Walking Away
Perfecting the Art
Not Missing — Just Wandering
One thing I learned at an early age, and have at times in my life nearly perfected, is the art of walking away. I did it a lot when I was very young, even before I have memories of it, based on family stories. I would just wander off, and be gone for hours, while the family frantically searched far and wide for me, sometimes even calling the cops to help find me. Most times, I would eventually just wander back, never even knowing I was missing! I was just out exploring the world beyond the confines of my little neighborhood. Something out there would pique my curiosity, so I would go check it out.
There’s one story, from when I was still in diapers, maybe 18 months old, where a neighbor came to the door of my family’s house, with me in tow, asking “does this little fella belong to you?” There was a big Cub Scout meeting going on in our house. My older brothers were in the scouts. As scouts showed up, I somehow slipped out the door unnoticed, and was discovered by the neighbor wandering down the middle of Midland Street, in the pouring rain, in my diapers.
Life Lesson in Non-Violence
In 6th grade, I was squaring up for a big fight with the school bully. I’d had enough of his taunts and put-downs in the hallways of St. Pius X school, so I’d called him out — after school, at the corner of Dorchester and Pioneer Avenues. I had an honor to defend, and just wanted to get him off my back. I didn’t care if it would cost a little blood spilled. I’d had enough!
The whole school, it seemed, were gathered around in a big circle as I got ready to defend my honor against Ernest Brandi. Just then, up Pioneer strolled my amazon of an older sister, Juli. She strode right into the circle and proceeded to brow-beat me about the senselessness of violence, and how it never solved any problems, only made them worse.
I was mortified by this turn of events! It was so bad, Ernie eventually laughed at me, shook his head with a look that said, “Oh, you poor SOB”, and just walked away, laughing at me. But the fight had been defused by my big sister’s peace-nicking intervention.
A funny thing about that, and a valuable lesson that was not lost on me. Ernie never bothered me again after that! The humiliating lecture had served the purpose I was hoping the fight would serve — to just get that bully off my back. I found myself more and more dedicated to the idea of non-violence after that. That dedication would become to my own detriment a little later on, when I began my 4 year “internship” with the sports crowd, desperately trying to learn how to be an athlete, and to just fit in with them.
Desperate to Fit In
I was a very awkward kid, and desperate to fit in somewhere. I felt like I was different from the other kids. That was a very lonely feeling to live with. One of the kids from the sports crowd had sort of befriended me — he got me to help him deliver the papers on his afternoon newspaper delivery route after school, and discovered that I would do just about anything he asked me to do. I was so willing, and so desperate for a friend. I had my own morning paper route, but helping Duff after school seemed like a way in to the sports crowd he hung with. We became friends, and my plan worked.
However, I was really bad at sports. These kids had been playing for years already, while I had just been a sports spectator. I had learned about the rules and theory of many different sports, but execution was a whole other ballgame.
Heck, I couldn’t even make the cut for the Little League in baseball. I wound up playing on a Minor League team. My whole team walked off the field in the middle of a game, after we pulled off a triple play on a ground ball to third base, when the umpire called all three runners safe. It was a travesty — so, we left! (There’s that “walking away” theme again!) Tommy’s grandfather was the only adult presence for our team, and he had said, “Come on, boys — let’s go get some ice cream. You don’t need this crap!” We got banned from the league after that. That was the end of my baseball-playing career as a youth.
What the sports kids discovered was, I would take any crap they dished out to me. I would not defend myself. I’d gotten that damn non-violence idea so deeply ingrained in my psyche (thanks, Juli!), I did not believe in fighting. We could work it out some other way, I always thought. Well, guess what — it didn’t work! I kept turning the other cheek, like the guy we were all supposed to be faithful followers of told us to do, and all I got for my turning was two bloody cheeks!
A Way Out
I just took it, for 4 long years, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I eventually just walked away from those guys. By the time I did, I had become such a joke to them — some of them seemed to take sadistic pleasure in messing with me, verbally, physically, in whatever way they could, but I just kept turning the other damn cheek. It got to be beyond sick. I was so beaten down by it all, I didn’t think there was any way out. I just couldn’t, and wouldn’t, fight. I simply didn’t believe in it. Some of these good catholic kids didn’t share my belief in non-violence.
When I got a job at a restaurant, at age 15, as a busboy, I made new friends there. I also started smoking, and by the end of that year, I was also drinking with my new friends. Little did I know, at the time, that I was trading one trap for another, but just then, it felt like freedom to me. I tried living in both worlds for a while that summer — I had actually begun to be a decent athlete, not great, but I could hold my own on a field of play. I still liked playing sports. But, the world of drinking and my new friends who didn’t beat me up or mess with me mentally, made the decision to walk away from the sports crowd pretty easy.
One day, I just stopped hanging with them, and I walked away. Life became so much simpler — well, it sort of did. There was the need to avoid them all at school, which I got really good at. We were now in the all-boys catholic high school, which I truly hated. I liked girls, and being around boys all the time really sucked, as far as I was concerned. I spent most of my junior year cutting as many classes as I could, doing just good enough to get C’s and D’s on my report card.
Final Act of a “Friendship”
One fateful night, I was walking down Pioneer Avenue from my job as a busboy at the Red Bull Inn in Dormont. I had just walked past the grounds of St. Pius X, where I used to always hang out with my sports friends, playing basketball, football, you name it, we played it all there. I hadn’t been around there for nearly six months at that point. I heard someone call out my name, and there was my old pal, Duff. He looked mad as a hornet, with two other guys in tow, as he stormed up Pioneer to confront me.
‘This is it’, I thought. I was still determined not to fight, even though he clearly had just one thing on his mind.
He yelled, “Hey, Peter, where you been? I hear you’re smoking now, and drinking?”
“That’s right, Duff. It’s fun — you should try it sometime”, I laughed.
The next thing I knew, he’d let fly a sucker-punch that knocked me right down. As I tried to get back up, he pounced on me, and let go a flurry of punches that left me pretty badly beaten and bloodied. My glasses were broken, my white dress shirt was covered in my own blood, and I might have broken my nose, again (second time) — but my spirit was still fully intact. His violence no longer had the power over me that it once had. I simply didn’t care anymore.
I just looked at him with disgust, shook my head, and said, “And you were supposed be my friend. Some friend you turned out to be!” He was ready to charge me again, just so full of venom and hatred for whatever it was I symbolized to him, but his cronies held him back and said, “You’ve done enough, Duff — let him go.”
That was the last time I ever talked to the kid who was supposed to be my best friend from 6th grade to 10th. I had always been a true and faithful friend to him, up until I couldn’t take the cost of that friendship any longer. But, walking away was the best thing I could have done at the time. I never missed the pain of being his friend. I eventually felt sorry for the poor bastard.
