My 17th Year

Recently, I was discussing topics for future writings with my partner on this site. I told her that I would like to write about “bullying.” I explained that I have always hated bullies. I recounted to her my experiences of fighting against them for myself and for others. She nodded and then said, “But you have bullied people before, haven’t you?” I responded with quick and complete denial. Then she added, “When you played soccer.” I was now on the defensive, and I did defend myself, but inside my heart sunk. There was one very specific time that still bothers me.

I attended a Jesuit high school. It was, and still is, a highly academic institution which at the time was all male. There were approximately twelve hundred students equally distributed over four grades, freshman to senior. Bullying did occur from time to time at the school. Some of it was verbal and some was physical. None of it seemed to be that bad. I was never the focus of any bullying for a couple of reasons. First, my older brother was two years ahead of me at the school, and I believe that shielded me to some extent. Secondly, although I was never very big, I projected a certain level of physical confidence that kept the bullies away. Bullies do not like to fight. They do not like opposition. They prey on those who appear weak and afraid.

This first story is going to be somewhat painful to recount and to hear. When I was seventeen, I was a senior in high school. I was a top student and a good soccer player. I was a defensive player on an accomplished team. We were playing a league game against a fairly good opponent from another Catholic school. I was standing with my teammate and the center forward from the other team; just the three of us alone in the middle of the field. The opposing player was a sophomore at his high school who had been elevated to the varsity squad because of exceptional abilities. My defensive partner and I were older and physically bigger than this kid, and he was alone. One other distinguishing feature about this boy was a large birthmark on his face. In an effort to demean him and to get him off his game, I asked my teammate, in a way so this boy could hear, if he could tell what that was on the kid’s face. I commented on how ugly he was, and then I told my teammate not to touch him because what was on his face might be contagious. So cruel and so very wicked.

In my defense, I could say that I was just trying to win the game and that this was just my competitive attempt to distract him and get him off his game. I could claim that there was a lot of pressure on us to win and that I was just doing what my coaches indirectly wanted me to do—gain an edge. That defense did not work at Nuremberg, and it holds no sway in my case either. It has to be one of the lowest moments in my life. It was absolute bullying. It was cruel and unnecessary. I began feeling bad about what I had done from the moment I saw the first tear roll down his cheek, and I still feel bad about it to this day—just absolute, unavoidable, perpetual shame.

On the other side of the coin there is this story. Earlier in that very same seventeenth year—my senior year in high school—I noticed that the locker above mine was assigned to a freshman. His name was Chris, and he was a little guy with glasses; the poster child for bullying. The only point of similarity between us was that we shared the exact same last name. I took notice of this fact in our early interactions when I saw, as was the custom back in the day, his last name written on his book bag. I never commented on this coincidence. In fact, for the first month or so we barely spoke. Our interactions were mostly in regard to getting in and out of our respective lockers and staying out of each other’s way.

About six weeks or so into the school year I was standing at my locker. It was about five minutes after the final bell, so the school was like a ghost town. I heard a commotion and from around the corner of the center of the building Chris came running toward me with an anxious look on his face. Just behind him were two other freshman boys chasing him. Chris then braced himself against the lockers, and the two boys began punching his arm. I stepped toward the three of them and said, “What the hell are you doing?” All three boys froze. Then I said to Chris’s two pursuers, “If I ever see you near my brother again, I am going to kick your ass.” The two of them slinked away, and I returned to my locker. Chris said nothing. As I left, I turned to him, smiled, and walked away.

Over the remainder of the year, other than at our lockers, we bumped into each other in different locations at the school probably ten or so times. I would always make a point to say hello to him, talk a little, and then say that I would see him at home. Once, when he was with some other boys, I told him not to be late for dinner because the night before Mom had been mad at him but took it out on me. Chris and I never spoke about our secret. But he would always smile during our brief encounters. I just enjoyed our little game and the positive effect it seemed to have on him. I graduated that year, and he was once again alone at school. I never saw or spoke to him again.

It was years later that I went to an outdoor party with a group of people. Tim, one of my friends at the picnic, had made arrangements to look at a motorcycle he was interested in buying from a guy who happened to live close by the park where we were having the gathering. Tim left the party and went to see about the bike. When he returned to the picnic he came over to me to tell me about his meeting. He told me that while talking to the man about the motorcycle, the subject of where he grew up and what high school he had attended came up. He told the man about living in the Sunset District and the schools he had attended. The man commented with some surprise that his son had gone to the same high school. More pleasantries were exchanged, and then the man inquired if by any chance he knew a guy named Bill Sheppard. Tim explained that not only did he know me, but that I was one of his friends and he was actually with me at a gathering before he had come to see the bike. The man then quietly said, “If it were not for your friend Bill, I don’t think my son would have survived high school.” I guess Chris Sheppard had shared our secret with at least one person; he had told his father.

So these are two stories from the seventeenth year of my life. But why tell them now? I am now fifty-five years old. In the past thirty-eight years of my life, since the passing of my seventeenth year, not a week has gone by that I don’t relive the shame of what I said that day on the soccer field. On a rare occasion I will remember Chris and smile; one story of good and one of bad—both with me at the center.

This is what I believe. We all have the potential to do the right thing. The cruel in us subverts the kind; the good keeps the wicked at bay. In most of us, the honorable person lives beside the bully as we move through a life of choices. My advice to all, if I can be so arrogant, is this: If you are the biggest kid in the fourth grade or the prettiest girl in school; if you are the football star or the girl most likely to succeed; if you are the boss at work or the captain of the team—the coach, the teacher, the parent, or the cop—choose not to be the bully. By making the conscious choice to subvert your demons, you can avoid the unrelenting and perpetual shame of the harm done. Take the higher road, the kinder path. This decision can and will be the source of future smiles that the history of the righteous path taken affords.