February 18, 2006
by Lonnie D. Story

Phew!! All the compression from inside pushes from the stomach, the lungs and the brain into open air.  A deep breath.  Exhale.  Another deep breath.  Exhale.  Relax.  Hmm.  The feeling is pure elation.
 
So you want to be a writer.  You want to write a book.  Well, the first thing you better learn to do is steady your breathing.  No breath, no thought.  A blank page is a canvas and the art is in the head.  The roots are in the heart. 
 
Someone once told me that there are four steps to suicide and it is much better if the first one is successful.  It makes me chuckle and laugh in my soul.  I can feel the fleeting laughter pour out of my crinkled and wrinkled eyes.  Yes, I know they are starting to look that way.  But, the laughter is from a time when I was better than young.  A time when I first realized that laughter is the apex of self-gratification.  There is nothing that I can think of that compares to it.  It is exhilarating.  For a long time now, I have kept a mantra close to me:  I can laugh or I can cry and I love to laugh.  Are you laughing, yet?
 
If I haven't gotten a smile out of you yet, then give me a few more lines.  Because, one thing I can do, is make people laugh.  It may be curious or self-deprecating but I most certainly can do it.  One thing I learned early on was that humor was a defensive weapon.  It was a tool of survival.  A way to keep from getting beat to hell and back on the playground.
 
You see, the statement "the whole world loves a clown" is a very, very true statement.  What most people don't consider is that the clown is just that on the outside.  Somewhere, deep inside there, behind the heavy painted face, is a person crying for a place in the world.  You know, the person that is always picked last.
 
I remember the first time it happened to me.  I can still see it vividly in my mind and imagination.  It was elementary school and we were outside.  The weather seemed nice.  We were under the pine trees.  There must have been about sixteen students, two teachers and a teacher's aide.  The game was "Red Rover."  The object of the game was to form two lines on opposite sides of the field of combat.  One by one, children were called out by the opposing side, by name. to charge their interlocked arms of a fortress and try to break it.  "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Lonnie right over."  An exercise for children.  Good for their health, good for their growth, good for their maturation, but not so good for their minds, well, unless you happened to be a fortunate child from class and influence.  Then you were already a given on the picks just by the look of your clothing.  The old saying "the clothing makes the man" is more a true statement than one could ever consider as even close to fair.  Needless to say, the pick was a hurried one.
 
The appointed captains from each side where selected by the teachers.  Interestingly enough, they always seemed to pick the children whose parents were so "model."  You know, the children that had mom in PTA and den mother.  Dad, the man's man who had a powerful job and stayed involved in school sports.  Yes, their children were the first picks.  It was politics.  Something teachers were supposed to be immune to.  I guess they missed their shots, because they sure had a full-blown case that Autumn day at Heard Elementary School where I stood on the pine-needled ground and in the crisp air.  It was politics 101.  I had no idea I was an unwilling participant. 

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I just wanted to play the game and, honestly, anything not in a classroom was a blast, like sloughing off.  It didn't take long for the first wound to take affect.  The game was exciting, everyone seemed excited and it beat the heck out of being in a classroom.  Malcolm picked Mary.  Gregg picked Vanessa.  And so it went down the line.  And here I was left standing beside Lee, the one we all called "Toad."  Lee was tortured.  That is the only way to describe it in short.  Ridiculed, physically attacked, mentally attacked and, worst of all, emotionally attacked.  And I hated being next to him.  But, I didn't have time to give it a lot of consideration then.  No, Lee was on his own and so was I.  Just the sad two of us, not wanting to be the last of the last.  It isn't the things winners are made of, or though I thought for most my life. 
 
It sparks a fire inside.  It causes a hating, burning drive.  It causes a child to become an adult and to look at peers as children enemies.  The bodies may be young but the mind is growing old already.  The hatred and anger towards the teachers that should have known better.  The ones that raped our virginity of  politics.  Gregg's mom was on the PTA.  Malcolm's mom was a classroom mother.  Wow, how special.  Yes, for their children.  But how embarrassing for the children that didn't have that good fortune.  As a child, it is very humiliating and sorrowful to see this manufacturing of politics at such an early age.  Don't get me wrong.  It is good for parents to get involved and it is as close to the development process of a child as could be.  However, when financial advantage becomes a class issue, children suffer.
 
Yes, I was picked before Lee that day.  I always felt bad for him, but, I have to admit that I picked on him too in my effort to rise on the pecking order.  It is an eternal regret.  He could have been so much of a good friend.  I failed.  I can only say, "Stupid me." A stupid ten year old.  It took four times that amount of time to come to grips with it.  I would like to think that if tomorrow I see another "Lee" on the playground of life, I would kick the hell out of the bully.  I would knock down the strand of joined arms in defense of their social elitism.  I would bloody the nose of teachers that abuse their position with favoritism.  A couple of years later, I found myself in an awkward position.  Twelve years old and the teacher had stepped out of the room.  We had a record player.  Something unheard of now days.  The vinyl album was placed upon the player and the class jumped to life at the sound of modern music.  It was invigorating.  The classroom seemed to be purely electric in the absence of the teacher.  I took a leap.  One of the strangest things I have ever done in my forty plus years of living.  I started to dance.  I didn't dance to feel better.  I danced to be a fool, a clown.  I danced like a wild wind.  Indeed, they all laughed.  They laughed so much that they played the song again, and I danced again.  The song was "The Streak."  How ironic that I would bare myself emotionally and socially to a song about physical exposure.  At the least, I have comfort in it now and even a smile.  For a while they laughed.  I made people laugh and I was accepted, heck, I was king for a day.  But most of all, I got the last laugh.  Though I was a fool that day, I learned one of my finest lessons on bravery.  The guts to charge the unknown, filled with fear, but dare to do it when no one else will.

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Lonnie D. Story [send him email] is the author of "The Meeting of Anni Adams" and is working on "Without A Shot Fired: The Dustin Brim Story"  Write Mr Lonnie D. Story at 739 Orchard Avenue, Ormond Beach, FL 32174.