How I Lost God – Which Turned Into a Long-Condensed Story of My Dysfunctional Life: Part 4

We then moved to another town during the middle of my 4th grade year. It was a whole new experience for me. I went from living in a city to a poorer school district. Plus, now I lived outside of town in the country. I was never well off no matter where I lived, (we were always lower middle class,) it was just that the school system was better; not that I utilized it or realized it until I left. I was the only white kid on my bus. My sister stopped riding early on because of our mistreatment by the black kids. The high school rode on the same bus as the elementary students. I would get thumped in the head, picked on, intimidated, and called racial slurs. I stuck it out and soon gained the respect of my bus mates with my humor. Sometimes it’s good to be funny. After that no one ever messed with me at school because all of my black friends stood by me even when I wasn’t around. Not that I was ever violent; I always had a way of using humor to quell any antagonism. But even when that didn’t work no one wants a piece of you when it is about to get out of hand and from nowhere half a busload of kids of all ages pops up and asks if anyone has any beef with me. It’s weird how circumstances change: one minute they hate; the next they are my brothers and sisters. Yes, sisters, there were actually a few chicks on my bus that even the guys didn’t mess with. I guess I can say one thing positive that I did get from my father – or than his genes, OK, maybe not the BP one – was his respect for all races. He had many black friends while I was growing up, as did I from that year on. If you said the N-word in my house, it probably would have been the last word you ever said. The evil bastard for some reason had ethics in that department. Anyone and everyone was accepted in my house. I am thankful of that at least. Back to the story. I started afresh, but I brought along my evil ways. I was right back in trouble because of my mouth, disruptiveness, and class antics. In the 6th grade I continued getting into trouble as usual. This time when I sat with a newly hired principle, she said that she had never heard a kid my age speak so articulately and give such rational excuses for misbehavior. She said that she thought she knew what was going on. She thought that I was bored with my curriculum. She had people come in a give me an IQ test. I tested so highly that she immediately removed me from my regular classes and put me in a small class of academically gifted students. I’m sure those teachers were glad to see me go. My dad seemed proud of me for a change. Can you image the rebel, who was against all authority, being put into a class of rich, white, preppie, nerds? I still remember them asking what my dumbass was doing there right in front of me. I was the epitome of wrongness in their eyes and opposite of what they considered themselves to be. Hell, I was the kind’a kid that picked on them for God’s sake. They were truly flabbergasted, appalled, and threatened by my mere presence. The teacher told them that I had scored higher than most of them to get into her class. It was an oddly structured class with the highest quality curriculum. I learned so much that second half of the year. I still don’t find it fair that those few privileged students had access to a better education than everyone else. I actually became friends with those kids and with their acceptance I didn’t get in trouble again at school that year. But as luck would have it, I met a kid named Rick across the street from my house that year. He was a year older than I and he got me into some bad things. I didn’t see him a lot because he was rich and he went to a top-tier private school in Raleigh and had to commute daily. His mom had her own business in Raleigh and they didn’t get home until like 9 pm every night. But every day that we weren’t in school, we were together. I lived with them from Friday night until I went home on Sunday evening. We started going into work with his mom on Saturdays and hanging out in the mall that was across the highway from her workplace. He taught me how to shoplift and not get caught. We began shoplifting all kinds of things, but mostly clothes. I actually had the nicest school clothes ever starting that next fall.