CONFESSIONS

The Time I Wish I’d Embraced Toxic Masculinity

One of the few physical fights I got into during K-12 school is one I keep replaying over and over again in my head

Throughout the first two decades of my life, I was the kid who always got picked on during school. And when I say “picked on,” I mean sexually-harassed, verbally-assaulted, and shunned by my peers.

Upon reflection, there were a number of reasons why I didn’t fight back. My dad was strict, and hammered obedience into the mindsets of myself and my sister. I carried that with me to school. Coupled with being autistic, I somehow got it in my head that if I spoke up for myself, used swear words, or engaged in physical self-defense — I would be punished, and the teachers would humiliate me for failing to follow the rules.

And there was some truth to that. In my school district, at least — many teachers seemed to make a conscious effort to be harder on us “good kids” if we ever stepped out of line. While the “bad kids” would still get disciplined, it appeared to be doled out with an aura of exasperated defeatism from the faculty members who had to deal with them.

Apparently, most of these hooligans were “lost causes” in the eyes of teachers, administrators, and aides. Therefore, some of the faculty only reprimanded them by halfheartedly going through the motions.

On the other hand, if you were a “good kid” like me — there was still some hope for you, in the eyes of authority figures. If we even sneezed with a hint of snide condescension, we’d be swiftly and unequivocally “put in our place.” Probably to keep us from falling in with the wrong crowd at an early age.

This was the culture into which I’d been absorbed when I began the Third Grade.

After three grade levels of education, I still had zero real friends. There were kids with whom I was casually friendly, but I never socialized outside of school. My interests and hobbies differed from those of most boys. I loved creative writing, photography, watching TV, reading storybooks, playing with “girly” toys, and expanding my imagination to become a problem-solver.

A majority of boys — at least at my school — appeared to be obsessed with sports, roughhousing, and enjoying the outdoors.

This schism apparently captured the attention of Luke, one of my classmates. He would make cocky statements to me at lunch, on the playground, or at other times when there was no adult in the room. He demeaned me for my interests; at the time, I was a huge fan of The Simpsons (which was in only its second season). Luke thought The Simpsons were freaks who looked like their faces were covered with paper bags. He preferred G.I. Joe, which I told him I found boring. Luke didn’t understand how I could believe that.

“It’s about guys in the military,” he corrected me.

Is it possible for one boy to “boysplain” something to another boy?

Ironically enough, as I inched closer to middle school, I would come to loathe The Simpsons. Its gross-out humor and awkward meta narrative eventually became a permanent turnoff for me. So…maybe Luke was onto something, there?

But then he’d shove me. He waited until there was no playground aide or authority figure in the vicinity. And then he’d slam me against the building’s brick wall. Or he’d pull my winter hat down over my head. Or he’d push me down to the ground.

Luke was regularly doing these things to intimidate me and make me feel shitty. He wanted me to know my place in the social hierarchy. Perhaps he had a rough homelife of his own, and so he was taking it out on me as an easy target?

It’s one thing to be excluded by your peers, socially. It’s another thing to be directly and intentionally preyed upon. I suffered in silence, because I’d been trained to believe that fighting back would result in a harsh punishment for me.

Here’s the interesting part: Luke didn’t necessarily have all the characteristics that society tends to associate with bullies when stereotyping them. Academically, he was smart and earned good grades. He didn’t openly mouth off to teachers. And, to this day, I still don’t know the specifics of his family circumstances…but there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest that he was living in an environment that would commonly get him labeled as “trailer trash.”

Luke had plenty of alpha male qualities without necessarily having alpha male status itself, within our grade’s hierarchy.

The Fight

In the Spring of 1991, after 6–7 months of constant harassment from Luke, I’d had enough and reached my breaking point. I could no longer bear to be looking over my shoulder every time we went out for recess.

It was March or April, as the snow was melting. At the end of one recess period, the aides had blown their whistles, indicating it was time for us to return to class. There was this covered breezeway separating the playground from the entrance to the upper grades’ side of the building. Once you passed through the breezeway, a mini-courtyard with multiple outdoor stairways led up to the wing of the school in front of which we’d line up before going back inside.

As I emerged from the breezeway toward the courtyard, I could see Luke waiting for me. He was looking straight at me — standing in a fixed position on the stairs, with a fierce facial expression. I knew what was coming.

Still the “good kid” at heart, I passed by him on the stairs, hoping he might let me go with nothing more than a rude comment.

No such luck.

He began to shove me…WHILE I WAS TRYING TO GO UP THE STAIRS!

I shoved him back, thinking I could maybe reach the top of the stairway and blend back into the crowd.

Again, no dice. Luke followed me over to the bike racks, where students from the rest of our Third Grade classroom had already begun to assemble. They were waiting for our teacher to arrive, to escort us inside. They didn’t realize that they were about to be treated to some live-action entertainment.

Now that we were on flat pavement, Luke shoved me again. Much harder, this time.

I lost it. Not only did I shove him back — I tried to push HIM down to the ground. I was seething, in blind rage. The grunts and cries emerging from my mouth were most likely feral and bizarre. He tried to fight back, but I wasn’t giving him an inch. The months upon months of fear had built up in me so intensely that I wanted to strangle him.

I was ready to kill him. Or, at least, severely wound him.

By this point, multiple classmates had grabbed onto my arms, shoulders, and legs. They were trying their best to restrain me. I can only imagine most of them were genuinely afraid I was going to injure Luke. Others might have wanted to find a way to calm me down to keep me from getting injured myself. And some of them saw our Third Grade teacher making her way toward the kerfuffle, so they must have been trying to break us up before she could realize what was happening.

Too late. The next thing I knew, we could hear Mrs. Kvalheim screaming at me and Luke to go straight to the principal’s office. Now, because I was one of Mrs. Kvalheim’s favorites, she obviously considered this to be way out-of-character for me. But it was also her first year of teaching, so she probably didn’t want to make any assumptions about our fight…and potentially risk being held liable.

And I had devolved into a blubbery mess of uncontrollable tears. Luke stayed silent, visibly sulking behind a stone-cold face. As he and I departed for the principal’s office, my classmate Tim (who, a few years later, would become a pretty good friend of mine) handed me my winter hat — which had fallen off my head during my and Luke’s scuffle.

I could see the sympathy and compassion in Tim’s eyes.

The Interrogation

Luke and I walked to the office together. He didn’t try anything…obviously aware that he and I were both in trouble. I was a sobbing basketcase.

While the two of us sat in front of the receptionist’s desk, waiting for Mr. Yakes to emerge from his office, tears still flowed from my eyes. Fear, embarrassment, and anger had joined together to overtake my body. Luke just sat there, calmly and silently stewing.

Tracy, one of the school’s aides, was in the office talking with the receptionist. At one point, she turned to me and started imitating my tearful demeanor — blatantly mocking me. Not only was this inappropriate, but I found it baffling…especially since Tracy herself was a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. You’d think someone who must have faced anti-Indigenous racism within a predominantly-White community wouldn’t be so quick to “sissy-shame” a nine-year old child!

Once we were sitting across from Mr. Yakes, he started out by asking Luke what had happened.

“Whose side of the story do you want to hear, first?” Luke asked, as though he was a clueless Judge Judy litigant mentally calculating how to game the system.

“Just tell me what happened,” repeated Mr. Yakes, clearly impatient with Luke’s fresh mouth.

So Luke proceeded to make up a whopper about how I had (allegedly) randomly approached Luke in front of the bike racks and started pounding on him, for no apparent reason. It almost would have been funny if I hadn’t been immersed in my own distress.

Mr. Yakes turned to me. “Why did you start pounding on him?” he asked.

“I didn’t!” I said, choking out the words.

“Well, then why did he tell me you did?”

“Because he’s lying!” There was no way I was going to back down, at this juncture.

Mr. Yakes didn’t know who to believe. Either he thought I was faking remorse, and my blubbering was due to how I’d been caught bullying another kid…or, our principal could see how genuinely traumatized I was, and he figured Luke was making it up in a more sociopathic manner. That’s probably why Mr. Yakes asked Luke for his testimony, first…he suspected Luke was the instigator, but he wanted to test Luke out to see what his claim would be.

Plus, Mr. Yakes saw how I’d melted down into a noisy and weepy puddle…so he figured it would be easier for him to broach the initial dialogue with Luke.

Looking back on it…I don’t think Luke was sociopathic. He’d just mastered the art of stoicism, and possessed far more control over his emotions than I did.

Mr. Yakes then told us he was heading back over to our classroom to gather the eyewitness accounts of our classmates. He wanted to hear what they had to say.

When Mr. Yakes left the office, Luke and I just sat there in silence. I’m sure Luke wanted to throttle me…but he wouldn’t dare try it, with the office door wide open in plain sight of the receptionist.

A good 15–20 minutes later, Mr. Yakes returned. He informed us that practically every student in our class had corroborated my account. They’d all verified for Mr. Yakes that Luke was the first one to pounce on me. I don’t know if any of them had observed Luke bullying me on previous occasions — or whether they’d offered that to Mr. Yakes — but it was apparent that my classmates were all in agreement: Luke’s attack on me had been absolutely unacceptable.

Then, Mr. Yakes told us:

“I don’t want to ever hear about you two doing anything like this ever again.”

We both nodded, docile. And I begged him not to tell my parents. Mr. Yakes seemed a bit surprised by my request.

“Well, I was going to call your dad about what happened to you,” said Mr. Yakes. “But if you two promise never to get in another fight with each other, then there’s no need for me to tell them.”

I suspect Mr. Yakes probably figured my nervous breakdown was punishment enough for me.

The Aftermath

We walked back, in silence. I can’t remember if we were alone together, or if Mr. Yakes had sent an aide to escort us back to our classroom, or if he’d directly accompanied us back (I’d say it was either the first or second scenario). But Luke didn’t try anything else.

The next day, out in the hallway right before recess, Luke approached me…but not in an aggressive way.

“Did you tell your parents about what happened yesterday?” Luke asked me.

“No,” I said, truthfully.

“Me neither,” he replied.

There was a momentary connection between us. One that resembled a flash-in-the-pan flicker of brotherhood. We’d been through this toxic shared experience together. And we had both avoided getting in trouble for it, at home. A big part of why I wanted this brouhaha kept secret from my parents was out of sheer embarrassment. If I’d actually told them, knowing my mom and dad — THEY probably would have called Luke’s parents and chewed them out for allowing their son to become such an asshole.

I can’t say that Luke and I ever became friends…because we didn’t. However, I do feel I’d earned his respect, on some level. He never bullied me, ever again.

In hindsight, as we implicitly made amends right there in the hallway — I wish that Luke and I had physically shaken hands…and maybe exchanged a quick bro-hug (even though the bro-hug wasn’t popular yet, back in the early-90s).

The following year, a new elementary school was established. Based on where in town you lived, some students stayed at Forrest Street Elementary. Others were transferred, several blocks away, to Third Street Elementary.

Luke stayed at Forrest Street. I got sent to Third Street.

We never saw each other again.

Processing It, 31 Years later…

Before our class reached middle school, Luke moved away to Green Bay. In more recent years, I’ve Internet-stalked him. He appears to be married with kids of his own. According to Facebook, he attended college and seems to have a decent job.

If I had to do it all over again…well, first, I would have taken a different set of stairs out of that courtyard. But, if he’d still managed to corner me…maybe I could have channeled my rage differently? More proactively!

Twisted his arm behind his back? Pulled a torture technique on his fingers? I really don’t know…I wasn’t equipped with skills in martial arts.

But, yes, the first time he ever laid his hands on me…I would have loved to take him down with a swift Jiu-Jitsu hold. Some people are simply unwilling to “talk things out.” Certain assailants only understand brute force.

And what if Luke had never moved away? We’d have eventually been in middle school together. After our Third Grade fight, could Luke and I have somehow become “friend-adjacent” (if not outright friends), once our respective interests or personalities proceeded to evolve and mature?

If you have to shower next to someone after gym class, it’s a lot more difficult to treat them like shit.

Let’s say I could have transplanted my present-day brain back into the body of my nine-year-old self. As Mr. Yakes admonished me and Luke for fighting — and, in the process, essentially gaslit me — a stronger version of me would have stood up for myself to HIM.

“Sure, tell my parents what happened. See how they react, when they learn that your inattentive faculty allows shit like this to happen to ‘good kids’ like myself. If you fail in your job to protect me, then you can’t complain when I sink my fangs into the flesh of an aggressor.”

I’m sure that some readers will accuse me of succumbing to the conventions of toxic masculinity. You may claim I’m doing all boys a disservice if I decline to take the high road. By failing to use nonviolent conflict resolution methods.

But “the high road” sometimes gets demolished. Just ask the Ukrainians.

This article is solely for informational purposes and represents the writer’s personal opinion. Please seek professional advice if required.

If you are keen to write with us on RESONATES, read the submission guidelines here.