Point in case: Grade 7, recess, one of my friends blurted out to the student body that it was my birthday. It was. Everyone wanted to congratulate me and help me celebrate in the most time-honoured tradition: by giving me the bumps. They grabbed me, took me by the arms and legs and lifted me off the ground, whipping me into the air and back down so that my bottom kissed the earth with each repetition. Each landing was accompanied with the most gleeful ONE, TWO, THREE, and so on, by everyone gathered, and laughter. They never reached twelve. Midway through, I screamed “Jesus Christ!” Not the best thing to yell at a Catholic school, or any school for that matter. Then we all heard an adult cry out, “HEY!” over their count and their collective laughter. Everyone fell silent, in fact the entire playground fell silent, like all animals do when they sense danger. They parted like the Red Sea, and I saw Mr. S. staring at me. Everyone was terrified of Mr. S. He was small for a man, no bigger than the tallest of us—the only thing large on him was his Roman, aquiline nose—but his reputation proceeded him.
“Does your mother know you talk like that,” he asked me, his voice filled with authority and menace.
“No, sir,” I whispered, very interested with the ground at my feet, glancing up just often enough to see if my deference had had any effect. It must have, because he cut me some slack, let me off with a warning. Maybe his having seen me repeatedly slammed to the ground had something to do with it. Although he did not have enough sympathy to stop them from doing it.
I was lucky. Not so a classmate of mine later on. I do not remember his name, but I do remember that he was a class clown, harmless really, but he did have a bit of a mouth on him. Looking back, I think he might have come from a bad home, but that’s just a guess. He was slight, average height, long, straight, shoulder length hair. Not the cleanest. Not the best clothing. He had a bit of a skittish poise about him. He had the misfortune to answer a question by S with a little sarcasm, not much, but enough to make us all titter nervously. S chuckled, too. And then he struck. He reached out over the lab table (you remember the type, blacktop, waist high, with tall stools on either side of a central sink) and grabbed the kid by the hair; he lifted the kid out of his seat, over the table, and literally threw him into the chalkboard. The kid hit hard and crumpled to the floor. We were stunned. There was silence as we tried and failed to process what we’d just seen. WHAT THE FUCK! Doesn’t begin to describe our collective shock. I still remember sitting transfixed, watching a lock of hair floating on the air as it fell to the ground. I remember seeing blood on the strands. S then hauled the wailing kid off the ground and slammed him back into the wall before dragging him out into the hall where he repeatedly slammed the kid’s head against the lockers. He then shoved the kid to the stairs and hauled him to the principal’s office. We didn’t move, we didn’t even whisper amongst ourselves lest he somehow hear us, not the entire time S was gone, not even when S returned and resumed class as though nothing had happened. We knew better. Even children know when they’re in the presence of a dangerous animal.
Nothing happened to S, as far as I knew. But I seem to recall that the kid transferred to Ross Beattie Public immediately afterwards. I did feel a thrill decades later when I heard that S had contracted cancer. That sounds horrible, I know, but I remain unrepentant of it to this day.
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