Stinky

In Grade 9

Wait, I should probably mention grade 7
I was bullied
I think maybe it was something that I said
I just remember:
He grabbed me by the throat
Lifted me off the ground, and
Told me that I was dead
I broke free, I guess, somehow, and ran to the teacher
My parents pulled me from school,
I ended up going to a couple of private schools…

…for 8th grade it was a one room school in the basement of a Southern Baptist church, and that’s a story for another day.

Which brings us to Grade 9

That was a full size private school, all the way across town, a 45 minute bus ride away from our house.

There’s a scene I remembered today, when Brock Heubner called me stinky, you know, as a nickname.

He and I were part of a group of kids that hung around together; I thought of them all as friends.

Besides school work,

We did stuff like to skip school to go to the corner grocery store that had the pinball machine, or to the other Mom and Pop grocer nearby, where Brock was able to cash cheques he stole from his Dad’s business, to buy cigarettes…

…but like I was mentioning, there was this one day where Brock gave me the nickname, “stinky”

I went home that evening, found a plain white T-shirt, cut a few holes in it, front and back, then circled each hole with a thick black felt marker. On the back, in the centre of the shoulder line I wrote in big bold letters,

STINKY

And wore it to school the next day

All the others in our gang loved it!

They begged Brock to give each of them a nickname, too!

I remember Brock giving me an indication that he wasn’t pleased with this result.