Life-Defining Moments -- Memory 2

At the time, grades Kindergarten through 8th didn't feel like the dark, connection-less labyrinth of emotions and self-questioning that I now realize they were. I was just a straight-A student, who wanted to do right by my parents and consistently brinh home 100% test papers, the kid with the happy and calm parents on every "parent/teacher" night. The kid that other parents wish could rub off on their own a bit. The kid who scored over 1,000 points in his four-year Interparochial League basketball career (stats don't lie, somewhere in my parents' basement lies the scorebooks to prove it).

I hardly hung out with "friends" outside of school, but that didn't make me sad or ashamed. Maybe once a week or so, I'd go over to one friend in particular's house to shoot hoops and watch ESPN highlights, chit-chat about our mutual hero Michael Jordan. See, back then I was a big jock-in-training. Movies and music were vices, as well, but sports was biggest bag. And without sports, I would've made zero friends. Nada. Could've ended up being a depression case, even. Who knows. But that's neither here nor there. I DID have sports, so all was well.

Well, well enough. You see, I was living a sort-of secret life for the first half of my time at St. Catharine's elementary school, in Glen Rock, Jerz. The school was as preppy as any grade school could ever be. Fucking kids actually had Billy Joel fan clubs, or Nirvana fan clubs (okay, a Nirvana fan club isn't bad at all....but Billy Joel? Keep in mind, these kids were no older than 12. I bet their parents would even laugh at the idea of a Billy Joel fan club). There was another group who they all loved at the time, but the group name escapes me. Their album was called POCKET FULL OF KRYPTONITE, though, I do remember that much. Maybe somebody out there can recall....I could always just do a simple Google search right now, but fuck it. Too lazy.

The point of all this being....I was scared to admit to my "friends" that I was a huge, mega fountain of hip-hop love and knowledge at the time. I'd go home, and while riding the bus, I'd have Wu-Tang's 36 CHAMBERS, or Gang Starr's HARD TO EARN in my cassette player. I'd go home and call the local bookstore every first Tuesday of the month, hoping that a new issue of The Source had dropped, and then would demand that my parents drive me there to scoop it up. Every time a new Source dropped, was like Christmas for your boy. I was the kid who called Coconuts every day for a week straight obsessively, asking if Group Home's LIVIN' PROOF album was in stock yet. (My timeline may be off, in terms of what grade I was in when these things happened, but this was my mindstate back then regardless, so work with me here).

But I battled with the fearful notion of revealing my "hip hop jones" to these kids on a daily basis. Then one day, in my 5th grade term, I grew a pair of balls and did the unthinkable: I walked the halls of St. Catharine's, where old bitchy nuns roamed and close-minded youth walked, in a Public Enemy tour jacket. All black; giant PE symbol on the back (the red bulls-eye with the guy wearing a hat and crossing his arms standing within the scope). Unsurprisingly, many a head turned, many a jaw dropped. Matt Barone, the quiet straight-A student who seemed to be sweeter than sugar was wearing a jacket that had a semi-automatic weapon's bulls-eye blasted on the back. (sidenote: my uncle is the man....he hooked that jacket up for me, knowing I loved PE much....he had some industry connects at the time).

Shockingly, however, nobody seemed to really care. A couple teachers and nuns questioned it, but I guess my reputation was in such positive standing that a meaningless coat could do little to crumble what I'd indirectly built for years prior. And shortly after that, I started listening to my cassette player during lunch break, rather than waiting 'til I was off-campus on the bus. And one day, my teacher asked me what I was listening to, which would've been whatever if it were any other day. This time, I had Onyx's BACDAFUCUP tape playing, stopped on the track "Black Vagina Finda." Imagine if I'd let my teacher--a 50-something year old White broad--listen to Sticky Fingaz dictate his affinity for Black girls' snatches. Heart attack caused, much? But I simply said, "Oh, a rap group called Onyx," and then switched the subject to whatever test we had on the horizon. Well-played by yours truly, I must say.

While these events didn't cause the initial uproars I had anticipated, they gradually made my grammar school experience one of isolation and discomfort. My peers slowly distanced themselves from me, in subtle ways, but looking back on it, I should've noticed the rifts tenfold then. Especially when my school comibined with some schools from Paterson, merging into an "Interparochial" establishment. Before you knew it, I was connecting with the kids from Paterson (who, yes, happened to be Black) more so than any of the "friends" I'd had for the years before. I was able to more openly address my love for rap, to kids who shared the same interests and wouldn't look at me like a weirdo or a wannabe.

Still, though, those awkward years were the first times I noticed that, at heart, I'm an extreme introvert. And it all stems back to the feeling that my interests could be looked down upon as a bit strange. Grounds for being outcasted. Of course, these days his has died down, and I wear my geek flags proudly. But growing up, my eccentricities were the cause of much grief, much insecurity, and, honestly, much tears in the privacy of my bedroom. All will be told here in the future. This is just the jumpoff point.

El fin. For now.