The Red One

Back in my day, we did not bother about certain things. That’s just the way it was. And no one complained about things being “unfair” or “mean-spirited”. Why would you bother? No one was going to say a damn thing to support you. Just better to not say a thing.

Okay, I know that you don’t want to hear all of this, here I am, an old guy with his nephew who wants to do anything except spend the day with me. I’ll let you out of here soon, but for now, you are going to hear and learn a lot about what my life was actually like, not that crap your mother – unbelievably, my sister – has probably told you. We grew up in a different time and did not have the same things you…

Sorry, I keep repeating myself.

Anyway, I was born here; the rest of the family came from the islands. They were the ones who had to get used to this place. Not me. From the get-go, I loved everything about my life: the weather, the food, the hobbies, the kids in my neighbourhood who would get into all sorts of trouble. You know that you are with the right people when your mother tells you she thinks “those boys got faces that will get them in trouble”. What a wonderful way to describe them, mom. Hope she’s looking down – or up – to see how things worked out.

It’s summer. That’s why I am thinking about all this now. As soon as school was out, we all had plans. Grandma wanted me in summer school when she saw I was trouble with math – seriously, an entire summer of fractions and geometry was ahead of me (right up your street, right?) – and I was ready for it, until the walk home and the problems that I thought I could get away from came right back and bit hard.

Remember what I said: certain things just happened. I mentioned the kids that looked like trouble. Some really were trouble; others were just playing and not really able to hold their own (could smell their fear when we were in the schoolyard or playing road hockey on week-ends). But there were a few who just…

Yeah, I know, I have not really talked about him yet. I know that’s why you came over. But I’ll get to that soon…

“Hey, it’s the brain all on his own. No help around for ya, Red.”

Won’t say too much about Rob. We all called him Rob the Blob…behind his back, of course. A kid in grade school that big and that thick – in every sense – could only have been there because he was left behind when everyone else passed. He was a transfer, too, so of course, the rumours just grew and grew. I had heard a few of them by that day. Just stuff about how he had kissed a girl old enough to kick his junk into his throat and he then attacked her. Not sure why that one was so popular at our school. No girl there wanted to touch him. His friends were also predictably as thick as he was (won’t bother with their names here), but not with the same amount of brutality in them…

Or so I thought.

He was a big guy, so running after me was not really on the cards. It was one of his buddies – nasty one with an overbite who already made his feelings about West Indians clear – who tripped me as I ran around a corner of the schoolyard. As I was on the asphalt, they started to kick at me when I looked around for help (about four of them that I barely knew). My bag was spilling out some papers – mom was going to take a whip to someone over that – and then I heard what they were saying.

“Red, Red, Red…”

Really, that is what they kept saying. They had never called me that before and I did not even guess what it could mean. And the kicking did not stop. Somehow, I managed to get up long enough for the Blob to come over and push me back down.

“Lookit him. Like he can’t even get up to fight. But you don’t fight do ya, Red? Can’t fight, can ya?”

And then he punched me.

*

Got you quiet there for a moment, right?

Want to hear the rest of this?

Really?

Okay…I did wake up. I was pretty much still in a daze, cleaning gravel off my face when I noticed it.

Red paint.

Strange, right? You usually just get kids beating each other up and that’s it. They make fun of you for not fighting back, or for pretending that you know how to fight back, but very little art work is involved.

Sorry, bad joke…

Well, they got me. I had paint in my hair, my bag, all up and down my legs (again, I knew your grandma would lose it). It really stank and I had to look at myself as best I could to see if it was real. And then I looked around.

I could see a trail of that crap leading into the grass by one of the trails heading off the asphalt into the fields we usually walked through to get to school.

Really, they were that dumb.

You ever see cartoons where a hunter follows a trail of footprints or breadcrumbs or whatever it is that they could see was left behind their prey? It was the first thing on my mind when I saw that paint. So, I followed it.

Maybe I was just lucky. I didn’t really have to deal with anyone staring too much at me when I found where the trail ended. An empty paint can was dumped on the edge of a set of townhouses not too far from our place up the hill. I knew some people who lived here, but I did not know that the Blob was one of them.

And he was.

How did I know?

I heard him.

Those houses had these backyards that were surrounded by these fences that had a door on the back that opened up on the trail. I could hear them before I saw them, or smell them (it still burns my nostrils to think about them).

So, I had to form a little plan.

*

It was a gamble, but so’s life…so, I threw the dice.

I went to the door and knocked (no doorbell there). And then I waited, but not for too long.

If you ever see a picture of a little old lady in a dictionary, it would probably look like the one who came to the front of that house and gaped at the little boy covered in paint that day.

“Oh, my goodness! What in the wide world happened to you?”

Did not even start by asking for my name; only concerned about a little boy she had never met before who was covered in paint.

You know, I almost did not tell her. I was that close. But then I heard the laughter from the other side of the house and felt the heat of the day in my head.

She did listen to me, that I will give all credit for. She even invited me in for a glass of water. I explained to her that I had not been home that day, so I better see my mom right away.

And then I told her my name.

Yeah, I am getting to him.

Have you ever had a moment when you know that whatever you kicked into play was going to work out better than you could have ever dreamed? I had one on that woman’s doorstep.

She even asked me to repeat the name.

And then I thanked her and went home. Some people did stare at me, but I truly felt better than I thought I could feel in that moment, especially when I heard how loud the door was behind me when I heard it slam in the dying sunlight.

*

Ah, you’re still here. No interesting in taking off or playing video games today, right? Right.

Well, yeah, I will tell you the rest.

Grandma, my mother, screamed bloody murder when she saw me. Probably thought that it was blood at first and wondered if I was hurt. When she saw that it was dried paint, it did not settle her mind. Spent the rest of that weekend getting scrubbed all over and to this day, I cannot stand the smell of turpentine (that was what they used on me). Burned like a bastard for a while.

I don’t remember much else about that week-end. Not much time to do anything except get that gunk off of me, listen to my mother complain about what the world was coming to “with these monster kids all around us,” and then go to my dad and tell him all about it.

Got your attention now, don’t I? Keep listening.

By that Saturday night, most of the paint was off and I had a compress on my black eye (no steak available for that one). My dad was back from work by then, and my mother told him her whole side of things. Of course, he wanted to hear it from me.

“What happened at school?”

I really thought he was joking. I had been dealing with those animals for such a long time now, he should have known exactly what was going on. I was the only black kid at the school and almost laughed off the idea that he needed to know what that meant.

“Dad, look at me. They hate me.”

“They hate you…”

“The kids who did this.”

Now, my father was a bright man. He could also be pretty tough and was not above telling me that I always had to fight back even when I was outnumbered. But he was also very observant.

“You told them you were West Indian?”

“They figured it out.”

He sat back in the kitchen chair and looked off through the backyard windows.

“Makes sense that it was red.”

This confused me and my face showed it.

“Think about it. Red. West Indian.”

I still did not get it.

“Red. Indian.”

I caught a laugh in my throat. My father did not hide his at all.

And I knew now just how dumb certain people can be.

*

Okay, end of story: Rob was not in school that summer. His mother was on campus to talk to the principal and soon his buddies were given a talking to by not only our staff, but also by that sweet old lady who worried about the deep-dyed figure at her door. Strange thing is that they did not come after me. Maybe it had something to do with it being summer. Or maybe she helped. She made it clear that if they were going to go after someone, “they should make sure that they don’t leave a trail”.

And how did I know that she said such a thing?

Well, she told me.

Not really hard to spot the only black kid on a school playground, especially in the summertime, and she was on my shadow before I knew that she was there.

A part of me wanted to run away (I thought that she was going to slap me). And I also wondered how she managed to sneak up on me like that (only the faces of the kids around me who stared in shock gave her away at first).

“Young man?”

I turned around and felt my face get hot.

“Yes, ma’am?”

At least I was polite as I prepared for the worse at that point.

“He won’t be bothering you no more.”

She talked about the trail, his new “school situation,” and how sorry she was that I had to go through any of that.

And then she slowly turned and walked to the trail I took on that very special day.

Like I said, it was all over for him and our school, but there was still one other thing I better mention.

Mom and dad…

They did not go to the school.

Now, I know that it is hard for you to believe that grandma would ever be afraid to let someone have it if her child was being hurt and humiliated. It is even harder for me to believe that my dad would stay so quiet. But they never went to the school. I am still baffled by that.

But I handled it all as well as I could. Never breathed a word about it and did not have to think about paint, bullies too stupid for this world, and the problems of being an outsider for a little while.

Still wonder about the Blob sometimes…

Anyway, that is why I am telling you not to worry about the things happening to you now. High school does suck and should suck enough that you never want to repeat a grade and have to consider the same teachers telling you the same things again and again. Just keep your head down in the books and ignore the ones who will try to make you stick out from the rest. Your mom wanted me to tell you my story before you have a story of your own.

You’ll be fine.

Just make sure you are on the lookout for paint cans if things get bad.

Now, take a break and let me beat you at whatever game you think you’re good at. I used to play with my dad and he taught me some moves that you have never seen…