Where Were You In 1982?

Because I was in Garland, Texas, the entire damn year.

When 1982 began, I was in eighth grade, my last year of middle school.  I enjoyed it somewhat, although there were some downsides.  My friend Scott would come over to my apartment when his mom dropped him off at the school, since I lived in an apartment complex right next to the school, &
we'd watch cartoons until 8 & run to school.  We had our first period together, which was Earth Science, & we sat at the same table, & we were late so much we got detention together.

Scott was the first friend I ever made who liked me as me, & who didn't care to be friends with my little brother.  This did not make my little brother happy, but he & I were growing apart anyway.  Scott shared my interest in comics, in sci-fi, in gory stuff.  We made fun of nuclear war, probably out of fear we'd die in one.  He would introduce me to D&D.  He my first true best friend.  Here's what a mensch he was:

Sometime around the end of the school year, we were all to go to an assembly in the lunch room where a group of singing high schoolers (coming from my future school, South Garland High) were to sing to us.  I used to remember the name of the group, something corny, but I don't recall now.  Anyway, my last class, seventh period, was a math class, & my teacher liked me, I had a high A, & on that day I was not feeling well.  I had a headache & a stomach ache & the last thing I wanted to do was to sit with everyone in a hot, cramped auditorium (they made us sit on the floor) & listen to people sing songs I knew I was going to hate.  I begged my teacher to let me just stay in the classroom alone with my head on the table.  I even said, "I'm a good student, you know I won't leave until the bell."  She said no.

& boy, did I hate those singers.  First of all, most of the music was religious.  I was never raised in any particular religion, & my mother's love of superstition had cured me of that kind of belief system, & my love of science made me deeply disinterested in any religious stuff.  But add that I didn't feel well, that I didn't want to be there, & that I was resentful that my teacher didn't trust me to just chill in the classroom, well, it all became too much.  I sat there with Scott while he mocked them but I just seethed.  At the end of the show, while everyone else was applauding, I just decided to boo.  & not only did I boo, I booed loudly.  & Scott joined in.  & of course other ne'er-do-wells in the crowd booed.  I sometimes wonder if I felt bad for the high schoolers, but truly they were awful.  It was 1982 & they were putting on a show that would've been corny in 1962.

The booing did not make me feel better.  & my American History teacher, a woman who I adored & who liked me, saw me instigate the boos & took me aside & told me to go to see the Principal in the morning.  She was so disappointed in me.

Did Mrs. Lane ask Scott to go too?  I guess I thought she did, but I don't know.  There he was at 7:30 with me, at the Principal's Office, where I was marched in & sat down & asked if I knew what I did was rude (I did) & what sort of punishment I thought I should get (not licks! not licks!).

Oh yes, the punishment was going to be physical violence.  I should point out that my mother never spanked me, that she controlled me & my siblings with fear, so I had never really had a paddle to my posterior.  Scott had - he told me he got licks all the time back in Illinois, & they were no big deal - you should've seen him, he was as defiant as I was terrified.  I don't remember how many licks I got, or even why they're called licks, which sounds fucking stupid, but I remember that they didn't hurt so much surprise me.  Again, no one had ever done that to me before (& no one has since).  Tears came to my eyes but Scott laughed them off.  "Told you it was nothing," he said, as we went out to wait for classes to begin.

Scott was fun to be around & I liked him a lot.  & after eighth grade, something happened that made me stop being his friend for the entire summer.  What could that have been?

Enter my older brothers, Ralph & Steve.  At some point in the early summer, they thought it was their brotherly duty to make me absolutely terrified of high school.  They described hazing incidents, like being "trashed," which meant someone put you into a trash can head first, & of course beatings, fist fights, being cornered in the rest room & your face being put in the toilet.  They implied any number of painful humiliations which I did not want to happen.  I don't know if my brothers told me this more than once (& I'm sorry that I never asked them about their own experiences because how shitty must their high school experiences have been), but one thing they made clear was that my friend Scott, oh man, he was such a nerd that just associating with him was going to get me beaten to a bloody pulp.

Why I believed them I don't know, but that summer I avoided him.  & I missed him.  My mother had however been so good at instilling fear in me that every time I thought about calling Scott I would see myself with mean kids dunking my head in a toilet with impunity.

On my first day of class at South Garland High School, at the last period, which was sixth period (only sixes classes a day in high school), I had Social Studies, & who was there?  Scott was there.  He didn't seem like anyone had done anything to him - I should've sussed out that he was tougher than I was but the fear was strong in me - & we hung out after school, & began walking home together.  I had my best friend again!  It was probably the best thing about 1982 for me.

But there's more to tell about that year, & I'll continue tomorrow, because we moved away from our apartments in the summer of 1982, & I got to have my own room for the first & only time in my life before I left home.  Anyway, yeah.  More 1982 tomorrow.