another day of autobiographical probing with Maria

 Acclaim is the trigger word Maria suggests.

but that wasn't true at all.  Well, at some points, yes, I was writing dirty stories for classmates and a teacher grabbed it during class (it being one of the stories that was getting passed around) and it was utmost filth pornographic you might even say, and to be honest, did I get in trouble?  Maybe.  Maybe the teacher was so overcome with digust, I dunno.  This was junior high though, I didn't care about anything.  Once I was in a music appreciation class and we were asked to design a musical instrument and at the last minute I put a coin into a little milk carton and shook it.  No effort prize.  But it was the same class I believe where the teacher thought he was being smart by grabbing the story and he ended up being shocked instead.  Served him right.  And someone asked me why did I always write the perfect person in the story and that was because probably my obsession as a teen was being perfect or better.  Bigger, better, more handsome, stronger, more popular, etc.  I wrote a lot of dark stuff back then about murder for example down to hatred of family but also watching the horror movies didn't help.  Friday the 13th really provoked darkness in me.  Solitude didn't help.  So darkness, solitude and hatred were my sources of inspiration.  That and dreams about being better.  Quite a horror stew, right?  Fortunately I had the violence of football to save me from getting into any really serious trouoble.  I might have vandalised things, broken things, just as an outlet.

*****

Yes of course, all of those things.  My father, who I saw infrequently, he and I went on little weekend trips together from time to time to different cities like Boston or Toronto or Montreal or Philadelphia in order to watch baseball games.  It was kind of bonding.  But my mother, she was just the camp guard so to speak, you know what I mean?  I don't remember any love and tenderness.  Just recriminations.  I couldn't do anytihng right for her despite being a good student, a good athlete, not getting into any serious trouble, not like the incident in junior high anyway, the assault.  I am trying to remember back to the suburbs.  I was awkward the first two years perhaps or year and a half.  Awkward...it seems in my sophomore year I broke out of it a little.  Maybe the acne stopped.  I became more known for sports.  My reputation for cursing and slamming my locker made the news in school.  I was cultivated a hot head reputation.  Brooding.  Disco was gone.  What had it been replaced by?  Well, I lost my virginity for one and yes, being in the disco had brought confidnece with females as well.  I danced well and met a lot of pretty girls who seemed always interested in me. So my self-hatred eased a little bit.  I became almost cruel and mocking.  Yes, this was during the time of Scott Haney harassment, the thousands of pizzas or food delivered to his hoouse, making the newspaper with Dave H as rotten person of the week.  The time of beating the bully Steve Malin until he became the bullied, my hero moment, ha, no it was my sadistic moment.  Many of them.  Sadistic, violent, hateful and angry.  Tempered by getting high with Dave.  Most of my high school classmates lived on another side of Greece, the township I lived in.  So I didn't hang out with people from school.  I hung out with whatever remnants were in my neighbourhood.  I would have gotten my driver's license at 16 but I don't remember much except driving too fast once with a car fulll of track teammates and nearly flipping the car.  I remember eating with Dave at Ponderosa steak house, all you could eat salad bar and loading up with bacon bits and creamy salad dressing before hitting the steak.  It must have been cheap or maybe you know, I was rolling in money from that paper route.  

*****

Anger was always justified to me.  I did not get angry unless provoked.  So any retribution, no matter how disproportionate, seemed justified to me.  There were a lot of moments of pure hatred.  I remember hating my mother, wishing she was dead, I can't count how many times I wished her dead.  And I would go long periods of not talking to her, not saying a word until she broke down and told me she loved me.  That was a pattern a life long pattern I learned for the future in my dealings with females later on down the road in life.  I'm trying to think of something nice my mother did for me.  Grabbing a screwdriver in the kitchen one afternoon to protect herself because I looked in my eyes like I wanted to kill her? No, it wouldn't be that.  I can't think of any love and tenderness from her.  I remember her asking me, following a question I asked about circumcision, if I knew which one I was and I guess I got it wrong and this was following reading some article or maybe it was for school.  In school, I remember going on a tirade in a paper about why it had been good to nuke Japan at the end of world war II.  I was also writing sports artidles for the school newspaper.  I was writing stories all the time.  My mother complained that I didn't go outside enough or didn't have enough friends.  I didn't want to go out and didn't want friends.  This I was made to feel bad about.  She made me walk on a broken leg once because she didn't believe me.  I went out forced to walk alone and my broken leg seized up and I couldn't walk, was stuck out there in the street unable to move and finally I figured out a way and then finally she took my to hospital and they x-rayed and said yes, broken leg.  That was more junior high.  Also had laser eye surgery because I had a hole in my retina discovered during a check up which acorrding to them the docs, could have resulted in detched retina and blindness.  Caught just in time but I had to miss several games of the football season which sucked.  Football and cheerleaders.  Running track in the spring, the freeodm of running effortless over long distances.  Joy.  I had no talks with anyone but Big Dave.  Sometimes I was able to talk to Big Dave's parents, far more loving than mine, more easily than my own family.  I liked Big Dave's parents.  I spent a lot of time there.

****

I got called "Mad dog" which was actually a compliment on the football field.  Another coach said I was like cancer all over the place all the time.  An odd thing to say.  I loved playing football.  I loved night games in particular, the crowds, the lights.  I loved the opening kickoff running full speed towards the opposite end at people, preparing for a major collision with another human.  It was fun, throwing the body recklessly around.  It was fun sacking a quarterback or really smashing someone.  I told KW often about this image; letting a receiver extend to catch a ball and then going like a missile for his ribs to try and make him give up the ball.  It was  great way to get out aggressions in an acceptable manner.  I remember big games being so jacked up that by the time the game started I was almost already exhausted.   I remember some guys puking on the sidelines they were so jacked up and sometimes they were on speed.  I remember having to shave my legs so my legs could be taped up every day otherwise, ripping the tape off with the hair on my leg, not pleasant.  I remember training, running, weight lifiting.  I remember our gold and black colours.  Running through the teammates in a queue all of them slapping you on the helmet and shouting encouragement. Blitzing.  Beating bigger guys because I was meaner and faster.  It was about hitting and being phsical.  Delivering blows not receiving them, that was the key.  I never liked the glory of touchdowns and fans cheering for me.  I wanted the mud and blood and grunting and pain.  

I didn't like summer trraining though.  The last two weeks of august or whatever, before school classes even started we would have two a days meaning practice in the morning running, hitting, drills, etc then break for lçunch then practice int he afternoon.  Hated running gassers which were sprints from sideline to sideline.  I remember one on one tackling drills that I excelled at.  I remember the head coach who seemed like a nice guy, asking me to go from varsity to JV to give me a year to grow because the position I played requried more size.  I hated that.  I refused;  They wanted to know how tall my father was to assess if I would get bigger.  I  lied.  I didn't start;  But I played well when I played.  I was a good football player trapped in a body that was not as big as it needed to be so it was frustrating because I knew I would thrive if given the chance but they wanted to give chances to bigger guys.  I was humiliated in some ways;  But I kept playing and doing well.  I remember that there was this thing on the radio, call in and leave your name and phone number and they would repeat it on air and my name was the last one repeated so everyone got that one and for a year I kept getitng calls from girls I didn't know.  Some of them I would meet up with after football games.  They were all lfrom different schools;  I remembver that withiin one year I'd gone from outcast that no girl would consider, to good looking strong guy they were all liking.  Football did that  alittle