Don't Touch

non-subject ~ "in groups"

(aww 02/10/10)

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I stood in the breezeway area, the wide side walk covered with a metal roof that was attached to the tall steel polls. The side walk that led from the Gymnasium to the school building, the school building where classes were held except for Chorus and Band; they were taught in the large rooms that attached to the Gymnasium.

I don't recall exactly what prompted my thoughts nor with whom I was standing as I observed the cliques of teenagers, of which I was part.  Why do we gather in these different groups?

I was in 8th grade.  I think it was spring; I wasn't wearing a coat. I may have been in my cheerleader outfit.  I usually felt sexy and pretty in my short skirt, bobbie socks, and saddle oxfords.  I had a nice physique, fit and shapely, but not busty.  My lure for the males were my legs.  Guys were always complimenting my legs, or "wheels." Mom said I got my legs from her; she was right.

One guy told me I had a "T-bellybutton," like Raquel Welch. He told me that in the summer when he saw me in my bikini at the public pool. But standing there in the breezeway, I wasn't in my bikini and I wasn't thinking about belly buttons.  But I was thinking about innies and outies, though I wouldn't have called it that at the time. "Innies" referring to who was popular, the "in-crowd." "Outies" referring to those who weren't popular. There were some that fit in neither group; I don't know what they would be called.

I was an "innie.:

That's one reason I was a cheerleader; the students voted on who made the squad.  It was part, if not mainly, a popularity contest. To get voted on, one had to have the smile, the body, the right rhythm, the voice, the face, and be able to do the kangaroo jump.  I was never in a beauty contest; I thought they were silly.  But how was cheerleading that much different, really?  I made the squad three years in a row, 7th and 8th and 9th grades, all at College Park Junior High School.  There were no boys on the squad, only girls.

I tried to not fall prey to the innie/outie thinking and behaviour.  Yet I know I did at times, feeling superior to someone less popular or less smart or less physically fit. Growing up, I felt compassion for the runts of a litter, the little ugly pup that no one wanted. Runts were like outies; so was the devil. When I was a little girl I never understood why the devil be couldn't be saved too. Couldn't love heal all?

The "freaks," as we called them, were standing outside that day down beside the gym, near the area that led to the outdoor concrete bleachers on the hill on the opposite side of the gym. The "freaks" with their long hair, afros, and hippie clothes. Their group intrigued me. I wondered if they noticed me, if the freaks noticed me as I stood in the breezeway area.  I noticed them and felt a pull to maybe someday discover their world.

But not now, not yet.  I was dating Tim and later would date Dale.

Dale who was 3 or 4 years older than I.  Dale who drove a gold Cutlass Supreme where I would give him blow jobs and we'd fuck in the backseat, me at 14 and 15 and Dale at 18 and 19. Dale whose family lived in a ritzy section of town.  Dale who, short of stature, made up for his height in how well he played basketball; he could jump like a cricket. He always dressed nice and wore just the right cologne. His smile was sweet, with an almost shy countenance. He was a gentleman in public.

Dale who would get drunk and then hit me with his fist or an open hand, usually just one punch in the abdomen or slap on the face. He usually hit me because he got jealous or he thought I was drinking or maybe smoking dope. He wanted me to stay away from dope and alcohol, and I did.  He only hit me if he had too much to drink. He always apologized later.

In eleven months of dating, there were nine hitting sessions.  The final one in someone's bathroom in a home in a nice section of town. It seems it was by Lake Hickory; perhaps it was in Lakeland Park.  A steep blacktop driveway led to the basement where folks were partying, the basement where that bathroom was, where Dale with a liquor bottle in hand somehow cornered me in the bathroom, with the door closed.

I was fifteen when I changed ranks to the "freaks."

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Click here to read an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction

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