The Kill Sean Club - Part III

I probably should have told my teachers or my principal but I really didn’t think it would accomplish anything. John got beat on for four years and all the amount of recess-less room (the only real punishment we had in our school was having your recess taken away and spending it in the classroom with the teacher which as much of a punishment for the teacher who had her quiet time taken away) wasn’t going to stop it. Besides, most of these guys were still my friends outside of school.

Do you remember that Looney Toons cartoon where the coyote, Ralph, would go after sheep and be constantly thwarted by the sheep dog Sam. This would go on for the entire cartoon and then at the whistle would blow and they would punch out like steel workers and say “Good night, Sam” and “Good night, Ralph”? That’s what The Kill Sean Club was like. From the time school started until I got off the bus, it was them vs. me (actually “versus” makes it seem like I fought back). But once we got home, we were all friends again. Some of us were on the same Little League baseball team. I slept over some of these kid’s houses. We hung out on the weekends. But once I got on the bus, it was back to work.

The girls at first stayed uninvolved. The black girls in class had long since shunned me for my lack of interest in hip-hop and R&B. I listened to whatever my older brother listened to when I was 10 and, unfortunately for me, he listened to Level 42 and Depeche Mode. My love for 80’s heavy metal bands in 8th grade only continued to bury me. I sounded and acted “too white” for them. You would think there would be some sort of solidarity between the black kids in a Catholic school. Most of us were Caribbean. Most of us lived in similar houses. But something about me stood out more than the others. The white girls just stayed out of it. They had crushes on some of the guys so it was in their best interests not to say anything.

That all changed on a rainy day in fall. Anytime it rained recess was held in the classroom where we would play board games or, if you were me, would try to do your homework in the closet (it makes more sense why I was chosen). Recess was usually in the presence of a teacher but sometimes, the teacher on duty would wander off to see some of the other teachers or go outside and smoke or cry about the futility of the future of our country after teaching some of these dumb kids. I went to the bathroom and when I returned, the teacher was gone. Suddenly, I am being pelted by game board pieces. I am in the front of the class and I am dodging Monopoly thimbles and Life cars. Someone pushes me against the blackboard and I fall down and Matthew Donahue, one of those kids who was too young to know that his deep hatred for black people was called “racism”, after taking a running start, kicked me in the eye. He didn’t get a good shot because I moved my head with the kick, protecting my glasses more than my face. But it was hard enough that the girls took notice. Two of them carried me to the nurse and the rest told off the boys. When I got back, they made me tell on Matthew (I wouldn’t have otherwise) and he got recess-less room for a week and a call to his parents (he would later mouth to me as I walked by him in the hallway, “You’re dead.” This story is a testament to his failure).

The recess debacle had two long-term effects for the rest of 5th grade. First, no one was allowed to play with the board games except for the girls and me (this was NOT a favor). Second and more importantly, the girls had decided to protect me for the rest of the year. We were still at the age where girls were “icky” but the some of the girls has crossed over to the “will-you-be-my-boyfriend” stage. I would like to believe the only motive for guarding me was altruistic but there was clearly an ulterior motive: getting the boys to notice them.

We would go outside and I would hang out with the girls (or the girls would force me to hang out with them). If The Kill Sean Club came looking for me, they would form a circle around me. The boys had finally grown past the stage of hitting girls so this was effective…until the boys got me alone in the bathroom. Sometimes the girls and guys would get into shoving matches with me as the prize. It was like a game. Only the boys didn’t know the girls were sizing them up. After the boys would surrender (but taking the parting shot of teasing me for being protected by girls), the girls would want to know, “Do you think Kevin likes me?” or “Does Keith have a girlfriend outside of school?”

Being that, I was the only one to associate with both groups, it was my job to find out these innocuous details. I was now the passer of notes, the arranger of after school meetings, the mediator of love. The boys would ask me to find out who Keisha or Gina liked. The girls would ask me is Rob was going to the library. Since no one wanted to find out who I liked (Jen B.) or if I was going to the library after school (I was going if Rob was going), it was pretty sad. But it did effectively end The Kill Sean Club. I only got punched once more at Saint Brigid’s (8th grade and I had it coming to me but the girls still tired to protect me) and I began my new life as matchmaker.

(Two years later, I found out it was Frail Philip who suggested me as the whipping boy. He was Frail Philip because he was so skinny and weak that he broke his arm twice simply from falling down. It was probably in his best interest to turn their bullying needs away from him. I got my revenge later when I organized the theft of several of his Nintendo and GameBoy games.)

The End.