ tall with a voice that rang throughout our class crisp as a bell. She always wore beautiful floral print dresses with stockings and heels, and a bright fire-engine red lipstick that complimented her black skin. She always looked well put together, more like she was going out on a date instead of working in an under-funded Los Angeles classroom filled with sticky third graders. 

The year my paternal grandfather died I was a student of Mrs. Harris. Before class, I went to her straight away to relay the message from my parents that my grandmother was paying for my family to fly to Maui in the following days to scatter his ashes. In response, Mrs. Harris asked me for my workbook, and once open, she started circling the bottom page numbers of the lessons I needed to complete for the week of school I’d miss. As I watched her circle-flip, circle-flip, circle-flip, circle-flip my panic rose to a breaking point and I burst into tears. This had shocked Mrs. Harris enough for her to stop circling and she looked at my face. 

“Oh honey,” she put the pen down, “Do you miss your Grandpa?” 

Of course I did, but in that particular moment the tears were more from my little kid brain feeling that righteous kid-level of unfairness at the amount of homework that I didn’t know how I’d complete. Feeling trapped, I nodded, tears still pouring down my face. 

“Come here honey,” she said, beckoning me to her lap. 

I climbed on and rigidly sat, still crying, not entirely sure of what to do next. In an instant Mrs. Harris swooped my legs up and pressed my body to hers, the right side of my face pressed into her large, jeweled, perfumed chest. By this time, there were plenty of kids arriving in the classroom, watching us and definitely snickering.

Right there, at her desk at the front of the classroom, she cradled me like I was her baby, leaning and rocking and humming to me, to soothe me for probably five to ten minutes. I was equal parts mortified and comforted and squeezed my eyes shut to stem the flow of tears and avoid the potentially mocking gazes of my third-grade peers. 

And that was Mrs. Harris. 

So when I tell you she saw me burst into the classroom, looking fairly roughed up, she bolted straight to me and grabbed my shoulders, kneeling enough to be at my level. 

“What happened to you! Where have you been for so long! Who did this to you!?” Her questions had her eyes flicking across my face and body with panicked urgency. 

I stammered, ready to tell the truth. But it didn’t seem big enough! I had been screwing around long before the one-minute encounter with the two boys! So I embellished. I told Mrs. Harris with my best-injured face, that a mean tall boy had beat me up. That I tried to save another boy, and this bully had just kicked the tar out of me. 

“WHO!” I think she almost shook me to get an answer. 

“I’m not sure! I don’t know him! He’s a tall older boy!” 

“Did you see what class he went back to when he was done with you?” Her eyes narrowed, piercing me. I gulped. Had I’d known the words I would’ve been thinking shitshitshit.

All I could do is point in the direction I knew the older classrooms were. Mrs. Harris stood up, spun around, told us all to sit tight, and with the air of a pissed-off human tornado she stormed out of the classroom towards the older kids’ building. Every one of my classmates’ eyes were on me, and I completely avoided their stares by running to my seat, staring at my desk, and wishing fervently to become see-through.

She must’ve heard about this kid or something, because somehow like a goddamn genie she marched back into our classroom holding this same boy by the scruff of his collar and dragging him directly to me. He was protesting and fighting her until he saw me, and then he shut up. I stood from my desk and backed up several feet, horrified. She pointed at me and asked if this was the one, and I nodded, absolutely dumbfounded.

To everyone’s shock, Mrs. Harris got behind him, wrestled and pinned this young boy’s arms behind his back, and to just me, she shouted “HIT HIM.”

It was an order. An order that had no wiggle room for refusal – she had him for me, she couldn’t just put him back. 

I still shook my head, no words coming out with fear and shame rolling off of me. 

“Yes you can, and you will, you will HIT HIM right now!” Her eyes were wild, and the boy was squirming like a catfish but she did not slip for a single second. 

I picked up my hand, made a fist, and without pulling back I tapped him in the stomach. I knew it was weak sauce but I hoped she was looking for more of a symbolic gesture instead of actual child-on-child violence.

“HARDER!!” She was yelling now.

I pulled back my little noodle arm and tried to punch him as hard as I could; he winced, folded slightly and cried, which actually confused me because I didn’t think I hit him that hard. The mood was tense, and my classmates stood to get a good view of this very strange lesson. Oh good. Embarrassment galore.

“AGAIN!” Her voice was a thunderous, God-like command. You could’ve heard a pin drop in the classroom, in between this probably 10-11 year-old boys shoe-scuffling and whining. 

I hit him again. Each time I did Mrs. Harris yelled “AGAIN” until she felt that I had been avenged enough, maybe ten times. She dropped his arms, and he fell forward, (did she shove him?) quiet tears going down his face. I stood in front of him, too stunned to speak. He didn’t look at me at all; to him and the class I had licked him and he was embarrassed. 

“Get your ass back to your classroom and I never even so much as want to look at your face again.” The words ended it, mercifully, and the boy collected himself and ran like the wind back to his classroom. But Mrs. Harris wasn’t done yet: she turned her attention to me.

“Don’t you ever, EVER, let some man EVER hit you. You DON’T let him get away with that. EVER! Do you understand me??” She was in my face now, finger in my chest with trembling earnest, eyes blazing with righteous anger; all I wanted was to appease her and end this nightmare.

“Yes, Mrs. Harris,” I squeaked out. 

I don’t know that I satisfied her, but it looked like her gentle spirit came back to her body and she stood, smoothed her dress and hair. She gestured to my seat, knocked on my desk, and proceeded back to the front of the stunned classroom.