Delp

As a youngster, I was a pipsqueak, a wee little dude, about two feet tall till I hit 18, when something I ate expanded me to a state resembling average human proportion. (What I would now give to shed some of that proportion without having to go on a killer diet.) The torment I sometimes suffered they'd nowadays call bullying, but back then—early-to-mid 1960s—it was just another day of getting on by. That day in first grade, when I first stepped aboard the school bus to make the one-mile truck to Druid Hills Elementary, all the big kids—everyone from second grade on up—took notice of my diminutive stature, swatted me around a bit, and admonished me to walk to school from then on, for the simple reason I lived close enough to walk, and if I didn't, they'd throw me into the nearby creek. (I suspect that, despite my small size, the amount of oxygen I consumed deprived them of their required daily dosage.) Now, I never actually got thrown into the creek, but over time, things did get worse, especially when it became clear I'd been reading books full of real words since my kindergarten days, and I possessed all kinds of esoteric knowledge, such as how to pronounce "Ichthyosaurus," "Pleiades," and "catastrophe."

Mind you, I'm not complaining. As it became clear I was never going to be a physical titan, these episodes of being walloped, threatened, and/or derided goaded me to seek other means of leveling the playing field—which, on the good side, is why I ended up on the higher side of the academic scoreboard (eventually becoming a writer of things mortifying and horrific, a result I'd never trade for the world); on the bad side, I did occasionally damn near off myself attempting to expand the world's scientific boundaries—something those cretins would never accomplish—using materials like gasoline, hydrochloric acid, gunpowder, and Colgate toothpaste. On the odd side, I suspect these early episodes may explain why I sometimes adopted a strange way of interacting with others (see "So F'ing Suave" for a reasonable example).

And then there were those incidents for which I was responsible but simply cannot explain. The one foremost in mind is Delp. Delp was a fellow from my hometown, now a respected doctor, I'm led to understand, the older brother of a friendly acquaintance since elementary school days. He had five years or so on me, and I rarely actually saw him around—mainly on Sundays when I went to church with Mum and Dad. Delp had never picked on me. As far as I can recall, barely a word had even passed between us.

But I didn't like Delp. I don't know why. I seem to recall he was personable and polite; an admirable enough young man. But I didn't like him. What else should matter but that?

I was around eight years old, hanging out with my buddy Todd on his front porch. We were carrying on about whatever young chaps like us carried on about, when up the sidewalk comes Delp and some friend of his, minding their own business, paying us two younger kids not the first ounce of attention.

Oh, Christ, it's DELP!

There was only one thing to do: take some kind of prohibitive action to save the world from Delp's insidious evil. I noticed, beside the front steps, an old board that might have come from a table or some piece of furniture. I grabbed it up, very quietly ran up behind Delp, raised up that board, and whacked him in the head.

Then I turned around and ran for my life.

Well, Delp caught me, long before I reached the safety of the front porch. Holy cow, I had not killed him with one blow, and now he had me. I was doomed.

"What did you do that for!?" he hollered, clutching my shoulder in an iron grip. I knew my duty as a PoW: nothing more than my name, rank, and serial number. Since I had no rank or serial number and had forgotten my name, I answered with a great big nothing. I just shut my eyes and waited for the hammer to come down on my mushy little head.

It never came. Next the thing I know, Delp and his friend were wandering on up the sidewalk, muttering between themselves about weird little kids, or something to that effect.

I think Todd had expected me to die and was awestruck that I had survived the brutal encounter. We rushed inside and told my mother that some big guy had just attacked me for no reason. She asked if I was hurt, and when I said no, she said, "Well, whatever you did to bring that on, don't do it again."

As I've mentioned, Delp appears to have made something of himself, despite his inherent evil. I do have to wonder if, in quiet moments of reflection, he looks back over the years, and wonders why he ever attacked that innocent little kid for no reason.

I can only imagine it must haunt him at night.

Why the Female of the Species Is Deadly

Druid Hills School in Martinsville, VA, where I learned that females can be deadly

In nature, it's plain that the male members of certain species operate at a clear disadvantage. After mating, many female spiders turn around and eat the unfortunate chap that just did his part to help propagate their kind. Some male insects, the poor sods, will mutilate their own genitals to improve their chances of surviving an encounter with a female. Oftentimes, the human female has been known to up and stop the heart of an adoring male, simply with an approving word or touch of a gentle hand.

It was the mid 1960s, I was probably in second grade, and Mum and Pop had allowed me to ride the mile or so to Druid Hills Elementary School on my bike for the first time. Most of the kids in my neighborhood were already riding their bikes, and I was feeling the peer pressure to keep up. Now, I could already ride a mean bicycle. I could pop wheelies with style; ride long distances with no hands; go down steep hillsides, hit a jump ramp, fly out into the air, and land without mishap. A regular daredevil, I was.

Getting to school that morning was great. I was proud as a peacock as I turned my little red spyder bike into the school parking lot for the first time. I could just feel the eyes of every young lady on the premises watching me and bursting at the seams with admiration for my clear pedaling prowess.

But it was that afternoon, when the final bell rang, that my true chance to shine arrived. All the kids were coming out from their classrooms, some bound for buses, some for their parents' cars, some for the sidewalk to walk home, and some — like me — for the bicycle rack. Out there, I think I engaged in conversation with a couple of third and fourth graders who'd ridden their bicycles, confident they would no longer look down on me because, by god, I was on my bike. What a great feeling that was. But it was as I went pedaling out of the parking lot and down the street toward home that I saw my opportunity to impress not just any ordinary people but girls.

Yes, it was Ellen Hundley and Nancy Carter walking down the sidewalk, and my young heart went zooming into overdrive. If I pulled this off, I knew they would never again look on me as a wee little shrimp of a fellow.

So I pumped those pedals, picked up speed, and took my hands off the handlebars. I passed them waving and shouting, and I think they both smiled at me, which spurred me to pedal faster. Faster.

It was then I turned around and saw that, somehow, a parked car had gotten in front of me. I hit the brakes, but it was too late. BAM! BOOM! THUD! CRUNCH! Over the handlebars I went, up onto the trunk of the car, over the side, and onto the asphalt. Holy god, the pain. I saw more skin on the road than on my arms. My head felt like a cantaloupe that had split open, and probably looked like one, with what few brains I possessed spilling out onto the pavement.

Ellen and Nancy walked on by, giggling. I think a passing adult took a look at me and asked if I required medical attention. I just shook my head and motioned for them to go on because there was no way I was going to try to explain what had just happened to anyone. My bike's handlebars were bent and the chain had come off, so I worked everything back into place and pedaled on home, where my poor mom nearly had a heart attack at the sight of me.

Here is where everything gets really wonky. There was this kid named Bobby H., and he had frequently picked on me because he was a much bigger dude. So I told Mum and Dad that Bobby H. had thrown me off my bicycle. Infuriated, Dad said he was going to call Mr. H. and let him have a piece of his mind. Now, I was really terrified — I'd acted a moron and lied! Yes, Dad called Mr. H., who proceeded to grill his almost-innocent son, who then UP AND ADMITTED WHAT HE'D DONE. Pretty wild, considering he hadn't actually done anything. Not that day, anyhow. I'll tell you this: he didn't bully me anymore. Go figure that. 

In the end, I healed up, and I went on to perform all kinds of daredevil stunts on my bike, quite successfully as long as no women or parked cars got in my way.

But after that, you'd best believe I learned a healthy fear of the human female. Two of them had damn near killed me.

My Bloody Youth

A totally random tale for you. And it's gross, so be warned.

One day in fifth grade — sometime in 1970, I expect — at Druid Hills School (pictured above), I happened to have tomato soup at lunchtime. I no longer care much for tomato soup, but in those days, I was fine with it. Anyway, it wasn't long after lunch that I went into the restroom to go pee, and the moment I stepped through the door, I knew something was rotten in the state of Denmark. All over the floor, there were numerous piles of poo, big old turds of obviously recent vintage, though surely more than a single human being could have produced at one time. Not only that, poo was smeared on the walls, on the mirrors, all over the backs of the toilets and urinals. Pretty damn gross. And it stank to high heaven. Still, I had to pee like a bear, so being a trooper, I figured I'd hold my breath and make the best of it.

For a little while, that worked. I got my business mostly done before I had to breathe again. But when I did — oh, my god — the stench up and did me in. Thar she blows! Major urpage, all tomato soup, redder than red, which just made it worse. I spewed all over the wall, all over the floor, all over those happy piles of poo.

My fifth grade math teacher, Mrs. Davis (who later died under mysterious circumstances) heard the gagging and retching and came rushing in to see what was wrong. When she caught sight of all that poo and me urping streams of bright red, she let out a pretty good holler, reached to grab me, and then drew back because I had not quite finished. Once I did, she was in a state all right, clearly worried my innards had exploded in bloody fury. It took some time to convince her it was only tomato soup and even longer to make her believe I was not the mad poo bomber.

To the best of my recollection, the mad poo bomber never was identified. I was pretty sure I knew who it was, but I could never have proven it. Bastard. Anyway, I reckon the statute of limitations for poo bombing has expired.

As I said, I don't care much for tomato soup or even tomato juice these days, though I confess I'm all about a good Bloody Mary now and again.