Here's the thing with Danny...I was twice his size. At a young 7, I towered over Danny by a good 10 inches and outweighed him by at least 20 pounds. In body, I was Nitro to his Ralphie. In spirit, the roles were reversed.

The He-Man lunch box incident that Monday was only the beginning. The torturous relationship became almost organic, taking on a life of its own. A rhythm. Twice a day, I found myself fending off an attack. Sometimes it was before school and lunch. Sometimes it was lunch and recess. Sometimes it was lunch and after school. Regardless, it always involved lunch.

I blame poverty and fetal alcohol syndrome, my mother blamed Joan and Danny's mom. We were probably both right.

Danny's m.o. at lunch was to either linger over my shoulder or sit directly across from me and make repeated stabs at items in my lunch buffet. I was able to fend him off for the most part, but he became adept at exploiting my vulnerability when I had to use both hands to negotiate the trade of a section of fruit-by-the-foot for the meat-portion of an Oscar Mayer Lunchables.

While I may have only been 7, and a giant pussy, I was already smart enough to recognize opportunity to cut my losses. As the remainder of 2nd grade wound to a close, I dedicated myself to a '2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back' approach. Danny would begin his assault staring my lunch down through his squinted sliver eyes, I would feign resistance, and I would allow him to take one of the tastier items from my mid-day meal bonanza. It got to the point where I could predict which snack item he would go for next and I would bring an extra one from home that hid in my backpack for an afternoon snack.

This whole dance took its toll eventually. I became high strung and testy. If I dropped the ball while playing catch with my dad in the driveway, I would get mad and fight through the onset of tears. If my sister--2 ½ years my junior--took my favorite toy from out under me or got more ice cream for dessert than I did, I would meet her unwitting transgressions with the kind of wrath I experienced at Danny's hands every day.

My mother would ask me what the problem was and I would point and yell unintelligibly at my sister. She would explain that my sister was only 5 and wasn't doing anything on purpose to hurt me. Then she would ask if anything else was wrong and that's when I would spill my guts about the Danny Situation. She would hug me close to her, stroke my thick head of sandy blonde hair, and tell me to talk to Joan the next time Danny took from my lunch.

In my adult years, I've come to the realization that Joan had about as much business running a grammar school as a registered sex offender. It took only a few weeks before I gave up talking to Joan. She never did anything. I chose to rely on the solace provided by a doting mother.

One Friday in April--I think it was in April; I remember having celebrated Easter and my sister's birthday in the days just prior--things changed. What was at first solace had, over the months, degraded into patience and, that day, her patience had run out.

My mom picked me up from school at 4:45. My dad, it seems, was always in the final months of completing his dissertation for his PhD, so he had convinced my mom that it was best for all parties if she could race home from work across the bay in San Francisco to pick me up from school. She did just that every day. By 4:35, I would perch myself on the couch that sat under the large picture window in the front playroom waiting for her to pull up in our little orange Honda CVCC. I would always see her before she would see me and I would shout to Joan that my mom was here as I bolted out the heavy oak front door.

She would reach over to unlock the passenger side door and meet my outstretched arms with a kiss and a smile. Some days her smile was brighter than others, but it was never forced. It was always real. She was a mother, after all.

This April Friday brought one of the less bright smiles. We drove the short distance home in silence because I was fighting back a complete meltdown.

It was Art and Spelling Test Day and I had screwed the pooch on both. My pretty little picture looked like shit and I missed 4 of 8 words...unheard of for me. At recess, Danny pushed me down on the play structure, giving me a huge splinter that Joan didn't punish him for because "she didn't see it." At lunch, he snuck up from behind and knocked both my juice box AND my sandwich into the bark chips. Then, to add insult to injury, I went out to the backyard during after school play time to find KEN lifting Danny into the air to take shots at the hoop. It was, hands down, the worst day of 2nd grade.

We got home quickly and, as we pulled into the driveway, my mother asked what I wanted for dinner. I got 4 words out before I broke down.

"I don't really care be--

dannyknockedmedownontheplaystructureagainandthrewmysandwich andmyHi-CintothedirtandjoandidntdoanythingandKENpickedhimupinsteadofme--"

...and the tears began. We got out of the car and instead of pulling me close to her to salve the open, emotional wounds she pulled me by the arm into the house and up into her bedroom.

"NILS, YOU ARE TWICE DANNY'S SIZE! You need to start fighting back. Next time he pushed you, push him back. Kick his little butt."

I was stunned to silence. My mom just told me hit back. She spent the better part of the previous 2 years trying to get me to stop hitting my sister. Had the rules changed?

"Honey, this is never gonna stop unless you show him that he doesn't scare you."

But I was scared of him. Beside a cleft chin and a gift for language, this was the other way that I was just like my father. His conflict aversion made him the Switzerland of the 2nd grade dads. It had, it seems, rubbed off on me.

"I don't care what Daddy says about this. You have to fight back!"

Dead set against putting fists to flesh, I uttered 7 little words that, to this day, I have not lived down:

But...but...I don't believe in violence!

My mother stared at me for a couple seconds through her hardened German eyes, got up, and walked downstairs to help my Oma--who had arrived the day before to spend the summer with us--make dinner. Hamburger Helper: Cheeseburger Macaroni. My favorite.

Oma is German for "Grandma." My Oma was very German. Her accent was pronounced, her demeanor was stoic, and her dinners were always accompanied by butter and onions. Those were the hallmarks of her summer visits.

My favorite part of her visits, though, was in the beginning when she was here for the last few weeks of school and would make my lunch every day. For a handful of precious spring days, she spared me from the monotony of PB&J, canned soups, and incorrect apple selection.

Instead, I got homemade German soup. I got bologna sandwiches with bologna from a German deli in New Jersey that would slice it extra thin for her the day before she packed it in her suitcase on the way to California. Once a week, I would get liverwurst on pumpernickel. I FUCKING LOVED LIVERWURST. I was 7 and I still hated mustard and most vegetables, but I could put down a tube of liverwurst without batting an eyelash.

On the Monday following my mother's talking to, Oma packed me apple cider, homemade strawberry rhubarb, and liverwurst on pumpernickel. When I opened my lunchbox, it felt like Christmas had sex with my birthday and they gave birth to a winning lottery ticket.

Tate was eating half a Hostess apple pie he'd dug out of the trash before school. Fuck Tate's apple pie. I had liverwurst on pumpernickel. He had a full-house. I had a straight flush.

Awash in the glow of my German lunch, I forgot about Danny. That was my first mistake.
My second mistake was laying everything out on the lunch table to survey like a lord over his fiefdom. Taking the first and most rewarding pull off my bottle of cider, Danny lurched over my shoulder and jabbed two of his filthy little fingers right through the center of my liverwurst sandwich. He retracted them just as quickly and registered his disgust with the pink, pasty meat product caked on his white-trash talons by reaching over with the other hand and hucking my sandwich into the side of the house.

My final mistake was leaping up from the table and chasing him around the yard. I had finally had enough and while I was bigger, he was faster. He twisted and turned his way out of my grasp, doing his best to get back to the lunch table where he would lunge for another item from my lunch to knock on the ground. On the first pass it was the cider. On the last pass, the rhubarb. My breathless pursuit ended with the sound of the bell that signaled an end to the lunch period.

I spent the remainder of the class day looking out "Ken"s window, staring at the lunch table, seething with rage. I could feel Danny's sliver-eyed stare behind me and it drove me to distraction. I wanted desperately to leap from my seat and tackle Danny. I had no idea what I would have done after I had him on the ground, but I couldn't get that image out of my head.

School ended and my head started swimming. The jolt of adrenaline I received with the knowledge that I would have free reign once I reached the backyard sent the blood in my head racing to my feet. Dizziness overcame me and I sat back in my desk and put my head down.

"Nils, kiddo, how ya feelin'?" "Ken" came over from behind his desk.

I shrugged my shoulders and closed my eyes.

"Is everything okay? I noticed you weren't paying attention during science. That's not like you." "Ken" draped his flannel-clad arm around my back and squeezed my shoulder with his knotty hand.

I whimpered plaintively that I didn't feel well. I think he knew I was full of shit.

"Do you want me to take you down to Joan so she can take care of you until your mom can come getcha?"

NO. He knew that would be my answer. Unbeknownst to me, for the previous 3 months he'd been watching everything that was happening between Danny and me. Why the hell didn't he step in then? Was he showing restraint and hoping I would find, on my own, the intestinal fortitude to face up to my fears? Was this his way of teaching me some sort of life-altering object lesson?

No. He was just a big pacifist pussy like my dad. "Nils, I've seen how Danny treats you out on the playground. I've been very proud of you that you haven't taken his bait. He's trying to provoke a reaction out of you."

I sat, in silence, with my head resting on my folded arms. I didn't get what he was talking about.

"I want you to be the bigger person. The bigger person does not resort to violence. I was disappointed in you at lunch when I saw you chasing after Danny. What happened?"

What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?!? The only time in my life I can remember being more confused than that afternoon with "Ken" is the time in college when I woke up on the floor of the Berkeley City Jail in a Hawaiian shirt and a puddle of red-colored vomit.

Who was right? My mom? "Ken"? Where was KEN: WARRIOR POET when I could have used him?

The ensuing confusion solved the lightheadedness because my body sent the blood from my feet back to my head so I could figure out what the fuck was going on.

I had no answer. I told "Ken" I was feeling better and I walked down into the backyard. My rage had been subdued by confusion and fatigue. I sat on the steps that led down from the back porch to the small patch of blacktop that functioned as both the basketball court and the 4-Square court.

A quartet of 4th graders were at least 15 minutes into a spirited game of 4-Square. The kid in "D" square was dead set on ousting the kid in "A" square so the game had essentially devolved into 2-Square battle to the death. A had D on the ropes at one point until his plant foot slipped on a stray bark chip. He barely got the red rubber ball over the line, teeing it up for D. D lined up his kill shot like Andy Roddick swoops in on an overhead smash. And, just like Roddick, he completely fucked it up.

D hit down on the ball too hard, bouncing it in his square, high into the air, over "A" square, and directly into the top of my head. The ball rattled around on the steps and settled against my back.

There are certain substances on this earth that are benign when they stand alone but become highly explosive when combined and ignited. My anger and confusion, while admittedly churning away inside my fragile psyche, were dormant until they were mixed and ignited by a red rubber ball.

I grabbed the ball, walked down the stairs, curled it against my little hand and forearm and hurled it in their general direction, much the way a soccer goalie throws a long pass from the edge of the box to a midfielder on the wings.

I threw blindly, with the full force of my overdeveloped 7-year old body. I missed. Who I failed to see as I javelin-stepped into my throw was Danny, hanging playfully from a set of Olympic-style rings that Joan had erected a few weeks earlier to compliment the swings. Looking back, that was a weird choice of play equipment. I asked my mom about it recently and she actually remembered them being installed. They were second-hand and cheap. A match made in heaven.

The red rubber ball sailed over the 4-Square game and headed right for Danny. Oh how sweet would it be if that ball squared up Danny right in the face? It missed.

It hit him flush in the middle of the chest as he swung back and forth. It hit with enough force that it jarred his grip free and he went plummeting to the ground. He landed flat on his back. The impact knocked the breath clear out of him. Like most 2nd graders, I suppose, he had never had the wind knocked out of him. Almost immediately he realized he couldn't breathe. When his gasps for air failed, his eyes opened wide with fear; so much so that he was incapable of holding back the tears that began accumulating in the corners of his eyes.

I stood there stunned. And completely at peace.

We moved to the other side of town 3 months later and I started 3rd grade the following autumn at a new school. I never saw or spoke to Danny again.

Posted by nils at 7:24 PM

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Posted by: jessedouglas at August 24, 2006 09:48 PM

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