by Dave Pelzer
A second later tiny bright silver stars danced in front of my eyes. Kong was so quick that I didn’t see his hand move. “I says, ‘What’d you call my sister?’”
My lopsided brain searched for an answer, anything but that word. I raised my shoulder as if to tell Kong I didn’t understand. “What’s the word?” he asked. “Come on, give it to me!”
I braced myself, closed my eyes and gently responded, “Horror?…”
Another flash and stars again filled my vision. With blood seeping from my mouth and nose, Kong readied his cocked arm, asking the same question. With my mind lost in a fog, I kept thinking there must be an echo somewhere, for the rhythm of horror hit, horror smash, horror pummel continued until after more than a dozen poundings, gorilla-boy, King Kong, pounded his chest in front of the crowd, bellowing, “Man, don’t you ever, ever call my sister a whore again!”
With Kong’s departure a small circle of kids surveyed the damage. I felt they were vultures surveying fresh road-kill. All I could do was turn my back and, with my fingers stretched out for my glasses, on my hands and knees I found them, while scrambling to pick up my scattered school supplies. Another kid almost as small as me bent down to help me. “I see you met the Kongster.”
Hesitating, for fear of saying the wrong thing, I nodded my head.
“Don’t sweat it. Everybody, well, most everybody, gets a pounding. Don’t worry, Kong’s a simian. Literally. As dumb as a primate. He’s supposed to be in high school, but he flunked out last year.” As the boy stood up to leave, he gave me a final warning. “Keep your head down and your mouth shut. They say Kong bites the heads off of live rats and his best friend’s a pit bull.”
Before I could smile a thank-you, the boy scurried away like a small fish swimming away before the bigger ones glided by to take a bite out of him as well.
As I fled to find a bathroom, various glees broke out from behind me. “Excellent! Man, did you see that? That dude got creamed!” exclaimed one boy. “Unbelievable! That was just too much!” hollered another. But the one that sank into the back of my mind was, “Man, this is gonna be a hell of a year. Welcome to junior high, geekster!”
My first day of my new life, in a new school, I ended up with a bloody nose, two black eyes, a swollen, cut lip, broken glasses, and not an ounce of dignity. And in its stead: a thirst to discover the true meaning of the word whore.
The next few months of my life became a whirlwind of moving to several different foster homes throughout the county, only to end up being “placed” with the same family that I started off with and returning to the same school where I had been the object of torment. For some reason, since I had trouble remembering all the different homes, names, addresses, and telephone numbers, I had stupidly assumed I would somehow be granted a fresh start in my former school. But it only took a matter of hours for word to spread that the small-fry, fish-eyed, lens-wearing “geekster” had returned.
Every day I programmed myself to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I realized there were different cliques of kids—the tough boys sporting black vinyl jackets, the cool kids with their BMX bikes, the sport jocks, the kids with brains, the makeup queens with strawberry lip gloss and tiny tube-tops, and the seemingly perfect china doll-like girls strutting in Jordache hip-hugger pants and rabbit-fur jackets. Passing through the hallways as others lined up to get to their next class, I felt lucky if one of the roaming sharks didn’t find me.
For the most part, even when I kept to myself, my predators would locate me. I was picked on at the bus stop before school, during school recess, on the bus after school; or whenever I’d skip the bus to avoid confrontation, I was jumped on the walk home. As before when I lived at my mother’s house, I never fought back, never raised a hand, or possessed the common sense to run away. I took my licks until the bullies grew tired, the chants from the crowds subsided, or my assailants took pity on me. As much as I wanted to strike back with superhuman force, I knew I had the defensive capabilities of a scarecrow.
My main obstacle wasn’t my slim frame, my lack of fashion sense, or being the new kid, but my overbearing mouth. A majority of the time I had the perfect timing of always stating the wrong things at the wrong times. To compound matters, whenever my nervous adrenaline flowed, my brain whirled a million miles a second for the exact things to say, while my mouth would either hang open or stutter to form a few words.
Desperate to fit in and be one of the kids, one weekend I spent my time clinging to my high school-age foster sisters, who strutted to the nearby mall while stopping to cake on mounds of makeup just to be seen and hang out. I couldn’t understand why they acted one way at the shopping center and another way when under the watchful eyes of our foster parents. Either way, I thought they were the prettiest, most self-assured ladies I knew. In order to tag along with my foster sisters, the deal was that as soon as we entered the mall, I was to make myself scarce and under no circumstances approach them. From across the second floor of the open divide, I stared in wonder as the girls smacked on their gum and seemed to giggle every few seconds after some boy would say something. But what amazed me the most was their exaggerated hand gestures and how they twirled the ends of their hair with the tips of their fingers.
That weekend a revelation came to me. I figured out that it wasn’t exactly what one said, but rather how one said it. All I did was replay in my mind everything my older foster sisters did at the mall. I stood in front of my glazed mirror and practiced every nuance the girls employed. Now, I told myself, I was ready to go out and fit in! The next Monday morning, before school started, I wasn’t even fazed when one of the bullies and his cluster stopped me in the hallway.
This, I smiled inside, was my moment.
“Hey, Pa… Pa… Pelzer… What’d you da… da… do this weekend?”
With hours of rehearsal under my belt and pronouncing every word and copying every small gesture, I took a half step forward, placed both hands on my hips, tossed my shoulder-length shaggy hair to the side, and in a cocky I could care less attitude I smacked my lips before saying, “Well, as if it matters, if you must know, I hung out at the mall talking to guys, with my fos…”
Before I could finish my sentence, the new Dave Pelzer shocked the group to the point where every single one of the thugs became paralyzed. Now, it was their mouths that hung open. With my hands still glued to my hips, I took another half step forward while giving the bully a wide smile, knowing I got the best of him, until a member of his gang thrust his fist at me, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Oh my God, Tony! Pelzer’s queer. He’s queer!”
As if waking up from a trance, the chief bully, Tony, seized my collar, threw me to the concrete, and commenced to pound me, much to the delight of half the school. After several blows to the face, Tony stopped, huffing, “Tell me, are you queer? Come on, tell me, are you queer or what?”
Having no idea what Tony’s true meaning of another slang word was, and with my brain stuck in neutral, all I could do was sputter, “I guess so. I, I ah, I mean, you guys tell me all the time, how different I am.”
The pounding resumed. In between the hits, Tony roared, “Are you gay?”
Gay? my pulsating mind screamed. Gay! That was one word I knew the actual meaning of. Having read sections of one of my foster parents’ Bible and having been a closet bookworm for years, gay, was one of the most upbeat words I knew!
“Answer me, dweeb!” Tony yelled. “Are you gay, or what?”
Between blows, with my hands covering my face, I blared, “Not at the moment… And you could stand to be more happy yourself!”
Stupefied, Tony immediately dropped me to the floor. Standing over me, he wasn’t sure how to respond until one of Tony’s buddies slapped him on the back, warning, “You better go wash your hands, dude; you don’t want none of that to rub off on you. The dude’s homo!”
Later that afternoon, I limped into my foster sister Nancy’s room, with my hands on my hips, begging her to tell me the slang mean
ing of the words from school. Nancy shook her head in disbelief at my sudden stance and my extreme gullibility. After explaining to me the subtle differences between the boys and girls, she informed me it wouldn’t hurt for me “toughen up” a bit. Per Nancy’s recommendation, the next weekend I purchased a ticket to a Kurt Russell Disney film, but boldly snuck into an R-rated movie instead. In the darkness, my mouth hung open; this time not from the suave British secret agent but the pulsating heavy bass sounds and the gritty no-nonsense character of Detective Harry Callahan. After sitting through three consecutive showings, I spent the rest of the weekend standing in front of the same mirror as before; but this time, rather than twisting the ends of my hair, I squinted my right eye while tilting my chin ever so slightly, and coldly speaking as if I had gravel in my mouth, asking my reflection, “Do you feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?”
The following Monday at school as I closed my locker, Tony and his band of boys appeared, “Hey, Pa… Pa… Pelzer, I hear you been shoppin’ for girls’ underwear. Are you wearin’ some now?!”
Even though my stomach was in knots and Tony was at least a foot taller and twenty-five pounds heavier than me, I maintained my cool facade. This time, I told myself, I was ready for them. This time I took a half step back, raised my chin while nearly closing my right eye, and in a low but clear voice, I fired back, “Are you talkin’ to me?”
Tony’s face froze. Without giving him a chance I maintained control. “I said, ‘Are you talkin’ to me?’ ’Cause if you are, you have to ask yourself a question.… Do you feel lucky?” I paused for effect. Around me, small gasps of admiration broke out from the group. Maintaining my stare, I lifted my chin up just a tad as I raised my voice, “Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya… punk?”
Tony’s eyes seemed as if they would tear up. Maybe he felt bad for making my life hell. And now, I thought, he’s learned his lesson. When Tony shook his head, that’s when I knew I had him. Until he fired away with both fists to my face, shouting, “Lucky! I’m lucky ’cause I can kick your ass! Get it… punk?”
It was over before I hit the cement. Tony stormed off but half his gang stayed behind. “Do it again!” one kid howled. Getting up, I wiped the blood from my lip, hoping my nose didn’t burst with blood and I could find some tape for my glasses. Nodding in a way that conveyed the message “All right, show’s over, geek boy got his butt kicked again,” all I wanted to do was crawl under a rock. “Hey, it’s okay,” one of the boys said with sincerity. “We thought what you said was cool. How’d you do that? I mean, do it again, man!”
As much as I thought I was about to receive another pounding, I muttered the phrase again. “No,” a different boy broke in, “do that, that thing, with your face and the eye.” When the boy raised his voice, I flinched. “Dude, it’s okay, it’s cool, just go ahead and do it for us.”
With the fear of being set up again racing through my veins, I reluctantly reared my head back, stared one of the boys down, and imitated Dirty Harry’s voice. Seconds later the boys beamed at me. “Again!” they pleaded.
I repeated my performance almost a dozen times and threw in other imitations without thinking. I felt ten feet tall. Surprisingly the entire group, which had tormented me in the past whenever Tony was around, now gave me a combination of slaps on the palm of my hand. As the group departed, one of them warned me, “Pretty cool, but don’t forget, you’re still a doofus. And when Tony’s around, I don’t know you. You think I want him kickin’ my ass? I don’t think so. So, remember man, I don’t know you.”
Confused, all I could do was shake my head as if I agreed. As if sensing my bewilderment, a sharp-dressed kid came up to me. “Man, you don’t get it, do ya?” I shook my head no. “Man, it’s life in the food chain and this is the world. Just ’cause they be likin’ you now don’t mean squat. You dig?” I gave him a stupid grin. “Yo man, check it out. You ain’t got it, can’t find it, won’t ever have it, even if a truckload was dumped on ya. And your threads, I ain’t even gonna go there. Then you be walking around like you’s hunched over like, like that dude from Notra Dam. And in class, ‘the teach’ ask you a question, you be all spazzin’ out. And man, I gots to tell ya, you look like a midget version of John Denver. The glasses, the hair, the whole getup; man, what’s up with that? Rocky mountain high, my ass.” He stopped for a moment, shaking his head. “You still don’t dig it, do ya?”
I never heard anyone whip out so many words like that before. It was as if his mouth was dancing. I was mesmerized by the rhythm and timing of how the kid’s words flowed so effortlessly. Before the cool boy left, he shook my hand in a way it had never been shaken. As he strutted off to the next class, he turned around, flashed me a sign, and shouted, “Peace!”
Back at home, in my room, I replayed everything the young man said to me. Before I entered kindergarten, I always knew I was different; that I didn’t fit in. And since entering foster care, especially in junior high, I saw in the clearest sense how so many kids acted—either to fit in, impress, or just in a defensive manner. It seemed that if I stayed in the shadows, if I kept my mouth shut, and didn’t fight back to try to defend myself, it didn’t matter. Absolutely nothing worked for me.
As I had a short time ago, I knew I had two lives: my outside one, that everyone seemingly tormented and teased; then my inner one, the one that truly mattered, that only God and myself knew about. Deep down inside I knew I was smart. I was lightning fast in math, and whatever books interested me I’d absorb them into my mind. What the kids didn’t know, what the tough kids could never understand, was the fact I had been put through a great deal and survived more than any of them could possibly fathom. From deep within I constantly told myself the same mantra I had since I was eight years old: If I could survive all that I did alone, without any help, then what could I not possibly accomplish?
Feeling myself become frustrated, I played the tape over in my mind for the millionth time that once I was eighteen and out of foster care, none of this would matter. Once I turned eighteen, I would be on my own, do as I pleased, and no one would ever bother me, ever again.
Yet in the core of my soul, all I ever wanted, all I ever craved was to belong. That someone my age would see that goodness within me. I wished I had a friend. A real friend. That night, as I prayed for my family that I was not allowed to see, I wished with all of my heart that I could simply fit in.
3. Wonderland
As a young teen, I came to believe that I was way too odd to ever belong or be accepted among kids my age. My reasoning came from a long internal list that basically broke down to a combination of my mannerisms, how I dressed, talked, my social awkwardness, and my almost nonexistent esteem. My only outlet was to withdraw to the one element that provided me a protective shield and a sense of worth: work. Deep down inside, without hesitation, I always knew I could complete whatever task was assigned. I only desired the chance to prove myself.
Part of my rationale lay within a growing paranoia I kept buried, that once I reached the legal age of eighteen, I would in effect “age out” of the foster care system. Within months of becoming a foster child, I learned from the terror in others’ eyes who had approached that age how they feared becoming abandoned with nowhere or no one to turn to, mainly because they did what other kids did: date, go out with friends, and enjoy the wonders of their youth, rather than slave away and hoard every dollar for that inevitable day. Drawing from my compartmentalizing mind that I developed years before, I reasoned that, to my advantage, I could replace my lack of confidence and loneliness with getting ahead and by saving for my future all the sooner. Internally, years before foster care, my very existence, everything in my life was equated to sustenance. So as a young teen, the math was simple. When I became an adult, if I had no money, I had no food. No food, I starve. I starve, I die. And after all that I had been put through already, I could not allow that to happen.
With little pity or remorse for myself, while a majority of the cool kids from school bragged about wh
at party they went to, how much they drank, who they kissed, how far they went, what bitchin’ record they just bought, or seeing friends while hanging out at the mall, I quietly began my own enterprise. On the weekends I spent my time going from door to door asking to mow someone’s grass or begging to perform any odd job around the neighborhood. Then, and even though I was scared to death, with my brand-new shoeshine kit in hand, I ventured into the seedy, darkened bars on the city’s main street, promising the best shine for only fifty cents. As the months passed after a small growing spurt, I lied on my job application that I was a year older so I could work at the mall’s restaurant as a busboy. With my long scrawny arms, I barely had the strength or endurance to carry the gray plastic tubs practically spilling over with dishes and glasses that were stacked like a pyramid. For months I lacked the skill and speed of snatching the blistering-hot dishes and utensils that slid through the dishwasher as lightning fast as the other older boys, so hours after the mall had closed for the evening I completed my task while a frustrated assistant manager would sit on top of a cushioned swivel seat, while I frantically mopped the tiled floor under his feet.
As hard as it was, and as completely degraded as I felt and smelled at times, whenever I crossed the railroad tracks that led me to my foster home, inside I smiled. I earned a whopping $2.65 an hour. No one gave it to me and no one could take it from me. I earned it. Late into the night, as swirls of cold gray fog hugged the ground, with mounds of food and grease covering every inch of my face, matted hair, and shirt, I proudly walked home. While other kids were goofing off, I was little “big man” earning a living, paying taxes, putting in thirty to thirty-five hours a week. Then, during breaks, when school was out for more than a week, I easily worked more than sixty hours a week. My efforts counted where it mattered. I told myself I was responsible. In the working world, I belonged. It didn’t matter if I stuttered, what clothes or shoes I wore, or what friends I had or didn’t have. At work I was a real person. I belonged.
