Pitfalls of Peers

We were all trying to find our way through those formative years, some more successfully than others. Friendships were reassessed, and we are all shuffling whom we hang out with.

We all learn new things, adapting as we go. Learning about ourselves, too.

John Lavric introduced me to punk and metal. Punk stuck. Chris Cooper opened my eyes to Ska Revival, Reggae, and Post Punk. Garry Martin loved New Wave. Garry was a bit restless, always in need of motion. New Wave and dancing was a pressure release valve. Dan Loreto was very much a Classic Rock guy. John, Renato Romey, Roger Rheault and Mark Charette had cars. I did not. There were girls. There were bullies. So much to absorb, so much to assimilate.

How did I do at negotiating those pitfalls? I have my opinion on that, but you be the judge.

One day I was walking towards the school, up Joseph, with two of the aforementioned gamblers (see earlier memory, gambling in high school). We were in sight of the school, literally at the corner of the “senior” building, when suddenly the two of them jumped me, trying to wrestle me, and at times throw me, to the ground. I gripped them, then I somehow (I’ve no idea how I managed it) managed to get both in a headlock, and we hit the ground together, probably not what they’d been expecting. They struggled. I held on. From what I could see, they were turning red. “Are we done yet?” I asked. They said we were, and I let go of them. Upon rising, I saw other members of their steady clique further on. That should have told me something. But I brushed that bit of foreshadowing aside. They said we were done, and so I thought we were, until I’d learned otherwise. I refer to the night they took me to the cleaners.

After they took me to the cleaners, there was a spat of punching. I don’t know who started it, or why, but I understand the whole alpha male posturing thing now. Only the jocks and toughs participated. But I did, too, once. I agreed to this to vent my rage on one of the gamblers. Stupid, really. The rules: Each took his turn, balling up his fist and driving it into the fleshy bit of the other’s shoulder. The scrappers pulled this off with a rapidity and an accuracy that boggled the mind. Was I good at it? No. I was never a fighter. But I did connect solidly a few times. I know I did because I heard it. Most of mine were glancing blows, though. Not so the other guy, who took the time to aim, and he punched me repeatedly. I was bruised and sore for days on end afterward. But they did leave me alone, after that.

As I said, there were girls. Crushes and likes included Sandra, Dawn, Patricia, Gretchen, Mona, Elaine, and Carole, among others. I suppose we all fell in and out of love with dizzying regularity. I discovered young love makes one stupid, though, gullible in one’s aim to please.

Carole asked me if I wanted to play a game. I was flattered and agreed. She pulled out a quarter and traced its edge on a piece of paper (then palmed the original coin, unseen, and produced a new clean coin), then said all you have to do is roll this coin off your face onto the pencil circle and you win the quarter. She proceeded to do so. Her coin landed outside the circle. It’s hard to do, she said. She traced the coin again, telling me it got easier with more circles.

So, I rolled it off my nose. Missed. She traced it again. I passed the coin to her but she said she’d already done it and wanted to see if I could beat her time. Of course, the rules said I could not roll the coin off the same spot, so I tried off my cheek. Missed again. Repeat a few more times.

A crowd had gathered, a teacher among them. After a few more attempts, Paula Soucie looked in, and gasped.

“David, you need to stop this, right now,” she told me.

I was obviously confused so she took me by the arm and lifted me from my seat, and said, “You need to stop this and wash your face.”

I was then surrounded by laughter.

Paula threw a look of disgust at the assembled onlookers. And an even more vicious one at Carol.

As we left the room, Paula explained the trick I had been a victim of. Shocked, I hid my face and rushed past those giggling faces in the hall until I reached the bathroom.

I looked on my pencil marked, crisscrossed face in the mirror.

Crush ended. In a heartbeat.