Part Three - Fear and Limitations. Very little good happens over the next three years. Middle School truly sucked. That's not to say that interesting and memorable things didn't happen, it's just that they occurred during what felt like a pretty crappy time to be alive. School became an unbearable drag on both a social and an educational level. The older boys were posturing, violent idiots, and many of the kids my age were trying their hardest to get in on that game. The pecking order was being established for real now. And who could tell what the hell was going on with the girls? The things that we were being taught were mostly bland and boring, and for the most part being taught by people with similar descriptions. I honestly cannot remember a single thing that I was taught in the 6th grade, but I can clearly remember any number of books that I read on my own. Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) and Lord of the Flies are definite standouts. Quite a bit different than the book. I would routinely get into trouble for clandestinely reading in class when we were supposed to be doing something else. I think I was learning more from my books. I imagine that could have made for an interesting discipline consideration had those in a position of power been of the sort who would pay attention to an individual situation. Instead I just got yelled at and held after class from time to time. I did learn marginally more in the 7th, and perhaps even a bit more in the 8th, but by my recollection my middle school experience is almost entirely made up of social lessons. And mostly bad. I spent all of middle school seriously believing that I was going to die. I am dead serious about this, and it sucked hard. Aside from the fact that I thought I was developing some new, fatal disease each time by body changed in any way or I got a cough or sore throat, I was also pretty sure that there was going to be a nuclear war before I got old enough to do anything good. I got that war idea from a combination of books, movies, and the actual news at the time that always made it look, to me, like Ronald Reagan wanted to kill me and everyone else on the planet as soon as possible. Even more damaging was the fact that my family had made the switch at this point from our boring old Lutheran church to a new fire-and-brimstone, holy rollin' Pentecostal church. The folks at this new kind of church seemed to have no problem whatsoever letting a young kid like me believe that the end of the world was likely going to happen tomorrow. It was God's plan, after all. I had just better make damn sure that I never had a bad thought, maybe sin in my heart like that evil Jimmy Carter, because then I might miss The Rapture and die horribly in the subsequent nuclear nightmare. Comforting thoughts for a 12 year old, I assure you. I was certain deep down inside that my life was ending every time I would hear some far-off siren start up, or would stumble across an Emergency Broadcast System test on the radio or TV without hearing the announcement of "test" beforehand. These were moments of true terror in which seconds would crawl into agonizing minutes while I waited to learn if my life was ending right now or if I would be granted one more temporary reprieve from my inevitable fate. Yeah, it's safe to say that I am still pretty bitter about the whole deal. It wasn't until well into high school that I got comfortable with the idea that I might actually get to grow up. Maybe that is part of the reason why I never really have. Whether due to my growing sense of self-awareness or an increase in scrutiny from my peers as all weakness was rooted out and exploited in the service of the mighty pre-teen ranking machine, my physical limitations were becoming a major liability. The fact of the matter was that I was short, skinny, weak, and uncoordinated. Figure in my above mentioned crippling fear and a lack of funds to buy stylish clothes and shoes and you basically have the makings of a self-esteem Hindenburg. Oh, the humanity. You know that there were survivors from that blimp, right? As impossible as it might seem when you see that classic footage, there were people who walked away with their lives more or less intact. And so it was with me. No matter how bad it got I always still liked myself. The one thing that I was sure of was that if the fanatical madmen or vengeful deity who held my fate in their hands actually allowed me to live long enough I would eventually triumph. I just couldn't bring myself to completely believe that, after my happy childhood, life was going to suck permanently. There was, however, very little in my life at this time to support the idea that it would do anything much more than just that. In the next section of this story I am going to recount what few good adventures there were during my stretch at Shuksan Middle School. There were people and events worth mentioning, especially near the end, but there aren't really enough of them to fill two sections of this story. I am just having too much fun wallowing in these crappy memories to try to insert something positive right at the moment anyway. This was truly the most depressing time in my life, and as such will make the most depressing chapter. It does get better though, I promise. From time to time I would be allowed to ride my bike the 2+ miles to school from our house, both of which were on the same road. It wasn't all that far, but it was a very busy road, and uphill in both directions. While that might sound like it can't be possible, believe me when I say that it is pretty close to true. It was a good thing that I had an alternate way home besides the school bus, because by halfway through the 7th grade I was getting a lot of after school detention time and my mother was none to thrilled at the prospect of picking me up all the time. (The problem was math. I just could not pay enough attention to it to figure it out, and I almost never would get my homework done. To combat this my math teacher vowed to give me detention every time my work was not 100% complete. Needless to say I ended up spending many extra hours after school. I think in the end he just passed me so that he wouldn't have to deal with me for another year, because there was just no way that I actually completed that class.) One morning on my way in I ran over something strange with my front tire. I didn't want to stop because I was already moving along at a steady clip and it's not too much fun to get going again when it's all uphill. Still, it had looked like it might be something interesting, so I had to investigate. It turned out to be a shiny, new, razor sharp knife, locked in the open position and just lying there in the gravel as if recently discarded during some life or death struggle. It was beautiful, and it was MINE. The locking mechanism was some strange new type that I had not seen before, but I quickly figured it out. That knife was then carried with me everywhere I went for the next two years. Just in case. It looked almost just like this, but silver and newer. You see, Bill had recently suggested that I read THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton, and though I devoured it and everything else she wrote in short order, it had caused "killed by street thugs" to be added to the ever increasing list of possible causes of my imminent demise. The difference this time was that unlike death by a nuclear firestorm or the fulfillment of religious prophecy, or both, the idea that I might get jumped and murdered had a certain sort of romance to it. At least if I had to go out that way, I might get to go out fighting, and maybe take one of those bastards with me. Hell, maybe I'd somehow stab my way out of it and have to go on the run. Hide out like Ponyboy and Johnny. Die a hero in the end. I think at times I actually hoped that something like that would happen. As it turned out, I never had occasion to use that knife for anything more interesting than carving sticks. By the time, years later, when I would find myself in situations where I actually was jumped in the street, I had already stopped carrying it. I never pulled it out on anyone and I was never caught with it at school. The only real result of having that knife in my possession was the small, in all probability misplaced, sense of personal security it provided. I mention it because it was a big part of how I dealt with those horrible years. I could reach into my pocket any time and feel it sitting there. My secret weapon. My one little way to control my reality. Not the healthiest point of view, I understand, but then there was very little about this time that I would use the word "healthy" to describe. I do not believe that I would have been able to get away with this sort of behavior had I grown up in the post-Columbine political climate of the country. A kid carrying a knife to school specifically because he believes he could find himself in a situation where he might have to stab someone would probably be treated with a bit more severity these days. Possibly even with enough of a threat so as to keep me from doing it in the first place. And while that may well be what is best for the country, I can't say with any real certainty that it would have been so good for me. Anyway, I got through the whole deal alive, and everybody else got through it un-stabbed, so I guess it was a win/win situation in the end. So now that we have come to the end of this, the worst section of the story, I feel as if I should close on a more upbeat note. Comedy will do the honors in this case, and at considerable personal cost to myself since what I am about to reveal has been a source of tremendous embarrassment to me over the years. I did not even know that this photo had survived until I started searching for old images to use on this site. So here now for your enjoyment and as a thank you for trudging through that mess of words above is the only surviving photo of my most ill-advised hair decision ever: The Perm. All I can say in my defense is that I wanted hair like a rocker of the metal variety. In my mind it was going to look like the singer from RATT. That didn't quite work out as you can plainly see.

Click here for: Part Four - The Dudes.