TIMMY

 

    On my Facebook page I had mentioned how much of a Virgo I was. By definition a Virgo is anal about crucifying themselves over anything and everything. We hold on to things that no one ever remembers and it all goes down in the hall of time as "whatever dude". Sometimes the stuff you crucify yourself with is like, hey, remember back in 88 when you cut the guy off in traffic and yelled at him? Yea, you shouldn't have done that. Now feel bad about yourself for the rest of your life and bring it up for no particular reason and dwell on it for a week. Not to mention the real stuff you did as a human you can never forgive yourself for. That makes up a Virgo big time! Crucify! Crucify! Crucify!

    Which brings me back to Timmy. He is the special needs student I mentioned who I was teasing, along with a group of others, back in sixth grade. So here is my claim at redemption. Back in the day, I'm talking almost fifty years ago, we actually had a class named the 'special needs' class. That is what it was called. It was designed for students who needed the extra help for one reason or another. It was a small farming community so there was no sensitivity about situations such as this like there are now. So they just called the class 'special needs'. Timmy was part of that class. There was nothing physically wrong with Timmy. His IQ was lower and he just needed some help to catch up with the rest of the class. So he went to the special needs class. (I don't condone the name. The times were what they were).

    Timmy had a home life that was rough. His home, if that is what you call it, was nestled in the foothills of the canyon off by itself. The house looked more like a small barn that had been patched together so people could live in it. It would have fit right in with an Appalachian home located deep within the woods somewhere back east. The house was rough and there were plenty of siblings living there. His dad worked at the local steel mill at the time and he did his best. But Timmy was a middle child, which meant he got the hand me down clothes, and was, even at his young age, always out wandering around someplace, sometimes overnight. He kind of got lost in the shuffle.

    One day at school a group of us saw Timmy walking down the hall. Someone walked up to Timmy and said watch this, I'm gonna have Timmy hit me. There was no name calling. No one was making fun of how he walked, talked, looked, etc... It was just hit me Timmy, which was bad enough mind you and I am not making excuses for the behavior. And then Timmy lined up to hit him in the shoulder. 

    Someone forget to tell Timmy how to fight in spite of having a few brothers around the house. I have never seen anything like how Timmy hit him. You didn't mess with his brothers. Everyone knew you left them alone. But Timmy, that was different. It was like he was trying to swat a fly with his closed fist. That set it off. Everyone lined up and begged Timmy to hit them and then they would break down laughing. At first Timmy thought it was funny and laughed with them. All fun and games, right? Not really.

    So in my infinite wisdom I decided I needed to line up and have Timmy hit me in the shoulder as well. At this time I could feel, not see, but feel with the empathic side of me, how frustrated Timmy was getting but I didn't care. Timmy needed to hit me. He got to me and I waited for him to hit me. At that point something clicked inside of Timmy. And yea, it was deserved. Timmy lined up and suddenly changed his stance and I could sense something had changed. It was like, you should have thought this out, dude! Timmy lined up from somewhere deep down south of the border and let me have it. I was going to be different. He plum knocked me into the middle of next week with a punch that left my arm sore for a few days! It wasn't the punch in the arm though, rather it was the frustration I felt from him that made me aware, years later, that I was not the same as everyone else and I needed to respect that. He went back to his regular punch with everyone else. Everyone looked at me like, 'Damn Don! What did you do?'

    Over the next couple of days I made up my mind I was going to apologize to Timmy. I really felt bad about the way I acted and realized he didn't deserve to be treated like that. The problem is, Timmy wasn't always able to make it to school so I never knew when I would see him again. As it turns out a week goes by, than another week, and Timmy never shows back up to school.

    A month later I ran into Timmy's brother and ask him about Timmy. He tells me Timmy had died in an automobile/pedestrian accident. He was the pedestrian. This may sound like I made it up but it is true, he was hit by a car so hard it left his shoes, which were never tied, in the road where he was hit. So teasing the special needs kid, bad anyway you think about it. Some things you can never take back. Yea, that hounds me to this day. Along with a million other Virgo things.