These stories on this page talk about bullying.
Once a typical part of growing up, bullying is no longer restricted to the classroom. Through playground taunts and cyber harassment, bullying can cause fear, can lower self-esteem and can lead to publicized suicides. Still, amidst the cultural spiral, some have found redemption, and inspiration.
By Ben Hess
By age eight, I’d hit the bullying victim trifecta: impossible Coke-bottle thick glasses, an unruly mop of coarse wavy hair, and worst of all, I was still an occasional bed-wetter. The latter wasn’t known by many thankfully. But waking up in a cocoon of foul-smelling dampness doesn’t do much for the self-esteem. In fact, my mom let neighborhood friend Kevin up to my room one weekend morning, not knowing the overnight bladder-to-brain sensor had failed for the first time in weeks. Kevin and I had a very brief, awkward conversation as I desperately tried to hide the urine soaked sheets behind me. To Kevin’s credit, he didn’t bolt from the room to tell the neighborhood, nor did he laugh at me directly. But I’m sure he told his brother … who I’m sure told others. And I get it .. that kind of gossip is just too good to pass up, especially in the 3rd grade.
A week or so later, I was walking the mile from school to my suburban Atlanta home. I remember being with a group of classmates for the early part of the walk, then some of them split off for a different street. I was left with a group of older kids - big 5th and 6th graders - who immediately started in on me with some choice verbal wit:
“Ben’s new cream is out … Ben’s Gay!” (with the obvious negative connotation on ‘gay’) The chant “Ben’s Gay, Ben’s Gay, b-b-b-Ben’s Gay” carried us down the street.
Somehow the taunting escalated from verbal to physical as I approached my front yard. I still don’t know if it was because I didn’t give them the reaction they wanted - no tears or screams for them to stop. I’d just kept my head down and kept on walking. Or if the jeers were driven by someone just having a bad day. But regardless of the impetus, the group’s leader, Patrick, grabbed my backpack, threw it on the ground, and got in my face as if we were about to fight.
Given their taunting all the way down the street, I was already pretty anxious about the situation. But now, with Patrick glaring down on me, my heart was POUNDING. My throat was suddenly desert dry. I remember sneaking a glance at some of the other boys to see if one might turn ally or at least give an empathic look. Needless to say, no dice. In fact, they were circling around us yelling “ooooooo” and “kick his ass” and “fight, fight, fight.” Even though I was a mere 20 yards from my front door, it might as well have been in California, especially with both of my parents at work.
To this day I’m not sure where it came from... where I got the balls to find my voice and speak up. But speak up I did, pushing thick glasses up on my sweaty nose:
“Patrick, there are alternatives to fighting!”
It came out higher pitched than I’d meant. And perhaps there was more than a hint of desperation. But Patrick was so shocked at the depth of my utter dorkdom, my complete nerdiness, that he just stood there for a second as if slapped. Then he stepped back and LAUGHED! And faster than a toad snatching flies in the Okefenokee swamp, Patrick’s anger vanished. To save some face, he gave me a half-hearted shove, called me a ‘fucking retard’ or something equally clever, and stalked off. His buddies fell in line behind him, and they left me standing in the yard, backpack still at my feet.
For what it’s worth, I like to think Patrick channeled his anger into a productive pursuit. He was later a NCAA gymnastics champion who made the US National Team. Though I’ve often wondered how many other victims didn’t find their voice and were intimidated along the way.
For me, that fall afternoon cracked open a door of possibility: I didn't have to be the stereotypical glasses wearing, socially uncomfortable, nerdy kid. I could speak up for myself and let my personality shine through. And a few years later when my parents divorced and my mom and I moved to a new school district, I seized the opportunity to create a new extroverted, outgoing Ben. And in the years that followed, while playing high school and college football, I kept an eye out for signs of bullying and discrimination by my peers. I did this because I knew firsthand that everyone deserves to have their voice heard.
Ben Hess is a media producer and marketing strategist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of his many client commissioned projects, he’s quite proud of producing and directing a 70 minute informational bullying awareness and prevention DVD that included bullying reenactment scenes, counseling, and self-defense tactics.
By Kate MacHugh
I grew up in a small Jersey Shore town, much like any other town that dots the coastline. I was fortunate enough to have two loving and supportive parents. Parents who asked where I was going, who would be there and when I would be home. They raised me to believe that I was beautiful, smart, and worthy. They did everything good parents should do. They sent me to a school that they believed would be a safe and nurturing environment. But they could not have planned for what would happen when I got there.
“You should just kill yourself already!”
“Everyone hates you, why do you even come to school?”
“You are so disgusting!”
These were the messages I received from my classmates over the computer, on the bus, and in the lunch line. I was harassed, physically assaulted, and the subject of vicious rumors. The bullying started the first week of 7th grade and lasted until I packed my bags for college.
The girls that bullied me were often pretty, popular, and well liked by teachers. They were leaders in the student government, soccer stars, and teachers' pets. When I recounted their bullying behavior, I was met with disbelief. The school authorities discounted their behavior and minimized the issue. I quickly learned that reporting the bullying did not yield any results, and the bullying continued. I suffered for six long years at the hands of peers. I contemplated suicide often; it seemed like the only way to end the torment. My classmates made me believe that killing myself was a better option than coming to school.
I never shared with my parents what was happening at school; I was too embarrassed. How could I come home and tell my mom that there was a rumor going around school that I had slept with the wrestling team? That I was pretending to be sick again because I knew that there was a girl waiting to beat me up after lunch? So I suffered in silence. It's typical for parents to be unaware if their child is being bullied. Parents often to do not recognize the warning signs: grades slipping, frequent illnesses, low self-esteem.
This culture of victim blaming that is so often seen in schools has long-lasting emotional and psychological effects on the victim. I was made to believe I was responsible for what was happening at school, on the bus, and online. It was not until I began to work through the trauma and start healing myself did I realize that I was not to be blamed. The girls that told me to kill myself, that called me ugly, that destroyed my self-worth -- they were the ones that deserved the blame. Today, I have a Masters Degree in Social Work and I have published a book on my experiences; Ugly: The Story of a Bullied Girl. I have healed myself and learned to truly love myself. I speak all over the country sharing my experiences with teens, teachers, and law enforcement. I have been blessed with the ability to share my story in hopes that it change's lives.
My trauma and torment I endured were not in vain.
By Emily-Anne Rigal
I was bullied. At the time, I felt like I was the only one, but the truth is that two out of three teens endure verbal or physical harassment every year and each one has their own story... This is mine:
In elementary school, my classmates tormented me for being overweight. Each morning I crossed my fingers in hopes that it would not be a day when the teacher would let my class pick our own partners because I rarely had someone to pair up with. Not having a partner was mortifying, but even worse was the daily loneliness I endured. It got so bad that I eventually switched schools.
Throughout middle and high school, my self-confidence gradually increased. The more I accepted myself, the less disconnected I felt from my peers and the happier I became.
Overcoming my personal struggle with bullying and loneliness inspired me to create WeStopHate last year when I was 16. WeStopHate is a non-profit program changing the way teens view themselves by collectively helping ourselves and each other accept, embrace, and love who we are.
At age 19, I now know the benefits of accepting myself for who I am. But memories are made to last -- even the painful ones have a purpose. So my heart goes out to those struggling with self-acceptance. I believe it is my life's work to help others turn self-hatred into self-love.
When creating WeStopHate, I knew others could relate to what I had gone through, so I choose to lead by example and make videos sharing my personal stories. I subjected myself to ridicule by exposing my innermost thoughts and feelings because I believe honesty is the most effective way to generate a sincere response. It was as if there was a piece of me in each viewer, and instead of criticizing me, teen viewers respected my authenticity.
Still, I believed growing WeStopHate depended on the power of teens coming together and that direct teen involvement was essential for WeStopHate to thrive. For this reason, I organized a team of teen volunteers across the country to begin extending WeStopHate message.
WeStopHate is more than just an anti-bullying program. It's a call to action to stop hate: stop hating on yourself, stop hating on others, stop letting others hate on you. WeStopHate reminds teens that stopping hate isn't something to do once, but it's a practice and approach to live by each day.
Our reason for focusing on teen-esteem is simple: only when we see a rise in self-esteem, will we see a decline in bullying. This is because people who are happy with themselves won't put others down. Stopping bullying means putting an end to the lifelong, painful consequences each victim suffers... and that creates a better world for us all.
What makes WeStopHate special is that we address bullying in a teen-centered way. We know peer pressure is typically a source for negativity, but seeing that teens have the power to help other teens leads us to believe that peer pressure can also be a source for good.
Furthermore, we understand how to use the power of digital media for good by allowing it to shape the way we see ourselves and how others see us, consequently pre-empting bullies.
We are not yet close to ending all forms of bullying, but in a little over a year, WeStopHate has made a difference in the lives of tens of thousands of teens and we are eager to make an even greater impact. Our goal is to continue creating a platform that will allow each teen across the globe who dreams of a world without the pain of bullying the opportunity to do something about stopping the hate.
By Amy Kaufman Burk
“It’s so gay.”
Proper delivery mandates an exaggerated disdain, smirking recommended, condescension required. The speaker is cool; the it is not; the gay most certainly is not.
As a mother of three – one middle teen, one older teen and one young adult – I’ve heard that expression more times than I care to count. Not from my kids, but from their friends, all during high school. These otherwise domesticated boys (I have never heard a girl speak those words) were invariably taken aback when I told them that phrase was banned from my home.
Reactions ran the gamut.
One young man was puzzled: “You mean you don’t allow the word gay?”
Another stared as my son explained that curse words didn’t bother his mother. “You can say sh—“ he offered helpfully, “but not that phrase.” “Why?” his friend was incredulous. “Because it equates the word gay with a put-down.” The boy looked genuinely confused. “Really? Are you sure?”
A third boy gaped as my son spelled out his mom’s language requirements. His friend swallowed hard, and asked if he could stay while I helped my son with a project. This boy sat still for the next two hours, staring at me, and looking quickly away whenever I met his eyes. He accepted a glass of water, and thanked me so effusively that his gratitude clearly had nothing to do with his drink.
Another boy used that expression to mock a classmate. When I stopped him, he told me he had never respected a parent more. He refused all future invitations to visit, and I never saw him again.
A friend of my daughter’s was well aware of the house rules. He periodically made a self-conscious show of using the forbidden phrase, and then apologizing profusely. When I told him I’d had enough, he thanked me.
But I first heard the most prevalent response from two tenth-graders. One bravely challenged me, “Why do you care? You’re not even gay.” The other shot him a like-duh look, and turned to me, blushing deeply; “I’m really sorry; I didn’t know you were gay.”
In the 1940s, in the wake of World War II, terms of contempt targeted the Japanese – in the ‘50s, in the Hollywood radical crowd, It’s so bourgeois — in the ’60s, It’s so square — in the ‘70s, It’s so retarded — in the ‘80s, It’s so lame. And in the ‘90s, He’s/She’s such a girl.
I wonder what’s next, the up-and-coming insult that will sweep the nation.
“It’s so gay.”
Those words pepper the speech of adolescents. Some have no idea what they’re saying. Some hope to be stopped and redirected. Some are experimenting with the feel of the words. Some are deliberately cruel. Some are testing the “it’s not my problem” approach to issues beyond their limited parameters.
Whoever these young men may be, whatever motivates them, we parents have a responsibility. We correct our children when they forget to say “please” and “thank you.” As they grow older, we correct them when they say “who” instead of “whom.” We need to step up and step in. Gay is an adjective, not an insult.
And what about empathy? According to the unwritten rules, if I stand up for a targeted group, I must be a member. If homophobia disturbs me, I must be gay. And if I were, my stance would become more understandable, and more easily dismissed.
I am deeply gratified that my sons and daughter are comfortable bringing their friends to our home. I enjoy talking to these vibrant young people, with ideas and perspectives that broaden my own. I appreciate that they speak freely, while offering warmth and respect. However, we all know my place in their community: I’m the “Odd Mom.” “Odd” is the parent who is comfortable with random curse words, but who will not allow put-downs regarding race, religion, gender, physical attributes, mental capacity, or sexuality. An odd definition of odd.
I’ve accepted that I’m viewed as strange. If my brand of odd turns out to be the new up-and-coming insult, I’ll speak odd with pride.
Until then, let’s speak gay with pride.
Amy Kaufman Burk published her first novel, Hollywood High: Achieve The Honorable, in support of the LGBTQIA community, and as a voice against bullying. www.hollywoodhighbook.com
By Alan Eisenberg
This is a very tough story to write for me. I actually debated on sharing this one with you, because I have spent three years writing about my victimization from bullies. But the world isn’t black and white, no matter how much we want it to be. The world is full of grays and questions that are debated endlessly, with answers that feel like they change with the blowing of the wind. So this story’s theme offers me as the bully in a situation I often ponder. I think about it, because I question whether the bullying abuse I took made me act as a bully in a certain situation or was it a feeling I wanted to share as well.
So with that in mind, I want to share with you my story of when I was 12 and realized that, in certain situations, I could be the bully. While at my public school, I spent most of the day in fear, waiting for the bullies to get me. But twice a week, I went to another school where I didn’t worry about that. Where I was one of the popular kids and well liked. Twice a week, on Sundays and Monday evenings, I went to religious school and there, I was the one that didn’t have to worry.
In looking back, I’m not sure what was different. Most all of the kids at my religious school did not go to my elementary school, so they didn’t know what was happening to me there. In many ways I felt like I had two personalities, the dark boy who hid from others for fear of being bullied, and the outgoing religious school boy who joked and cut-up with his friends. When I was 12, there was so much going on in my life. My best friend had turned on me to become my worst bully. I found a group of kids to hang with, but they were not the best choices. To boot, I was starting to become a teen, with all the emotional baggage change that goes with that.
So, enter my chance to be the popular kid, at least for a few hours at religion school. I recall how we would play indoor Dodgeball for about 1/2 hour prior to class starting. Then it was off to class, where I would spend time with my friends mainly drawing pictures in class. We were the class clowns, constantly being reprimanded for giggling and not paying attention. It was so vastly different from what I was experiencing at regular school. I really enjoyed the feeling that came with being with the more popular kids. These were my friends away from the ones who knew me as the one being bullied at regular school. So, being young and insecure, I found myself wanting to be popular. As someone recently pointed out to me though, they could see through me that I was a wannabe, but not really comfortable playing this role.
Of course, there had to be a kid who was the one picked on here and his name was David. I can’t really say why he was the one. Maybe he was a little bigger than us. Maybe he was the one who always raised his hand to answer the question or he was smarter than us. To be honest, it wasn’t like he was bullied every time we did religion school. For the most part we all got along and we had spent many years growing up together in religious school. But I know that he was the butt of many jokes and looking back, I can see how unfair it was. I can’t really recall how it came about anymore, but one day we chose to put a bunch of tacks on David’s chair. It wasn’t just a few, it was probably about 10. I recall totally believing he would see them long before he chose to sit down.
But for some reason he was distracted talking to someone and didn’t see them. I can still see David sitting his full weight onto the tacks. I remember him sitting there, his face turning red, but he made sure not to cry in front of us. He didn’t want to. This I recall clearly. To this day, I still get chills thinking about how he didn’t jump up, he didn’t react. It was like he was defeated. The teacher noticed him turning red and tears welling up. He stood up and walked out of the room, all the tacks sticking in him.
There were snickers of laughter in the room as he left. At least it didn’t happen to me was all I thought. Then the teacher spoke up. He said he didn’t want to know who did it, but they should go help David.
Me and a few other boys who were involved went out to help him. At this point, I realized what I had done and was not at all thinking it was funny. We went into the bathroom and there was David, tears running down his face.
“Why did you do this?” was all he kept repeating to us while trying not to cry. Me and the other boys said nothing as I recall. I think we all felt the same. We pulled the tacks out as best we could, knowing we were hurting him again. No one spoke. It was not funny, it was not nice. I was the bully this time.
Once all the tacks were out, we went back to the room. David never came back in that day. That was the last time we picked on him like that I recall. I hope in my recollection, it’s the last time I could think that I was the bully. I think about David and how he must have felt. I often think that he had it worse, because he was probably bullied both at school and then at religion school. He got no break. It hurts me now as I write this to think that might have been the case. I have no idea now, 31 years later, what happened to David. I certainly hope that he has had a good life.
I thought it would be hard to write the stories of when I was bullied, but it’s actually much harder to write this one. This is not in defense of bullies, but when you are picked on relentlessly in school, when you are 12 years old, for a moment it made me feel good to be the popular kid somewhere. To be the one that didn’t have to look behind my shoulder for where the bully was. Maybe, in the end, that’s the scariest part of this story and why it hurts so much to share it.
I don’t feel brave sharing this story. I don’t feel redeemed sharing this story. I just feel guilty. Of course I can’t go back and these incidents help teach me and hopefully others lessons. That’s the biggest reason I wanted to share this with you.
Editor's Note: This story was first published in August 2010. Nearly two years later, David found it and wrote his version of events. See next post.
By Anonymous
Juneteenth is coming up and my family and I plan on spending it in South Carolina. A couple of years ago, my extended family and I, with myself in charge, attended a Juneteenth celebration in Newport News, Virginia. As a Hebrew (and Passover fanatic), I identify strongly with African-Americans and their identification through their path of freedom from bondage.
I have been the recipient of a lot of “understanding” from people of all backgrounds and economic levels (pale and not, foreign and not). I have been very lucky to have met so many people who just seem to get me. I have parlayed this in many ways and have followed paths that others have not.
Well this Juneteenth I will be celebrating another special milestone in my life, the launch of my new business. This was a 2 year path that ended with a crescendo in my discovery of a forgotten, yet presently applicable, part of my past. An instinct to fight, to hold others off, and to defend.
I kind of matured slowly.
I had blanked out the incident that Alan tells the story of in his post here on Humanthology and I understand why a bit more now after reconnecting with Alan. It was the very beginning of the days I dealt with bullying in 1979, just as Alan was getting ready to move away. I always remembered Alan (but not the specifics of our interaction or the bullying incident at our Hebrew school) and felt like he was dangerous and maybe someone I didn’t want to know too well. It seemed to me that he was in his state of weakness due to the bullying he endured.
It was 30 years later at the culmination of my high school reunion where I found out Alan was publishing stories on the web about bullying in Lexington, MA. I then looked it up and there I was in his story of a time in Hebrew school where I was the victim. Interestingly, when I found and read the story the first time, I felt exhilarated. No embarrassment, but not a great recollection of the incident. While I didn’t remember the tacks in the chair action exactly at that time, I have a vague thought that it did affect me and that I might be more aware of it than I realize even today. What I do recall of that time though, is the realization that there was no safe social place for me, including religious school.
The year around the time when he and the other kids put the tacks on my chair, my life kinda sucked. I did deal with bullying as well by the kids in Lexington, MA. But also, every so often, I would meet an outsider who would protect me socially. Over the next 6 years I became much stronger. Yet that time in my life taught me some strange survival skills that I incorporated into my professional life as fixer of sorts. In the end, I would help companies that have operational or financial distress.
So I hardly ever felt like a victim. More a participant in a moral battle. My question that I asked Alan in his story (“Why Did You Do This?”) was surely designed to make him and the other kids that did it see me as stronger so that he wouldn’t look at me as a victim.
My finding out about Alan and this story he wrote, along with his whole website also coincided with my helping to heal my one of my best friends from his long-term suffering from bullying. It also helped a series of interactions within my work life in general. It brought me to think hard about Alan’s mission and good work. I also thought about how Alan put himself out there on this site and his personal exposure along with all the risks that go along with doing that. That courage has helped me come to terms with my own decision of leaving big law and the dysfunctional situations that I am quite good at surviving now due to my rationalized flight and fight instinct that I developed through my experiences with bullies.
So now I have chosen my own path (which by the way I was very reluctant to choose) and now can focus all my energy. Bottom line is that throughout my life and especially during grades 6 - 8 in Lexington, MA, I realized that I had some “mark” that those with wisdom saw in me. Adults who were smart and anyone who viewed things from the outside saw that mark and “got me”. They always got me and have always helped me, especially an African-American judge and Vietnam Vet who gave me a chance, where others would have not. They “got” me! It has made me live a life that seems so easy and lucky.
Editors note: This story was written in June 2012, in response to a story written by David's bully.
By Amy Kaufman Burk
I was born in 1958 to heterosexual parents. I grew up in a home where gay and straight folks sat side-by-side at dinner parties. Friendships formed around personal and intellectual connections. There was no Great Divide between homosexuals and heterosexuals.
I never gave it a thought until third grade.
In a kickball game, a girl I'll call "Susannah" crushed the ball and drove in three runs. "Cory," admired even by the fifth graders for his spectacular use of profanity, shouted a new insult. I asked my mother what it meant; "It's a rude, ignorant word for a gay man."
I looked up, puzzled; "What's gay?" My parents never categorized people by sexuality, but that day, my vocabulary expanded to include "gay," "straight," "lesbian," "homosexual" and "heterosexual."
High school was an eye-opener. The atmosphere radiated an edgy tension, with gang violence always ready to erupt. The gay boys were targeted continuously. One day, a girl nudged me as a tall, thin boy walked by, frothy blond hair down his back. "The jocks beat him up last week," she whispered. "He was in the hospital for three days." She skipped off to class. A month later, she again took my elbow. "Remember the blond guy? I heard he died. Beaten to death. The jocks." She smiled sweetly and shrugged. "Who cares, one less --," and she used the word I learned in third grade.
I cried that night. I had no words to explain my tears for a boy I never knew, the possible victim of a piece of gossip that might not be true. I promised myself that some day, I would write a book about that boy. I would not allow my readers to be indifferent. I would name the book after my high school, and its motto.
Years later, my husband and I were raising our children in Mill Valley, California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and I began to write. I created gay and lesbian characters. I surrounded them with supporters who rallied for them, shoulder to shoulder, triumphing over a judgmental world.
I completed the final edits in 2008, and prepared to publish. A few months later, I voted on the losing side of Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage. My reaction to the election was odd: I stopped publication of my book. Something was wrong, and I was still figuring it out three years later, when my family moved to Chapel Hill, NC. I was pleased to live in a beautiful area, with such respect for education. Then with a nauseating sense of deja vu, I found myself voting on the losing side of Amendment 1, which prohibited gay marriages and civil unions.
The next morning, I knew how to fix my novel. I had portrayed the road to full acceptance for the LGBTQ characters as much too smooth. I rewrote the story, rebuilt the road, offered avenues for people of differing mindsets to become Allies. As I promised myself back in 1973, I wrote about that blond boy, whose name i never knew. I called my novel, Hollywood High: Achieve The Honorable.
I hope my book will be read by people who feel ready to question their own beliefs, who want to become more accepting but don't know how. There's a path for everyone to become an Ally. All you have to do is take the first step.
You'll find me waiting for you.
"Everyone Can Be An Ally" was first published on September 25, 2013, by the Chapel HIll News.
By Gotham Grit
All I ever wanted was a normal life with the expected progressions that are supposed to happen in a certain way and in a certain order. But, unfortunately, my life never seemed to happen that way. The things that happened for other people, the simplest of life events which comprise moving from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood which most women are able to take for granted - puberty, dating, boyfriends, marriage, kids - never seemed to be in my stars in any kind of typical way. It was as if I were living outside some sort of bubble, or watching life happen for others through a glass partition and I was not worthy or allowed to take part in any of it. I could never seem to gain access into the club.
I was 27, and all my friends were getting married and having babies. I felt like that was what was supposed to be happening in my life too, yet as usual, my experiences were not up to par. I couldn't even get a decent date, let alone a boyfriend that might propose to me. There was this constant sense that something was very wrong with me. I was exceedingly tall and excruciatingly skinny, and I always felt like I could never get a 'normal' guy to look my way. I always seemed to attract the losers, the wannabes, the ugly friend of the cute guy who wanted my friend instead of me. I had had one real boyfriend once, but I had ended that upon realizing he would have been a mean father to our children, were we to ever have any. After that, I was on my own for a very long time.
Perhaps this had more to do with my low self-esteem than my awkward appearance, but at any rate, I was always alone and very, very lonely. I just couldn't understand how it happened for other people - what was the magic secret that everyone but me seemed to know? I had friends, including male friends, so I knew it wasn't my personality or intelligence.I knew I was fun and witty. But there were many times perfect strangers would uninhibitedly share their unsolicited opinions with me about how I needed to gain weight. (In NYC, strangers share their opinions with strangers quite commonly.) They would tell me, "You have a beautiful face, but you are way too skinny!" I absolutely hated my stick-like body and my six-foot plus height! Girls were jealous over what they imagined men desired (lots of ungrounded, catty comments and fights) yet men were undoubtedly turned off - it was incredibly confusing and difficult.
Then one Saturday night in a neighborhood bar at the end of Spring in the late 1990's, a tall, handsome man tried to speak to me. He introduced himself shyly and said that he thought I was pretty. I'd felt so crappy about myself I could do nothing but freeze up and turn away. I was sure he must be messing with me so I completely snubbed him, and he just walked off. I sat there terrified and wondered if I had just blown an opportunity to meet someone new, or if he was setting me up to mock me, or if he was just some weirdo - he was interested in me after all. I told myself it was better to play it safe, but simultaneously berated myself for being so insecure. I felt like I just couldn't win, trapped inside such a bean-pole of a body.
Two weeks later, I crossed paths with Tall/Handsome again, in the backyard of the same bar. This time it was a Sunday afternoon. The weather was beautiful and I had gone there by myself because the walls of my dank basement apartment had been closing in on me. He and his friends were sitting at one of the outdoor tables, and I went and sat alone at another table, watching them sidelong between sips of beer, until one of the friends invited me over to sit with them. From that day on, Tall/Handsome and I became a couple. The fact that he was fresh out of prison was something I consciously pushed aside, convincing myself it was a small inconvenience. He became the new, long-awaited Boyfriend.
I knew all along that he wasn't the right guy for me, but I allowed myself to fall for him anyway. He was 34 and had just been released from a 7 year incarceration that began with a 3 year sentence for car theft, which then got extended to four more years for manslaughter because he had killed someone in self-defense with his bare hands while inside. He was honest about all of this from the get-go, and I appreciated that. I didn't want to judge him. I purposely ignored my instincts which told me he had dark demons I should run like hell from and had way more going on inside him than met my too-lenient eye. I was so grateful to finally have an attractive man's romantic attention and company. I was an easy mark for an Irish, blue-eyed, bad-ass with no fear of anyone or seemingly anything.
Boyfriend swore to me up and down that he was on a mission to make a clean start. He yearned to leave all of the illegal activity and chaos behind him and to start anew. A friend hired him as a truck mechanic and Boyfriend embarked on the unfamiliar journey of making a legal, honest living. I told myself this was good, solid proof that his intentions to reform his life were honest and true. I was proud of him for that. I wanted to show him good faith and support, that he had someone on his side on the outside who believed in him. But what really won me over, was how protected he made me feel. I had heard from people around town that once you were a friend of Boyfriend's, he had your back no matter what. He was a loyal guy that way and he took his friendships very seriously, and it didn't take him long to prove this to me either.
There had been this group of Hispanic guys who hung around together in the neighborhood. It seemed no matter what street I walked down, or what corner I turned, there would be some combination of these guys lurking about, lying in wait to make my life miserable. They taunted and made fun of me constantly by laughing, calling me names, imitating the way I walked, and generally making a spectacle of me so everyone else on the street would turn and stare. Some of them were only teenagers who stupidly followed the older guys' examples.
There was one young one in particular who would actually follow me down the street saying all sorts of nasty, personal things, whom I'd dubbed Rat-face because of his pointy nose and beady eyes. Though I was well into adulthood, many people still treated me like a kid because I was so skinny and these guys harassed me like if we were all back in the seventh grade. They were ignorant, immature and had no idea how to act like men. They had no respect for me as a woman or an adult and everywhere I went there they were, waiting to victimize me. Once I got with Boyfriend, all of that changed.
You see, as I soon came to learn, Boyfriend was the Alpha-Dog in our neighborhood. He had been so when he left for prison, and now seven years later, his reputation even exceeded where it had left off since people now knew he'd killed someone inside with only his fists. Though he was a large and broad dude, he was a quick and seasoned street-fighter whose skill no one could deny or surpass. No man, black, white, big or small, had the nerve to step to Boyfriend, and if they did, it was usually some drunken, out-of-town ignoramus who would quickly be schooled on exactly who it was that ran those streets. Boyfriend was not a person on whose bad side you wanted to be.
I will admit I loved that. I loved that everyone knew him, loved that he was feared and respected and now boney, doofy, reject me was his girlfriend and no one fucked with me either. I even started to think that maybe I actually was kind of pretty. And despite the fact that Boyfriend was such a tough guy, he was incredibly silly and goofy. He loved a good joke and a good gag. He was affectionate and very sweet to his friends and to me. And true to his reputation, he always looked out.
One day we were out walking, and I saw him acknowledge a couple of those guys who always bothered me. I saw them look worriedly from Boyfriend to me and back again, and I suddenly I knew I now had the advantage! Once we passed them, I asked Boyfriend,
"Do you know them?"
"Yeah, why?" I wasted no time filling him in on as many lengthy details as I could remember about all the numerous times they had bullied and humiliated me, especially highlighting the lovely comments from Rat-face, though Boyfriend was a little fuzzy on exactly which guy I called Rat-face since I didn't know any of their real names.
"I'll take care of it", said Boyfriend. I'm not even sure what he ever did or said to them, but just like that, all the torture and harassing stopped. Done. Over. Like a bad magic spell had been lifted off my life. From then on, whenever I passed any of those guys on the street, they dared not even look at me.
A few days later, Boyfriend and I went into a local 7-11, and there was Rat-face standing by himself at the magazine rack.
"Him," I hissed to Boyfriend, pointing. "That's the one I told you about. That's Rat-face."Rat-face saw me pointing and his brown face went pale.
"Wait here," said Boyfriend and went over to give Rat-face his own individual message.
'You see that?" Boyfriend asked him, pointing to me, still near the front counter. Rat-face had looked like he shit his pants, right there with a Sports Illustrated in his hands."That's mine, you got it?" Rat-face nodded and looked down, paralyzed with fear. Never in my life had I ever felt such gratification. When Boyfriend came back over to me, I said to him,
"And don't refer to me as 'that'." This amused Boyfriend greatly and he playfully pinched my nose.
I felt like I had charmed and tamed the wild beast, and that gave me a sense of power as well. Actually he let Rat-face off pretty easily, because normally if I gave Boyfriend the signal, he had no problem attacking.If anyone disrespected me, all I had to do was say so, and Boyfriend would pop them one, without even so much as a question.To Boyfriend, it was merely amusement, and I was so caught up in his power, that I failed to see how scary that was. Unfortunately, protection from bullies was one of the very few positives Boyfriend brought to our relationship. I was to learn there was a huge to price to pay for being under his watch and much of it I convinced myself to ignore.
By Gotham Grit
It wasn't long before Boyfriend had moved out of his mother's house where he'd been staying, and in with me to my windowless, basement studio apartment. It was a set-up where there were three separate furnished rooms. I had the biggest room, L-shaped with a low beam I religiously cracked my head upon every time I got out of bed. There was one bathroom which all the basement tenants had to share and a bogus, makeshift kitchen with a two-burner hot-plate. One of the other two rooms housed a wormy guy whom I knew was trying to gain access through my door under the guise of being "neighborly," and to whom I was completely cold and anti-social. The third room was small as a closet and was empty save for a twin bed.
For months I had been brooding solitarily in that dark, wood-paneled hole in the ground, and then I had Boyfriend's company all the time. At first it was fun. Of course the wormy guy abated and Boyfriend and I played the role of blissful domestic couple despite the dismal, moldy smelling atmosphere. We cleaned, did laundry, changed the furniture around and went food shopping together. We had our comfortable morning and meal routines. We liked the same shows on TV and on the nights we were home we stayed up until 2AM watching them.
We would lie awake and tell each other our deepest insecurities and fears. Never had I been able to bare my soul like I could to Boyfriend, because nothing shocked him - he had seen the worst of everything, and he never once judged or mocked me. I told him how ugly I felt and how many people had made fun of me throughout my life. And he would sob with guilt and heartbreak over the kid he had killed in jail. There were many nights that we would fall asleep in tears, sweaty and breathless from emotional stress.
There were many more nights we weren't even home though, because we both liked to go out and party quite often. For me it was a great time because my circle of friends had grown exponentially since meeting Boyfriend and we always seemed to get the "working-class royal treatment" (lots of free beer and cocktails) wherever we went. For Boyfriend, however, it was a serious risk since he was still on probation and he wasn't allowed to consume any alcohol. Deep down, it bothered me that this risk he constantly took didn't seem to faze him at all. But instead of trying to talk sense to him about it (not that he would have listened), or see it as a red flag, I let his irresponsible mentality be my guide me into a world of bedlam.
I suppressed the nagging notion that this behavior contradicted his previous promises of wanting to turn his life around. I refused to acknowledge that if he really cared about me or this relationship or anything, he would have tried to do the right thing. Moreover, what I should have realized was that it wasn't even about him caring or not caring. Rather, he was possessed by certain addictions; the depths and seriousness of these I had no idea. Sure, I knew that cocaine was always being passed around at the bars - I also took part. But to me, at that time, it was recreational. I never woke up craving it or went hungry for it or couldn't pay my bills over it. However, I was about to learn Boyfriend's relationship with drugs was far more intimate and dangerous than that.
He was always disappearing. There was always some down-and-out friend in desperate need, some urgent situation he needed to help out with, some mysterious business he just had to attend to, that was more important than I was. He acted as if the world would cave in if he couldn't run and be in fifteen places a day, supposedly saving someone's ass. And of course, he always fell back on the old excuse of what a loyal guy he was, how when someone was in trouble, he just had to be there. He called it "having heart." I called it inconsideration and disrespect. How did all these people get along without him for the seven years while he was away?
There were many times that I was supposed to meet up with him somewhere, only to arrive and have some strange guy I didn't know meet me instead. The assigned chaperone would walk up to me and know who I was and greet me by name and bullshit me about how Boyfriend would be back in 15 minutes (try two hours). These assorted pseudo escorts would remain on the premises and keep an eye on me until Boyfriend actually showed up. After a couple times of this happening, I got fed up one night and tried to leave, at which point the escort insisted Boyfriend would be right there any minute and I really should wait. I could tell this person was probably afraid of what Boyfriend might do should he tell him that I had escaped. When I think back now, I get angry that I stayed.
I came to realize that this was one of Boyfriend's many forms of control, because even if he couldn't slow down long enough to give me the attention I deserved, even if he couldn't make me a priority over whatever other unscrupulous gallivanting was going on, or have the decency to let me know what he was up to, or who he was with or where he was, he would always make sure that he knew these things about me. You see, he could be all over the place, but I had to sit neatly in one spot with watchful eyes on me until he allotted his attention to me again.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that these disappearances were for Boyfriend to wheel and deal coke and favors. It also didn't take me long to see that Boyfriend had a serious addiction to cocaine himself. One time when we were on our way out shopping at about 11am, Boyfriend told me we had to stop by his friend's apartment because the guy owed him money. So we walk into some apartment building and a jittery, bug-eyed guy answers the door. In the living room was a pull-out couch on which a chick wearing nothing but a wife-beater and holey (ick!) underwear sat crossed-legged,waving her arms and babbling incoherently, her hair a sweaty, mangled mess over her head.
In the kitchen a mound of cocaine lay piled. It was like a vision of death actually waiting to happen.It made me nervous to be in the house with it - the devil's dandruff ready to snuff you. The jittery guy offered us some, and I was just repulsed.I stepped back and shook my head - at 11 in the morning? Blow was something I didn't even consider without a few drinks in me. It was at this moment I realized how bad Boyfriend's habit was, and how much further he was in than me. Because instead of refusing like I stupidly assumed he would, he took the guy up on his offer and snorted a couple of fat lines through a cut-off straw. I remember feeling true alarm at that moment, because suddenly I saw before me an existence with no boundaries into darkness.
And then there were the women. They were just drawn to Boyfriend as if under a spell. He was so intense, so fearless, I swear they could smell the unwieldiness seeping out of him.I felt like I had to beat groupies off every time we stepped out. There was no such thing as a quiet night out. There was always someone flirting, waiting, infiltrating; always some "old friend" lingering too long on his arm for a casual "hello." I remember one time sitting in a diner, the waitress came up with our plates from behind to serve us, and she laid her breasts right up against the back of Boyfriend's shoulders as she leaned in to place the dishes on the table!
He never had to go out of his way to get the attention, he just had this certain sullen magnetism that drew them right in. And he didn't discourage the attention either. He was only too happy to have it, and then later assure me I was imaging things if I questioned it. He would tell me it was me he came home with, and then literally not let me out of bed for two or three days at a time. I started to lose my concept of the days of the week. I'd be constantly hung over and physically depleted, entombed down in a room where daylight was never visible, disoriented from the constant sex and partying, and so emotionally and psychologically drained from all of Boyfriend's mind games that after awhile, I had no idea which way was up.
When I'd first met Boyfriend, despite my mostly depressed outlook, I had managed to create a somewhat of a reputation at my CUNY school as an up and coming playwright. I had been a straight A student in all my workshops. But now after being in my life for all of four months, Boyfriend would not let me do my homework. If he saw me trying to do anything related to school or writing, he would wrestle me into bed and insist it was time for sex and literally keep me there until I was exhausted and past the point of accomplishing any work. Most of the time I was hung over anyway, so I just blew school off.I was so discombobulated that it wasn't until a week after finals ended that I'd even realized I'd missed them.
I told him it was over. One day we sat down at a little bench park near Flushing Hospital and I told him I couldn't take his way of living anymore, the way he totally enveloped my existence to a point where I couldn't function as a person anymore. I told him I was done and of course he cried and begged, but I packed a shopping cart full of his crap and sent him home to his mother. Three days later he was back, and we had made up, and he was calmer for another 3 or 4 days. On a Friday afternoon I went to work the late shift in Manhattan. Boyfriend came that night to meet me when I got off, as he always rode the subway out to meet me when I worked late, then usually we would go do a few shots at the bar across the street before leaving to come back to Queens.
On this particular night Boyfriend showed up to my job rip-roaring drunk. And not just drunk, high on something. When he walked he was bent forward, staggering like a lummox, holding his forearm out before him. In his hand was a beer in a brown bag. At one point he vomited. (He would spontaneously vomit now and then and not until much later did I figure out it was heroin.) I was so pissed! How dare he show up in public, at my job in this horrible, embarrassing condition - especially after having just reconciled! We started fighting in the street, me telling him what a loser he was and him blankly asking me what was wrong, which angered me even more. I said I was leaving and for him not to bother coming home. He bawled and asked me not to go And then the cops were right there!I hadn't even seen which direction they had come from, they just materialized.
"Miss, are you OK? Is this guy bothering you?"
I looked back and forth between the two of them. I didn't know what to say. Boyfriend started to argue with them, drunken and slurring, struggling to keep his balance.
"Hey, what the fuck is your problem, man?" said Boyfriend, swiping his arm around, waving the brown bag under the one cop's face. "I'm just talking to my girl."
"What the fuck is my problem?" he said to Boyfriend, "What'd you got in that bag, big boy?"
"What, I'm drinking a beer, so what?"
"Yeah, you're out here, already drunk, drinking a beer, making a scene, so what?" the cop sang back sarcastically.
By now another third cop had separated me away from them, and was asking me questions - how I knew Boyfriend, what our relationship was. I could see over his uniformed shoulder that the other two were interrogating and ID'ing Boyfriend. My heart pounded. I knew Boyfriend was in deep shit. The second cop took the ID to the window of a patrol car where the partner of the cop with me was sitting. He ran a check, and next thing I knew Boyfriend was being handcuffed and shoved into the back of the car. They knew he had broken parole.
