Shut Up, N_____

Shut Up, Nigger
 (This was written as a non-fiction piece for a class.  I chose to write about an incident that was a learning experience for me, something which I was never proud of but which taught me a valuable lesson)

            I learned a lesson long ago, one which has stayed with me ever since.  I was ten years old and in the fifth grade.  At that time, I was living in a little town in northern Arizona which delights in calling itself the “Gateway to the Grand Canyon”.  I remember it was in the coming spring of 1978.

            I was taking the bus home from school, a convenience I was determined to take advantage of for as long as I could, which unfortunately would end that year.  Come sixth grade and I’d be a pedestrian.  Yes, I truly did walk home from school exactly two miles up hill each day through the snow.

            The argument wasn’t mine.  It was my friends.  He was in the grade below me and he was my friend because he was my next-door neighbor for my first year in that town.  What memory I have of the other kid is vague, pretty muchunimportant, as was the argument itself.  It was on something so trivial, so incredibly stupid, that its profundity was assured.  It was pretty much a variant on the Superman vs. Mighty Mouse theme.

            I had an opposite.  I guess you could call him the “second” for my friends’ foe, as I was the “second” for him.  My counterpart and I were both having fun laughing at and encouraging what our primaries were so intensely agitated over.  At one point though, I said, without malice, in response to a comment he made, “Shut up, nigger”.

Now you must believe me.  I was totally ignorant as to what was behind that word.  I had no idea its history, its meanings, its connotations.  I was completely clueless to what I had said.  I do not even know where I had heard it.  I have thought in times past that it was most likely picked up watching Roots, but I’ve never checked the original airdates of that show.  It could have been from around town or school.  I’m not sure.  I know it wasn’t from my parents.  I had heard it somewhere and I used it at that moment.

            I remember getting off the bus that day amid terrible threats from a face of rage held back by friend and foe alike.  I remember a vast range of uncertainty amongst us all.  I do not know if any of us knew what had happened.  It seemed to me though that everyone on the bus knew something significant had transpired.  No one knew how to respond to it though.  I walked home that day.

Iris is swift.  By lunch recess the next day, an expectant air gripped the school.  Standing in line to return to class, I learned its depth.  Being a fifth grader in the fifth grade line, I was sandwiched comfortably between friends.  One of these was my best friend from that time; a slight, rambunctious kid named Rodney.  Rodney lived one block down the hill from me and was my constant companion on many and many a day.  I honestly cannot recall Rodney’s reaction standing in line that day.

            The boy whom I’d insulted was in the line next to me, the third grade line.  He was two years younger than me but physically quite a bit larger.  I was a skinny little kid.  Being skinny and small and totally un-experienced in trading blows with anyone, his warnings of “after school” didn’t sit well with me.  I remember he was wearing a t-shirt with Mork from Ork cheerfully saying “Nano-nano”.

            I really wish I could remember Rodney’s expression.

            The bus was packed that day.  The two other routes in town were pretty much empty.  Even larger was the crowd waiting at the old grade school playground where the bus made my stop.  It’s also quite amazing how few people remained on board for its final destination.  Even several older kids, those already condemned to walk home, were hanging out waiting for blood.  My brother was amongst them but he was there for a different reason.  He was there to ensure I got home safely.

            I’m glad he was there.  The offended's older sister, a real hellcat if memory serves me correctly, was there to ensure I paid my penance.  A bit of a battle royale erupted there as she refused to acknowledge my brother when he stood before me.  I took that opportunity to flee.

            I remember Rodney at this point.  He neither encouraged nor interfered with what happened next.  What he did was try to prevent others from interfering.  He blocked both those who would hold me and those who would help me.  I remember him calling for a fair fight.

            I wasn’t in the mood for fighting though.  I was in the mood for fleeing.  I did a pretty good job of it too.  It was about three blocks uphill for me.  The first block was neutral land, the last block was safe, but that crucial middle block held some kids whose relationship with me consisted of mostly sneers and childish jibes.  That is where I encountered my greatest difficulty.

            From the grounds of the old school, I broke for home.  Imagine a long, narrow football field packed with thrice the number of players.  The breakdown was about even.  Half seemed to either want to see me dead or, mostly, just to see some kid get his ass whooped.  The other half, for reasons I’ll never know, were intent on preventing that.  This being the case, small battles broke out on either side and in front and behind as blockers martyred themselves in my defense.

            Midway up the hill, most of the crowd had thinned itself out.  Only about a dozen remained pursuing or fending.  This lack of coverage allowed my antagonist a clear shot at me.  He was able to seize my shirt from behind and drop a couple of fists on my back.  I broke away with a sharp hook right that led me strait toward the house where those unfriendly kids lived.  Luckily, none of the pine-cones they threw connected.

            He didn’t catch up with me again because right at the start of the third block, a large Navajo boy whom I don’t recall very well placed himself between us.  That allowed me a clean run home.  I did not turn around.  Behind me was my brother, my best friend, and my pride.  I had my teeth though.

            At home, safe from the blows I deserved, I found myself uncomfortably the center of attention.  My maternal grandparents were in town visiting and I was subject to advice from all corners.  Needless to say, the lectures on appropriate speech and the damage words can cause lasted well into the evening.  What I remember most though was my grandfather telling me how I needed to learn how to fight.  This advice was liberally sprinkled with anecdotes of his own days of youth and tales of strength contests amongst his contemporaries.  I remember him talking about bending halfpenny nails, but in my mind’s eye I now have a vision of my grandfather, clad in a cape, bending railroad tracks with an ease that would embarrass both Superman and Mighty Mouse.

            The next day at school was uneventful.  A couple of comments on the previous days drama was all that was, nothing more, and the town forgot quickly what had happened.  My friendship with Rodney remained unchanged and I was still welcome at his house whenever we chose to play there.  Rodney’s mother never once cast a glance askance at me for offending her favorite nephew.  All went on as it had before.

I learned a lot from that incident those oh so many years ago.  I learned that childish names are not always so innocent.  I still, throughout my years, responded jibe for jibe and name for name, but I kept a temperance too.  I had learned through tragic lesson that some names can reach beneath the skin.  I remember the pain too well in that boys' eyes that day on the bus to ever forget that lesson.

            I have taken care, from that day forward, to use only the most pedestrian of curses and invocations.  There is not a sailor upon the seas who could curse as good as me.  I know all the words, I know all the slurs, and I use them freely as needed.  What I do not do is aim deeper than the superficial.  Let them take offense if they will.  Anyone who does feign offense from a banal profanity deserves to be offended.  I do not cut deeper though.  I learned my lesson in the tears I saw that day.

            Innocence dies slowly and each wound it receives leaves behind a scar.  I am thankful for the scars I wear regardless of the pain I bore upon receiving them.  They make me who I am today.  Likewise, I regret deeply those scars I inflicted when what I said cut deeper than expected.  We are all guilty of such offenses and we can only hope our sins will eventually be shrived by time.  I learned a lesson that day and I have been as faithful to its teaching as a young fool in a world of fools can be.

            About four and a half years later, I was living in the big city.  My world had advanced with a rapidity the sleepy little town of yore would have balked at.  I was stepping back through time, visiting a friend from that long ago.  He and I had gone to watch the first football scrimmage of the year.  While sitting there in the bleachers, this kid only barely recognizable came up to us.  He was much, much bigger than he had been before and I had pretty much stayed scrawny.

He greeted my friend as the buddies they were.  He then turned to me and said, “I remember you.”

            I remembered him then too.

            “Didn’t I chase you home after school one day?”

            I think I nodded.  My heart was pounding, of that I’m sure.

            “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?”

            As if he could sense my unease, he took that old ghost out and tossed it lightly to the wind.  That was it.  Years later, this kid whose name I’ll probably never recall had taught me the truth to the lesson I had learned so long ago.  He taught me what it was to aspire to be a man.

            I remember we had a lot of fun that night.  We ditched the game and disappeared, the three of us, into the evening light to do as young boys will do.  It was a good night, one not meant for indelible images, but one full of that freedom of youth and that camaraderie that can be had.  We were friends then.  Just three punk kids in a po-dunk town on the edge of a summer’s eve, wasting the day and seeking glory at the end of an age.

Kenneth Bykerk