I could fill a set of encyclopedias about the things I didn’t like when I was a child. I didn’t like bedtime. I didn’t like chores. I didn’t like any constricting rules. I didn’t like SUNDAYS. Hell, I didn’t even like the SUN. It made my skin prickle. It made me itch. Mom would say, “Go out and play.” And I’d be like, “But MA! The sun’s out. It’s hot.” But she would drive me outside anyway. And I’d make a bee-line straight for the shade trees. Yeah. I was kinda dark.
But Sundays and constricting rules? Oh, they went hand-in-hand together.
For instance, guess what: we, my brother and I, weren’t allowed to play COWBOYS on Sundays. Because of the cap guns. Cap guns were used for pretending to kill bad guys, weren’t they. And killing anybody, even bad guys, didn’t mix too well with Sundays. The Sabbath. (This all had to do with Mom’s churchy upbringing.)
But hold on! Wait just a darn minute here! I mean, who was it that had given us the cap guns (plus holster belts, cowboy hats, and little cowboy vests) as CHRISTMAS GIFTS in the first place, for crying out loud? And on the holiest of days of the year. Why… Mom and Dad, of course. Who, by the way, grinned and said how “cute” we both looked all dressed up like that, all hell bent for leather on Christmas morning. Mixed messages, anyone?
Monday through Saturday, oh you could kill all the bad guys you wanted. Shoot them in the back even. Mom didn’t care then. Go ahead, get rid of those sinners. But… never on Sundays. Can you imagine what that did to our fantasy cowboy play? You’d sneak up behind a “bad guy” and call out, “Freeze and reach for the sky! You’re under arrest!” and what would the bad guy do? Just laugh right in your face and run away, despite your, “Hey! I said freeze, you’re under arrest!” Just laugh and remind you it was Sunday.
And where was the fun in that? It got old fast pretty fast. So finally we came up with our own little loop-hole rule. You could wound a bad guy as long as you didn’t kill him. Mom would call out from the back door, “I TOLD you NO KILLING ON SUNDAYS!” And our response would be, “It’s OK, Ma, we’re just wounding each other.” Oh, I was wounding’em alright. I was wounding their frickin’ BRAINS out. But that loophole only allowed us to play “watered-down Sunday cowboys.” And where was the fun in that?”
(I gotta say, the above scenario comically reminds me of the movie, TERMINATOR II… the one with Schwarzenegger as the “good” Terminator this time, programmed not only to protect little John Connor from harm at all cost, but also to obey young John’s commands. Connor instructs Schwarzenegger, “You can’t kill anybody.” But then, when they’re busting through the front gate of the Skynet Corporation headquarters and a heavily armed guard confronts them, Arnold matter-of-factly pulls out his .45 and shoots the man. “Connor” yells, “I said… no killing!” Arnold quips, “He’ll live,” after pointing out that he’s only wounded the guard in the leg.)
But hey, I’m gonna say the worst rule my mom had for us kids was NO GOING TO THE MOVIES ON SUNDAYS! I mean, come on, were you kidding me? That was child abuse. I lived for movies. I had an allowance that would get me into Center Theatre just about every Saturday, and often I could scrounge up a second price of admission for a Sunday by collecting and redeeming old empty beer and soda bottles out of the ditches around town. I guess the logic behind all this is this: If something felt good, if it were enjoyable, then it was sinful on Sunday.
Sundays sucked.
About every three weeks, the family’d finally come home from the long morning of Sunday School and church with me just a-chomping at the bit to mount up on my trusty Columbia bike named Trigger and go riding off into the sunset, free as a bird. But then we’d hear Mom say, “Now boys, don’t go changing into you play clothes. We thought we’d all drive over to over DEE-troit” (that’s how the locals pronounce Detroit, Maine) “to see Aunt Nellie and Uncle Loren, and I just know how much they’d love to see you two looking so nice in your spiffy little neckties and jackets.”
That would take all of the wind out of my sails, right there! My necktie was always so tight around my neck, I could barely swallow, let alone breathe. And then I’d always get carsick, partly because of that friggin’ necktie and partly because of the gas fumes that would be seeping up under the floorboards in that old 1940 Pontiac.
But then, as the final twist of the knife, we’d always hafta rush right home in time for me to attend my evening 7:00 MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) meeting. Sundays were such a drag…
So anyway, long story short, at the top of my Things-I-Don’t-Like list was ANYTHING THAT ROBBED ME OF MY FREEDOM. And there was something right at the top of that list that was perhaps even more heinous, in my opinion, than your average Sunday Blues. It was something called VBS. How I despised those three letters, and these three words: Vacation. Bible. School.
I mean, taking two whole weeks out of my oh-so-much-longed-for, so-NEEDED, so-short summer vacation from public school? That was criminal! A crime against humanity. Oh yeah, sure, all of us wannabe playground kids stuck in some summer, churchy classroom and being made to sit in a dumb circle and sing stupid songs like,“One door and only one and yet its sides are two: inside and outside. Which side are you?” Plus doing all those meaningless-to-me arts and crafts projects I had zero interest in, with the homemade flour paste and the colored construction paper.
OK, but now let me sharpen the focus:
Back when I was in first or second grade, the Great Minds of the “geniuses” in charge of plotting out the logistics and curriculum of VBS came up with a brilliant new strategy: let’s have all the kids from all the participating churches join together at a single venue. A getting-to-know-you kind of thing! The Baptist Church was the location chosen.
Now, having it at the Methodist Church would’ve been one thing, because that was my church and I knew the place inside and out. But the Baptist Church was a foreign country to me. Immediately I felt uncomfortable there, like I didn’t belong. It smelled different and threatening. Plus there were so many kids there, and I didn’t know hardly any of them. Immediately I was feeling lost, and my stomach began to get all queasy. I was scared and alone in the crowd.
But then came the event that elevated my little angst into a Perfect Storm. At the first full assembly in the chapel, the head honcho old lady stood up by the altar with her clipboard, asked one BS teacher after another to stand, call out her/his designated list of kids’ names, and told those named to follow that teacher to what would be their daily classroom. OK. I didn’t like it, but I and my queasy stomach followed her orders.
Halfway up some stairs leading up to a balcony where our class was to meet, my stomach got a lot queasier. Why? Because it suddenly came crashing down on me that all the other kids in my dumb class were huge! I’d somehow been mixed in with the wrong class! I was sure of it! But… what to do?! I was way too scared to say anything. Well, it would all get straightened out when we were seated. They’d take a roll call and when it turned out my name wasn’t on the list, they’d make it right.
But guess what! My name was on that damned list! And what it was doing there mixed in with a bunch of sixth- or seventh-grader’s names I couldn’t imagine! I was devastated. (Turned out, what had happened is… there was this other kid in Dover-Foxcroft whose name was also Tommy Lyford. And he, not me, was supposed to be in this class, but he’d skipped out. Gone AWOL. Leaving me there, a little mouse filling his huge empty slot.
Time came to a standstill. The class had begun, and they were already discussing something I couldn’t even understand. I was terrified that they might call on me to answer a question. I didn’t belong there! My heart was pounding, and it was getting difficult to breathe! And why couldn’t I just speak up? I ’d gone mute with fear! So there I was, cowering out of sight down behind the back of some extremely large oaf. Nobody had apparently noticed me. It was like I wasn’t there! Like I was The Invisible Boy! Stuck there, a stranger in a strange land! Panic building up inside me like a volcano! Bible school was hell! It was a trap! I wanted to escape! I wanted to go home! I needed to get home. I was a little prisoner of war. I had to get outta there, get back to my home!
So…
I just bolted! Flew down those balcony stairs and never looked back! Gang-busted through at least two sets of doors, and then down more stairs, into darkness! The basement! The cellar! The boiler room! The dungeon! Whatever it was. And I was sobbing. Gasping! My heart flipping around like a hooked sunfish on the floor of a row boat!
And…
Suddenly I was out in the sunshine and fresh air, but still running! Running down the sidewalk! Running across lawns! Running home…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
My parents discovered me in my bed, buried under the blankets, pretending to sleep. Somebody had gotten in touch with them at work. Posses had been dispatched. But there I was. Still feeling hunted. Not safe. Not sound.
What had happened? they wanted to know.
“…I got sick,” I lied.
Mom put her hand on my forehead. “Hmmm. No fever. No fever at all…”
Then why didn’t I tell someone? they wanted to know. Guilt-fear was spreading like an itchy rash all over my face. I was stumped. “I… don’t… know,” was all I could come up with.
“Tommy,” Mom probed, “are you telling us the truth?” She knew I wasn’t! I had a rap sheet, and I was always so damn obvious when I was sinning! Once again, there I was, about to get found out dead to rights, red-handed. OK, I knew what I had to do. What I was supposed to do. Come clean. Spill my guts and get it over with. So… I opened my mouth…
…and heard myself say, “A bunch of bullies beat me up! Down in the cellar!”
The Sunday School superintendent was horrified when she heard about it. That such a thing could go down on her watch. A man-hunt ensued! No stone was unturned. And I was grilled further now: What did they look like? How many of them were there? Did you know any of them?
“No. I dunno…they were big kids. Probably fifth graders, I guess. I dunno.”
The investigation of course came up empty-handed. I got grilled a little more, but the grilling finally petered out. The whole thing became a cold case. An unsolved mystery. But a black stain besmirching the Baptist VBS program.
Meanwhile I continued to do my best at honing the PTSD posturing. Which (and who ever would’ve expected it?) actually worked! I was pitied. I was pampered. And best of all, I was no longer forced to return to that horrid church that summer. Pheww!
Days later, it fully dawned on me exactly what I had actually accomplished. I had assumed control of a bad situation. I had arrested the situation and then… nipped it in the bud. Oh yes, I was probably going to hell, but that would happen much, much later in the future, wouldn’t it. But in the meantime… just for now…
I was learning the art of… being the boss of me.
No. I was the boss of me.
NEARING THE END OF THE LINE 