Bullies have learned how to be one by being bullied themselves
-Unknown
I suppose every neighborhood has one. At Fort Roots, we were just extra lucky and got a whole family. Even the dad-gummed poodle was a bully. I guess I should say that this is strictly my opinion and based on events as I remember them. That’s why I’m not using their last name. These folks were known to be litigious and the kids frequently used the phrase, “we’ll sue you for everything you got!” These days I’d probably say, “knock yourself out,” but no sense looking for trouble.
The family looked like a typical Fort Roots family. Dr. B was a psychiatrist, Mrs. B was a stay-at-home mom, John Henry was my age, and Janie was his younger sister (by 2-3 years I think). Oh yeah, and the evil poodle. Dr. B was a huge man and rather imposing. I honestly don’t remember much about Mrs. B other than she always called our mothers to complain that we were picking on her children. I’m sure she played bridge, it was pretty much a requirement for the wives, but I just don’t remember seeing her like I did the other wives and moms. She certainly wasn’t in the “popular” group of moms. John Henry was a big, heavy kid with a round head. He had that white blonde hair worn in a buzz cut that made him look bald. Janie was petite with long dark curls. She was a very pretty and prissy little girl. As I remember, she always seemed to be dressed up.
The B’s may have looked like the other families, but boy howdy, they were different on the inside! I guess the biggest difference was that they were all bullies in one way or another.
John Henry was a classic kid bully. His specialty was kids younger and smaller. There were two really little boys, Garth and Brother (his name was Philip, but we all called him by his family name, Brother, much to his grandparents dismay). They were probably about 4 or 5 when this typical incident happened. My mother absolutely adored those two little best friends and talked to them all the time. I don’t recall the reason, it was either a Beach Boys song or a TV show, but Brother and Garth called mother “Granny.” One day Brother and Garth were riding their bikes up and down the street that ran behind the houses. Mother was working on the third floor and would periodically talk to the boys from the window as they went by. She heard fussing and went to the window to check on her boys. John Henry was pestering them and standing in front of them trying to make them fall off their bikes. Well, Brother got so mad! He told John Henry, “Granny is going to look out that window right there and then come out here and hit you in the head with a hammer!” John Henry replied, “If she does, we’ll sue her for everything’s she’s got!” When my mother could speak without laughing she leaned out the window and told John Henry to leave the boys alone and that she’d be watching. I imagine that Brother and Garth were very disappointed that she didn’t use a hammer.
One day on the bus ride home John Henry was aggravating me as usual. I guess I had enough because I clawed his scalp, leaving 4 bright red tracks, just before arriving home. His house was closer to the bus stop and by the time I walked in my door, I could hear my mother saying, “Well, next time I guess he’ll leave her alone.” I wasn’t in any trouble at all! I was a little surprised by that, but I was still upset about being constantly picked on by John Henry. Thank God for big brothers who don’t like people to pick on their baby sisters. Mine had a few words with John Henry and he picked on someone else for awhile!
Janie was too much younger than I for me to really want to play with her. I was sent on mercy play dates because I was a mostly good kid with nice manners. Janie wasn’t much for playing outdoors. There may have been a medical reason, honestly I don’t remember. She was very bossy and you had to play her way. One cool thing I remember about Janie: she had this petticoat that was so nifty. It had an inner tube-like contraption in the hem that you blew up! I was impressed. The worst thing about having to play with Janie was her poodle. It was a black male toy poodle. Did I mention male? It was a male dog. The poodle, it was male. It would hump any part of your body it could get to: your arm, shoulder, knee, neck, head-ANYTHING! No matter how you tucked in your body parts that poddle would find something on you to hump. I was not that comfortable with dogs to start with and I was not at all comfortable with humping of any kind or that slimy pink thing that would stick out. Yuck and double yuck. Playing with Janie meant you would be dog raped. They never would lock up the dog.
My brother and Russell made Janie and her mother mad when they played they same trick on Janie that they played on their little sisters and the other little girls. The Bs wanted their kids included, to a point. One day the boy’s scam was to put a quarter in the wading pool by the Anderson’s house. They would then point out to passing “marks” that there was money in the pool. When my turn came and I leaned over to look, they kicked my behind and I went face first into the pool. Was I mad? Yes. Was I hurt? No. Was it a silly harmless trick perpetrated on silly girls by silly boys? Absolutely! What did most of our parents do when we went home wet? Laughed their heads off and said we should know better than to trust those boys! Not so Janie’s mother. She had hysterics. The boys had to stop. They had to appologize to Janie. She made a federal case out of it.
Somebody on the grounds had ordered something that came in an enormous wooden crate. The big boys asked if they could have it for a fort. It was given to them and they set it up behind one set of garages. They worked and worked on it and made a pretty fine fort. They were the older junior high boys. The fort had a top hatch with a lock (mostly so patients couldn’t get in at night) and carpet and pillows. Now that I’m an adult and the mother of a boy, I don’t even want to think about what they did in the fort. However, I do remember one thing about the fort. They did not want John Henry in it. No matter how much he cajoled or begged, they did not let him in the fort. This is where the breaking point came for all of us kids and B family.
One night after supper, Dr. B gathered every kid on the rock wall across from their back door. I think that John Henry and Janie stayed inside. Once we were all settled, big and little kids alike, he proceeded to lecture us within an inch of our lives. We all sat there getting more and more angry as he told us that everything on government property belonged to everyone. He also told us that we were also obligated to play with everyone and get along. Funny thing about that was we did! It was his children who lacked the appropriate social skills. We rarely had fusses or fights that required parental intervention. Until John Henry and Janie came along, I’m not sure we knew parents did that sort of thing. The thing I remember the most about the lecture was that when we got home my brother was so mad! He was just outraged by the foolishness of Dr. B’s words. He said that if the “everything on government property belonged to everyone” rule applied to their fort that had been given to them, then it certainly applied to Dr. B’s Jaguar! He said he thought he’d go right now and ask for the keys! Our parents just laughed and said Dr. B was an idiot and that we did not have to attend any future lectures.
I bet you can figure out what happened next. The older boys took all their stuff out of the fort and abandoned it. John Henry hadn’t really wanted the fort as much as he had wanted to hang with the boys. Otherwise, things went mostly back to normal. Normal in the sense that Janie and John Henry remained on the edges of the group.
John Henry continued to be a bully. Looking back, I have to say that his parents were the biggest bullies of all. As a parent now, that makes me so sad. Who knows what was going on in that family? My gut says that Dr. B was a psychiatrist and should have known better. (Ha! I wonder how many times the children of psychiatrists say that in their lifetimes? I know I still do!) I also think he was just a jerk and a bully who likely bullied his family. But that darned poodle, no excuses! It was just a flat-out human body part rapist!
Note: When I was in college I ran into the son of my dad’s secretary at Fort Roots. His family had moved to the same part of Arkansas as Dr. B’s. We were catching up on gossip and he mentioned that John Henry had been incarcerated. I whooped with the joy of one who feels justice has finally been served. I’m not proud of it, though. With bullying so much in the news, it makes me sad to think that his parents probably could have made a difference had they not been bullies themselves.
