Real Men Do Cry

I came to St. Michael Catholic School when my family moved from Champaign to Indianapolis. It was half way through my third grade year and as I recall, I felt no trepidation about meeting and making new friends. When my father told us we were going to pack up the Conestoga’s and head east, it broke my heart. I was going to have to leave Mickey Schmikler, my best friend as far back as I could remember. My parents told all us boys to keep our mouths shut about the move but I of course immediately told Mickey we were soon to be outta here. Much to my surprise, his parents had told him the same thing about their up-and-coming relocation.

The two of us were quite incredulous regarding this coincidence and spent a great deal of time (10 minutes or so) speculating as to its nature. We finally agreed that the only explanation had something to do with the Russians, an atomic bomb and the Griggs family that had invaded our neighborhood several months earlier. The Griggs’ were not like us; I was a Catholic, Mickey was Jewish and the Griggs’ family was obviously neither. They had funny accents, were very hairy and sometimes spoke in a language that Mickey and I could not understand. We finally discovered the family was German, so we snuck over to their house and painted swastikas on there windows with Ivory soap.

Anyway, I bade farewell to my friend and days later found myself being introduced to one of St. Michael’s third grade classes. “Class,” announced Sister Whomever, “I’d like you to welcome a new student; his name is Rooney Grinkmeyer!”, and just to drive the stake deeper through my heart, she proceeded to write my name on the chalkboard. The only time I’d heard laughter of this nature was when Alfalfa took the stage at his school’s talent show and sang “I’m In The Mood For Love” to Darla. I’d never thought about my name much, but as I stood there watching all those children laughing at me, it occurred to me that I’d never met another “Rooney” and any “Grinkmeyer” I’d met was a relative. I was years from learning about exponents but at this moment I had a very clear understanding of the concept of “2 squared”. I stood deathly still, pursing my lips, squinting my eyes and clenching my fists, wondering what unbearable level of cacophony would erupt when the tears started running down my cheeks. Fortunately, Sister Whomever came to my rescue.

“Class! Class!!” she yelled, and with three sharp claps of her hands the room fell silent. I was escorted to my desk and Catechism class commenced. That day at recess a couple of the boys roughed me up pretty good, but as the weeks wore on I began to be accepted.

By the time I’d reached the eighth grade I was not just “one of the guys” but “one of the guys to be”. My parents had elected to hold me back from the first grade for a year so I was one of the biggest in the class by then. And over the years I’d earned if not the respect of my classmates, certainly the fear, by doing well in academics, sports, and thoroughly beating anyone who dared call me by my birth name or any derivative thereof. I had, in fact, become a bit of a bully.

And I was the leader of what turned out to be the pick-on to end all pick-ons.

There was a big, vacant grassy area across the street from St. Michael’s school where the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders went for recess. The boys would roughhouse with one another or stand around and talk about girls and brag about all the things they were going to do when they got pubic hair and very large penises. The girls would forgo the roughhousing, but they would stand around in big circles and talk about all the things they were going to do when they got pubic hair and very large breasts. Or at least that’s what we boys assumed they were talking about. So one day I’m standing around talking to John and George and Dennis and the rest of the hoodlums I’d befriended and someone says “Let’s de-pants Tuba Fitz!” I think it was George. Tuba Fitz (not his real name) was a pretty good guy, but he was fat and freckled and had red hair. Not at all the swaggering stud that me and my prepubescent friends were. So we kind of picked on him.

Being the biggest kid in my class at the time and therefore the leader of the group, (and I’m sure the only one currently sporting pubic hair and, I might add, a very large penis!) I seized upon the idea that not only would we de-pants Tuba, but once we’d gotten his drawers down around his ankles, we would hoist his bulbous fat ass over to the girl’s circle and deposit him in the middle of it. Needless to say, my brainstorm was greeted with great enthusiasm and the deed was commenced.

Four of us each grabbed a limb and carried the de-pantsed blubber-boy towards the girls. They screamed at our approach, hands over their gaping mouths, but the only ones that moved were the ones that allowed us entrance to the circle. We deposited Tuba on the ground in their midst and I could see in their eyes the wonder, the awe, the curiosity as for the first time in their lives these Catholic schoolgirls got a glimpse of what lies hidden under the trousers of a male not related to them. Though our act was nothing short of cruel, it probably postponed the loss of virginity for several of the girls in that circle. The sight of Tuba’s fat, white, freckled legs and the dingy Jockey shorts that swaddled his big butt most certainly etched in some of their minds an image of male sexuality that served to keep them chaste better than the nuns’ promises of eternal damnation.

Tuba split out the crotch of his pants during the melee and had to walk home and change. He lived close and would be back before the bell rang to end recess and, being our buddy, we knew the incident would go unmentioned. We did not know, however, that Tuba’s father was at home and that upon seeing his split-pantsed, teary-eyed son enter the house demanded an explanation. Tuba fought the fight of his life, he assured us later, trying to protect his friends and tormentors. But dads were once 8^th-graders and they know what meanness 8^th grade boys are capable of.

Dino and I had been awarded the responsibility of going to the rectory after recess every day to pick up the school’s mail. I often thought about how I, as a younger child, would watch the two cool eighth-graders walk across the church parking lot to perform this honored task. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Sometimes I would gaze up into the faceless windows of St. Michael’s school and wonder how many 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders were enviously eyeing me and dreaming of the day when they might achieve my status.

We entered the school and walked to a small office where we completed our “…appointed rounds.” As we headed for our classroom I glanced into Sister Mary Margaret’s office--she was the principal of St. Michael’s school. Her eyes were wide and her lips were pursed. Her back was straight as a two-by-four and angled forward toward the man and the boy sitting across the desk from her, and her hands were folded as if in prayer. The man was obviously agitated and the boy at his side sat quietly with his head down, his tousled hair shining at me like the red bubble-gum machine on top of a city policeman’s patrol car. I turned my head to face forward again, wide-eyed with fear, and continued the Bataan death march toward what was surely impending doom. “Holy shit!” said Dino, “We’re fucked!” For a few seconds my mind turned from the horrific fate that was soon to be mine and pondered what I had just heard coming from my friend’s mouth. The “s-word” was fairly common amongst us by now, and my personal use of it accounted for scores of “Hail Mary” recitations as doled out from the confessional. I new the “f-word” existed, kind of in the same sense that I knew short black men who lived in the rain forest and hunted howler monkeys with poison-tipped arrows existed. But I’d certainly never had any personal experience with either. And had we been magically transmigrated to the rain forest and I heard Dino say “Holy shit! We’re fucked!”, I’m certain I’d have been taken more aback by his use of the “F-word” than the screeching howler monkeys in the canopy.

As we approached the closed door to Sister Agnes Regina’s lair, our classroom, I began to hear muffled yells. I opened the door, the yelling became clearer and I nearly wet my pants. “The Rooney gang? The Rooney gang?” Yes Sister, heard your question the first time. The tiny nun with the pit-bull attitude had her back to me, and George, Dennis and John cornered. Three of the toughest guys in the whole school were standing at rigid attention, frightened and quaking like aspen leaves in a gale, staring down into the eyes of what was certainly the toughest gal in the school. I looked to my left and I saw virtually every one of my classmates staring back at me. Their eyes expressed deep, abiding sympathy, for they knew what was sure to ensue here in the next few minutes.

The door closed, the pit bull pivoted 90 degrees, walked across the front of the room and came face-to-face with Al Capone. “So! It’s the Rooney gang, is it?!!” She turned again. “You three, take your seats! You too, Dennis (that would be Dino)! I’ll deal with you later!” She turned back to a very nauseous me and pinched the flabby skin on the back of my bicep. “You, Mr. Gang leader, come with me!”

She marched me down to the principal’s office and finally released the channel-lock grip on my arm. Rather than unleash the righteous wrath of God upon me, as I had expected, Sister Mary Margaret very calmly asked me if I had indeed initiated the humiliating act upon Tuba Fitz. I considered lying but with Tuba and his father sitting there in the jury box I thought it best to admit my misdeed and take whatever punishment was forthcoming. “Yes Sister,” I replied to her query and hung my head to indicate the remorse and sorrow I was supposed to be feeling. And then, as an added bonus, I turned to the plaintiff and his father and apologized. “I’m sorry Thomas. I’m sorry Mr. Fitzpatrick.” They said nothing and I was excused.

The rest of the afternoon went quite normally and by the end of the school day I was feeling quite cocky again. I was barraged by questions from my partners is crime and assured them that the best way to handle ol’ Sister Mary Margaret, should the occasion ever arise again, was to simply feign remorse and apologize sincerely for your sins. Not at all unlike going to Confession on Fridays, something we were all familiar with. I boarded the school bus and went home, grabbed my mitt and joined the kids in the neighborhood for our regularly-scheduled afternoon game of baseball.

Dad got home late and I waived to him as he pulled into the driveway. I knew that in just a few minutes he’d be out on the pitcher’s mound, serving up gopher balls and offering advice on the finer points of the game to all assembled. But he did not show. Rather, Grace marched out of the house, stern-faced and car keys jingling from her hand. She grabbed my little brother and marched him toward her car. Steve protested and in a very uncharacteristic move she yanked his arm and told him to “Shut up and get in the car!” Grace then turned back to me and said “Rooney, your father wants to see you in the house. We were not very good friends, my mom and I, but I detected a look of real concern in her eyes, a look that a mother might give to a son who was about to board a train that would eventually take him to the battlefields of a war-ravaged foreign land. For a minute I was confused but then the cold, hard reality of what was about to happen hit me right between the eyes—“Oh shit! She called my parents!”

And indeed she had, that sly old nun. She’d been around the chapel a few times and she knew the difference between the mischievous pranks of an 8-year-old schoolboy and the outright meanness of a young adolescent headed for real trouble. And she knew when the limits of her disciplinary authority had been exceeded. And I think she must have known my dad too, or at least she suspected he knew how to steer his son in the right direction.

What followed between me and my father has gone down in the annals of Grinkmeyer discipline as the Coup de Gras of whuppin’s. The details aren’t important and many would feel that my father deserves to be jailed today for the punishment he meted out over 30 years ago. When the castigation was over, Dad approached me and said “I hope you know I had to do that, son”. “Yes sir”, I answered. I quickly wiped my tears because my father had taught us that men don’t cry. “I saw my buddies die right next to me during the war and didn’t cry”, he’d told us. But that afternoon as he stood in front of me a tear ran down each of his cheeks. And I don’t recall ever feeling closer to my father than at that moment.