Mary Jane

I called him Frankenstein. He had a huge forehead. It was the first day of first grade. We were lining up to go into our room. Frankenstein grabs my red plaid lunch box and wham clocks me in the noggin.

I woke up in the nurse’s office with a goose egg on my head and a doosie of a headache.

We had just moved to Poway, California from Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. My father was in the Navy.

Luckily there was a girl my age that lived right next door to me. We could walk to school together. We had to cross Pomerado Hwy. to get to there. It was a scary prospect for a 6 year old.

We didn't have rooms full of toys back then. No VCR, computer, video games. Just a few hot wheels, tinker toys, wood blocks my dad made me. We mostly played outside. We had great weather in the San Diego area. Seemed like 70 degrees every day. Parents didn't seem to worry about us getting kidnapped back then.

One time a tornado came through, a rare occurrence for California. We watched it as it swept across the school ground and sucked up a big metal trashcan. It shot that 50-gallon drum straight up into the sky until you couldn't see it. When I told my mom later that day she called me a big fat liar. I always wondered where that can ended up.

There was an open sewer culvert that ran between our block and the block parallel. Under the streets were huge sewer pipes that we could walk into from the culvert. We used to play in them sometimes when they weren't flooded with rainwater. Once we saw a witch when we peeked into one of the smaller intersecting pipes. We both saw it no doubt about it. Maybe she was a bum. But we she looked our way we ran home and didn't look back for at least a week. We never saw her again. But late at night I was afraid she was going to see me through my bedroom curtains. I would hide under my covers and try to hold them up above my chest so she could not see me breathing. Somehow I knew this would save me. I guess I was right I'm still here.

Since Heidi and I lived in the middle of the block there was a Pedestrian walkway that ran between our two houses. In one direction it intersected Pomerado Hwy. Going the other way as a bridge it crossed over the sewer culvert. On rainy days the culvert was like a river and we would make simple wooden boats and tie kite string to them. The contest was to see how far you could navigate your craft through all the obstacles in the race (tires, tree stumps, etc.)

When we wanted candy we would take my wagon around to collect cans and bottles. We could cash them in at 7-11 and buy candy. There was a house several doors down from ours that always had a whole garbage can full of cans and bottles. They didn't have recycle pick-ups back then. As a matter of fact it never had anything but beer cans and liquor bottles in it, never any food wrappers. And they had four kids!

As it turned out that was where Frankenstein lived with two brothers, one sister, and the proud parents.

I lived in fear of their sister Mary Jane. She was a pretty thing with long curly black hair and dark eyes. But she was mean as the day was long. One day she was hitting me with a tennis racket, the next she had me pinned to the ground and was stuffing my mouth with grass. There seemed no end to her tormenting me.

One day when Heidi was home sick and I had to walk home alone I decided to walk along the highway instead of our street. I was hoping she wouldn't see me and I could get home unharassed. That was a mistake. For one thing there were no houses I could have run to for help, only a dirt trail, a brick wall and the highway. I was about two-thirds of the way home when I heard someone running behind me. I didn't even turn around. She body slammed me from behind and pushed me hard into the brick wall.

I woke up in our spare bedroom. I never did find out how I got there.

Then one day it was over. It wasn't planned or thought out in any way. I walked in to the girl’s room at school unaware that Mary Jane was in the first stall. My mind was completely without thought. It was as though an invisible force had taken control of the situation. I shoved open the stall door and there was Mary Jane pants around her ankles sitting on the crapper. I just stood there, staring at her. My mind was suddenly full of thoughts. Will she kill me now or later? How will she do it? She'll beat me to a pulp that's how she'll do it. Right here, right now, in this filthy bathroom on school grounds. This is it; I'm going to die.

I ran for my life back to my classroom.

She never once bothered me or anyone else again.