Humiliation

It was the day I didn’t fight back and it is among one of my biggest regrets in my life.

High school is not an easy time for anyone. It is even worse for the socially inept. We were the bottom feeders, living off of the scraps from others. We had a good day if we successfully escaped the notice of everyone. We gathered in classrooms during lunch, avoiding the places where the more socially skilled chose to eat. We had our secure locations where we were masters – the computer lab, the chemistry lab, even the art rooms and theater. We also had the one place where we felt our very existence was threatened: the gym.

I had many moments of humiliation in gym class. Not all of these moments were at the hands of my fellow students, many were due to my own lack of coordination or strength. Have you ever seen the cartoon about the boy who climbs the rope in gym and then gets stuck at the top? I didn’t think I had enough upper arm strength to climb the rope in gym class so I trapped the rope between my feet and used my legs. Before I knew it, I was at the top of the rope. My legs pushed me easily to the top. Unfortunately, the same maneuver didn’t work well in reverse. As I lowered my hands on the rope, my torso swung out away from the rope and I started a slow spin. I was stuck there for what seemed like hours. Essentially, the only way I could see to get down was by slowly sliding. Gravity is cruel and friction is evil. The rope burn wasn’t too bad, better than everyone in the gym watching me perform an unintended acrobatic show.

Of course I was picked last for the teams (why gym teachers decided this was a good way to choose up teams is beyond me, they should just assign the teams and be done with it). That is a humiliation that everyone seems to have had… which is odd since only one kid can be picked last. Even I am embellishing here. I was usually fourth or third to last. I would be standing with the rest of the bottom feeders wishing I was dead instead of waiting for people I had no respect for or desire to know decided my fate for the next thirty minutes of my life. There are few things worse than waiting for two people and their advisors decide which is the best of the worst.

On the field, the court, the floor, or wherever – the threat of humiliation was limited and centered mainly on one’s skills or personal appearance. Tripping while running, scoring in the wrong goal, having to be ‘skins’ against the ‘shirts’ when your back is covered in acne. Expect no pity from the gym teachers because they are attempting to treat everyone as an equal. Too bad they don’t realize everyone isn’t equal and their efforts only help hammer home that point so when no one in authority is around, the bottom feeders became fodder.

My greatest humiliation came during my freshman year after the gym class finished that day’s activities. We were all standing in the hall that led to the locker room where we changed. James Allen, a bully since I first met him in elementary school at R.H. Radley in East Helena, came up to me. My instincts were telling me to stop him, the survival instincts built into each and every human by design or nature to help protect the species were screaming at me to prevent him from taking whatever action he was going to take. Yet, my mind was telling me that in a fight both people will get punished. Oddly enough, I feared punishment more than anything. It was my ingrained desire not to cause other people hardship. If I got punished, that would include detention, which means my parents who lived far outside of town, would have to go out of their way to get me.

Let me back up a second so the weight of this decision can be fully felt. I lived some 35 miles outside of the city of Helena. My only connection to the city was by the school bus. Ever since I began riding the school bus there was only one rule: don’t miss the bus. Missing the bus meant my parents would have to make the long trek into town and pick me up. This mandate became more critical when my father suffered his heart attack and no longer went to work in the city and my mother took a job to help pay the bills. Only a selfish child would heap extra hardship onto his family by getting into trouble that could be avoided.

James Allen wrapped his sweaty shirt around my neck and began twisting. I kept saying to myself that if I began to choke, I’d fight back. I just stood there, hoping that in someway there was dignity in silently allowing another person to perform a bit of torture upon me. The shirt never tightened enough to choke me, as that was not James Allen’s purpose. I couldn’t fathom what he was trying to do and even suspected he was merely trying to goad me into fighting back. I figured his strategy was to do something totally benign though bizarre to me in hopes I would fight back and he and the rest of the guys in the gym class would laugh at my antics that would make me look even more like a total loser.

I blacked out.

James Allen’s real purpose was to limit the flow of blood to my brain to cause me to black out. I woke up seconds later on my back with all the guys in the gym class gathered around me. I recall the looks of relief on a few of their faces. I was helped to my feet and seconds later Mr. LeBrun, the gym teacher came to unlock the locker door. I kept thinking how things would have been different if only he would have shown up earlier – either while James Allen had his shirt wrapped around my neck or while I was prone on the floor. I chided myself for getting up so soon, I should have stayed on the floor until he showed up. I kept thinking that in someway I needed the authority figure to acknowledge my victim status and to see the victimizer punished.

It took several years for me to come to the realization that I need only have followed my instincts. I should have fought back. James Allen would have beaten me bloody – his skills at fighting were far beyond my own, but I would not have been a victim. I would have stood up for myself, something I never learned how to do. I can do it for others but not for myself. Many people would have been inconvenienced. I may have even had to go to the hospital to fix a broken finger or nose. The cost of which would have been a drain on my family, but at least I would have kept some amount of dignity and honor. I would have at least established that you can’t play those kinds of games on me because I will fight back. All I established that day was I was a pushover. There are no martyrs in high school. No one recalls the day when I stood in silence as another person humiliated me. There isn’t a section in the yearbook for The Most Victimized.

I have many reasons why I really don’t like being around people. The fact I didn’t stand up for myself is my own failing, my own humiliation that I carry with me. There were nearly eighteen other guys in that hallway – none of them stood up for me. None of them even questioned what James Allen was doing. I learned many lessons that day, and though I fundamentally despise society, I am very willing to stand up for someone who is being victimized. Who knows, they may be able to fight back, but maybe they have to make sure they catch a bus to get home. Maybe they think they are choosing a lesser evil. Maybe they are merely paralyzed in fear. I no longer have to catch a bus and I know it is easier to act on someone else’s behalf than my own.

How would things have been different if one or two others in that hallway would have simply said something instead of standing in silence? I still would have been humiliated but not nearly as badly.

The postscript to all of this is James Allen went on to kill his girlfriend several years later.

What would have been different if someone stood up to him in that hallway?