They mysteriously disappeared one night never to be heard of again. It was an incomprehensible ending to three years of sheer torture.
It all started in first grade when Alan Delaney stepped forward to self-identify himself as my one true enemy. My teacher, Miss Hill, dismissed it all with a wave of her hand, “That’s just his way of showing he likes you.” My mother dismissed it all with a wave of her hand, “What are you doing to attract such attention?” No one was sympathetic to the target of a bully in those days. It was always the victim’s fault, or the result of acceptable boys will boys behavior.
But Alan Delaney virtually wrecked havoc on every child within two blocks of where I lived, and as far as I know was never held accountable for his actions. He routinely pushed me down on the playground at school so that everyone in my first grade class saw my underwear. He would get behind me in line for the slide so that when I was halfway down, he’d start his descent so he’d have a chance to kick me in the back at the bottom.
I have to scoff now at this notion, but in 1965 before the school began using the gym as a makeshift cafeteria, teachers at Long Beach Elementary would leave their little charges in the classroom to fend for themselves during the one-hour break. One of us was appointed room monitor. As we each finished lunch, we were responsible for disposing of our garbage, or stowing away our lunchbox, but then would be allowed to leave to go out on the playground. If memory serves, there was no such thing as an adult supervisor or even a playground monitor during lunch time. We were seven years old.
The day it was Alan’s turn as monitor, he wrote my name on the board three times, which I knew meant having to stay after school. And having to stay after school meant getting a spanking at home. My first transgression was the creaking of my desk when I raised the lid to retrieve my lunchbox. “Too much noise,” he announced to the room. “Your name’s going up on the board, Anderson.” My ensuing protest only achieved getting my name written a second time. “That’s two, Anderson,” he shouted as he wrote my name again. I looked around at my classmates who were avoiding making eye contact lest they, too, join me as the target of his abuse. Alan deemed it my third transgression when I dared to raise my hand to report that the glass lining of my thermos had broken and my milk was full of the shards. “That’s three, Anderson,” he stated as he stood to write my name a third time. In spite of my fear that it would mean a fourth mark against me, tears rolled unbidden down my cheeks. I feared I was about to wet my pants.
After the bell rang to signal that it was time to return to class from the playground, I saw that he, or someone, had erased my name from the board. But, the psychological damage was done. Miss Hill stood by her desk watching us file in without the slightest notion of what had happened in her absence.
I hated Alan Delaney. I hated him with all the passion of a seven-year-old. I wanted to retaliate, but I was not that kind of kid. I didn’t have the imagination for such things. His relentless bullying continued on for another two years－taunting, teasing, chasing, pulling at my panties, telling lies about me－one horror after another.
Alan’s last tortuous deed occurred on the way home from school one winter day during third grade. As I stepped off the road into several inches of snow to avoid a car as it crested a hill, my foot disappeared into an open pipe just large enough for my little boot. My foot caught at such an angle I couldn’t dislodge it no matter what I tried. Peter, Evy, and her brother, Marcus, tried to help, but it was really stuck. Peter was in the middle of encouraging me to pull harder to get my foot out, when Alan came along. “What’s wrong,” he asked with a sinister smile. “Baby got her foot stuck?” Marcus attempted to defend me and said, “Leave her alone.” But Alan only smirked. He then squatted down next to me and stuffed as much snow down the hole and into my boot as he could. He laughed like the little demon he was before turning his back on us all to head home. I began to cry inconsolably. Evy and Marcus stayed with me while Peter ran up to the house on the corner. His family knew the people who lived there and the mom came and dug me out.
A few months later, the entire Delaney family disappeared in the middle of the night. For the briefest of moments I believed that something magical had happened. Their rented house was empty; the car was gone. I knew it wasn’t that they were on vacation because when I curiously peaked in the windows, the house was empty of every possession. No one ever found out why. And no one cared. Not one of us was sorry to see Alan gone. It was a relief.
It's been 50 years and I still haven't forgiven Alan Delaney. Thanks to social media, however, I know he's out there in the world, recently married, and has almost 5,000 Facebook friends. I am not one of them.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2015
