Bullies

Bullies

“How are you supposed to make a conversation ‘completely organic’?” I ask her. My wife gives me an exasperated look and I shuffle back to the sink. I’m cleaning the dishes as I try to sort through all possible outcomes in my head.

The half-page pamphlets my wife hands out during workshops are neatly stacked on the counter. Each one reads: If you think there were no bullies in your high school then that means that you were one of the bullies. I certainly didn’t think there were no bullies in my high school. But I grew up. I became less bitter. Bullying is not an identity. Bullying is a behavior.

I try to imagine what it looked like. My son must have leaned coolly by the wall as his victim approached. The poor boy must have slouched, his shoulders inwards, as if turning away from my son could make him less noticeable. But the bully had already found his target and taken his first swaggering step.

My wife says that our son was just misunderstood. She meets with the school anyway. Her job is to educate teachers on how to handle student misconduct. She promises me that she knows when it’s bullying and when it’s just playing around.

“I’ll deal with it myself, thank you,” she told the administrators as she left the meeting.

I hear my son open the garage door and walk upstairs to his bedroom. I want to try my wife’s “completely organic conversation,” but there are no words to begin talking with. I rotate my shoulders and try to pull my spine upwards. I knock on my son’s door with a pamphlet crumpled in my hand. It is shaking.

December 16, 2013