Did you have a nemesis in grade school?
Someone you thought you didn’t like upon sight?
For me it was Kenny M.
The minute I showed up in Mrs. J’s 3rd grade class we detested each other.
We never talked about it (we never talked at all...we just seemed to throw things at each other)
We just knew that it was some kind law of the jungle.
We hated each other because we were destined to & it just felt so right.

Kenny M. used to take great joy in whipping balls at me during our lunchtime games of kickball.
He’d take careful aim at my head & try to crack my skull open
Or shoot lower & hit me in the sacred place where boobies were supposed to someday grow.

Wham...the ball would hit me & take the kid air right outa me on the spot.
UUUGGGH!

Try as I might...even if I hit the slug
He’d just laugh it off.
It didn’t help that I my scrawny arms had no power in them to missile the ball at him like I wanted to
I cursed him & would fume.

One day, during one of these games, I tried to kick the ball
But fell over it instead
Ripped my damn tights
& skinned my knees.
I knew I heard laughing
(I would have laughed too...but I had some pride back then & it was usually my undoing).

As I picked my wounded self up
I looked down at the blood dripping from my knees onto my awesome yellow tights
Something snapped in me.

Mrs. J wanted to know what happened.
Mrs. J hadn’t seen.
“I was pushed”...I heard my little girl self say.

“Who pushed you?”, said my concerned but apparently blind teacher.

You know very well what lie came out of my chaste mouth.

I had one moment of pure joy before I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my fate was now sealed & I would have to spend eternity in hell (with Kenny...because I knew he was evil & belonged in hell & now God was laughing at me too).

& they say that Catholic school doesn’t fuck you up?