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Krause before/after Here I sit, in the sun. Vaio laptop doing its thing. The last time I wrote in the sun was years ago. Wrote on a lap anyway. Nagging thoughts have been hounding me the past few days. Specifically, as I mowed the grass at my father's business building. That sounds more impressive than it is. One story. I mowed the grass and thought o fthe stable pool I'm in, the soft lives of easy parade days and fridays where nathin' gets done. I thought of Al Campbell. "SUCK ME RAW! SUCK ME RAW!" we chanted in the eighth grade, at the end of the assembly where we met our new principle. The principal was spotted later on in life at a porn shop, searching for porn, apparently. Some of the guys around my age took to calling him at home, saying things like, "We saw you at the porn shop. We know." and hanging up. He died even later in life from heart trouble. We sat at the back row of the bleachers, and it was important to Al that we chant this. He actually managed to express himself without violence, so everyone complied. I did, too, for the sheer asinine fun of it. I was the only one with free will in the deal,a being that I was the only one who had successfully stood up to Al at that point in life. Al was a bully that had been held back from a few grades ahead of us. 'C'mon guys," al said, "We're eight graders now, its the only time we can get away with this." This was the most I had heard him express ever. He sounded full of emotion. "SUCK ME RAW!" we chanted. The principal finished his speech and dismissed us by grades. First the sixth graders. "SUCK ME RAW!" the guys chanted. I excercised my free will. "Say it, Argentum," Al said in a low threatening tone. I looked him in the eye. "No." was all I said. I wasn't into a fight just then. Strangely enough, for all his emotion that bade of ill happenings for all of us, neither was he. "Allright, Argentum, ya' wussy." he flexed his arm, and made to punch me. "Fuck you, Al," I said. "SUCK ME RAW!" the rest of the guys chanted. Some stopped, eyeing the showdown. It could mean a sort of freedom for them if I won. He punched me in the shoulder, hard. Al always left bruises. The seventh grade got dismissed. "SAY it." he said. "I do what I want," I said, making heavy eye contact, making my point clear. "Allright, you're gonna' get it!" I said nothing but stood my ground. The seventh graders had filed out of the gym, the guys in the back row had stopped chanting. Al stood up to start something with me, but in his eye there was a fear. In years past he made me angry. I don't get angry often. Maybe it was that time in the parking lot as we waited to be let onto the busses. The busses snaked around the parking lot, empty. Children assembled and formed loose lines, to gain the coveted back seat. It was seventh grade. I was making friends, getting along and over my parochial school background. Trying to, anyway. Some of that stuff will be with me for life. I didn't bother anyone. But Al still harassed me. Al was poorly socialized. His greeting consisted of a high pitched sadistic sound and punching the shit out of whomever received his greeting. He was feared by all. He was already shaving. Anyway, I stood in line in the parking lot at the busses. I had a good spot in line, second, I believe, garunteeing me a back seat if I so chose. I never did. I went for the middle. I had come from parochial school, like I said, and my background and native intelligence had alienated me somewhat from the mainstream until eight grade, when I learned to conceal it. Al sauntered up to the line. "You better not take the back seat, school boy." Al said to me, threateningly. I ignored him. "I SAID, you better not take the back seat, school boy. That's MY seat." he said, punching me in the shoulder, hard, leaving a mark. I sighed. "Leave me alone." Over the years, I learned about myself that the statement, 'leave me alone', is much more a warning than anything else. "WHAT? WHAT did you say to me? You PUSSY!" he said, punching me again. The guys standing around went "oooo-OOOO-ooo!" Now there was a crowd. I'm not much for humiliation. "I SAID: LEAVE. ME. ALONE." "What the fuck are you gonna' do about it, school boy? Pussy!" he said through clenched teeth. I saw red. I dropped my trusty black eddie bauer back pack and whipped around on him with a speed and grace that astonished the guys looking on. I grabbed Al by the head, he punched me but I was so mad I didn't feel it, like flies landing on my enraged form, and I wheeled him to the ground by his head in the crook of my right arm in an eyeblink. His body tumbled after his head, arms and legs akimbo, flailing, not used to some one standing up to him and calling his card, ruling the roost for so long no one even tried. I mashed his face into the accumulated snow with righteous fury. I grit my teeth and spit out the words, "I. SAID. LEAVE! ME! ALONE!!" Al struggled to no avail. The most he could do was keep me off his windpipe a little so he could gasp at air. I kept mashing his face into the snow and cutting off his oxygen. His face turned bright red from the cold. And then something terribly wonderful happened. Al started to cry. I immediately left off, let go, feeling guilty at my rage, that I had hurt someone. Having coordination and strength doesn't mean to use it so. His tears ran down his cheeks as the guys watched. Ding-dong, the witch is dead. The cat is out of the bag and there was no stuffing the genie back in the bottle. Al was a crybaby. A pussy. A momma's boy. The guys filed into the bus in silent awe of what had transpired. I got up and dusted myself off, walked to the bus with my back to Al. He grabbed and tripped me from behind, throwing me into the snow, throwing snow at my face. I laid there and looked him in his eye, and he knew. I filed onto the bus and pulled out a thick book. Behind me some of the guys where whispering. I was thinking something between parochial school guilt and 'I let him up too soon.', feeling guilty about that thought and dimly noticing that the words 'leave me along.' fit with the mood they preceeded. "Kid! Hey Kid!" one whispered at me. O Christ. What now? I looked at them. "You just washed out Al's face with snow, didn't you?" "Well," I said, "He kinda' got me there at the end." He looked at me, a proud look in his eye. "Don't be modest, be proud. You did it, didn't you." I smiled an 'aw-shucks' smile. "Yeah, I did." He turned to his friend, "I TOLD you." The guys never looked at me the same way again. Anyway, Al positioned himself for the coming fight. Things hadn't been the same for him since. He had taken it out on the rest of the guys, but hadn't troubled me more than once. And all this after he was supposed to be my first friend. When my family first moved here, so many years ago, I was entering the sixth grade, a time of packed busses, cliques and bullies. The first kid I sat next to on the bus was Al Campbell. We had both moved to the school district. Al lived in a trailer park. I lived in a nice house. Nicest on the block. With a pool. Our first conversation went something like this: "I just moved here." I said. "I just moved here, too," he said. "I don't know anyone here." I said. "I don't know anyone here, neither," he said "Well, lets be friends." I suggested. "Okay," he said. We didn't speak much after that. I didn't realize that Al was stupid. And as Al stood up and I stood up, the principal in the middle of the gym called out. "AL! AL CAMPBELL!" he thundered through the gym, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" I was impressed by the principal's accuity. How he knew that I was in a fight for my life, I don't know. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THE EIGHT GRADE!" he continued, "YOU BELONG WITH THE SEVENTH GRADE! YOU KNOW THAT! C'MON." So he didn't know there was a fight brewing. Al's humiliation was palpable. But it engendered no sympathy. Al was a dictator, and dictator's receive no pity for their lack of mercies. Al hung his head and stepped down the bleachers, casually maulling kids in his way. Shaving in the seventh grade. I saw his cock once, in gym class. He liked to walk around naked and flaunt it. Maturity, replete with full genital and armpit hair in the sixth grade. He was a monster in the classical sense. But underneath it all, Al had feelings. He slunk across the gym floor to follow the seventh grade, he lowered, shuffling maliciously, punching the door as he walked through it. Beaten, followed by our cat calls and razzing. After he left, the new principal chewed us out for our lack of sensitivity to Al's plight. To a man, no one gave a fuck, and the mood was considerably lighter now that we wouldn't have to deal with Al all year long. Or really, ever. Years later, as I was working at the ice cream plant durning the summer months inbetween semsesters at college, getting ridiculously stoned ever day at seven a.m. on my first break, I was to see Al, or as we called him then, 'Krause', so nicknamed after a dirty hermit who lived in his trailerpark. Al had become the butt of jokes. It was nothing for one of the guys, later on in high school, when he was all dirty with sweat and dirt to say something like, "I'm clean. Clean as Al.", or to mock someone to say the derogatory term, "Nice one, Clean Al." Al worked at the cooling and heating supply place attatched to the ice cream plant. I saw Al, as the sun stole up and my buzz creeped on. We made eye contact. "Hey!" I shouted, "KRAOOOOUUUUUUSE!" He hung his head and drove away.
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