I learned that a classmate died back in Woodland. His body was found in a storage unit, sitting in a car with a laptop computer in his lap. No obvious signs of foul play. He was 43 years old.
He was an interesting case in my life in that during jr. high, he was a tormentor of mine. Not as bad a bully as a couple others that I made the mistake of catching their attention in the hallways of hell known as middle school, but he was definitely a dark little cloud on my horizon on a semi-regular basis.
That changed in high school. How? Welllll, as I've mentioned before, I found my own little freak flag by hanging out with the punk kids. He found his tribe with the heavy metal kids and was in a few bands. One of those bands would hire my dad to fix their sound equipment when it went on the fritz...which turned out to be quite often. I don't know how they initially got in contact with my dad, but I clearly remember the first time I found out that my dad did repair work for him and his friends when they came by to talk to my dad about something-or-other-that-was-related-to-whatever-job-he-did-for-them and I answered the door when they came by my HOUSE. Have you ever had a tormentor show up on your doorstep before?! It's...SURREAL and a bit FRIGHTENING to say the least.
But he stopped tormenting me after that. I assume it's because he didn't want to rock the boat when it came to having my dad fix his band's equipment. The kicker is I never said a thing to my parents about him. I didn't want to be weak. To be needing help, or to rock the boat. I assumed that being bullied was part of my lot in life at that time.
And, really? If he stopped bullying me, what would have been the point to bring it up to my parents?
So everyone benefited...my dad got work, the guy who used to harangue me stopped, and best of all, I was left alone. Win/win.
I'd see him occasionally at parties or concerts through high school, and he was polite to me. I never saw him after I left for Los Angeles.
I'd like to think that he stopped being mean to me for more than what I could've done to wreck his easy access to getting his band equipment fixed for cheap. That he matured to the point where he realized that I just wasn't worth the effort. And so I shall say that I hope David is in a good place now. Take care, hope you're all right now.
This photo doesn't have anything to do with anything...I just thought it was interesting.
1 comment:
Very interesting post! Middle and high school combine to create one of the strangest periods of life... and then we walk away from it and everything changes after that. I often think back on my own tormentors and wonder where they are now - more often wonder if maybe I was a bit of a tormentor myself. My ten-year reunion is coming up in November, and honestly, I am afraid to go. There are some things I just want to leave in the past. At the same time, no matter how I feel about some of those guys, I hope they're all doing well. I hope we're all getting on with our lives.
...Heh. School. Err, this is a random comment. The post just kinda resonated.
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