Keith was my school bus superhero…

Perhaps my adult self is exaggerating a bit. I doubt he had a clue as to the impact of this one thing he did, that one morning on the bus. But it made all the difference for me. What Keith did (and I know he wasn’t even doing it for me) saved my sorry “new meat” thirteen-year-old ass during that brief introductory period of time when I desperately needed to get acclimated to the brutal school bus culture I was thrown into by my family moving to this “neighborhood”.

Out there in the Minnesota countryside, fifteen miles north of Rochester. In 1972.

The King’s Park boys were relentless. Despite the distraction of Jerry and their own internal activities, my newness to THEIR world, made it impossible for them to ignore me. But since I had no obvious target qualities (I’m assuming this because they didn’t go at me right away) they did something even more disconcerting. They studied me. Looking for weakness, possible benefits to themselves and opportunity. Again, this is mostly my adult self. At the time, I did feel them watching me, but my analysis was not so complex. I was simply scared. The threat from them was obvious by what I saw them do to Jerry and I knew I couldn’t be invisible. And I had no allies… yet.

Till Keith.

As I said in yesterday’s post, Keith came on about twenty minutes after me. There were only three pickups between me getting on the bus and Keith’s place, and they were all little kids who went straight to seats in front. They were good little kids who no doubt had their own little kid dramas to deal with. They were very quiet, trying to not be noticed by little King’s Park kids near them. Fortunately for them, Jerry was there providing practice for the little bullies in training. The little farm kids had no trouble as long as they stayed quiet.

From the beginning, when Keith got on he went straight for the seat directly behind me. Between the King’s Park bullies in back, and my spot exactly in the middle. Keith was the disrupter… the foil of those bullies. He was as big as the biggest of them and easily as tough. A year or two later (after we’d been friends for a while) I saw that he could also be just as cruel and brutal as those back of the bus bullies. But Keith was a farm kid, so he had more in common with “hobby farm” kid me, than the river rats of King’s Park.

And like me, Keith was naturally social. He started a conversation right away, getting to know me. Being friendly. What a relief! I was guarded at first, knowing that the King’s Park bullies were listening even if they didn’t appear to be. But after that one time when Keith showed them just what it meant to fuck with him, my hero had his law laid down… and it stayed down.

I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but eventually the King’s Park boys made their move. Bobby Marks (one of the younger ones) was obviously chosen to make the play. Probably as an initiation of some sort. He moved up a few seats to the one right behind Keith, and waited. Bobby pretended to be just sitting there. Having simply decided that he wanted a change of scenery. He waited for several other kids to get on and for the conversations around us all to become the jumble of kids voices that would eventually grow into the cacophony of sound that was the norm in our bus, once we were in town and heading for school.

I remember first hearing Bobby giggle. Taking the chance, I looked back at him and saw that Bobby was getting up spit from his mouth and flicking into Keith’s hair with his finger. I was shocked but I said nothing. I made eye contact with Keith and he knew something was up. I made a subtle gesture to the back of my head and without looking, Keith reached back to feel his own. When Keith looked at his hand to see all that spit, Bobby burst out laughing.

Keith did not hesitate.

He quickly turned around, completely and in one smooth motion… getting into a stable position. Keith then delivered one solid, closed fisted punch and knocked Bobby senseless! I’m not sure if he was unconscious, but Bobby was definitely down and out of commission.

It was over so fast, hardly anyone else even noticed. Of course Bobby’s cohorts saw it all, and their response was quite informative. Rather than even look at Keith, they focused on Bobby, giving him all kinds of grief. For the rest of that bus ride, Bobby’s fellow King’s Park buddies rode him and laughed at him. Not seriously though. He had served a valuable purpose by safely testing what it meant to go up against Keith.

The King’s Park bullies never again challenged Keith (at least, not that I saw) and since I was his friend, they never messed with me either. I was safe. My hero Keith had saved me!

Much later, when Keith was no longer riding the bus and shortly before I had the opportunity to skip the ride myself, I had more dealings with some of the King’s Park kids. Not the obvious bullies, but a bully of a different kind… engaging in that different kind of violence I was learning about in homeroom, at the brand new and modern John Adams Jr. High School.

But that story… a story of my introduction to (and still shameful, albeit tenuous, participation in) that different kind of violence. The psychological torture of the vulnerable. But… like the earlier posted story about Gertrude, that will have to be…

To be continued…