My Son's Tribulations
By Tubby Dimes


I sort of blame my wife.  You know, the first-born syndrome.  Every need
met.  Most wants met, after the obligatory tantrum, replaced later by just
a simple but clearly understood facial gesture.  Foam bumpers protecting
all hard or sharp surfaces,  subscription to Motherhood Digest.  Toilet
bowl locks.  Hypo-allergenic carpet cleaner; snacks on demand.

But I cannot escape responsibility for Steven's plight.  I was gone a lot
on business, and probably not sufficiently available to curb the excesses.
Not that I didn't buy into the whole nurturing thing, too.  I did my share
of fawning; what new father doesn't ?  But I suppose Steven should have
been allowed to play with the snot-nosed little hooligans down the street,
even if it meant a few tears and bruises, or learning the "F" word a few
years ahead of time.  He should have been hit by pitched balls and fallen
off planks into creeks and suffered rope burns and nail punctures.  But no,
pain or suffering was verboten.  If it did not happen in a Robert Louis
Stevenson poem, it was not going to happen to our Steven.

We're probably too hard on ourselves.  After all, we can't have been the
only ones to have blindly followed our instincts; besides, isn't that what
the childrearing self-help book of the month told us to do ?   I'm sure
things will turn out fine in the end.  In the meantime, though, it's been a
rough row to hoe for Steven, and for us.

We tried him in the suburban child sports scene, but it just didn't take.
Some kids are simply uncoordinated, others are lazy and uninterested;
Steven epitomized all these qualities.  He soon grew to detest sports and
competition of all kinds.  And since he apparently considered any physical
exertion to be a form of competition against. gravity, I suppose, he was
not, as he approached his twelfth birthday, well positioned for acceptance
among his sports-minded contemporaries.

It was, perhaps, this feeling of lack of acceptance combined with the
roiling hormonal juices of pre-adolescence, that had created in Steven an
increasingly overbearing, yet brittle and fragile personality.  And
unfortunately, it was his eight-year old sister Sonya who often bore the
brunt of his frustrations.  Despite our frequent recriminations (we have
never believed in corporal punishment), the put downs, the sarcasm, the
hectoring of Sonya continued unabated, that is, until Michelle became
involved.

Michelle was one of Sonya's best friends from toddler days.  She lived a
few houses down from us, and she and Sonya enjoyed one of those idyllic,
easy back-and-forth relationships that make for endless joyful summers.
Her father, a cableT.V. installer from Pennsylvania, and mother, who was
Vietnamese, had apparently met during the war, where they were both in
opposing sides' armies.  Their daughter had beautiful Asian-American
features, with large eyes and smooth brown skin, and always wore her thick
brown hair in tight pigtails.

Michelle, who was nearly nine, was something of a gymnastics prodigy.
Sonya and a number of other girls in the neighborhood were into gymnastics,
but Michelle stood out.  She had rocketed through the compulsory levels by
seven and was now competing in the optional levels, where most of the girls
were in their mid-teens and had been working their way up for nine or ten
years.  Everyone expected her to move up to the "elite" level, from which
the National team was chosen, as soon as she was old enough.  In fact, a
National-level coach had even attended one of her meets, so we knew she was
on someone's radar screen.

There is always a bit of jealousy among gymnasts and their parents when
some other kid excels, but Michelle was so far beyond the other girls of
her age, there was only admiration, even awe, from the parents and her
peers.  Needing additional challenges, she had even taken to practicing the
boys' events, and it was not uncommon to see her working out on the pommel
horse or high bar with one of the boys' coaches after her grueling three
and a half hour regular workout.  My wife told me she one night when she
picked up our daughter that she had seen a gymnast on the rings doing a
very difficult move called the "iron cross".  Impressed, she looked closer
and realized it was Michelle.

As a result of all the gymnastics and her mother's insistence on healthy
diet, Michelle had developed a truly extraordinary physique.  Of course,
she had mesomorphic genes  to begin with (both her parents, especially her
father, were athletic), but the five years of hard gymnastics training, of
which maybe two had included boys' events, which require even more
strength, had developed and sculpted her body into a somewhat  smaller
version of her male gymnast counterparts.  She had small joints, although
her hands were large from gripping the bar.  Her smooth skin veneered the
muscles underneath, giving her arms and shoulders the impression of
polished brown river cobbles.   Endless press handstands and pullups had
resulted in a V-shaped torso and her little legs were etched with parallel
sinews from knee to hip.

Lately, Sonya informed me, Michelle's parents had enrolled her in a karate
class, although I later found out from Michelle that it was actually an
Indonesian form of Kung-fu called "One-with-heart" that was rare in this
country, and which her mother had studied while in the North Vietnamese
army.  Where she found time to do this, I had no idea, but it may have
accounted for Michelle's new-found aggressiveness, for I have no doubt she
pursued this activity with the same vigor and intensity as her gymnastics.

This aggressive streak was a surprise to me, for she had always been a
quiet and compliant, if energetic, child.  It may have been that Steven's
annoying personality was getting to her as it was to the rest of us, and
she had just discovered that she had the ability to do something about it.
But why it went as far as it did is puzzling. I can only attribute it to a
childish exploration of the same primal human urge that leads kids to try
pulling the wings off a fly or put snails in the middle of the street to
see if they can make it to the edge.

My first hint of trouble came one weekend morning when I was in the
kitchen.  Steven came running in sobbing.  "What happened?", I cried.
"Michelle hit me !", Steven yelled.  "Michelle and Sonya are being mean !".
 I called the two of them inside and sternly inquired what had happened.
Sonya replied, "Steven was being mean to me and called me a baby and said
that I was stupid and Michelle told him to stop and he wouldn't and he
grabbed my jump rope and so Michelle hit him."  I admonished them all about
how we need to resolve our problems like civilized human beings without
resorting to grabbing and hitting, and sent the girls on their way.

When they had left, I turned to the still-red, tear-stained Steven.  "You
know ", I said, "You're almost twelve.  Michelle is eight".  "Eight and a
half ", corrected Steven.  " The point is, Steven, you know we don't
condone settling arguments with violence.  But if someone tries to hit you,
you do have the right to defend yourself."

Steven's lower lip trembled more vigorously.  "I did try and defend
myself", he insisted.  "Well, I don't want you coming in here anymore
crying that an eight-year old girl hit you", I said.  "It's not.dignified.
You don't want people to think you're a . incapable of defending yourself,"
I stammered, straining to avoid the "S" word.  "You just need to take care
of this, ok?  By yourself, with no help from me or your mother."  It was
time to draw the line.  Good or bad, he needed to be toughened up.  Once he
took a few knocks, maybe gave a few in return, he would gain some
confidence, he'd realize that he had resources in him that he could draw
upon that he never knew he had.  I resolved to just stand back and let him
handle whatever was to come, for his own good.

He slammed the door to the backyard.  I watched from the kitchen window as
he approached Michelle.  I saw scowls escalate into shouting, although I
couldn't hear a word through the closed window.  Michelle advanced.
Steven thrust his arms out to fend her off, but quick as a flash her fists
shot out - one, two, three, into his face, and Steven went down.  Michelle
even aimed a kick as he fell, but missed.  "Oh, no," I thought, "what'll
that do to his confidence?"

Steven staggered to his feet, already crying.  Michelle stood still,
clearly a bit surprised at how easily she had just knocked down a boy three
years older than she.  If Steven had just stayed put, crying a bit, it
probably would have ended there.  But he fled for the back door, which I
had locked in keeping with my spur-of-the-moment resolution.  Clicking the
doorknob in vain, now  panicked, Steven turned and ran for the front door
along the side of the house.  Michelle, brought back into the moment by
that primal instinct to chase down whatever is trying to escape from us,
lit out after him.  Even with the adrenaline boost brought on by the need
to save himself, Steven hadn't made it halfway to the front of the house
when Michelle tackled him, like some small carniverous dinosaur leaping on
a hapless plant-eater.  Rolling on the ground in a flurry of dry grass and
dust, Michelle emerged with Steven clamped in a dreadful headlock.  After
another few seconds of fruitless struggling on Steven's part, she raised
them both into a standing position, Steven's head still in the crook of her
arm, his torso bent in the middle, face red and puffy.  She walked him back
to the backyard in that position, and when it became clear she didn't know
what to do next, she administered a couple of parting punches to Steven's
face with her free hand, and then let him go.  Casting a nervous look
toward the house, she scampered out of the yard and down the alley with a
quick "Bye, Sonya".

That evening I tried my best at counseling Steven, but he was inconsolable.
My wife thought we should talk to Michelle's parents, but I was adamant.
Steven needed to handle this himself - unless he did, life in middle and
high School would just become a living hell.

In Steven's mind, however, his one feeble attempt to "deal with it" had
ended in disaster, and he was certainly in no mood to re-initiate anything
with Michelle.  The problem, unfortunately, was that Michelle had not only
sensed his helplessness during their little scrap, but had also kind of
enjoyed it all.  Like winning a gymnastics meet against older girls, this
beating up a boy who was also three years older filled her with a sense of
wonder at her own power and ability.  Plus, the feel of her fists hitting
someone's face, though at first a bit awful, actually was better than those
flat unyielding bags at her martial arts class, and it had more effect.
Finally, there was something about the fear in Steven's eyes that made her
dislike him, made her feel like he deserved it, in short, it made her feel
like doing it again.

And so it continued, and I let it, still hoping and praying that Steven
would emerge from it with the strength to stand up for himself.  But it
soon evolved beyond a backyard tussle and into a game of cat and mouse.  By
the time I had to acknowledge that a mouse was not going to grow up into a
cat, it was pretty much too late, and Michelle was on her way to an elite
gymnastics program a thousand miles away.

The next day, as I watched from the second floor, Michelle was waiting for
Steven when he innocently ventured into the backyard.  She sprung from
behind a corner of the garage, and a similar chase ensued, with similar
results.  This time, instead of the headlock routine, Michelle put Steven
face down on the grass.  She planted her knee in the middle of his back,
forced his face into the ground, and I heard her demand that he "Eat
grass".  When she was satisfied he had complied, she rolled him over and
sat on his chest, his mouth full of grass and dirt, his face scratched and
impressed with grass marks and green tears.  "If you ever run away from me
again, I'll make you swallow it", she warned him.

In the ensuing days, Steven spent as much time as possible indoors.  He
would begin crying when I forced to go outside for some exercise and fresh
air, but he never let on what his real fear was.  I still thought that any
time, he would break out of his paralysis and handle the matter, but I
probably underestimated how truly intimidated and humiliated he felt.  It
was as if Michelle had a sixth sense that told her when Steven was
outdoors.  She would appear at the back gate, confident that Steven would
no longer run, and matter-of-factly ask if he was ready for his beating.
Steven would reason with her, plead with her, but seldom with any results.
Sometimes Michelle offer tests that, if passed, would allow him to avoid a
beating, but these were devised only to further his feeling of humiliation.

For instance, one time she told Steven she wouldn't beat him up if he could
do more pullups on our backyard monkey bars than she could, which was
ridiculous.  Steven had never been able to do a pullup.  He watched in
dismay as Michelle, offering to give him a break by grasping a old tire
from a discarded rope swing between her legs, proceeded to knock off
fifteen wide grip pullups with perfect form, and looked like she could have
kept going indefinitely.  Steven dutifully grasped the bar, struggled, and
raised himself no more than an inch or two before letting go.  "Oh, well",
sighed Michelle.  "I'll give you another chance.  See if you can squish
down these muscles".  She walked up to the cringing Steven and slowly
flexed her arms.  Pumped by the heavy pullups, her biceps rose into steep
little rounded mountains.  Steven could barely get his hands around them
and when he squeezed them as hard as he could, nothing happened.  "Come on,
you sissy, squeeze harder", she taunted.  He did, his teeth clenched under
the strain, but nothing happened.  "You know how you get arms like this?"
she continued.  "Pullups, and pushups, and gymnastics, and fighting and
exercise.   Let's see your muscles", she demanded.  Steven was reluctant,
but he knew he better do what she said.  He flexed his arms as hard as he
could, but there was no hard mountain under his skin, just a featureless,
flat prairie of a bicep.  Michelle laughed, "Is that as big as they get?
Come on, I can't believe it, your arms are like.pipe cleaners.  Like a
little baby.  Let's see if I can squish them".  Before Steven had a chance
to put them down, Michelle grabbed his upper arms in each hand.  Steven
tensed his arms as much as he could, but Michelle's hands were like vices;
her fingers crushed his arms and Steven let out a wail.  "My, they're not
only little and weak, but soft as noodles, like a little baby's.  I guess
I'll just have to show you what you can do with arms like these".  She let
Steven go, and he sank to his knees in pain, his bruised arms dangling.
Michelle grabbed the front of Steven's shirt with her right fist, raised
him to a standing position, and began thrusting her arm rapidly back and
forth, which first jerked Steven's head and shoulders back, then forward
into Michelle's large clenched fist.  Steven tried to raise his arms to
ward off the blows, which fell about equally on his chest, throat and the
lower part of his face, but his arms had been rendered of no use.
Repeatedly, Michelle bashed her fist into Steven like one of those heavy
balloons on a thick rubber band.  When she had finished, she let him sink
slowly to the ground, dazed, and stood over him with her hands on her
little hips shaking her head.  Her back flared out and the sweat from the
fight had given her prominent deltoids a shine like a stone taken out of a
creek.  "Don't worry, Steven.  Maybe you'll do better tomorrow", she
smiled, and loped out of the yard like a baby tyrannosaurus.

That was the point I decided to intervene at last.  My approach clearly
wasn't working.  On my next day off, I went over to Michelle's house and
knocked on the door.  A stranger answered.  "Oh, they packed up and moved
to Texas for a year", she said.  "Their daughter is attending some big-time
gymnastics school down there."  When my wife returned from the gym with
Sonya that evening, she confirmed it.  They had rented their house, quit
their jobs, and moved to support their daughter's gymnastics career.  When
Steven heard, it was like a 100-pound weight had been lifted from him.  But
he only smiled and asked, "Can we go get some ice cream?