‘Dodge Ball’

Kathryn McDanel is a photographer whose photographs demonstrate a zest for life by capturing secret little moments that comprise humanity.

Dodge Ball

I am fascinated by the sensitivity of human fingers. When reading a book, I am able to tell if I have accidentally turned two pages, instead of one.

Dodge ball has been described as “modern day stoning.” That’s the definition stated in 2012, by the character of “Kurt” played by Chris Colfer on Glee. The thought process makes me laugh. I am by no means some pain enduring, butch boy. I have only been punched once in my life, when I was a pre-teen. Ironically, the person who knocked the wind out of me was the same guy who defended me a decade later in high school by punching someone else (coincidentally named Kurt) in the stomach. This was my cousin, Glenn. I don’t consider us to have been close in our youth. But by the time he and I were in the same high school, we built a relationship that stands strong to this day.

Glenn’s daughter, Sarah (that makes her my first cousin once removed, or maybe my second cousin...I can never figure these titles out), lived a few blocks from me for a short while. I felt very protective of her, though she sure didn’t need my protection. She ended up leaving New York City and moving to a southern state with a warmer climate.

We played dodge ball at Montrose Elementary School in South Orange, NJ, in front of a wall at the rear of the building, next to the stairs leading to the gymnasium. Maybe it was banned sometime later, though I don’t think there was any political correctness uproar back then. I loved playing the game, both as the pitcher and a target. To play it correctly, throwing the big, rubber ball took power but not a whole lot of skill. I don’t even remember how the game was scored. It could be an accurate explanation as to why I am able to toss mooring lines with great strength for the motor yacht on which I work. After I graduated from my three years at Columbia High School, located in the sister town of Maplewood, the system of grades was rearranged. Starting a year earlier at grade six, junior high became middle school before sending students on to high school to complete the final four years.

The elementary school I attended closed its doors due to a decline in the childhood population. The building sits vacant. When I used to travel from Penn Station in New York City, to see my parents in New Jersey each week, the train passed the empty school building ahead of pulling into the trestled South Orange Station.

At the end of my time at elementary school, where I had been popular with my fellow students, there were rumblings of my soon being alienated. I didn’t know, let alone notice. Entering junior high was like walking into a field of landmines I had not been warned I would be expected to navigate. I was verbally attacked every day, from day one. I’m not sure this will make sense but that became my accepted norm. I never saw any of the kids with whom I went to elementary school once we moved on to junior high school, so I didn’t consider that they too might have begun treating me differently.

40 years later, my friend Jim, a neighbor from my days growing up, reconnected with me. He explained by way of apologizing for his part in something I was not even aware had been mapped out. The winds of change were set before we all graduated to the new, pink brick building. I had been under the delusion that my elementary school friends would have been allies. Jim’s confession confirmed that this was not the case, though part of me wishes he hadn’t said anything about it. Since none of the kids from my elementary school were in my junior high school “cycle,” I didn’t know anything about their turncoat discussions. (Cycles were how our school system grouped students of similar aptitude in junior high. You stayed together, attending different classes throughout the day.)

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my experience at school before moving to the city to go to university. It’s become repetitious therapy. After six years, I had gotten so used to being a target that it hadn’t occurred to me that it would end once I left the suburbs for college. There were times growing up when it was unbearable — particularly my first year in high school. It was also something I began to believe was how it was always going to be. Oddly, if I recall correctly, the verbal abuse didn’t color my everyday moods. What I mean by that is not that I grew used to it. It often was brutal. But knowing it was coming became part of my adolescent reality. I was called a faggot while walking the halls at school and sometimes even when in an active class if a teacher turned his or her back, or wasn’t paying attention. Even now, though it happens very rarely, if someone yells a derogatory comment at me, I internally shake. I may flip them the bird or not give any evidence of a reaction, but inside I have a PTSD response. Having nothing to do with the taunts and what I now view as accusatory insults, I did not allow myself to be with a boy sexually until my second year at college, after I fell in love. I believe the verbal attacks during my pre-college school days were a result of my being flamboyant and feminine. I don’t think that the majority of the abuse had much to do with assuming there was any literal boy-on-boy sexual behavior. Whatever the case, I definitely stood out just by being who I am. Friends, adversaries, defenders and bullies: everyone in school seemed to know me. There were times I wished I had been invisible. I ignorantly imagine it might have been like being the one student of color in a sea of white kids.

With the exception of a woman named Darryl, I haven’t maintained any friendships from my college experience. She and I also attended high school together. During our senior year at Columbia High, we were in a few of the same electives, which is where our lifelong friendship took root. I have maintained a selection of friends that knew me from those volatile days. I look back and wonder how much peer pressure had to have been part of their existence. It was easier for girls, but for the boys who were in my life, they may have been ridiculed for associating with me. To my knowledge, all these guys were straight. This was the 1970’s. They most likely had to defend themselves. I don’t know if any of them thought that by being my friend meant that you had guts, but I do. In particular, one boy named Doug, a jock, who was a year older than I. Our introduction by his girlfriend, Anne, helped in forging our friendship during the roughest era. Anne and I had been in each other’s lives before the high school years. I don’t know how long it took, but I remember with clarity the first time Doug invited me to hang out with him at his house. Anne was there when the invitation was offered on a street corner, a few blocks from his home. It was a casual gesture that meant Doug had begun thinking of us as friends. For me, it represented something very significant.

It may seem unnecessary to my life as it is now to focus on events from a lifetime ago. My mother would be annoyed at the emotional stall. She used to spout how much she couldn’t stand it when people seemed stuck living in their memories. She felt it was easier to walk away from certain pieces of her past. That’s what I think. Mom once told me she never wanted to return to the shores of Chappaquiddick, on Martha’s Vineyard, where our family vacationed when I was a child. It was a time that could not be replicated. A photographic reminder was as much as she was willing to inhale. The sunsets and ocean waves; the sea glass and sand beaches. And the peace she found in the silence of watching a rising sun by herself, before the children all awoke.

Enduring words that cut invisible wounds or accepting the physical pain of being hit by a blood red ball thrown hard with intent, have both found a permanent place in my psyche. Private and significant.

For years, I would go to a gay bar in Chelsea. I would order my drinks from a straight bartender named Brian. When I stepped up to his station, without fail, he would cuff me in the left shoulder. It was his way of showing affection. To be clear, after the first time, it was at my invitation. It hurt and sometimes left a black and blue bruise, but I loved it. So I suppose that means I have been punched more than once. Just not in the stomach. On the day my dad died, Brian bought shots for anyone hanging at his bar. He then asked everyone to raise their glass, as he toasted the memory of my father.

Andrew Sarewitz has published more than 75 short stories (website: www.andrewsarewitz.com. Substack access is @asarewitz) as well as having penned scripts for various media. Mr. Sarewitz is a recipient of the City Artists Corp Grant for Writing. His play, Alias Madame Andrèe (based on the life of WWII resistance fighter, Nancy Wake, the “White Mouse”) garnered First Prize from Stage to Screen New Playwrights in San Jose, CA; produced with a multicultural cast and crew. Member: Dramatists Guild of America.