Playing by the Rules

I’ve gotten a lot of shit in my life from saying what I feel or feeling confident in my choices. Being so vocal is what I see as being honest. It’s a mainstay of the life of anyone in theatre, a career path I’ve (willingly) decided to take. But it’s also a burden of anyone with a big mouth and a rambling mind, like me. But I didn’t always used to be like that. I used to be much quieter when I was younger. Never one to rock the boat or even stand up in it.

Until one time, in the fourth grade, during a savage game of dodgeball I called someone out on their shit. Philip was a scrappy, red-haired, mentally disabled student in my class. We had problems with Philip at my elementary school before. One time he threw a desk at a group of students during a bout of cabin fever caused by indoor recess. AN ACTUAL DESK. Another time he nearly took out a yard lady with a yard stick. Which I found very ironic to some degree. This time, however, he was simply not playing by the rules in a game of dodgeball that went TOO far and chucked a ball that nearly took out a girl named Heaven’s head. Her name was Heaven, didn’t you think she had enough problems?

So I called Philip out on his shit. I called a penalty to the P.E. teacher and that meant Philip was out of the game. After class was over, we were all lined up at the front of the gym to head back to class. Our teacher, AN IDIOT, was not in the room at the time. I think he was in the back of the room inside the cafeteria chowing down on discount chicken nuggets as our school was very small and had a combination “gymnasacafetorium”. So he didn’t see exactly what happened next. I was in the line with my other classmates, waiting to leave this gym that smelled like sweaty feet and low-income. I was talking mad shit about Philip to Heaven, about how he wasn’t playing by the rules, stepped out-of-bounds, and how he also could’ve hurt her.  Heaven’s face immediately turned a shade whiter than she already was, which was pretty damn “New England white girl white”. It turns out Philip was standing right behind me. I turned around. His pale eye brows had became so heightened they were nearly off his face. His freckle-faced complexion was red with rage. I gave him one massive glare of shade, and turned right back around. “I don’t care” I said. “He wasn’t playing by the rules.”

The next thing I knew, Philip’s hands were clenched around my neck, pushing me to the ground and bashing my face into the sticky, Yoo-Hoo stained floor. I screamed in terror. The whole class didn’t know what to do. Literally, they didn’t know what to do. “GET MR. MUNIZ, YOU FUCKERS!” I screamed. Except for that last part, but looking back, I wish I had added it in.

Philip was breathing quickly and heavily. Muttering something vicious in some tongue I couldn’t comprehend. His spit splattering against my neck, I began screaming louder and crying more and more as he slammed my face into the ground. I tried to get him off of me but he was strong for a scrawny kid. I did the only thing I could do, and DIDN’T play by the rules of manhood as I kicked him straight in the balls. He flung off in agony, his Pokemon sweatshirt nearly ripping off in the force of his fall.

Mr. Muniz came waltzing in with a semi-jog, I’m assuming with a few nuggets in tow. The material of his gym-pants swiftly swishing against each other making an audible annoying sound. But he was moments too late. Mr. Muniz grabbed Philip by one hand and me by the other. My face was blemished red and soaked with streams of tears. I immediately wiped them with the sleeve of my shirt. I couldn’t be seen like this in front of my classmates who already gave me enough shit for going as Harry Potter for Halloween three years in a row. I regained my composure and walked out of the gym with Mr.Muniz, trying to make a clean getaway to the bathroom but I was stopped by my tall, round-hipped teacher, Ms. Engemann.

Ms. Engemann was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, but for a kid who just got the crap beaten out of him, you’d think she’d have a little more sympathy for me. I know it was Philip and he was technically mentally disabled and probably a ward of the state, but did I really deserve that type of punishment? She asked if I was alright and that was about it. I was led back to the classroom where the rest of my class already was. Everyone immediately stared at me as I entered through the doorway, it was kind of like when the principal asks you to come to his office and everyone “ooOOOOOH’s” in mocking. This time they just looked at me with a mixture of shame and pity. To this day I still blame gym class for turning me into the man I have become.

Phillip was nowhere in sight. Was he detained? Had they shipped him off? Was this my fault?

A few moments later, Ms. Engemann led me out of the classroom and into the hallway. There was a woman standing there in a Hillary Clinton pantsuit with a haircut to boot. I don’t believe I was ever introduced to what her name was, but she referred to herself as the school psychologist. My school couldn’t afford the real chicken nuggets, but we had an in-house psychologist? She immediately whipped out a box of tissues I’m not sure if she had in her hand the entire time, and offered me one. My fourth-grade self adamantly believed tears were for the weak. I wasn’t about to shed any more today. She asked if I was okay and how Philip’s violent attack made me feel. “Angry.” I replied. She affirmed my feelings and claimed them to be “understandable” and “real”. But also she asked me what exactly happened. When I told her it all started when Philip wasn’t playing by the rules, she tried to explain to me why Philip did that. “Some people act differently than others and express themselves differently.” Even at a young age, I knew she was referring to Philip’s mental disorder. But was maniacal rage really a form of expression? “Philip didn’t mean to hurt you, he just didn’t know how to handle himself and made a mistake.” A BIG MISTAKE CLEARLY.

The next day in class, the day had gone along with few threats to my life from Philip or any of the other fourth graders during silent reading time. A girl in my class, Jackie, walked up to me and told me Philip had a note to give me. I walked up to Philip, took his letter and opened it, trying my hardest to decipher his scrambled handwriting. It said something along the lines of “I’m very sorry I tried to strangle you. Please forgive me. From Philip”. Being the sassy bitch I was already at 10 years old, I ripped up Philip’s letter right in front of the class and threw it in the trash. But I do remember smiling. I returned to my Magic Tree House book without a care in the world. Jackie later returned to ask me if I had forgiven Philip, probably to relay the message. God knows why she cared so much, because we all thought Phillip was the biggest crazy since Tanya Harding. But I told her “I guess”.

Philip clearly hadn’t believed my heartfelt acceptance of his apology. Because the next few weeks after that, I was his number one enemy. On Valentine’s Day he didn’t send me a card in my mailbox. In gym class, the scene of the crime, he tripped me in a game of Capture the Flag. And on Character Day, I went as Albert Einstein, but during our free time after the recital, I walked to the pencil sharpener to see his artwork on a small white board. It was a picture of me as Albert Einstein WITH A SEVERED HEAD DETACHED FROM MY BODY. E=MC2 was scrawled in blood, spouting from my neck. For a kid with serious mental disabilities and emotional trauma, he was a hell of an artist. The illustrations were beautiful. BUT WORST OF ALL, he stole one of my favorite scented erasers and never gave it back. He knew how to play the game.

For the rest of my short elementary school life, I feared Philip. Always wondering when he’d strike next for his revenge of me kicking him in the balls. The next time I ever saw him was years later in high school, walking down the hallway. He was about a hundred pounds heavier. His face was fat, contorted still with anger and what looked like even more freckles. He was one of those kids wearing those large camo army jackets. He looked just as terrifying now as he did then, if not more. I never spoke to him, nor saw him much in high school. I was too nervous he’d remember our past transgressions and be out to get me once more. But it still baffled me that the whole thing started ALL because he didn’t play by the rules. Or was it because I called him out on it?

Philip did make a mistake that day in attacking me. It was a wrong form of communication and powered by ill feelings. I was always so sure that I was in the right for calling him out on not playing the rules, on stepping out-of-bounds and nearly hurting someone. I thought it was always right of me to be honest, a trait I still keep to myself today. Life is too short to not say what you feel. To not be open and tell it like it is. But lately, I’ve been feeling maybe some things are better left unsaid.

Recently, I made a girl literally cry in one of my theatre classes who for the love of GOD could not take constructive criticism for anything. I felt bad she got so upset, but I was just being honest. If no one was honest with her, she was going to be under the delusion that she was completely right in her choices and that they were for a justified reason. I felt there was something she could learn from a little honesty, a little bit of a strong opinion. Maybe I was wrong to be so vocal, but that’s what theatre is about and that’s what life’s about. If you never say what you feel, whose going to ever believe you care?

I also have been told I’ve hurt several people’s feelings in my honesty in some of my stories. I’ve been told by my own Mother that the material in most of my stories is inappropriate and unnecessary to talk about.

But I disagree. My stories are my stories. They’ve happened and it’s my right to tell them. They’re a freedom of expression and lessons I think people can relate to. Some stories I think people might see as parallel to many of their own. If things had gone differently, more positively in these events, I would’ve still written them that way, the way they happened.

But life isn’t pretty. Which is why when we write about what we know, it often is so raw and unforgiving. However, it stimulates learning and expression. It begs us to grow up. As people change and come in and out of our lives, as our landscapes and cities change around us, as the elements of nature and chance and possibility force us to collide into ourselves, we come out looking like either a piece of shit or a million bucks. We learn and we change and we grow. And it’s the choices we make that help us along that path and shape what we turn out to be.

This is all why I feel so strongly about the quote “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better”. Every action has a reaction. Honesty doesn’t show a lack of care, it shows truth which beckons that change.

When I thought about how sure I felt about calling out Philip, the crying girl, past friends and lovers, and even my own Mother, I realized I was only so confident because I was shaped to be that way. Every decision I’ve made has only ever been based on how shitty a similar decision I made was the last time. Once I started to realize how stupid my own choices were, I realized it was my honesty that made me into who I am. Honesty was the foundation for many if not all of my choices. Being honest with yourself is just the first step. With others, it’s a whole different dodgeball game. There are feelings and other stupid crap involved. And there is no real rule book to go by.

What really is “playing by the rules”? Is anyone doing it? Are we stepping out of our own boundaries that we made ourselves and hurting others? Do we even care or is that just how you play the game?

Maybe I’m in the minority for thinking I can play by my own rules and be honest when I feel. But I’ve always been a firm believer in honesty. Respect is a two-way street. You have to give it to earn it, that I know. But honesty is something different. Many are shocked by honesty, but few by deceit. That’s what’s most discouraging to me.

And maybe some things shouldn’t be discussed. Maybe some stories shouldn’t be told. Maybe no one really gives a shit and thinks Philip was dead right for smashing my face into the gymnasium floor. There’s always going to be someone who disagrees with you. Whoever thinks that, that’s their honesty.

In the end, I think I was right for calling out Philip. And I’d do it again too. It was worth getting my head smashed into the ground. I’d rather die honest than silent.

The moment we stop telling stories is the moment we stop caring about what it means to learn. And that’s when we’ll stop growing. That’s when we’ll fail to be honest, to educate, to learn.

And those are rules I’ll never play by.

P.S. If you don’t like a story, DON’T FUCKIN READ IT. Chances are it doesn’t like you back.

Just being honest.