The day I called Adam an idiot
Sunday, November 30th, 2008When I was really little, I remember, I went for aftercare at the Agassiz (pronounced “Ah-Guh-SEE”) School Aftercare Program in Cambridge. The Agassiz school wasn’t nice. Even as a kid it struck me as way too narrow for a school. It was all brick (like all schools from that era) but it also had strange Gothic details that made it seem like it had probably been designed as a church instead. I remember playing outside of it on the limited grounds that surrounded it. I don’t really remember much about that. I don’t remember what sorts of games we played…I’m sure it was all the usual stuff: Foursquare; Wall Ball (which I would later learn, when I moved to Newton, was really called “Suicide.”), and of course Jump Rope. I remember running around like a maniac screaming. That was my big trick. I was a very sociable kid, but I always wanted to be the hero. And for some reason, the running around yelling was how that expressed itself.
I remember this one day, I was in exactly that situation. I was running around the school yard yelling things. Everyone was looking at me. I still remember how blissful that was. Who knew what would happen? Well, here’s what happened: I remember waking up from this stupor to find myself shouting, “Idiot! Idiot Idiot!” at this one kid, Adam. Adam was a sometime friend of mine. His mother was British and fancied herself quite the Actress. Once, we even went to see a performance of Twelfth Night that she put on in what was being called a theater but seemed to me like the basement of a Harvard dormitory somewhere in Cambridge. I found the show quite entertaining due in no small part to a scene in which one of the male characters in a leotard suddenly exposed a codpiece to a female character. My six-year-old self laughed uproariously. (Now this was humor that I could get.) I also went to Adam’s house once. His mother had a book on Shakespeare which he declared triumphantly had cost her one hundred dollars. This was by the eighties so a hundred dollars back then would probably be more like two hundred and fifty by now so yeah, that must have been a really awesome book. I remember Adam himself looked like Lewis Rukeyser, the host of PBS’ Wall Street Week, and a man whose bust I had had ample time to acquaint myself with as neither my mother nor my grandmother would would let a week go by without seeing that show. I don’t remember Adam’s father.
So, anyway, on that day, the one where I shouted, “Idiot!” so many times to Adam’s face. I remember right after that I turned and ran around the entire yard yelling very awesome things. I played with a jumprope. Today was a sunny day and I wanted to live–and then it all stopped. very abruptly. I was accosted by one of the caretakers. I was pulled by the arm and thrust into a corner. I was berated. Adam, I was shocked to learn had burst into tears immediately after my outburst. He was now inconsolably sobbing in a corner with his tiny Lewis Rukeyser face pressed up again the rough brick of the Agassiz’s outer walls. I could see him in the distance. The Aftercare people scolded me viciously. I began sobbing, too, although I remember it was more from the punishment than from what I had done. In fact, I had no understanding of what I had done. I had no idea why I had called him an idiot in the first place. As usual, I had been on autopilot. It seemed almost like something someone else had said.
But even given that, so what? So I had called him an idiot. Many people got called idiots all the time and no one ever seem bothered. It seemed an such an awfully ordinary thing to get so very upset about. I remember wondering if he had taken my insult at face value — like maybe now he truly believed himself that he was an idiot. I had only meant to insult, but had instead imparted information. I had informed him that he was an idiot. And he had believed me. This was distressing to me. I liked Adam and I didn’t think he was an idiot. I wanted to get to close to him. To tell him that I had not meant what I had said, that above all he was not an idiot. I strained against my captors. The caretakers held me back even after I explained my motives. I sobbed some more. Adam’s parents were called. They actually came and got him early which was especially tragic because Adam never came back to aftercare. I don’t know why that was. It was only much later that I realized that it was probably the fact that I had a viciously hissed the word “Idiot” over and over at him that had been so damaging. I could probably have delivered the same blow with the word “Cucumber” if I had wanted to.
Anyway, if you’re out there Adam. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I called you idiot but also I’m sorry that I made your parents take you out of aftercare because even though they had us play poker with M&M’s and that was really pretty unsanitary for kids to be passing around M&M’s and then eating them and also there was that time when they showed us the Tom Hanks movie, “The Burbs,” and I didn’t know that was supposed to be a comedy and, anyway, that really scared the shit out of me as a six year old, but anyway, the dodge ball was always fun and I believe I could say that with some authority because my mother was a single mother and I went to a lot of different aftercare programs. At one point or another I must have gone to every single program in Cambridge and none of them had dodge ball like they had at Agassiz. They called it bleacher dodge there because you had to sit down on the bleachers when you got knocked out of the game. but, the thing is, that almost never happaned to me because I was a fast little shit. i would run around with my arms outstretched at top speed and elude even their most heinous attempts to peg me. sometimes they would whip the ball at me so hard, and just when they thought they had really got me i would whirl around and catch the ball at the last minute. then they would have to go sit on the bleachers. oh you should have seen it. it was glorious. and to think you missed it because i called you an idiot. i’m really sorry.
Peace
