Pavlov's Tortured Dog - Damaged Goods and Me!

Ring the bell, drool. Ring the bell, drool. Raise the fist, flinch.

Continued from last time that began with with the shirt.



Everyone thought it was funny—except for Brother Michael. So I went with it and let my classmates think I was doing one of my comical bits. In reality, however it was my PTSD. I didn't want them laughing at me. I wanted them laughing with me.

My brother Bob had come home from Vietnam, as well as two of my neighbors, Robert Tripp and John Gillemot. They looked fine to me on the outside, but they had this Post Traumatic disorder thing that made them flinch and caused them to react wildly and to do weird things at times.

This was understandable for them—they fought in war!  BUT WHAT WAS MY @#*%#@#^% Problem?

(Bob pictured above)

 (John Gillemot pictured to right) 

Like the returning Vets, I looked fine on the outside, but was all messed up in my head and hated myself for having no control over my wild reactions.

I don't know why my brothers felt they had to raise their hand up in the air like they were going to strike me in the head every time they walked by. But they did. Either it gave them a sense of power or they just liked to see me cover my head and duck—or both, I guess. They would gesture violently in my direction, I would cover my noggin, cower in fear, drop to the floor which always made them laugh.

Haha.  I was the laughing stock at home—make me cower or make me vomit—the ironic thing was it that it was the "peace loving" hippies who burned their draft cards that loved to hurt me. Their was nothing peaceful about them. 

I had been hit so many times on the head I was like Pavlov's stinking dog. Ring the bell and I drool only in my case I "stop drop and roll." And if the boys got really lucky, they could make me vomit up my guts which was the height of entertainment in our house.

Every time my poor dad raised his hand—I fell to the floor and took cover.

THANK YOU WOLF PACK.
Let me see if I can make you happy by getting all schizoid whenever you treat me worst than a dog. 

I don't know why my brother Chewbacca had to squeeze my temples or lift me by my chee-chees or by me neck or had to repeatedly slug in in the leg. I don't know why "Flea-Bait" felt he had to beat me up every day. I don't know why I had to be electrocuted, Jalapeno'd or buried in pits. I don't know why I was the one who was chased - hampered - shot - dropped - dangled and tattooed.

Anyway, I realized how bad it was in Brother Michael's class the day after he caught me half-naked in janitor's closet.  

He smirked and talked about Catherine the Great or something in history that excited him when Earnestine raised her hand to answer a question.





Earnestine had graduated with us from Saint Marks.  She was a girl. She was a friend.  A 14-year-old girl for Pete's sake. The 14-year-old girl who sat in the row just opposite me, raised her hand to answer a question and like some mental case I flinched, covered my head and dropped to the floor.
















How retarded was that. Everyone started laughing so I went with it—acting as if it was just some dumb comic bit. I was a hero and comic genius. All the stupid kids in 9th grade loved me.
   
Brother Micheal sent me to some guy with a name like "AutoBelly." Autobelly, what kind of name was that?  

It was worth a trip to the Dean's office, because I made Brother Michael hate me which I counted as a victory. I win!

Raise your hand, flinch. Raise your hand, flinch. Raise your hand, flinch. I felt like I was worst than Bob and Robert and John who had returned from the Vietnam war. Something in me was broken. I was Pavlov's stupid dog.





I was sure there was love in the world somewhere—maybe next door at the Blasers or over at the Lennon's house across the street—it certainly wasn't something I could find at home. 

They seemed to like each other.  That's all I wanted. Love may have been asking too much for my family. I was starved and willing to feel liked.



This guy, Waldo Autobelli, stuck his finger in my chest and began yelling at me. It didn't matter. He could scream his head off all he wanted—though I stood at attention like any real kid—I was nothing more than a Zombie who was dying a little more inside each day. 

I was becoming a robot and his finger couldn't penetrate my steal plate exterior. 

Alex shared his pickles with me as I thought about poor 'O Billy Joe MacAllister - he died and it didn't matter to anyone.  Same thing would happen in my house I thought.   

 "Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

'n' Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas

"Well Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"  

"Hey, Alex could you pass the pickles please." 

"Et tu, Brute?" The Werewolf of Venice

(Continued) I apologize for being late on getting this one out.. but as it turned out, after my epic clash with the rooster, (which was once a close ally) the insidious beast was now nothing more to me than a backstabbing traitor... "Et tu, Brute?"

Needless to say, I was late for school.

I wasn't happy that I had to give excuses for my being late to school, either. I tried the best I could to explain why to my seventh grade teacher, Sister Edith. I went on about how it was trash day and how it was my job (even though I had fifteen thousand older brothers) to drags the cans (all by myself) to the ally because of my "Saint Francis" relationship I had built with the mini-Godzilla (when my brothers tried to kill me by burying in the Igloo of Death Post 2/27/14) and how the ugly attack rooster wouldn't let anyone else in the backyard and how all of this had something to do with the Mexican Tomato plants...

I don't know what it was...but I don't think that a 12-year-old is supposed to use words like: Saint Francis, Godzilla and Mexican Tomato plants all in the same sentence or all in one long breath. She interrupted me, impatiently tapping her worn out yardstick on the old brown desk. 'Rude! Hello!' I thought.

Thump Thump Thump! Tap Tap Tap!  The sound of her rapping that stick on her desk gave me a flashback! My pre-pubescent PTSD kicked in and I zoned out!

The rest of the kids in the class room started laughing. 'What?'  I thought, 'Like this doesn't happen to any of you other little creeps. Yeah like none of you have attack roosters and a Staff-Sergeant-Dad, who beats on the ceiling with a broom handle on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Like none of you have to eat oatmeal with meal worms before you get here. Like no one else here has ever had to wrestle an alligator or has been bitten by a snake or thrown over a cliff or shot at with needle-tipped arrows, electrocuted or dropped out of a window. Sure, right, like none of you other kids haven't ever had to do battle with a prehistoric monster first thing in the morning before school.' I sneered at the class and looked at all the empty eyes staring back and then it dawned on me!


THEY DIDN'T!  Normal People didn't have a giant frog the size of a beagle that ate baby chickens, or an alligator, or a monkey, or rattlesnakes, or chuckwallas or a bazillion rabbits and guinea pigs, turtles, a nasty looking cat that had been raised from the dead... or a pigeon that lived on top of the refrigerator or mushrooms that grew in the shower.    

I forgot that the Dahlins weren't normal...by any stretch of the imagination... and then realized that they thought I was making this entire story up about having to do battle with Godzilla before even getting to school! Like it wasn't true! 'Idiots! What do they know?'

Their stupid excuses on the other hand were like pathetic white bread in comparison, "My dog ate my homework." Hello, gag me with a spoon! "I stubbed my toe and my mom rushed me to the emergency room and I had to keep it elevated all day and had to watch cartoons and eat ice cream."  Whaaaaaa! Really? 'Oh poor baby, call the Whammmbulance!'

They thought I was joking and Sister Edith thought I was trying to make fun of her and she pulled a desk up to the front of the room and made me sit right next to her all day long! She wouldn't even let me show her the blood that had run down my leg and into my red Ked sneakers.  "Sheeze-Louise"

Trust me, someone was going to get it!  "Stay clear or my, oh my!"  Forget about the boys for a minute - one of them was bound to get it at recess. But. there. THEY. were! The girls! Ughhhhhhh. Looking at me like I was some alien creature from Mars.  Marilyn and Theresa and Julie and ANDREA!  I knew I didn't stand a chance with the girls against regular boys who were human-beings from planet earth.

Stupid
Dumb
Retarded
There I sat like a wounded or sickly wolf cut out of the pack - right up next to Sister Edith's desk. It was like I had leprosy or some contagious disease.

"Head tones" the Catholic nun screeched.  No! She wasn't about to get 'head tones' from me today... I refused to sing!

I was somewhere outside the Troposphere... Flying in one of the Apollo rocket ships on the way to the moon. I was trying to get away and thought that maybe I could live up there - if I was lucky!

"Read the question Mark!" Sister Edith bellowed judiciously from the platform where her desk was perched! My spaceship crash landed and I was suddenly back on planet Earth, in Venice, in the seventh grade, in a room at Saint Mark's school. I fumbled around for what seemed like 20 pressured-filled minutes trying to find the page we were on and didn't have a clue where we were. I knew it had something to do with Pavlov's dog, and, in a conditioned involuntary reflex I began reading in the middle of the page at the exact same time that Earnestine started to read! Sister slapped my desk with her yardstick and yelled at me.

I had no idea why the nun had gone berserk! First the rooster, now her! In front of the entire class, she wrapped my knuckles with her ruler and broke the thing over my hand. 'Ha! That'll teach her' I thought.

After Earnestine began reading again, I looked down the page of the text book and realized that she hadn't asked me to read.  She had asked Earnestine to read the paragraph following the QUESTION MARK - you know - a question mark the little squiggly thing with a dot that looks like this...
          ?
I thought she had asked me to read the question!  But she had asked Earnestine to read the question mark.

Alright! Touché Sister, this one was yours - you won this one, fair and square.  I limped outside for recess and all the boys wanted to see my bloody knuckles. They thought it was cool how I made up the big story about having to fight a rooster this morning and then how I dared to disrupt the class by reading right over the top of Ernestine, especially since I was in whacking distance of Sister Edith's notorious yardstick. 

Acting braver than I really was, my bloody knuckles were now a middle-school badge of honor and I said, "Oh Yeah!" and tried not to limp. Ricky said it was the best excuse story he had ever heard and all the smelly 12-year-old boys laughed in agreement. They thought I was cool for making up such a far fetch story about guard roosters and Saint Francis and all that! 

Anyway, I had been attacked by a rooster, humiliated, threatened with a stick and whacked with a ruler by a 300-year-old nun. Like one of Pavlov's dogs my fuse was a little short because of all the stimuli I had been subjected to this morning and knew that I had a long hard day in front of me. 

Ralph, the guy who helped me nearly cut off my leg 5 months ago, (blog post 11/29/13) Harry and I decided that we would ditch kickball and twirl ourselves around like helicopters instead. Actually the cool kids didn't pick Harry for one of the teams and I felt sorry for him.

And... this is when the Inner-Viking - the fuse blew... and Pavlov's passive dog turned into a werewolf that snapped. 

Poor, Poor, Terry!  

Blame it on the rooster, on Sister Edith, on her stick - her broken ruler; blame it on my PTSD...blame it on a conditioned involuntary reflex... blame it on my past electrocutions...but none-the-less, I really think Terry deserved what he got next!