3.
Growing
Third grade gave way to
fourth, fourth to fifth, fifth to sixth. During these years Matt and I
became more firmly who we each were, both individually and as the duo
of "best friends" that we were. Our friends came to expect that when
they saw one of us, more often than not they'd see the other. The
occasional explosions of hatred we'd sometimes expressed for each other
in our earlier childhood subsided; they were replaced by a steadily
growing mutual regard and respect, a respect given to each other for
our differences as much as for our similarities. Each of us moved with
comfort into our own personalities and into the roles life seemed to
carve for us. As elementary school gave way to junior high, we ended
up, without consciously trying, in that small group of "leaders of the
pack," that upper echelon of kids who seem to slide through the school
years as if the way had been paved for them. To some extent an
outsider might think of all the members of that crew as clones; but as
we
grew, in spite of all the time we spent with each other, our peers
became much less likely to see us as undifferentiated "Matt-and-Andy,"
and more likely to see us as clearly distinguishable individual
personalities.
My neurotic resolve to be in
control of the world around me reinforced some basic abilities I
already had. I'd worked hard to master as much of the world as I could,
and things had come together pretty well for me intellectually,
socially, and athletically. "Can-Do" became my basic operating
principle, and I discovered that both peers and adults responded
positively.
The outpouring of all this good will was bewildering:
Whatever I brought to the table that impressed anyone was brought out
of desperation. These people didn't understand that the world scared
the shit out of me.
That was fine, though. I'd
just as
soon not have anyone know that the only way I got through my life was
by putting on bravery and can-do-manship daily and deliberately, as if
they were battle armor, with a lot of self-talk. Sometimes I felt as if
I were performing a role in a play that required me to become someone I
wasn't. But that never seemed
apparent to anyone else; and I
wouldn't have had it any other way. I disguised my inner wariness with
a disarming, no-worries exterior face.
Ultimately, I suppose, when
you play a part long enough, you become that which you play. These
days, those traits have been with me for so long now, I don't know
anymore where the role ends and I begin. But back then I was only too
aware that there was a scared little boy inside. The qualities that
everyone seemed to admire in me were created from nothing more than
sheer force of will. Those qualities were alien to me, I felt, and not
natural.
As further defense, I
countered my interior caution with an external devil-may-care attitude
that led me into more than my share of risky adventures involving
railroad tracks, water towers, abandoned houses, drainage ditches, dirt
bikes and ramps; things that would have caused my parents to ground me
permanently if I'd been caught. That typical boyhood-daredevil stuff
occasionally kills a boy or two here and there. The irony of this
escaped me, however; I was too busy living, and playing roles--roles to
keep myself feeling safe, roles to help me in my project to be the kid
everybody liked. I was the golden boy with adults, and the kid who
acted as if he had the devil
in him behind their backs. But I knew how to keep my
nose clean and my reputation intact. I wasn't a bad kid; I just
felt compelled to push the envelope while maintaining the persona of
being unusually responsible. After all, if you're gonna be
prepared to fight with monsters, you have to have some "bad" in you
yourself.
My covert refusal to be
entirely "the good boy" earned respect from my pack; I was "ballsy" and
"cool," and above all, I "got away with it." And I was never alone in
my adventures, inside the lines or outside. Matt, too, was every bit
"all boy" and was generally my partner in crime in the petty
misdemeanors of my boyhood.
Of course, Matt had his own
pain to deal with, pain that was much more personally grounded in
horrible reality than mine was. But he was dealing with it in his
own way, just as I was. In school he was a capable
leader, a skilled athlete, and
an intensely likeable guy. But where I tended toward "fiery" and
"explosive," Matt was generally more placid, and was always friendly to
just about everybody.
As time went by, it became increasingly
clear that Matt was the better athlete of the two of us. Style and
agility and strength flowed effortlessly through him and from him. He
had an instinctual and thorough command of his body, and the natural,
effortless masculine grace of a jaguar. I was an athlete; but I had to
supplement my physical talents by applying my brains to my game. The
combination of those two made me almost as good an athlete as he was.
Almost; but not quite. Still, I was never resentful or jealous. His
accomplishments and abilities made me as happy as my own. And together,
we were a formidable pair, on the playing field, in the social realm,
and, eventually and especially, with the girls.
Matt struggled with
schoolwork, however; I spent a lot of time helping him there. He always
received the help with gratitude and without feeling inadequate. His
untroubled acceptance of his lesser gifts in this area earned my deep
respect, because I often tended to torture myself over my own perceived
shortcomings. And while my drive to excel derived from, and hid, an
almost manic desperation, Matt appeared to be the very essence of calm,
which mystified me. My game, on the field and in life, radiated
passion and intensity and an almost fuck-you defiance towards
challenges and obstacles. Matt's approach, on the field and off, was
one of calm yet steady progress toward the goal. He displayed quiet
confidence in his ability to achieve what he needed to. And Matt never
met a person he didn't like or wouldn't accept, in contrast to my own
growing belligerence.
As we grew older, we began
increasingly to diverge from one another on this critical front. From
the fourth through the sixth grade I was in danger of becoming the
typical jock who bullies "lesser kids." I'd worked hard to master a
threatening
world, and it had worked for me. But along with that I had grown into a
boy who had little patience with, or compassion for, those I perceived
as
too lazy or cowardly to have developed a battle-mentality like mine.
It wasn't that I went around beating up on kids, although by sixth
grade I was getting close to
flirting with that extreme. More typically, I had a tendency to
lacerate kids verbally and to get in their faces physically. I never
really had a malicious or violent heart; but I'll
admit with shame that during those three years I was increasingly prone
to humiliate peers who displayed cowardice or tentativeness toward the
world. Inside, I felt a rage at them for taking the easy way out
and crawling under the blankets instead of fighting back when life
threatened them, and I think I was subconsciously attempting to bring
the warrior out in them by confronting them with the fact that there
was nowhere to hide.
Matt had a different approach.
If I'd nursed an imaginary wound during those years, he'd been living
with the real thing. That pain gave birth to a compassion that refused
to treat anyone badly. But since I was usually wherever he was, he was
almost always witness to my petty acts of cruelty.
He never openly called me on
those, but he invariably came to the rescue of whatever
kid I'd zeroed in on. Matt was a master at diverting my attack, walking
a fine and delicate line with the tact and skill of a born diplomat,
making light-hearted cracks about his "big bad friend" and making it
clear to the kid in question that as long as Matt was at the scene,
Andy wasn’t any threat to anyone. This usually ended up eliciting a
smile out of the poor victim. I always knew what was going on and was
usually secretly thankful for Matt's intervention. My attack-dog
instincts were a by-product of viewing life as a chronic threat, and
those instincts were often stronger than my ability to control them. I
didn't like the way it made me feel about myself, and I was always
relieved when Matt stepped in and defused things. And I usually then
ended up trying to make nice with the kid I'd almost flayed. As a
result, many a boy who might have otherwise grown to hate me during
that three-year period managed, by virtue of Matt's skill, to view me
in a much more kindly light than I actually deserved.
One day in the sixth grade,
during a meaningless pick-up basketball game after school, one of my
teammates, a kid named Josh, allowed his opponent to intimidate him out
of a crucial go-ahead basket. Thwarted, he backed off the offense and,
tripping over his own feet, crashed to the
ground. I extended a hand, pulled him to his feet...and proceeded to
rip him a new asshole.
"You worthless piece of shit,"
I raged, "pull up your diapers and fuckin' go for it. You think he's
gonna ask you to make the
basket? I can't believe I picked you for my
team. Jesus fuckin' Christ! I don't want you ever watchin' my back or
I'm dead meat. Get off the fuckin' court and go play with the girls, ya
little pansy."
My teammates began to grin and
giggle; Josh turned pale and looked from me to his other teammates with
the eyes of a cornered wild animal. I could feel a dogpile of insult
and humiliation coming Josh's way, and I was frankly eager to watch it
happen.
But Matt called attention to
himself by stretching and yawning and feigning boredom over the entire
development: "Who gives a rat's ass? Y'all outgunned us today anyway. I
don't have time for this shit any more. I gotta go do my homework
before
my mom has a cow. We're just gonna give you this one...but watch out
next time."
I glared at him, on fire with
rage and frustration: He was damn well not going to call off the dogs
the way he usually did; anyway, we had a motherfuckin' goddam
basketball war to
win! But he met my look with a determined one of his own that said,
"Nope; not this time."
I was livid. I couldn't even
speak I was so angry. Matt, for his part, never flinched. His eyes held
mine unapologetically, in calm but determined defiance.
Furious, but outmaneuvered, I
mumbled something about a rematch later in the week. Everybody began to
walk off the court, some hopping on bikes, and we all began to head for
home. I stormed off by myself in the direction of my house, but Matt
wasn't far behind me. Sensing his presence, I turned around before I'd
gone a hundred steps. I stopped in my tracks, and waited for him to
catch up. While he was getting closer, I debated whether I should just
take a swing at him or whether I should go for a verbal evisceration.
He was not fuckin' getting away with rescuing that little candy-ass.
I'd realized in the
intervening seconds that it had been a while since we'd really had a
good fight, and that these days he'd probably end up kicking my ass; so
I'd decided to bruise him up with my words. As he got within hearing
distance, I opened my mouth to savage his "let's all be friends"
bullshit, but again, the calm steadiness in his gaze unnerved me.
Standing face-to-face with me he held me fixed, as he always could,
with the determination radiating from those ice-blue eyes of his; then,
after half a minute of silence, he quietly said, "Isn't there enough
hurt in the world already, Andy?"
My stomach felt like it had
fallen out and hit the ground. I felt the blood drain from my head, and
for a few seconds, I felt dizzy and light-headed, and things actually
started to grow dark. I shook it off and continued my walk home, with
Matt right beside me, his very presence now tormenting me with guilt
and shame. I was silent all the way to my house. Before I turned onto
the walk toward my front door, Matt slapped me on the back, smiled,
and said, "See you tomorrow, bad boy." I nodded silently,
unable to speak, and went inside.
Matt was right. He knew hurt
personally. It was his daily silent companion. I knew he still hurt
over the loss of his big brother; I knew the knife-edge that sliced
into him when birthdays went by without a word from his father. Pain
was his mortal enemy. He hated it. And he would give its deliberate
infliction--upon anyone--no quarter. And finally, he'd seen all of it
he could stomach from me.
In that moment, a
gut-wrenching truth assaulted me with a punishing clarity: Matt lived
with genuine loss throughout these years and carried himself with more
grace and dignity than I had managed, even though I'd lived only with
its false twin.
And in putting up with, and having to defuse, my own escalating acts of
cruelty toward others, Matt felt his hurt reflected back onto him. I'd
betrayed
him. In bringing hurt on others, I'd been rubbing his own pain in his
face and disrespecting him. And worse: I'd been spitting on the
childhood promise I made to him. I went straight to my room and cried
my eyes out.
In that single determined act
of confrontation, Matt tamed
the demon of rage inside me. "Isn't there enough hurt in the world
already?" became my mantra from then on whenever I felt anger
pushing me toward cruelty. Matt's tragedy had early on given me bravery
in a threatening world; now it gave me the seeds from which would
spring my desire to model in my own life his unconditional compassion.
It was a gift that would keep on giving.
--------------------------
Copyright 2003 by Adam
Phillips. Thanks for reading. You can email me at
aaptx28@yahoo.com