When I was in elementary school there was a bully on our bus. Carlos Aroyllo. He was several years older and several heads taller and several degrees meaner than anyone I knew. He specifically picked my younger brother, Paul, to bully and positioned himself in the seat behind Paul on the bus each morning. Paul was very short, very scrawny and had front teeth two different sizes because he'd been hit in the teeth with a baseball bat at a young age by my aunt who was clearly going for a homerun. Oh, and his ears stuck out. So, you see, he obviously deserved to be thumped by Carlos's hand all the way to school. "Thump! Thump! Thump!" went the bully's hand against Paul's head morning after morning.
I'm a non-violent person. I don't like to see anyone hurt. When I have to remove even a small sliver from the foot of a child I do it at night so the child isn't concious of pain. Immunizations? My worst nightmare. I could never be a nurse or a doctor or anyone remotely involved in the necessary pain that accompanies health and healing. I walked out of the new Joseph Smith movie because the thought of seeing the young Joseph enduring that bone surgery was more than I could bear. To a certain extent, it's debilitating to have such a tender heart and I wish I were a stronger and could be more useful when people, especially children, are hurt.
The point is that this bullying of my brother made me sick. I dreaded getting on the bus and seeing him abused. My parents tried speaking to the bus driver and then to the parents of Carlos but apparently, bullying is genetic. Finally my mother said, "Lauralee, it's up to you. You'll have to thwart the bully." She packed my metal lunchbox and filled my thermos (which was also placed inside my lunchbox) and told me the plan. When Carlos sat down behind Paul, I was to sit across from him and when he began to thump I would hit him in the head with my lunch box as hard as I could. I, the girl who had one day run frantically down the lane toward the departing bus with a white flag in my hand (a cloth diaper, clean thank heaven, that I'd been in the process of delivering to my mother when I'd heard the honking of the bus) was to declare war on Carlos the Bully. Terror is not a strong enough word for what I felt as I boarded the bus that morning and took my seat across from and one seat back from Paul. Carlos was at least predictable and moved immediately to sit behind my brother. Thump! Thump! Thump! Carlos's hand and my heart were thudding together. I wound up, which isn't easy when you're shorter than the seat and I swung. You will all be very sorry to hear that Carlos The Bully had eyes in the back of his head. He saw his life flash before those eyes as he was ducking. At that very moment Paul turned around to see why the thumping had stopped. Grand Slam! Into the wrong face! As I write this it occurs to me that maybe the reason Paul's other baby tooth never fell out to make way for his adult tooth had nothing to do with my aunt and the baseball bat. Oh well, water under the bridge and thank goodness for good dentists.
I cried. And cried. And cried. The rest of the bus laughed and laughed and laughed. Paul just sat there looking dazed and confused. When I got off the bus I still hadn't run out of tears. Halfway through the school morning they were still flowing freely. Teacher called me out to the hall and we had a talk. Then we took a walk down to Mr. Taylor's classroom. Mr. Taylor was infamous for two reasons. He was The Bully's teacher and he was the owner and wielder of the fearsome "JAWS."
I don't mean he had scary teeth, I mean he owned a paddle that occasionally took a bite out of the behinds of Paul Elementary School miscreants. That day Carlos got a taste of Thump! Thump! Thump! As I walked back to my classroom with
Teacher I heard those three thumps, covered my ears with my hands, and felt like I might be sick.
The moral of this story is: Things don't always turn out the way you planned. But that's O.K. because even though things sometimes go terribly haywire they usually work out. After that day Carlos never again even glanced at my brother or at me.
Moral #2: Families stand together. When someone picks on one member, they pick on the whole lot of us. Loyalty! Loyalty! Loyalty! Hurrah!
Moral #3: Sometimes moms do counter-intuitive things. For many years I thought my mother had a lapse of judgement. You know, fighting never solves anything and all those sayings. One day much later I asked my mom about it. She said that she and dad had tried everything they could think of and that her "plan" came about as an answer to prayer. While I was riding the bus that fateful morning she was on the phone with the school telling them what she had instructed me to do and why and then on her knees praying for my success.
Every so often I intend to do a life lesson post about a lesson I learned from my own experiences. I'd love to read about a life lesson from your childhood as well. So, tag - you're it all of y'all. I can't wait!
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4 comments:
Ha! I get to post first this time :D LOL Oh Lauralee, you always have such amusing stories!! Lots of Love <3
What I would give to be a fly on the wall during your childhood. You should make a movie. See you guys soon.
Jared
I love this story. I laughed out loud -- you are such a talented story teller.
As the victim of this tale I have a somewhat different memory of Carlos (Likely head trauma inflicted with his capable hands). I was not privy to the conspiracy hatched between my Mother and The Hammer (Lauralee's deserved post incident nickname). I remember Carlos as a bully no doubt, but I don't recall his aggression as particularly effective in the arena of pain. The lunch pail to the head was surprisingly painless as well despite the efforts of a mother and a full thermos. The answer to that equation is quarters! A lunch box filled with quarters. That may have worked if Laur had spent month’s training for the reported event.
Carlos has occupied little to no time in my conscious over the decades...but his wily cousin Adam brought about far more emotion than Carlos. He was a smart mouth and his weapon of choice was the boot. He wielded it with precision and on a few occasion found his target on the seat of my pants. I am thankful for parents who espoused values beyond social superiority without regard for method.
There was another small boy in my grade who found himself the object of this dreadful duo's affection. His first name was Shane but his last name escapes me. His parents enrolled him in Karate and rumor has it when in the 9th grade he painted Minico High School whit their blood and pride at the same time.
The moral to the story: Sometimes there is cause to fight; but remorse for bludgeoning your brother in the head will haunt you for a lifetime
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