Invariably, when I run into someone I went to school with, they will say at some point “hey! you and your brother and sisters rode my bus!” There’s a good chance every person I went to school with can say that with surety. We moved often. Bobbie and I counted up here a while back and we came up with….20. That’s the houses we can remember. We lived in one house two different times and moved 3 times in one year. I once woke up in the middle of the night, needing to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t remember what house I was in. After a few minutes, I sorted it out and made my way down the dark hallway to the bathroom.
Why we moved so often…well…that is another story for another time. Today, I wish to discuss the school bus. I was 15, Bobbie 14, Ray 12.
We lived out west of Booneville, about a mile off the highway on a little dirt road. Our bus driver was a kind man, if a little dim. He just DROVE the bus and didn’t pay a lot of attention to the kids on the bus. So there was the usual tomfoolery and shenanigans that goes along with teenagers and young children interacting with no adult really minding the goings on. The bus driver didn’t let it get out of control, and as long as we pretty much stayed in our seats and the language was clean, we had free rein.
Bobbie and Ray and I were good kids, never really got in trouble over anything major. A minor demerit for talking, or missing an occasional homework assignment. My brother was once accused for stealing something from the gym. Another boy had identified my brother as the culprit and the coach and the principal kept him in the office for hours refusing to let him call my parents. He finally confessed, although still saying the whole time he didn’t do it, that he was only telling them he did it to make them leave him alone. One of my friends let me in on what was going on and I went to the office. There sat Ray, pale and shaken. The principal and coach were discussing Ray’s punishment. I had Ray step out and asked what was up. They told me how Ray had stolen something from the gym. I asked if they found it in his possession. “ummm….no.” said the coach. “then how do you know he stole it?” I asked. “Well, it’s well known you come from a “rough” family.” stated the coach. “so that makes us thieves?” I asked incredulously. “It don’t help.” said the coach. I opined that being poor didn’t make you a bad person. He declined to even acknowledge my statement. I stated that my dad was disabled and my mom was working like a dog to keep us fed and clothed. Silence. “we’re not thieves.” I insisted. “Ray isn’t a thief.”
I stepped out and asked Ray what happened. He said he was leaving his first class and was sent to the office and had been there all morning, missing lunch. I said “what did they say you stole?” He tried to describe what it was, but wasn’t even sure. I said “did you take it?” he said “no, but I guess I finally told them I did, even though I didn’t.” He said how he had asked to call mom or dad or get me or Bobbie and they refused.
I told Ray to go to lunch…there was a few minutes left for him to eat. I walked back into the principal’s office and asked them what their deal was and they basically told me the same thing, my family was “rough” and everybody knew it. I told them they had messed up by doing this and that I’d be notifying my “rough” daddy and my “rough” mama. The coach looked pleased but the principal looked pained.
Within minutes of our conversation, the gym lockers were searched. A young blonde man about the same size as my brother was found with the stolen gym equipment in his locked locker. Immediately the principal called me in the office to try to smooth things over. I wasn’t listening to THAT and as soon as we got off the bus, we poured into the house and told mom and dad what happened and what was said to Ray and I.
They drove immediately to the school….there were hats in hands and apologies. My brother…a wonderful athlete, so fast, so tough…dropped out of football immediately and as soon as he could drive, transferred to another school.
(dear reader…that’s not the story I intended to tell. I guess it needed to be told, as often I don’t even know where these stories are going. they are a surprise to me, too at times)
Back to school buses. On this particular day, we were about ten miles from our house, Bobbie and I sitting and visiting with the other kids…when Bobbie noticed a teenage boy of about 15 tormenting two adorable blonde little girls. They were sisters. They lived just down the road from us, one was in kindergarten, the other in first grade. They were sweet and pretty and reminded Bobbie and I of us at that age.
Bobbie elbowed me and we watched the boy for about a half a second. He was threatening the little girls, telling them he was going to hurt them.
Bobbie made it to him first, all 6 feet of her lanky, lean, broad shouldered blondeness. I was right behind her, in my 5’3” ninety eight pounds of fury. Bobbie got behind him and grabbed his hair, pulling his head backward over the seat. She leaned down in his face and hissed “I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU MESS WITH THOSE LITTLE GIRLS EVER AGAIN. WE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN”. I punched him quick in the throat and Bobbie banged his head against the bus window 3 times in quick succession. BAM BAM BAM. We backed away from him, leaving him stunned and wounded… our teeth bared, our fingers pointing at him. We hissed and spat like wildcats in his direction. He grasped at his throat, tears in his eyes.
We took the little girls hands and led them to our seats. We sat them in our laps and told them to stay by us every day on the bus, we’d take care of them. They both cried and laid their heads on our chests. We walked them to the door and watched them get off the bus at their stop. Bobbie and I turned to the teenage boy that had tormented them and threatened him again, just for good measure, announcing loudly to the bus that he torments little girls and we’d kill him if he did it again. He wouldn’t even look at us, just stared out the window.
Our stop was next and we got off the bus and headed in to get our chores done. Within a few minutes there was a knock on the door. I opened it and there stood the two little girls with their mother. They were all crying.
The mother asked if what the little girls had told them was true, that Bobbie and I had beat up a young man on the bus for bothering her daughters. She asked this incredulously, as if the girls had made it up and she didn’t quite believe what she was hearing.
Bobbie and I told her, yes, that’s exactly what happened.
“you BEAT him up? like, you HIT him?” she said. “Actually, I grabbed his hair and Lichea punched his throat and I bashed his head against the window.” said Bobbie, very matter of factly. “we told him if he did it again, we’d kill him. We ain’t kidding.” I concurred with Bobbie. “yup. We’ll whup his hiney.”
The mother just stood there, mouth agape. The little girls looked up at Bobbie and I and smiled and we leaned down and hugged them.
The mom hugged us too and said “thank you. I worry every day when I put them on the bus, and now I won’t.”
The teenage boy quit riding that particular bus and I have no idea what happened to him. I bet he don’t hack off southern blonde gals, though.
Bobbie and I laughed about this recently, about how we caught off guard and beat up a teenage boy bigger than us and scared him so bad.
We think we had the courage to do that…. we had no fear..…because, as you may have heard…we were raised SO “rough”.
And I’m so glad we were.
Lord, as you are polishing me in this life, leave me some of my rough edges…the rough edges that will stand up to someone abusing someone else. Leave me the rough edges that make me take up for someone. Leave the rough edges, as they give other people something to hang on to, to grasp at. For isn’t it the rough things that make life smooth?
Lord, leave me a little rough. J
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