Remorse

I was in the passenger side of my dad's car, staring ahead of me as the car pulled out of the parking spot and started crawling down the tiny lane beside the library. A lady was walking the opposite way. She looked a little like Toni Collette from her Muriel's Wedding days. She looked very tired. She also looked strangely familiar. Just as the car passed her I realised who she was. She was the mother of a boy I went to primary school with. Memories flooded back to me.

This boy was despised. Hated. Ridiculed. Hit, kicked, punched. Called names, hateful names like "faggot" and "poofter". Every grade seems to have one, and he was the poor soul in our grade.

I was never a popular kid in primary school (or high school for that matter). Far from it. I was called names like poofter and faggot too. Of course I didn't know what they meant but I knew they were bad. But I was never treated as bad as he was. He came to our school in third grade, halfway through the year. I don't know what it was about him that inspired such hatred. Looking back I can't see any reason at all. I know why I hurt him so. I hurt him, called him names that had been fired at me, simply because I wanted to fit in with the "cool kids." It didn't work.

Sixth grade was probably the worst for him. He wasn't terribly attractive. He was a little odd. He may or may not have been gay. He was a lot like me actually. He was the personification of all the things I hated about myself. Add that to the mob mentality of 11 year olds and only bad can come of it. I distinctly remember three incidents which make me want to cry, make me want to reach out and tell that poor 11 year old boy that it isn't his fault: that it is the "cool kids" and the "wannabe cool kids" like me who are the ones with problems, not him.

I remember he gave a popular boy a Christmas card which said "Dear Xx, Happy Christmas, Your friend, X." The popular boy told him "you're not my friend," took the card, chucked it in a toilet and pissed on it in front of all the other boys. I remember how he cried.

I haven't thought about him for ages. Wherever he is, I wish him well. If I see him on the street I hope that I have the strength to say that I'm sorry.