Junior High was a miserable time for me. It was during the fitness conscious seventies, and I was my chubby old self. I didn't have beautiful teeth, I never wore blue jeans or revealing clothes...in a nutshell, I was far from cool. When I wasn't being shoved against walls or into doors by the students, I was being belittled and humiliated by some of the teachers.
There was the Math teacher, Mr. Kamin, who liked to give students failing grades for not writing their name on both sides of their assignments or failing grades on their homework if they worked a problem incorrectly on the board in class. There was the choir teacher, Mrs. Batts, who booted me out of choir when I had been sick for a week. She met me at the door when I got back. "Where do you think you're going?" she said as she blocked the doorway. "I'm coming to class" I said. "Not my class" she snapped, "you're out. You've been gone for two weeks." "I was gone one week." "That's two weeks in my time dearie" she announced smugly as she shut the door in my face.
There was a husband and wife team that would turn out to be the bane of my existence at that school. Mr. Mittel taught English. His wife, Mrs. Mittel, taught Phys Ed. Mr. Mittel was very much like Mr. Moroconi. The man had a volatile temper and his discipline bordered on sadism. If you were even one second late to his class, you had to stand with your back against the wall, arms straight out in front of you, palms up. Then he would have you slide down the wall until you were in a partial squat and make you stand like that for the entire class. Boys had heavy books placed on the palms of their hands.
God forbid if you got an answer wrong. If you were a girl, he slammed the palms of his hands down on your desk and screamed in your face. If you were a boy...the rest of the class watched in horror when he picked up a boy named Terry, desk and all, and hurled them both against the wall. This boy, though a known troublemaker, was still a child. He dodged Mr. Mittel and fled the classroom, tears streaming down his face, the teacher hot on his heels. "Get your ass back here!" he screamed at the boy.
All of us kids were so terrified of him that we never reported it. In those days (maybe even now), a teacher with tenure is going to be believed over some snot-nosed kid, especially if the accusations are particularly brutal. His wife was a total bitch as well.
Our gym suits were a one-piece, poly/cotton knit garment with a zipper up the front. The short sleeved top was patterned with thin, horizontal stripes of alternating maroon and white; the shorts were solid maroon. Our last names were written across the back in black permanent marker. It was our responsibility to take them home and wash them at the end of the week. I always remembered to bring mine back...but on this particular day, I was horrified to discover that I had left it at home.
Mrs. Mittel reassured me that there were plenty of spare suits kept on hand for just this purpose. I was led to a stack of available suits, and allowed to rummage through them. The largest size available was a good three sizes too small for me. I forced myself into it and barely managed to get it zipped. This suit left nothing to the imagination, especially my crotch and my butt crack. I felt a deep, searing shame swallow me whole. "Please, don't make me go out there like this" I whispered. She smiled and ushered me out into the gym.
Gym class was co-ed that day. Mrs. Mittel lined us up for calisthenics. I was placed in the back row, right in front of the boys. Every move I made drove the shorts up higher into my private parts, giving the boys an up close and personal look at things they never should have seen every time I had to bend over. Their laughter rang out behind me. I felt so violated. I was beyond mortified and utterly humiliated. Mrs. Mittel was enjoying herself at my expense.
By the end of class, I realized that I had actually numbed myself to get through it, just like I did at home. I automatically endured the humiliation, the shame and the pain by separating myself from it. I had become conditioned to dealing with cruelty, sadism, and torture in this manner, whether it be verbal, emotional, psychological, sexual or physical. Mrs. Mittel was smiling and smug. "Bet you'll never forget your gym suit again" she whispered.
I actually felt something inside of me die. Life was out to murder everything that was good in me, and I was fighting like hell in the only way I knew how to hold on to it. But like a rope that begins to fray, the sweet, non-violent, little girl who loved everybody started to wither away one fiber at a time. Beneath my gentle nature lay a massive dormant core of untapped rage. I hadn't acted on it yet...but it was coming...and it was to manifest itself in some ugly ways that would change what I loved about me forever.
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