A Memory From 4th Grade Triggers Other Memories

Counting from front row to back, that's me third row, second from the left...
next to my childhood crush Christina (that's another blog article or two).
Enrique is second row, first seat. Hector is third row, second from the right.
Marco is back / fourth row, third from the left.
Daniel and David had yet to descend upon our class ;)
That's Mr. Brunetti on the right.

[every person mentioned in this article is dearly loved... the style of this post is to be humorous, honest, and explorative while speaking from the perspective of a fearful and impressionable nine year old]

Mr. Brunetti (Mr. B) was my fourth grade teacher at Saint Matthias elementary school, in Huntington Park, California.

He would strike fear in me due to his large stature and boisterous voice.

I had only female teachers up to that point.

The only consistent male disciplinarian at that time in my life was my maternal grandfather.

Mr. B was the first male teacher.

I did my best to behave that entire year, already aware and fearful of what awaited me that fourth year.

In second grade, under the guidance of his more peaceful and rational wife Mrs. B, I had my first taste of Mr. B's disciplinary manner.

After Mr. B witnessed me perform a karate kick on a fellow classmate in a before-school fight, he took me by the neck between his thumb and forefinger (as was his custom with wayward children) and pushed me (which caused me to be momentarily airborne) into my second grade classroom (his wife's class).

The look on her face and the fear I held for the two years prior to starting the fourth grade with him I will never forget.

My rebelliousness had experienced three years of unbridled exuberance attempting to entertain my fellow classmates and play their fool, while also surviving the typical struggles among 39 other children.

The time of reckoning in Mr. B's fourth grade class was inescapable.

I would get a ride home from school, usually from my grandfather or a parent of a classmate... but this particular day an anomaly of a ride was to happen.

My dad was picking me up.

This rare occasion happened to also be the very day Mr. B gave me detention.

I had misbehaved again - do not recall what it was - likely acting like a clown, making others laugh, or being myself the butt of a joke.

Oh what a child does to be liked and to appease those around them... to survive and keep from being bullied for, in this case, at least eight years with the same clan of kids.

Sitting there after class had let out, the seconds seemed to stretch time.

I knew very well my dad was out there waiting.

I sat there frozen with fear at the thought of my dad's impatience running thin as he waited for me on his motorcycle.

From my view of the outside and beyond the classroom door I saw less and less students in the schoolyard.

Panic continued to bake.

There was a certain classmate named Hector who happened to be peering into the classroom for some reason.

I don't know if my dad talked to some of my schoolmates asking my whereabouts and if it was Hector who went to find me.

Hector noticed my panic and emotion and I think he asked me what was wrong.

I explained that I wasn't emotional because I had detention, but rather that my dad was out there waiting for me... and he doesn't like waiting for anything.

My daddio, about a decade before this article's timeframe.

My dad's temper held the shortest fuse of any man alive at the time, I believed.

Mr. B was a collegian footballer who said he injured his knee while playing at the university.

This injury, according to his recounting of past glory days, was what denied him a chance at becoming a professional.

He now taught and profoundly impressed, along with his dear wife, a class (and school) of mostly Latinos.

The thought of my dad having a confrontation with Mr. B was my great concern.

I was not so much in fear of my dad's heavy hand on me when we got home (a rarity), but rather for my dad.

The thought of my dad suffering from Mr. B's heavy hands was my great concern.

I once recalled to my dad an event that happened in Mr. B's class.

I told this tale with awe and wonder: how Mr. B scared the entire class when he broke a No. 2 pencil between the fisted fingers on one hand.

I recall exactly where I retold this event to my dad - our laundry room next to my toy chest next to the side door of our home.

I shared this story after we got home after today's incident.

When telling my dad how strong and scary this teacher was, my dad grabbed a No. 2 pencil from my supply and tried the same feat... only to struggle and be unable to break the pencil between the fingers of one hand.

He had to use his other hand to assist the breaking of that pencil.

He cheated and this didn't console my fears.

This showed my dad was no match for the rotund Mr. B... or at least my dad's hands were not as strong and vice-gripped like my teacher's.

I remember one day hearing Mr. B warning us about misbehavior.

I don't recall if the warning was for me personally or the class as a whole.

He mentioned how he would be like a 350 pound gorilla dancing all over our / my head(s) if we / I misbehaved.

I feared my dad would be broken by Mr. B like that No. 2 pencil... or have a 350 pound ex-college football player dancing all over his head like a guerilla.

I knew my dad had a small armory of weapons, and that a firearm was likely his only defense / tool against a giant like Mr. B.

My dad was a brawler growing up.

He once told me how he would either pick a fight with an older or bigger kid, or they would pick a fight with him... but that he never lost a fight.

I wasn't much a fighter as a child, having my share of glorious victories alongside humiliating defeats.

Two final defeats finally retired me for good from any physical violence.

It is from the losing end that one realizes how horrible and damaging to the soul physical violence is.

As my anxiety level grew to a proportion that would have likely caused the sprinkler system to go off, I see my dad step into the doorway of that fourth grade classroom.

I'm in shock at this point.

Now that my dad is there... the suspense has led to the fact that a confrontation is eminent.

He is wearing his black heavy leather riding jacket, a helmet in one hand, pair of gloves in the other, blue jeans, black zip-up boots, and with a questioning look says “why are you sitting there, I've been waiting for you.”

Mr. B had walked out minutes before my dad appeared.

It was just me sitting there like a dunce and my dad wondering why I am sitting there like a dried up and nervous loaf of bread.

I begin to explain that I had misbehaved and I was to sit here in detention until my time was up.

Moments later with Mr. B coming my dad began questioning him as to my detainment.

Mr. B did his best at being diplomatic about what transpired that day and the need for detention.

My dad retorted by questioning what authority or right Mr. B had to detain me after school.

Mr. B said it was part of the school's rules.

My dad demands to see such rules.

I'm near cardiac arrest by this point.

I know my dad's short fuse and he was hostile from the moment he began speaking to Mr. B.

Violence is very near in my mind, considering my dad's temperament and Mr. B's boasting and warnings.

My dad is making my academic career worse by playing advocate and protester at the same time with the tyrannical, yet now calm and suave, Mr. B.

Mr. B continues with his diplomacy while approaching my dad.

When he tries putting his large arm around my dad to guide him to the office, my dad quickly and near-violently shrugs off Mr. B's crane like arm.

I feared my dad would make a bad move and find himself in two pieces like that No. 2 pencil... or that Mr. B would fall to the ground after a hail of heated bullets flew from whatever pocket canon my dad was carrying with him that day.

Mr. B was over six feet tall.

My dad, standing against a flat and smooth surface, reaches a paltry height of five feet eight inches tall... and weighed at that time around 160 pounds after consuming a heavy meal, including that 10 pound leather jacket and that five pound helmet.

Mr. B towered over my dad, yet my dad holds no fear before any man.

So I thought this confrontation would be the end of one of them, likely my dad according to the intimidation factor I had received that year in that fourth grade class.

However this turns out, it is me who is going to have the worst of it.

I would either have the school administrators consider me a troubled child and I would either be expelled or closely watched for the next four years, or I'll be known as the kid whose dad murdered a teacher.

I would be going to prison along with my dad because what led up to the killing was because of me - my fault.

They both walk out and go away from my sight, stepping next door into the school's office and the unknown.

Now I'm thinking about how God is involved.

The administrators are mostly nuns and now they are getting a good look and earful of who my dad is... and who I likely really am.

The priest is surely to be informed.

He'll tell God about me and I'll be in trouble with God Almighty, with my dad being forever under a spiritual eye of sorts by the Church... and again, all this reflects on me as the cause and spark.

I'm crying by this point with all of these wild thoughts flooding my little mind and heart.

Hector's head reappears.

He says my dad is getting the belt ready.

This I knew immediately was a ruse.

It was this child's attempt to make me more emotional, make things worse, and pour fuel onto the flames of my heated emotions that made me hold quite a bit of resentment for him and his exploits and that of his cohort cousins throughout those formative years.

Hector was one of three cousins in my class, the other two Marco and Enrique.

My childhood thoughts of this crew was of a lawless bunch, beholden primarily to their family clan above all things right and good in the eyes of God.

Whenever a skirmish would arise between a student and one of these three cousins, the other two were very near and ready to inflict punishment or exact revenge.

It was an early taste of gang life (that things are never only one on one).

The alliances children can build with one another (or be subject to when on their own, like I was) stretches into adulthood.

Alliances between children can also be as fluid and ever-changing as between adults and nation states.

One day child 'x' and 'y' are against child 'z', and in a short time frame 'z' somehow makes an alliance with 'y' and now 'x' is the odd one out.

The same is seen between adults of all ages, even siblings, and especially between nation states when looking at their histories and how their rhetoric can change from one day to the next.

A similar dynamic arose when twin brothers were one year introduced into our class.

Daniel and David.

I'm not sure if it is my myopic and limited view of the past, of course only drawing from my personal experiences and my personal childhood memory bank and individual sentimentality of it all... but these two seemed more dangerous to me than those three cousins.

The three cousins grew up with us since the 1st grade, while the twins didn't have a legacy or past with us.

Perhaps it was the twins trying to survive in a new environment, or having come from a worse environment that they had to be strong and assertive.

Perhaps other kids felt threatened by them, or found them strange being twins.

Their particular temperament reminded me of the twins from G.I. Joe, Tomax and Xamot.

I do not recall holding any towards them... until I felt threatened by them.

One such moment of trouble was when I was being picked on by them and other kids and someone had pushed me, causing my glasses to fall from my face.

I'm not sure which one it was, likely Daniel, who kicked my glasses and they slid across the concrete ground of the second floor hallway of the school.

They were scratched and summarily ruined.

Dark thoughts of reprisal filled my heart.

Shame was felt in me considering the thought of having to tell my mother her hard-earned money would need to recompense the careless actions of a shameless child.

But to make an issue of it would be like declaring war on these two for the rest of the school year, possibly until graduation from the eighth grade, and perhaps the rest of my life (the child's mind perceives infinity when it comes to trouble).

It is interesting how now, as a man in my 43rd year of life on earth, I desire very much to see all of these faces and say hello, embrace them and get to know them as who they are today (or have been).

I desire to express the love God has placed in my heart for them.

I am sure I will see some, if not all, of their faces one day when we are revealed in His light... and perhaps then we can reminisce and talk about the secrets of our hearts when we were children... and how we were afraid to love one another at that time, but not anymore.