I
Once upon a time, there was a thirteen-year-old boy who’d recently begun his freshman year at South Carroll High School. He and his family lived in Woodbine, Maryland, in southern Carroll County.
The 1985-86 school year was upon him. Like most kids his age transitioning from middle school to high school, it was a time of change and uncertainty. At least it was for him.
That kid was me. I say a time of uncertainty because I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Middle school in Mt. Airy, Maryland, was the fucking worst. Pleasant memories from my time there were few. Possibly only a handful. To say I was bullied nonstop and mercilessly would be an understatement. Unlike elementary school, it went beyond name-calling and teasing, although there was plenty of that.
Much of what happened involved the typical ass-kicking episodes the bullied kid is subject to by pretty much every clique. I’d avoid using the bathroom between classes and ask the teacher for a lavatory pass after class began. It usually meant a terror-free pissing experience. And forget taking a shit. That was something I only did at home, no matter how dire. In extreme cases, I’d go to the nurse’s station. She knew the other kids bullied me and allowed me to do my business unincumbered.
But mostly, I’d have to run from class to class to avoid such bullying incidents. I’d get so frustrated that I’d verbally unload on the terror suspect when I knew I was safe in a classroom, which typically exacerbated the situation.
I was a skinny, gangly kid who was too scared to get into a fistfight. My parents told me to avoid a fight whenever possible, but if backed into a corner and left with no choice, I was to attack using every dirty trick in the book. If the school administration suspended me from school over it, then so be it. There’d be no punishment.
Fortunately, I got through middle school without engaging in a fistfight.
That changed in high school.
Most of those kids tormenting me were farmer’s kids who eventually became part of the Future Famers of America (FFA) clique in high school. Outwitting them with my caustic vocabulary using words over three syllables usually grabbed their attention.
Words were my weapon. I knew I was more intelligent and could verbally render a bully speechless, followed by watching their face flush red with anger. Physical wounds heal. Stinging words hang on much longer.
If I were to identify my culpability in most of those incidents, I aggravated bullies when I didn’t have to. It was the only way I knew how to fight back. I was angry, and for more reasons than being chased and kicked with steel-tip boots.
There was also my father. Or lack thereof.
II
My father, Charlie, worked for a company that often sent him on road trips, driving a big rig and hauling construction materials here and there. He’d often remain on the construction site for extended periods. Between 1982 and 1984, he stayed in Montrose, Colorado. He’d come home for a few weeks at a time occasionally. And twice we flew out there to stay for a week as an ersatz vacation.
On the whole, we rarely saw him. My sister, Meg, barely remembers anything about him in the early to mid-eighties.
My relationship with my father before he took his abuse to the physical was odd and often strained. By the time I reached eighth grade, I was suffering from his absence. There was no father figure in my life. I felt myself pulling away from Mom. I think it had to do with puberty and the inability to go to her with things a teenage boy would typically confide in his father.
My grades were suffering. I wasn’t applying myself. I didn’t do homework or study. I was doing the bare minimum. Again, I can’t say it enough; I hated school. It wouldn’t become interesting until my junior year of high school.
All I cared about doing, all I wanted to do, was escape. I spent an inordinate amount of time in the woods behind the house. We lived on an acre and a quarter that backed up to vast woods which went on seemingly forever. Part of it was a sawmill the farmers across the street operated. Parts beyond that were a literal graveyard for retired farm equipment, some cars, and a surreal amount of bottles and cans. If one were to go deeper via what looked to me as an overgrown road or a long driveway, they’d find the foundation of a long-demolished home.
It was within the acres of these woods I spent a lot of time building forts. They were all over, connected by trails I carved out. I’d hit stones and cans around with sticks. And what Gen-X kid didn’t pretend to be wielding said stick as a lightsaber or a crooked smaller stick as Han Solo’s laser pistol?
Sometimes one of the neighborhood kids I hung out with, Chris, would join me in the fort building and smashing the shit out of all the junk back there. We’d set up containers and cans on various logs and old equipment and knock them down with chucks of dirt at impressive distances.
Eventually, I got cocky enough to grab glass bottles by the neck and smash them against trees to watch the shards of glass fly off in every direction. I did this until I could no longer find glass bottles.
Other times, I rode my dirt bike around the neighborhood. Sometimes with Chris, sometimes with another older neighborhood kid named Kurt.
III
Kurt was the kid I looked up to, for lack of a better description. He was usually the one I went to with things for which I should’ve been able to go to my father. The sort of things boys learn by reading bathroom walls.
I wasn’t sure why an older boy like Kurt wanted to be my friend. I guessed it was because he was already in high school and wasn’t aware of the geeky reputation that earned me the picked-on kid status from which I suffered. Looking back, I think it had more to do with Kurt not having an optimal home life. Most families in that part of Woodbine were middle to lower-middle class, some lower class entirely. I remember Kurt’s dad yelling at him to get shit around the house done.
Kurt had an older brother. Keith. He was openly gay and had some other openly gay friends. They used to do questionable things at the bottom of the creek with dogs. Yes, I witnessed it once, and the chase they gave Kurt and me to get away from them was epic. That’s all I’m going to say about it.
When I was confused about girls and what to do about all the frustration it caused me, I’d go to Kurt. Eventually, he explained with explicit instructions how to jerk off. He also suggested losing my virginity, and he knew the perfect girl. Brandy. She lived about a mile down the road.
Ultimately, that never came to fruition. Brandy was a real girl, but I suspect her sexual prowess was an exaggeration. Or Kurt was just fucking with me.
Virginity Loss Day wouldn’t come until August 1987 with a girl named Tina. I’d have to break up with Amy, the girl I’d been ‘going steady’ with for a little under a year and a half because those were Tina’s terms. And that’s precisely what my sex-staved ass did.
Tales of Amy and Tina come later because it’s pivotal in the conflict with my father.
IV
Kurt was the friend who’d come up with adventurous and crazy shit to do, but he always wanted me to be the first to do it. Probably to see if I survived so he could follow suit. He also enjoyed making bombs, mostly involving gasoline and bottles. They were never any good or even powerful.
When I told him my father kept Red Dot gunpowder in the garage for reloading shotgun shells, he took his bomb-making technique to the next level, and the results became more noteworthy. Kurt and I often helped ourselves to that gunpowder inside the reinforced cardboard keg stored in an old black armoire at the end of the garage. By eighth grade, Charlie was away on another long road trip in Dayton, Ohio. He was never around, so who cared?
No one knew at the time that Charlie had a girlfriend in Dayton. That would become a severe bone of contention between my parents in 1986, which was my fault.
In 1984, Charlie missed my birthday. He sent a small present and a card through the mail. There may have even been a phone call. I honestly don’t remember. What I remember was being devastatingly heartbroken.
I didn’t know it then, but I learned later that his dismissal of my birthday so he could fuck his whore was the beginning of the end for him and me.
I never shared my conflict with Charlie with Kurt. If anything, Kurt became my escape from that terrible situation, which would explain the destructive behavior we often engaged in. I’d often forget how heartbroken I was over Charlie blowing off my birthday and ignoring me.
For a time, Kurt was the older brother I didn’t have.
V
Kurt was one class higher than I was in high school. When we returned to school in September, I saw little of him. My classes confined me to the freshman wing, while Kurt seemed to spend most of his in the vocational building.
As far as mornings went for me, I joined the Audio-Visual club in the media center and helped distribute equipment for the teachers who requested them that day. TVs bolted to rolling stands, oversized VCRs, film and filmstrip projectors, and things of this nature.
I met a bunch of upperclassmen in the AV club. One of them, a senior named Matt, took a particular shine to me for reasons I didn’t know then. He wanted to be my best friend and drive me to school in the mornings. He explained to mom that he lived not even a mile up the street, and it was no trouble.
Matt convinced Mom he was a decent guy. I was a little hesitant. I always thought it was odd that a senior wanted to acclimate himself to a freshman as if we’d known each other for years. Kurt warned me that Matt was strange and creepy and to watch my ass because that’s probably what he wanted, implying in his colorful manner that Matt was gay.
I didn’t believe him. I thought Kurt was jealous I was getting a ride to school in a ’70 Nova since he still had to take the bus.
Turn out, Kurt may have been right.
In November, not six weeks after blowing my face to hell with gunpowder, Matt would circumstantially make his intentions known on my birthday. It’s an incident I’ve never spoken about before.
Matt picked me up from school that morning and drove me to an isolated spot on a gravel back road. There were no houses as far as I could see. He pulled over to the roadside and dutifully informed me he would bend me over his knee and give me fourteen birthday spankings, one for each year.
I resisted and advised him I wasn’t comfortable with the situation. Matt insisted and began trying to smack my ass with his hand as I was writhing in the passenger seat. He got halfway through before I put my foot down. I told him I didn’t want this, but he wasn’t respecting my decision or my personal space and that I wanted to be taken to school. The whole thing was inappropriate and made me uncomfortable.
Matt acquiesced and said nary a word to me as he finished driving. I avoided him after that. He stopped coming to pick me up. I occasionally saw him at school in passing. He seemed scorned and began glomming onto another younger boy.
I didn’t tell Mom. Hell, I didn’t tell anybody. This is the first time I’m sharing it.
VI
On Tuesday, September 25, 1985, there would be no ride to school. Mom woke me up to tell me there was no school that day because of a water problem at South Carroll. No lavatory facilities meant no student could be in the building.
Meg was still in middle school, so Mom left me to get her ready for the bus and go to work. She worked as the health aide at Liberty High School in Eldersburg, the next town over from South Carroll.
Mom may or may not have told me to stay out of trouble and to call if I needed anything. My shame would come when I didn’t heed those words. I was thirteen, after all, and immortal.
The morning began innocently enough. I had some Cheerios and watched some television. Probably a movie. But boredom set in quickly, and idle hands can be the devil’s playthings.
The devil was about to come out and play.
Being an unsupervised teenager meant I could do things I wouldn’t usually dare do. Hunting for Charlie’s nudie magazines was a given when I was alone, and I knew precisely where Charlie hid them. His dresser, third drawer down underneath his jeans.
Charlie also kept his Beretta 9mm in the same drawer. I don’t recall if I took it outside that day and did a little target practice. That was often contingent on finding spare ammo, which wasn’t always available.
I do recall taking Charlie’s M-1 rifle out back and shooting at the burn barrel. Our yard was big enough and isolated from neighbors that shooting in the backyard was commonplace.
Charlie did one of two things for me that amounted to some good. The first was teaching me to properly shoot and clean a gun and, most importantly, respect a firearm.
The other was how to work on automobiles.
Spare ammo only goes so far, and eventually, I had to put the rifle away. I didn’t risk going into Charlie’s chief ammo supply out of fear he kept count. Now that he wasn’t on the road anymore and living at home again, I couldn’t risk tampering with that supply. Doing so could lead to a severe problem for me later on, especially if denial didn’t work.
Also, in one of Charlie’s dresser drawers, one of the two smaller ones at the top were jumping jack firecrackers. They’d make cool flower effects and jump around, making whistling sounds when lit on a solid surface. Charlie brought them back to Maryland from a state where fireworks were legal. The supply lasted years. After we moved to Woodbine, he stopped lighting them. I think he forgot they existed, so I felt like one pack going missing wouldn’t mean much.
The pack contained twelve pieces. The first few, when lit and thrown on the grass in the backyard, did nothing impressive. Lighting them in the driveway wasn’t an option, as both driveways were too close to the road.
Then I remembered the supply of Red Dot gunpowder in the garage that Kurt and I dipped into. I pondered what kind of fire show I’d see if I tossed a jumping jack into a coffee can with a handful or two of that gunpowder.
Finding an empty coffee can in the garage was no challenge. Charlie always had several, for whatever reason. I scooped out some gunpowder from its keg that amounted to a little under a quarter of the space inside the can and took it out to the backyard, close to the family room door.
Still dressed in my blue pajamas, I stood nearly five feet away from the can, lit a jumping jack, and tossed it in.
Nothing happened.
At the very least, one would think the burning fuse would’ve lit the gunpowder.
I stepped forward to the can, hunkered down, and looked inside.
And that’s when the gunpowder went up in what I remember as a blinding flash directly in my face.
VII
I remember screaming. Some mild burns on the back of my throat indicated that.
How I didn’t lose my sight, I still can’t explain. Looking at the photos taken the day I came home from the Burn Unit suggests I squeezed my eyes closed in the nick of time. The initial flash got me, though. To this day, I’m still sensitive to bright light, including sunlight. I always wear sunglasses while outside. Always. I also prefer rooms without direct sunlight or covered windows. Anything else brings above-average discomfort.
When the blast was over, I did what elementary school teachers taught us to do if we were on fire. Stop, drop, and roll. I didn’t know it then, but my pajamas were fire-retardant.
Having had some experience with milder burns in the past, the next thing I knew to do was get water on my face. I threw open the screen door into the family room and turned left for the bathroom, where there was a walk-in shower. I turned on the cold water, jumped inside, and let the water fall into my hair.
That’s when the smell hit me. I ran my fingers through my hair, beginning at my forehead, and pulled back considerable gobs of black goo.
I stood there and let the water run over my face for a minute or two. Curiosity demanded I look at the damage in the mirror above the sink. I turned off the shower and stepped in front of the mirror.
I knew then I was fucked. I don’t know why I thought I could hide something like this. There wasn’t any way I could explain why the front of my hair was missing and singed to the scalp.
I leaned toward the mirror and touched the reddening splotches covering my face and lips. Yeah, there was no hiding this. I knew then I’d have to call Mom at work and tell her I had an accident, and she’d be pissed!
Knowing I was in for a bad time, I sauntered into the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed the number for Liberty High School. The receptionist, Debbie, connected me to my mother. I began the conversation as I always did when I knew I’d done wrong.
“Mom, promise not to get mad, but I accidentally blew my face up.”
I laid out the details of the last few minutes, still unusually calm about my predicament. It’s probably because there wasn’t any pain yet, and I didn’t understand the gravity of how badly I’d hurt myself.
Mom said she’d be right home, which could take fifteen to twenty minutes. In the meantime, I was to take an old towel out of the lining cabinet, wet it with cold water, and keep it pressed against my face.
When she arrived, she took one look at my face, frowned with a look of horror I never expected, and duly informed me we were going to see Dr. Well, our family pediatrician. That would be another twenty-minute drive back to Eldersburg.
Before we left, Mom took my towel and refreshed it with more cold water. The pain that crept in when the wet towel was off my face was a powerful indicator that maybe I’d hurt myself worse than I thought.
When she gave it back, I pushed it against my face, and that’s where it stayed until we arrived at Dr. Wells’ office.
Mom asked me a few times to move the towel off my face. Each time was more painful than the last. It was unlike any pain I’d experienced until that point. I wasn’t crying yet, but that wasn’t far off.
When Dr. Wells removed the towel so he could look at what I’d done to myself, I immediately grabbed it from him and reapplied it, citing that the pain was too much to bear. He told me he needed to examine me and to please keep the towel off my face for as long as I could stand it.
I did as he asked.
It must have been approximately five seconds before I began belting a blood-curdling scream and declaring I couldn’t do it anymore.
I reapplied the towel and cried into it. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Dr. Wells tell Mom that I had to go to Carroll County General. That was at least twenty-five minutes away, possibly longer if the traffic was heavier.
Mom didn’t believe she could drive undistracted to Carroll County General. Liberty High School was three minutes away. She asked Debbie to drive us to the hospital.
I sat in Debbie’s front seat and reclined back to lie down. Mom sat in the back. We weren’t two minutes into driving Route 32 toward Westminster when I began feeling cold and shaking. I heard one of them say I was going into shock. I think it was Mom who told me to try to stay awake.
I couldn’t do it. I was so fucking cold and shivering too much. Sleep would fix all my ails.
Somewhere in that world between conscious and not quite fainting, I heard Debbie tell Mom she was pulling up to the Gamber Fire Hall. And that’s precisely what she did. She pulled her car into one of the fire engine bays. I heard one of them tell the fireman and the EMS staff about the situation. One of them tried to put an IV into my arm, missing several times before succeeding. They took turns glimpsing at my face, as that’s all I’d allow considering the pain. By then, it was as if glass dust was ground into my face, and moving the towel rubbed it around.
Debbie called a relative to meet us there, as the plan was to have a helicopter from the Francis Scott Key Medical Center fly me to their Burn Unit in Baltimore. Mom would need a ride there since they wouldn’t let her fly with me.
I protested immediately.
For reasons I can’t explain, I had a massive fear of helicopters as a kid. I used to have dreams the blades would detach and come careening toward me.
Someone quickly added a sedative to my IV because soon after, I didn’t care about the helicopter anymore. Everything became hazy. I recall hearing that Charlie would meet us at the Burn Unit.
I have memories of the helicopter landing in the field beside the fire hall and being carried on a stretcher to it. My eyes were closed as I was on the verge of sleep. The more I tried to protest, the more tired I became.
I was asleep by the time they loaded me up into the helicopter. I have no memory of the flight to the Burn Unit.
VIII
I spent a single night at the FSK Burn Unit. Hurricane Gloria was due to hit the Baltimore area, and the doctor felt it was in my best interest to recover at home. Plus, there was something about insurance not covering an extended stay, which Mom wanted.
Most of the burns I sustained were second-degree. A small fraction was third-degree. Before that accident, I had facial freckles. They exist no more. There are also areas on my forehead where hair didn’t grow back because the blast burned off the follicles.
The superficial pain of the burns subsided the next day. I spent all of it with my face smeared in Silvadene cream, a creamy white ointment designed to prevent infection with severe burns. The doctors also wrapped my head up like I was a mummy.
Infection was the primary concern. When the type of burns I suffered become infected, it can lead to blood poisoning or toxic shock…which is bad. To err on the side of caution, I wasn’t to leave the house without ointment and bandages for at least six weeks. This was the beginning of an endless road to full recovery. Being outside was a staple of my life. The prospect of staying inside for six weeks wasn’t at all appealing.
My nightly ritual included scraping dead skin off my face with bandages soaked in iodine. Mom tried to do this a few times. It didn’t work out for either of us. I know now, as a parent, her giving me the kind of pain that procedure incurs was not something she enjoyed. She pussyfooted around the force needed to accomplish the task efficiently and admitted to it. I eventually did it myself in the shower. It’s easier to endure the pain I inflict upon myself.
After the nightly scraping, I’d apply a layer of Silvadene across my face. Eventually, it melted into a clear goo. For nearly two weeks, I’d have to wear bandages at night until the red and swelling lessened.
Since I wasn’t permitted to go outside until at least the beginning of November, I had to go on homeschooling. That was a total bitch, as was the woman they sent to school with me. She was the vice principal’s wife, which didn’t help. I wasn’t an ideal student for her, but it wasn’t because of her. It had more to do with my rebellious nature and the severity of the situation.
I was miserable the entire time. I spent most of it in my room listening to music and reading books.
Looking back, that incident began a pattern in which I suppressed my emotions, specifically emotional pain. Everything that happened, everything I put myself through, I didn’t break down over it until weeks later, and then it was only in front of Kipper, our pet blue and gold macaw.
Kipper was hand tamed as a baby and was very docile. He’d often spend time out of his cage and in my room with me. When I finally broke down and cried, Kipper walked across the bed, stuck his beak to my face, and matched my crying sounds. It was how he showed empathy. After that, Kipper became very protective of me, not always allowing Mom or Charlie near.
That autumn dragged by. More than once, I’d sit and stare out my bedroom window on the house’s second floor and stare into the backyard to watch the sunset. I couldn’t even open it to let in the crisp fall air. I longed to be outside in the woods building forts or fucking around. I longed to ride my bike with Chris or Kurt or screw around at Mullinix’s dairy farm across the street, where we often hung out.
Friends and family came over and visited me, but they had to keep their distance from infection concerns until my face healed and the skin grew back. Yet, I never felt more alone in those six weeks, even with Kipper keeping watch. It was no one’s fault. Nothing could have been done differently. It’s just how it was for me. It’s how I’ve learned to deal with stress and anxiety. Alone.
Honestly, I prefer it that way. I hate bothering people with my problems. I don’t enjoy doing it, and I know, in most cases, the person doing the listening doesn’t really care or begins exhibiting physical signs that they’re tiring quickly. I had a guidance counselor in middle school who used to do that to me, and eventually a therapist later in life. I stopped going to both. Why bore people with my shit?
Yet, it isn’t until someone suffering does something extreme, such as committing suicide, that people say, “This could have been avoided. We should have done something.”
Indeed.
So, don’t yawn and keep looking at your watch if someone suffering drops their guard and opens up. Most people don’t know how fucking difficult it is for introverts or those with anxiety to do so…and why I don’t. Not even with my closest friends.
IX
Our family went to Disney World that Christmas. Those photos are cringeworthy. My face had healed by my hair hadn’t grown back. I was always wearing a baseball cap as sunburn on the healing areas of my face was a significant concern. And sunglasses. Always sunglasses.
Soon, within months, that change I knew was coming would finally arrive, along with plenty of uncertainty. Come March 1986, I’d meet Amy at the Liberty Skating Rink in Sykesville, Maryland. She’d become my first girlfriend.
Amy was twelve, and I was fourteen. She was my first couple’s skate, hand holding, and eventually my first kiss. But no sex. It was all a very sweet affair that lasted a year and five months.
My relationship with Amy taught me many things. She was a transition from the last shreds of my boyhood innocence into the beginning of adulthood. She brought a lot of joy into my life for a time. That joy would segue down a dark path as time passed and needs and values changed. Amy was the child of a Jewish family, and while her father tolerated me, he certainly didn’t approve of me.
That dark path ended up going beyond her father’s disapproval. It also culminated with my selfishness.
If Amy was the child of Jewish parents, then I was the child of a father addicted to pornography who made no effort to hide it and complained endlessly about how unfair my mother was, specifically that she didn’t ‘put out’ for him. He put that on me. He insisted I was ‘her favorite.’
I think now that Charlie may have been jealous for a multitude of reasons I’ll delve into later. His verbal bashing of Mom was the beginning of a pattern of abuse that would eventually shift toward me and everything I wasn’t doing correctly or by not living up to his high standards.
