Johnny Wraith Stories

I was a nervous child.  I was a terrified child.  I didn't like school. I was the target of every little shit with any bully in his veins, and that was most kids.  Most kids were eager to do evil things to other kids.  I never did evil things to other kids.  I wasn't like other kids.  That's why they picked on me.

I was born in bad shape.  Bad limp, didn't walk so well, stomach stuck out from congenitally weak muscles.  I had to hold my arms out in front of me for better balance. So, from kindergarten, I had it coming.  I got flicked in the ears, locked in coat rooms, tripped in the halls, called hurtful names.  By the time I was in 7th grade, my nervous condition was the worst ever. I threw up every night.  The anxiety over going to school in the morning turned my insides out. My mouth always tasted like chalk because of my nightly ingestion of ulcer medicine.  Nevertheless, my childhood physical condition had improved by 7^th grade. Swimming on a swim team every day for 5 years had finally strengthened my body, washed out my previous physical deformities.  But, the years of torment had left wounds deep to the bone.  I still saw myself as a limping kid with distended belly.  My head hung with timidity. I avoided eye contact. My body displayed its fear, so the bullies kept circling, flicking my ears, tripping my feet, pushing me around.  I kept drinking chalk and puking my guts out every night.

In 9^th grade art class, two bullies sat on each side of me. We were at a large table, on stools.  Monday through Friday for an entire year, for 50 minutes a day, the two bullies took turns punching me in the shoulders, nonstop. It was a contest to see who could hit the hardest. The teacher didn't care. He spent the first 10 minutes of every class explaining how to paint or draw.  Then he would get to painting his own pictures, or drawing his own sketches, at his desk.  He'd only look up if a student approached him with a question.  The first 10 minutes of class were always tough because I knew 50 minutes of hell were coming.  My shoulders were always black and blue, but I got used to it.

Then one day the two bullies decided that I was taking my daily beatings too well, too stoically. So, they came up with an addition to the torture regime, a psychological one.  They decided each of their names, as far as I was concerned, was John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt, plus, the rest of the song.  By twisting my ears and nipples, and bending back my fingers, they forced me to submit.  Between taking a barrage of shoulder punches, each time I was asked, "What's my name?" I'd sing the song.  The teacher never looked up. I got an A in that class. The teacher found my drawings and paintings to contain an interesting theme. "You show the pain of a true artist in your work," he said to me on the last day of school.

When I went home for the summer, I begged my parents for a set of weights.  I worked out with them in the basement for 5-6 hours a day and ate about 8 times a day, always force feeding myself, checking my bodyweight on the scales, then eating more. I gained by the day.  Each time I flexed in the bathroom mirror, my muscles were larger, more striated.  That summer, I went from 138lbs at 6' to 190lbs at 6'1".  I also used a punching bag.  It hung from a chain in the basement, in a dark corner. Every night before bed, I punched into it with all I had.  I did so bare-fisted, not stopping until I couldn't breathe, until my knuckles opened and bled.

First day of 10th grade, just as the school doors opened in the morning, I was walking down the hall to my locker.  No teachers were there yet, just a janitor having coffee somewhere.  Several students were scattered about the halls and schoolyard.  I was still hanging my head, avoiding all eye contact.  But, for the first time in years, I hadn't vomited the night before.

It didn't take long for one of the bullies from art class to find me.  Before I made it to my locker, he and his pals surrounded me.

"Hey Johnny," the bully sneered, then punched me hard in the shoulder.  His friends laughed.  My stomach sickened.  My knees weakened.

"What's my name?" he demanded, then drew back his fist to strike again.  His friends kept laughing.

I didn't sing the song.  I lifted my narrowed eyes to him, "Your name is shit," I growled.

The bully shook his head scornfully.  He drew back his raised fist. Knuckles slammed into my jaw.  I didn't flinch.  I just stood there.

He swung again.  The blow landed hard in my cheek.  I didn't flinch. I just stood there.

I tackled him.  He hit the floor flat and hard.  The breath was knocked out of him.  I picked him up and slammed him headfirst into a set of lockers.  His limp, gasping body was light and weak. Blood came out of his scalp.  I dropped him to the floor and walked away.  I could hear his loud sobbing all the way to my locker.