What Public High-School Taught Me
The Academics Were Not The Lasting Impression An Essay For Your Enjoyment
The following names and place has been changed to spare myself any litigation or other legal troubles which may arise from telling the story of that day over twenty years ago. Time flies.
Bayside was the first time I had ever been to a public school. It was nothing like East Side High I was expecting, but it had its own issues. For the first time, I was hanging around kids whose parents weren’t all doctors and lawyers. Very few of them, regardless of race, had parents with so called professions, their jobs were labeled vocations.
Even then I thought it was strange because those parents worked just as hard as the other parents. Those of us with parents with professions were outnumbered. I rarely discussed my family or what my family did, because I was just the new kid.
During the first week of school, I came back to my locker to find a KKK card. It was hanging in place with scotch tape. For some reason it filled me with excitement. The KKK is here? They exist in high school? Instead of fear or trepidation I took it down and ran to my next class. Not because I was running to tell a teacher, one more tardy meant saturday school.
Turns out saturday school is nothing like the Breakfast Club despite my best efforts. I did run the halls screaming, “I want to be an air force ranger, I want to…” I didn’t get the bull by the horns. I met coach. How I got saturday school in two weeks is a story for another time. As for coach, I’ll come back to him.
He is one of many teachers in an all white school that took me under their wing. Not because I was some project to save a black kid in a hostile alien world, they genuinely came to like me, refused to let me squander my potential. My charm and good looks didn’t hurt, what can I say.
Read on.
When I got to class, I took a blank piece of paper from the class xerox machine. I began drawing a large tree with big strong sturdy limbs. I then began drawing klansmen hanging from nooses from the limbs. Perfection.
My father had been teaching me since I can remember, his lesson on the Black Panthers is why I put claw marks on the tree with a big black cat coiled around the base with his claw up as he roared at the sky. I was ecstatic.
I couldn’t tell you what the class lesson had been, I just read the entire chapter because that's where the worksheets came from, the teacher discussed highlights. Besides this picture was far more important to me. It was a Civil War class, our teacher only taught about the Confederacy.
I was giddy with excitement as I snatched four large pieces of scotch tape on my way out of the classroom. I was new at Bayside, turns out I have a knack for meeting people. I told one of my new friends what I was doing. There were 29 black people in a school of 300 hundred at that time, it's safe to say this friend was not. He thought it was funny as hell. We walked to my locker at a brisk pace. I could feel the excitement bubbling inside of me.
Who the hell did they think they were messing with, I had been hated by Catholic kids, not for being black. In Catholic schools we essentially grow up together, so it was more like familial hate, like being sick of someone's face or their annoying tooth sucking. Catholic school can be far more harrowing than public school could ever imagine.
This kind of hate I had only read about in history books. I had no idea the Klu Klux Klan was still around. I had only seen pictures in books. I always asked myself, where were the black people’s guns? I know for fact, if I were alive during those times, no doubt in my mind would I own a gun. If you are wondering, of course I have a gun. I am a Missouri boy. Born and raised.
I would have shot any ghost trespassing on my property. There many stories of such incidents, but to include those would destroy the narrative that black people were easily frightened by the boogie men in white sheets. I know for a fact, there instances of fighting back, but the black newspapers printing those stories no longer survive.
I felt it necessary to make a point, I ain’t scared of no ghost.
When I got to my locker, there was already a new card in place of the last I tore down. I looked around feeling like whomever was doing this had to be close, watching to see my reaction. I made a show of ripping it down to wipe my ass with it in the hallway.
All the kids were laughing around me, except one, bingo. The other students were now talking to me, introducing themselves. My friend was basking in the attention, seems his status was elevated too. I took my protest art masterpiece from my bag and carefully taped it to the front of my locker.
I saw a few eyes go wide, but many more laughed even harder. Racism was old hat to me. It wasn’t just white on black racism either, but black on black as well. I can’t tell you how many kids pointed to the Niger river during world geography. They always thought it was funny. We studied world history every year starting in third grade. I heard the joke every year until twelfth grade graduation. Like I said, old hat.
I knew it would get a reaction from whomever was taping the KKK cards to my locker. Never in a million years could they have foreseen a black kid drawing a picture of hanging klansman with the caption, “I was born a ghostbuster.”
Feeling proud of myself I went on to my next class. Word of my antics were spreading through the school like wildfire. I was sitting idly during my next class when people began looking into the hall. It seems there were a collection of boys in tight Lee Jeans and Ropers collecting outside the door. It seems that they were not happy with my art.
I paid no attention. I had been fighting in the ghetto against kids for being “hi yella” with accusations of me talking white for years. I had been fighting in Catholic schools because the map joke was old and I got tired of people touching my hair. I am a lover. I am also a fighter. Which means I would prefer to make love. Though if it's a fight you want, I won’t start it, but I will damn well finish it.
The modern beeping signaled the end of yet class. The class was reading, The Bridge To Terabithia. I read it in 3rd grade, great book, so I did the homework during class. I was putting my book in bag, when another new friend came to me.
There was a bunch of cowboys, I guess it was Bayside’s version of the cowboys from Tombstone. I didn’t give a damn, I’ll be ya huckleberry.I walked into the hall ignoring them. I feel a hand on my shoulder, I knock it off with my opposite hand,
“Don’t fucking touch Me”
“What’d you say boy”
“You heard me shitkicker”
“You didn’t like our welcome card”
“I did. It made great toilet paper”
“You don’t talk like them others”
“What? I don’t know them others”
He steps to me menacingly, handing his notebook and letter jacket to the cutie next to him. I wink at her, because girls are the reason I fought to leave Jesuit school. She blushes, and he pushes her with a little too much force for my taste.
“Whoa cowboy, y’all treat everyone like that”
“Who do you think you are boy”
“The boy who is going to fuck you up”
As I stood five foot nothing in front of who turned about to be a varsity linebacker. I have never been much for bullies. It may seem hard to believe, but I even fought the kindergarten bully.
That one didn’t go so well because he had been held back twice already, but a friend saved that day. That friend was a giant of a boy, he was also my best friend, born eleven days apart. This time I was alone. A stranger in a new land, though I was use to that role. No matter where I go, it seems that I stick out.
I stood alone in front of the giant cowboy linebacker and his friends. Though my reaction was not how they thought this was go down. I let my bag fall from my shoulder to the floor. I never took my eyes from his as the stare down was in full effect.
“You some kind of tough guy, gangbanger”
“You’re the one with the gang, far as I can see, it's only me”
“You got a smart mouth boy”
“Thats enough of that boy shit, my name is Jonas”
“Jonas? I ain’t never heard of a black kid with that name”
“I don’t give a fuck what you heard”
By now my heart is racing because I’m thinking I going to have to fight this big son a bitch. I mentioned I had been in plenty of fights, that doesn’t mean I won them all. Anyone who fights will tell you sometimes you take a loss, I never took an ass kicking, but I have felt a few good shots.
This big guy reminded of other know big kid I had fought couple of years earlier. Call him, BP, B for big, but I won’t say his name because I won’t. Well BP had taken four great punches to the face. One for each eye, one in the nose, last one in the jaw which connected funny hurting my hand. Seems BP didn’t like it, so like a bad guy in an action movie, he growled “MY TURN”, then he punched me in the stomach. I nearly shit myself. Screw this I thought as The Gambler by Kenny Rogers began playing in my head.
🎶You got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.�
With BP, I ran like hell. At that moment, I thought why give him a chance, his four to my one, was enough for me to realize he had the winning hand. I was playing outcomes in my mind as I stood before the cowboy linebacker. We were in a standoff, two kids throwing taunts back and forth, his cowboys egging him on.
Then the unexpected happened, a group of kids were behind me. Word had gotten around like it does in highschool, suddenly the new kid had back up. I didn’t know many of them, but apparently a lot of them were sick of this group as well.
“Had to get your boys to save you” he laughs turning to his boys.
They laughed but it wasn’t same full laugh. I was watching as their posture began changing. They were not anticipating an audience, especially one for my side. I was some new black kid, no way people would care if I got beat up. There are always good people willing to stand up, especially if someone else is the messenger.
One of my uncle’s growing up was always quoting Archie Moore, the famous boxer who said, “It's not the size of the dog in the fight, It's the size of the fight in the dog” I was not afraid of the linebacker which made him angrier. He face was now glowing bright pink.
“You stupid ni…”
I didn’t let him finish. I threw a punch, planting my foot and swiveling my hip to rotate, to put something behind it. It was a missile straight for his stomach, solar plexus really, and it landed with a resounding thud. He fell to a knee, shock all over his face, gasping for air. I wasted no time, I began throwing punches at his face as hard as I could. Whap. Whap. Bap. Blap. I pulled back for a final punch, when I was yanked off my feet from behind.
“Now that's enough, goddamn it”
The voice was full of authority, and students vanished into thin air. The linebacker was still kneeling, but now he was looking up with shock and surprise. What the hell? Then it hit me, crap, this is an after school special with me, as the troubled protagonist.
What you think I would cast myself as antagonist in a story I tell. Get real.
In this story the new black kid transfers in, next thing you know he’s fighting with a lineman from the varsity football team. Damn it, now I’ll be the troublemaker from now on, I just left a school to start over. Does trouble follow some people or do some people always make trouble? I would argue it is a delightful mixture depending upon the person and the trouble they cause.
I did not fight or struggle with the voice, which turned out to be Coach.I walking down the hall, with the coach's hand on my shoulder. A sense of dread was filling me. My parents were going to kick my ass, leaving the Jesuits was bad enough, but now I am fighting in my first week at Bayside.
I was calm, a serenity had filled my being, for I surely thought if this my last day on earth, it's not so bad. I am in my thoughts when I feel a pat on the back.
“I can’t believe you hit Bubba* like that”
“Better him than me”
“You got guts kid, we heard about the cards, that's not how we are here, those dumbass kids don’t know what they are doing”
“If you say so”
“That picture of yours, pretty funny”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Coach and I developed a friendship from that day on. Not just a teacher student, but mentor student, with dirty jokes about my mother and his wife. He really showed me that all people aren’t the same because that could have gone far differently. It did start in motion a series of events that you will have to read to believe. See you next week.
52 Week Challenge
By Jonas Hughes
*All the other names are fake, my name is real. I hoped you enjoyed this walk down memory lane. I had a great time at that high school and met people I call friends to this day. There will always be ignorant people, but fighting is not always the answer. I even partied with those cowboys a year later. Seems most ignorance comes from ignorance, once people know the difference, often you will find they are just like everyone else, human.
