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." 

Whose Brilliant Idea was this? Pit of Despair!

There is a crazy lady out there named Margaret Sanger who says that "The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of it younger infant members is to kill it." I hope nobody listens to her. Buried in this pit with cinder-blocks going up around me, I pray that my tribe hadn't been listening to her gobbledygook - if they had, then surely this was the means for my family to lovingly downsize.

The amused hippy clan was sweating and moving and stacking as they continued to build this concrete block Igloo of Death around me.  The only consolation I had was knowing that the Veloci-Rooster could no longer peck out my eyes if they released it from the chicken coop - at least that I was spared from.  With the bandanna around my mouth I couldn't scream for help and being buried up to my neck in this pit, I was completely defenseless and helpless.  In the words of Lee Dorsey, "Lord, I'm just so tired. How long will this go on?"

Little did they know that I was taking names, for if they murdered me, I would come back as a ghost and haunt each one of them.  Where do people come up with ideas like this?  Where in the world did Joseph's brothers (Joseph was a younger brother of a large family in the bible - he was the guy with the coat of many colors)... where did they come up with the idea of putting baby brother in a pit, making him out to be dead and then selling him off to the "Salton Sea-ites" (I think it was Salton Sea-ites - it was some people group like that).  WHY?  

Did the evil inspiration for this come from smoking the leaves of those "Mexican Tomato Plants" in those funny shaped cigarettes. Was it jealously?  Anger? I didn't do anything to them. Was it a feeling of powerlessness and the need to feel powerful so the Wolf Pack had to pick on the weakling of the bunch to feel that way?
I don't know.

The Devil?
I don't know.

The heart?
I don't know.

Some kind of insecurity?
I don't know.

Mass hysteria?
I don't know.

Agent Orange?
I don't know... Wait - this one I do know. Couldn't blame "agent orange" because none of these hippies ever went to Vietnam - they all burnt their draft cards - remember?

All I do know is that an 87-pound 12-year-old was no match for 15 long-hair draft-card-burning anarchist and that I'm stuck in a pit.  As I have said, I have survived being buried before, but this time - things were different. This time it was getting more and more out of control and getting more and more complicated with the ominous stacking of those nasty old blocks.

I just hoped that I had as many lives as that stupid cat, "Lazarus" who was inside the house watching my doom from the kitchen window - "lucky cat."



Around and up went the bricks - this was WORSE!

They were puffing on those hippie-cigarette thingies happy and evil. Working hard and enjoying every moment of it. With all the dirt that was piled up around me and with the pressure around my chest so great I could barley move my rib-cage every time I gagged (because of the rag over my mouth) and when my body convulsed in fear.

I was a Swede and I would not cry!  Though my insides ached from betrayal and from being cut out of the pack - (disowned, I guess) I was trained not to show weakness.  I was glad my eyes didn't leak, because I don't dare allow them to see me as a victim.  This would only make them happier!   No! I would not grant them that satisfaction... instead I was determined to die like Sir William Wallace - known to be Brave Heart.

I would let them murder me and though my inside person was a 12 year-old-boy desperately longing to find the meaning of love - disappointed, abandoned (once again), and betrayed by my own people - My outside person would die like a man!  I would not betray the Viking code...I would not cry!  I would not allow them that satisfaction.

HA! I win!

The next part of their evil  master-plan came in the form of a old yellow tarp!   A big piece of moldy plastic that was used to protect all the decaying boxes of National Geographic magazines from the seldom rain was now being proudly paraded around the backyard as a athlete would triumphantly display their country's flag after wining an Olympic gold medal.

I was deathly afraid of suffocation and thinking about what they might used this decrepit old yellow piece of plastic for, and it completely freaked me out.  It couldn't get any worse...right?  Well it did.  Little did I know how brilliant the Wolf pack was. Evil can be very brilliant, if you don't believe me - ask Hitler.

Could it get worse? I didn't think so, but it did. The yellow tarp was thrown over the top of the "Igloo of Death"  And that wasn't the end of the diabolically brilliant plan, there was more!  Much more!

"Lord, I'm tired and scared and hurt and was wondering if you can tell me how much longer this will go on?"

  

Hippies and Mexican Tomato Plants

Whack… slapped the stick, three times on my outstretched rump. Seriously, do you really think for one moment that after all I had been through already, that a couple well placed eraser-bombs and several smacks on my tight little derrière was going to have any effect! I was like one of those used cars for sale that looked good on the outside, but already had a million miles on it.  While still in the "position" (last blog post) I tried my darnedest to pass gas...but to no avail, because I didn't have the superpowers that one of my older brothers, Dooh-Dooh Pants, had who so magnificently mastered. There I was, stomach churning, butt pointed at everyone I wanted to payback, but was unable to channel my gastric juices into a defensive weapon.

The year is 1968 and a lot has happened in the last two years - since the 5th grade. Obviously I lived through Sr. Godzilla, the 5th grade "Templates" (blog Post June 26th) and somehow managed to make it this far.

One brother was in Viet Nam. My oldest brother, Gustav had been Honorably Discharged from the military with some lame excuse like having bad teeth or because he had a rare blood type. Three of the other brothers - the ones who were full-fledged, long-haired, Anti-Viet-Nam-War-hippies, didn't just burn their draft cards, but sent them back to President Johnson to make an even bigger statement...

Which reminds me of our chance - impossible - real-live-encounter with the President of the United States, which took place while we were driving across country on our vacation this past summer. 

TRUE STORY

Who else in the world does this happen to?  Nobody, right?  Nobody, other than the Dahlins! We'll get to that in the next couple blog post... but, seriously... what are the mathematical probabilities of running into the Presidential motorcade in North Texas and having a chance encounter.  It is about the same, I guess of having an alien abduction in the middle of New York City.  (You're going to have to wait on that one. Oh, and add snapping turtles to the story - and it must be something like, 1:100,000,000 to the 120th power).

After what happened to John F. Kennedy... it made you wonder why LBJ, the 36th President, of the United States got out of his protected limousine and pulled his dirty rotten trick on us.

Didn't he know he was messing with the "Wolf Pack." 

By this time the Lennons were beginning to wonder off the reservation and the older boys had also begun to let their hair hang low. Pat and Billy had traversed the chasm of our tarry-asphalt street and engaged in some of the bizarre behaviors of Hotel Crazy at our pad. The virus of the hippy-bug made its way across the street, past the Blessed Virgin Mary that stood guard in their front window and spread the infection in their house. Getting into this long-haired-hippy movement, the older Lennon boys began to fit right in with the Dahlins and embraced "what my older brothers had begun cultivating" in the far reaches of the backyard - hidden behind old cars, boats that refused to float, stacks of decaying National Geographics and  lots of junk that was perfect for protecting their secret garden. My older bothers told my parents were "Mexican Tomato Plants"   Heck, I don't know why they spent so much time out there caring the trimming those plants - didn't seem to do any good. The dumb plants never did grow tomatoes - go figure!  

Last year in the Sixth Grade my oldest brother, Gustav and his girl friend, Patty, took me to Sears and bought me a really cool Tobias suit. This is the famous picture that Marilyn Monroe is holding at the top of my Blog Post (until I change it, of course).
 
My Sixth Grade felt like a"life-sentence"  with hard labor. (more about that later). But, look at how cute this little guy is!

These was my first real clothes, that weren't hand-me-down-down-down-down-downs. This didn't come with blood stains or bullet holes or 17 patches over patches... Just look at him.

LADY KILLER right!

Imagine all those six grade girls drooling all over me! I wasn't keeping count and didn't have a clue.  Look into those precious eyes that seem to be lost in deep thought. What do you supposed I was thinking at that moment? Probably didn't have anything to do with girls.  I'll bet anything that I was too busy contemplating my everyday survival to be a "player."  If I had any inkling that a girl liked me, I was so insecure that I couldn't even open my mouth. I stuttered...and most people didn't know because they thought I was just being funny and a lot of my words didn't come out right. (No one in my family listened so anyone, they all just competed for floor time and had no idea that I had speech problems - except for my dad. He kept telling me that I should learn to talk with marbles in my mouth to help my pronuncification)

And what others thought was confidence was really just nothing more than the artful-dodging of a lonely street rat - still searching for the meaning of life and wanting to hear one word spoken in my HOUSE!

Next Time - The infamous story of amateur taxidermy and the SKUNK STINK-SACKS.

Please, no one tell the Blasers - because I don't think they know how their beloved collie got a hold of these things that he dragged like a crazed werewolf into the house. 


The Beatles have a song. It's been a hard days night... but for me it has been a hard-couple years..and I feel like I've been working like a dog just to survive the pits, and the jalapenos, and the big-bang-burnie, and the fights, and the mosquitoes, and leprosy, and the Veloci-rooster and the alligator...

                                                                    Just how much farther would Markie D make it?