My elementary school memories are as camera clicks with only rudimentary images captured. They are few but indelible.
22 November 1963 I was seated in first grade class when the overhead oatmeal colored speaker crackled to life. President Kennedy had been shot. We were to be let out early. I hurried with putting on my coat. I had to get home to tell my mother. The president I knew was Irish and Catholic just like us.
Years later. We sat silently at our desks working on the handout of word puzzles that our fifth grade english teacher had assigned us. I really enjoyed the challenge, so when she told us to pass the handout forward I wrote across the top of the page, "This was fun." After she'd gathered all the papers she told us to open our books to chapter four and read quietly to ourselves. We hadn't been at it more than a couple minutes when she barked out,"Robert." I was the only Robert in the class. "Stand up," she said. I did so and was startled to find she was glaring at me. "What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. I had no idea what she was talking about. "What?" I stammered. "This comment on the top of your page, 'This was fun.' What did you mean by that?" For a confounding moment all that existed was her withering look. I blurted out, "It was fun. I liked it." She looked me over every which way. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. "From now on," she said. "Keep your opinions to yourself. Now sit down." I returned as best I could to my reading assignment. But the words were swimming in myriad directions. I could not concentrate. And I knew from that day onward I would never again volunteer my secret feelings.
Some months after that in the height of spring Richard Delmonte with his sparkling eyes and dimpled chin came to school in shiny black shoes, tight fitting jeans, and a flashy white shirt with an upturned wide collar. His curly brown hair was that day slicked back in a 50's pompadour. He carried with him an acoustic guitar and was in approximation our very own Elvis. It created a buzz that swept through the school. When recess came a crowd quickly formed around him and as he strummed his instrument and warbled out a song made popular by the Memphis King the girls swooned and cried out in glee and abandon. At one point as he played on his act triggered a shrieking mania among the the girls. They pressed forward as if any distance was too far away from him. It set him fleeing. He was pursued by the girls in a trampling herd. The popular boys who had been left behind usurped by his act spoke vehemently of beating him up. I watched it all unfold as if a clinician overcome with envy and desire. (Seventeen years later I crossed paths with Richard Delmonte once again while at a tree lined park in Hartford, Connecticut. He obviously had succumbed to hard times and he told me lived in the woods of the park. His new name he proudly informed me with a glint of the old Elvis was Wolf Boy.)
In sixth grade I wrote a poem about a lion. There was talk of it being printed, perhaps in a regional magazine. Also mentioned was a prize being awarded. It was the first inkling that I might have something special. The talk was a soothing balm to my woeful sense of self.
Another day in that very year as I stood doing my business at a urinal my friend Jamie Mack kicked me in the ass to the derision and laughter of two of our classmates. It snapped something in me. Without zipping up I went after him. I got him in a choke hold and squeezed his throat. And nothing existed except for my rage. When the two other kids couldn't get me to stop with their pleas they pried my arms apart. Jamie sputtered and coughed and gasped for breath and once he founded it he cried out what the hell was wrong with me. He then challenged me to a fight after school. I fretted about it the rest of the day and by the time it came for us to battle I was my usual withdrawn self. A couple ineffectual punches were thrown before I was wrestled without resistance to the ground. The following moment I cried out, my eyes. I pretended there was sand in them and our skirmish came to a halt with concern for me. A few minutes later Jamie and I were once again friends. But I was not the same and had not been so since the incident in the bathroom when I discovered there was another darker self inside of me.
That self reared again shortly there after at recess one day when a blundering chunky kid with a questionable IQ tried to bully me. I'm not sure what happened next. But at one point as if coming out of a haze I found myself jumping up and down on his head. A teacher pulled me a way and brought me to the principal's office. Soon I was flanked by the teacher, principal, and nurse. There was a contention that I'd hit the other kid in the head with a bat. If I did I didn't remember it. The nurse stated that I might have deafened the other kid for life. The three of them needled and coddled me in a classic good cop bad cop approach. They wanted to know what made me tick. I was at a loss to shed any light. Somehow as serious as my actions were my parents were never informed or consulted. And I slipped as the saying goes through the cracks, and a few months later I left elementary school behind.
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