Jerome

In elementary school, sometime around sixth grade, I stopped riding the bus and either walked or rode my bike to school most days. Maybe something to do with asserting my independence, or experiencing new adventures I felt sure I’d find outside the confines of a school bus. 

One adventure that spooked me early on was an almost daily encounter with a couple of no count country boys at about the halfway mark home. It was on a lonely stretch of backroad with a lot of undeveloped woodland and the occasional tar paper covered plywood shack. It was in one of these that the boys lived.

I didn’t know who they were. They didn’t go to my school. It didn’t appear they went to school at all, for they were almost always there waiting for me on my ride home. I say ride because once I met the boys I started riding my bike instead of walking. The faster to get away in a hurry.

Every day as I approached the boy’s house I was filled with anxiety. First their old mangy hound would sound the alarm, then the boys would spill from the house yelling like wild animals, bent on having my head.

“There he is, get him! Kick his ass!”

My only advantage was speed. Standing up on the pedals I gave that bike all I had, just trying to outrun the dog snapping at my heels, the boys right behind him. I knew if they caught me I was a dead man, and spun those pedals for all I was worth.

It’s become current now, and rightfully so, to talk about bullying in schools and the long and short term repercussions to a child’s psyche. And of course bullying takes many forms – physical, cyberbullying, social media nastiness, verbal harassment, intimidation. 

But I was just mainly afraid of a beating. And once the boys realized they had me on the run, that I was not going to stop and fight, it was a lost cause. Going back to riding the bus would have been a step back on my adventure quest. Too easy. And logical. I spent the days at school dreading that ride home in the afternoons.

I had a good friend, Jerome, in my class. Jerome was shy, and I never heard an unkind word leave his mouth. He was also big, a good six inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than anyone else. I think he had been held back a couple of grades along the way. I helped him with his homework, and he helped me in ways I didn’t even realize until later, long after we had lost contact and gone our separate ways. 

Jerome was also one of the few black kids in my school, not that it mattered to me. For whatever reasons, the two of us bonded, and became friends. Though I had two loving parents at home, a couple of siblings, plenty of friends, and my own room, I always felt like a loner. An outsider. And from what I could tell, Jerome was one too.

One weekend I invited Jerome over to my house to spend the night. We left school together Friday afternoon and headed to my house, walking. I had told Jerome about the boys. Not exactly that I was afraid of them, just that they were troublemakers and to be aware. 

As we approached their house, the dang hound ran out, barking and growling, the boys not far behind, intent on destruction. It unnerved me, and instinctively I ran. 

But Jerome didn’t. And after going about a hundred feet, I turned around to see him on the ground, the boys throwing punches, and Jerome shrugging  them off, giving as good as he got. I hesitated, but had no choice except to run back and help my friend. In an instant I was rolling in the pile with the others, swinging away. 

That’s all Jerome needed, and soon one of the boys had his hands over his head, begging not to get hit again. Jerome let him up and both of them retreated back to their house, their mangy pup slinking under the porch.

Jerome and I continued on to my house, skinned up a little but triumphant. My mom was inquisitive but not overly so. She seemed to understand what had happened, without having to ask too many questions. 

She cleaned up our cuts and scrapes, made a fine hamburger helper dinner, and left us alone to sort it out. Strangely enough, we didn’t overtalk it, or even gloat much together. But a new quiet confidence, another bond, developed between us, that we were in this together. And long after we had parted, and Jerome had moved away, that feeling stuck around. 

The boys never bothered me again, just sat on the porch and pretended not to see me as I walked by. Even the dog stayed in the yard.

And as long as I knew Jerome, he never mentioned me running away.