By 14, I was working at the Villa Rosa as a dishwasher. A kid that was known for getting his ass kicked by everyone and everything (including kids younger than him) worked there, too. On his way out the door one night, I asked him why everyone kicked his ass. He said, “Oh, they don’t kick my ass, anymore,” and lifted his shirt displaying a snub nosed .38 jammed into his pants.

It was at that time that I got the idea that getting out of the public school system might be a good idea. If I went to public, I figured that I would continue on the same path that I was on, and the trouble looked like it was only going to get bigger. We were already started occasionally drinking before school, and we were fighting everyone and everything that crossed our paths. The prospect that I could be in a fight with someone with a gun was enough to make me want out. I figured that private school might get me out of there: pull me out of the crowd, and out of the town. I wasn’t a drug dealing, gun toting gangsta in the hood, but I was definitely on the wrong track. Although it was never discussed, my mother and sister recently confirmed my feelings of that time by expressing the same sentiment.

The thing about private High School that is beneficial is that they don’t take any trouble. If you fight in school, or make a general punk of yourself, you’re gone. The standard for expulsion is much lower in the private schools, and there are no second chances because they don’t have to keep teaching you. It was settle down, or ship out. There were new rules, but it is easier to take the kid out of the environment than to take the environment out of the kid. This is where the second stage of the progression settled in: The Freak.

The Freaks are close relations to the nerds, and may even qualify as nerds in some cases. They are as low on the social scale as the nerds, but they are usually rebellious enough to take care of business better than the nerd. This is where I landed once I realized that my current path would not be tolerated. Fights were still conducted, but they were conducted off school grounds. The drinking kept going, and it fueled more fighting. Mostly, it was more of the same, though. The football players liked to pick on the nerds and the freaks, and there was a social pecking order, but it was to a lesser extent than in middle school.

I found that violence was still an amazing tool, but an even better tool was intimidation. If you throw up signs that say “Danger! Do not touch,” you will weed out over half of your prospective tormentors. If you have the attitude to match, you weed out another quarter. If there is enough proof out there that you can ultimately back it up, you’ll get another 20 or so percent. Without raising a fist, you have eliminated 95% of all the torment. This is the way that the freak operates.

If people have the option of picking on a dork with glasses, or a guy in a flight jacket, combat boots and a shaved head who is not afraid to stare them down, on whom are they going to pick? The nerd. The freak avoids the heat, and can provide full support to the nerds, as he doesn’t have a circle to fall out of. In my opinion, it’s a more advantageous place to be, as the pressure is much lower. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) you can’t really befriend too many people in this circle. Most of the freaks that you hang out with won’t ever attend a reunion. Just like you, they’ve all opted out.

Posted in Anger