A Memory
2006-07-18 @ 8:48 p.m.

Recently, I read a story about a child plagued by a bully. The victim's parents had a difficult time with the school and the bully's parents. They did not take the events very seriously. I do. I'll tell you why I do. Not for pity, but to give those who have never suffered at the hands of a bully a small taste of what it's like to live in fear.

I write this from memory with no guarantee of accuracy. Memoirs are never completely true for they recount events from a lone perspective. There are always multiple sides to any series of events, each casting different shadows over time. Memory is treacherous. It lies and, like the North Atlantic in November, it can be unforgiving.

This particular memory is seen through a prism more than a decade old, the light refracted through all the events that have occurred since. It is the memory of someone who has lived for three decades resurrecting the ghost of a twelve year-old girl.

It is about a small girl who lived in terror during in 7th and 8th grade. For those who have not endured bullying, you will think this entry bristles with melodrama. It does. People have endured much, much worse: war, poverty, illness. Unfortunately, such perspective is beyond a child. For those who have suffered, I know you still taste the briny tears that ran down your face.

I do not know why Drusilla (I call her Drusilla, one of the evil step-sisters in Cinderella) separated me from the herd. Perhaps she sensed my weakness, smelled my fear. Perhaps she saw in me a warped refraction of her image. She was a year older than I. She was a big girl. I was thin. She was blond, while I had dark, brown hair. She was a child of the working class while I came from a comfortable family. We had roots in a region that brands you an outsider unless your great-grandparents were born here. Drusilla and her clan were strangers, passing through for two years before disappearing.

Perhaps. Or perhaps that is a woman trying to understand a child's cruelty. Perhaps I simply drew the malignant number in Drusilla's cruel lottery.

Seventh and Eighth grade were a nightmare. When Drusilla saw me she pounced. She would follow closely behind me, shouting names, pushing me, threatening sadistic violations.

Other than pulling my hair and the occasional shove, she never hit me. That small blessing was lost however, in the bile-churning stress of anticipated violence. Would she go over the precipice one day? Administer a physical attack as brutal as her emotional ones? I wasn't old enough, or sophisticated enough, to divine her patterns. It never dawned on me, even after a year of punishment, that since she never physically brutalized me, it was unlikely that she would do so in the future. No, that's too much to expect from a mere child.

It's impossible to describe to those unafflicted by a bully the all encompassing panic and terror at the sight or sound of your nemesis. My chest suffered an involuntary jolt when Drusilla wandered into my line of vision. To merely hear would cause nausea.

I had friends. Drusilla did not. My friends helped me, sympathized with me, but never aided me. They too had a fear of Drusilla. For them, the fear remained abstract as long as they did not fall under her gaze. My friends sympathized with me but they also felt great relief that they were not the target. I have never blamed them.

This terror occurred every school day for two years, whenever I was unfortunate enough to cross paths with Drusilla. On occasion, I would receive word that Drusilla was absent from school. Christmas would come early on those days. I felt paroled every Friday at 3:00PM, often staying just late enough in the library to avoid the rushed exodus of the other students. My weekends were free, until the fear crept back, incrementally, all day Sunday.

I had fantasies. Many fantasies. Drusilla would be struck by a car; move away, her hair would fall out and, much to my shame, that she would find another soul to torment.

The summer between 7th and 8th Grade was wonderful. I postponed my fear of the coming school year. "It's early July," I would say to myself. "No need to worry." Then, it was late July but I still had a month to go.

On the first day of 9th Grade, Drusilla was gone. No one knew where she had gone, only that her family had hauled stakes. No one cared. Liberation was at hand. I expected church bells to ring, maybe a few fireworks.

I like to think I'm a gentle creature, forgiving of others. After all this time, at thirty years of age, my stomach still experiences a momentary jolt when I hear that name. The rage remains, not for pushing me or pulling my hair, or shouting. What still lingers is rage for making me feel scared and weak and helpless. Most of all, anger that I have no capacity to forgive her or understand what caused her behavior.

I'm all grown up now. I'm reasonably happy. I believe Drusilla was a deeply unhappy person. There were rumors about physical abuse at home. She was poor. She did not have friends. She would not have the opportunities I would have. I'm reasonably certain that she is still trapped in that cycle of poverty, abuse and ignorance. And I still hate her.