Brenda,
I am sending you several other TRUE stories about my life. Of all my years
living in an abusive orphanage in Jacksonville, Florida; my days of being
biullied were the worst days of my life. I will never forget the horror
and the fright. Roger
A
PIECE OF S#&T (CRAP)
"He's
one of those stupid idiots from over at the Children's Orphanage Home,"
said one of the boy's from my seventh grade class.
I looked
him straight in the eye and he turned his back on me. The other boys and
girls, grouped around him, looked away as if I were not even there.
I had
hoped that my attending a new school, located five miles from the orphanage,
would give me a new start on life. It would be a welcome break from all
the jokes, and never-ending ridicule, which we kids suffered for years
while attending to Spring Park Elementary School. A school located next
door to the orphanage where I lived.
It
took less than a day, or two for the word to spread around the classroom
that I was from the orphanage. My living in an orphanage home somehow made
me different from all the other kids. I could not tell much of a difference
myself. However, for some reason it sure made a big difference to all the
other kids in the classroom.
For
the first week of Junior High School, no one, other than my teachers, even
spoke to me. I sat in my assigned seat just hoping that someone, anyone,
would smile or speak to me. I opened up my notebook and I took out a piece
of paper. On the paper, I drew a heart. Inside the heart, I wrote the words
"Roger, you are a piece of shit."
I folded
up the notebook paper and I walked to the front of the classroom. I walked
up to the teacher and handed her the note. She opened the paper and began
to read the contents. Then she looked up at me and tightened up her jaw
muscles.
"You
head straight to the Dean's Office young man," she said, pushing on my
shoulder to spin me around to face the door.
I'M
A PIECE OF S#&T," I screamed aloud, as I ran out at the classroom.
I turned
and I ran out of the classroom. Down the long hallway, I sped to the double
doors leading outside the large brick building. I continued to run until
I could run no more. Slowly I made my way to the St. John's River and then
over to the Main Street Bridge leading back to where the orphanage was
located. I stopped when I reached the center of the bridge. I looked over
the metal railings and I looked down at the water below.
"That's
a long ways to fall down " I said to myself, in a broken voice.
I just
stood there looking down at the moving water below. I placed my head down
onto my arms and I just stood there trying to decide what to do. My mind
was racing ninety miles per hour. I knew that I could not go back to the
orphanage because I had left the school grounds. As usual, they would beat
the pure living crap out of me. There was no way that I could return to
school and face my classmates or the Dean of Boys.
"I'm
too scared to jump all that way," I mumbled, as slobber fell from my mouth.
"You
have no choice. You’re in bad trouble," my mind kept telling me.
"You
don't have to jump. Just put one foot up onto the railing," said something
inside my head.
Carefully
I raised my foot and I placed it onto the metal railing. Then I raised
my other foot up off the concrete walkway.
"See
that didn't hurt anything," said the voice.
"Yea,
I don't really have to jump if I don't want to?" I said aloud.
"You
don't have to jump if you don't really want to," the small voice inside
my head.
Each
time that I would take another step, I felt much better inside. The pain
and the sadness were disappearing a little bit at a time. Soon I was half
way up the silver steel railing. Now the passing cars were starting to
honk their horns at me. One of the cars came to a complete stop. A man
rolled down his window and he yelled at me to get down off the railing.
I looked
over at him and I thought to myself "That man must care a lot about me
to honk at me like that".
"Do
you like me?" I asked him.
"I
like you son. Come down off that railing," he told me.
Slowly
I climbed down off the railings and back down onto the concrete walkway
below.
I have
always heard that people who commit suicide really do not want to die.
All that they really want is for the pain to stop. I have never heard a
truer statement in all of my life.
Stories
from The Life and Times of Chicken Soup for the Soul Author, Roger Dean
Kiser http://www.rogerdeankiser.com
