Scars

Pinhead scabs in the hundreds dotted my legs and no one besides me and the perpetrator would have known had it not been a Monday/Wednesday/Friday gym day.

I had a choice. Refuse to put on my gym uniform or go to see the principal for refusing to change into my gym uniform. Inclined towards obedience at nine years old, I followed protocol; pants off, shorts on. Besides. Dodge ball was worth the risk.

Some people dream, some perform magic, some know denial so well, as I did, that I did not consider how obvious the tiny scabs on my legs would be to an onlooker. After several gasps from my fellow students, unfortunately for me, dodge ball was not to be when my gym teacher assumed I had some type of infectious disease and sent me to the school nurse.

The nurse took one look at my legs and said, "What is this?" Her eyes were not symmetrical when she asked. They were askew, two eyebrows divided.

"You're the nurse." I said respectfully. "You tell me? A rash? Maybe?"

She and I both knew the truth and she and I both knew there was not much we could do about it. It was the 1960's. Abused kids were a dime a dozen. We looked each other in the eye for a nanosecond and then looked away; don't ask don't tell was unwritten, unspoken and all apparent.

"Does it itch?" The nurse asked, doing her job. "I can apply calamine lotion if it will make you feel better."

"No. Thank you. It doesn't itch. Can I go back to gym class now?" I said, pining for a red ball smack down on some innocent classmate.

"Okay. Tell the gym teacher I said you are not infectious." The Nurse winked a between you and I wink and I left her grateful that I dodged a different ball.

Why was it that I wanted to protect the perpetrator? It could have been all said and done if I wanted it said and done. "Tell" would have gotten me somewhere. Maybe? Maybe not. I didn't even consider there was an option. What happened behind my front door was not to exit under any circumstances, and was understood without words, the same way rat poison was sprinkled in a corner.

Returning to gym class, as if nothing had happened, on my first try I hit my opponent harder than I should have and was apologetic. What I might have said in words instead of the G-Force was, "She beat me again. Not with her hand. With the hair brush this time. My mother beat me so much harder than I just beat you, so please, forgive me."