Read Online Anything Goes by John Barrowman; Carole E. Barrowman - Free Book Online
Authors: John Barrowman; Carole E. Barrowman
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Spotty Dick began to sit on me daily and violently rub my face and neck, I made a decision to do something about it. Even at nine years old, I knew that bullying happens for lots of reasons, ones that are usually more complicated for the bully than for the bullyee, 11 but knowing this never made the face-flicking and the chest-sitting any less painful. I knew exactly what I needed to do to make it stop. I had to get off that fucking bus.
After dinner one night, I excused myself from the table, went downstairs to the basement and dug my swimming trunks out of the laundry, where I’d tossed them when I’d come home from lessons that afternoon. They were still damp, but I didn’t care. I stripped off my clothes, pulled on the damp trunks, grabbed a towel from the rack in the bathroom and snuck out of the house. I ran to the Prestbury swimming pool, where I climbed the locked gate, and then I chucked myself in at the deep end.
My plan was to sink or swim. After a handful of lessons, I believed I knew enough of the basics to figure out the necessities, but no matter what happened, I wasn’t getting on that school bus with Flicka ever again. After thrashing wildly for a few panicked moments and swallowing gallons of water, I finally figured out a rhythm and within a half-hour I was gliding effortlessly – at least in my mind – up and down the pool.
I learned later that my clandestine getaway to the pool was not as stealthy as I’d hoped. My parents had followed me, my dad fully prepared to dive to my rescue at any gagging moment.
I went from grade school into junior high while we lived in Prestbury and it was at this time, like Ponyboy in Hinton’s The Outsiders, that I experienced the first real challenges to my identity and the boy I perceived myself to be.
I chose to play the flute in the junior-high band because I loved listening to Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway, and because Juleen and Nadine Johnson, the daughters of close family friends, also played. The other boys in the school band played the bigger, brassier instruments. 12 Before going into band practice after school, the band director would line us up according to our sections: wind and strings on left, brass and percussion on right. John on left, most of the other boys on right.
During this time in my adolescence, my love of music was channelled through playing the flute. I stayed with it and continued to play in the band all the way through junior high and into high school, at which time I realized, during my high-school freshman year, that my voice was a better, stronger instrument for me. Although I was never great on the flute, I was good enough to play at Carole and Kevin’s wedding in 1982 and I still love to listen to a flute played well.
In the course of my first year in junior high, someone somehow learned that my family nickname was ‘Wee John’. This became a regular taunt as the boys in the brass section strutted down the hall to get in line. Years later, after we’d moved to Joliet, Illinois, where my dad became Plant Manager of Caterpillar and I was a student at Joliet West High School, one of my best friends in Aurora, Laura Mickey, invited me back to Aurora for a high-school dance. We walked up to the table, and there with his date sat one of the Brass Boys who’d regularly harassed me in junior high.
After some inane conversation, he finally broached the subject and asked, ‘Why did you never fight back, John?’
I shrugged. ‘I figured one day, you’d regret it.’
He was quiet for a few beats. My pulse quickened. I wasn’t sure which way the night was going to go. I’d managed to avoid wrestling with him all through junior high; I really didn’t want to take him now. Oh, I could have. But as much as I loved West Side Story, I’d rather this particular dinner avoided musical plot lines.
Finally, he looked a bit sheepishly at me. ‘You know, everyone now calls me “lawn boy" 13 and I hate
After dinner one night, I excused myself from the table, went downstairs to the basement and dug my swimming trunks out of the laundry, where I’d tossed them when I’d come home from lessons that afternoon. They were still damp, but I didn’t care. I stripped off my clothes, pulled on the damp trunks, grabbed a towel from the rack in the bathroom and snuck out of the house. I ran to the Prestbury swimming pool, where I climbed the locked gate, and then I chucked myself in at the deep end.
My plan was to sink or swim. After a handful of lessons, I believed I knew enough of the basics to figure out the necessities, but no matter what happened, I wasn’t getting on that school bus with Flicka ever again. After thrashing wildly for a few panicked moments and swallowing gallons of water, I finally figured out a rhythm and within a half-hour I was gliding effortlessly – at least in my mind – up and down the pool.
I learned later that my clandestine getaway to the pool was not as stealthy as I’d hoped. My parents had followed me, my dad fully prepared to dive to my rescue at any gagging moment.
I went from grade school into junior high while we lived in Prestbury and it was at this time, like Ponyboy in Hinton’s The Outsiders, that I experienced the first real challenges to my identity and the boy I perceived myself to be.
I chose to play the flute in the junior-high band because I loved listening to Jean-Pierre Rampal and James Galway, and because Juleen and Nadine Johnson, the daughters of close family friends, also played. The other boys in the school band played the bigger, brassier instruments. 12 Before going into band practice after school, the band director would line us up according to our sections: wind and strings on left, brass and percussion on right. John on left, most of the other boys on right.
During this time in my adolescence, my love of music was channelled through playing the flute. I stayed with it and continued to play in the band all the way through junior high and into high school, at which time I realized, during my high-school freshman year, that my voice was a better, stronger instrument for me. Although I was never great on the flute, I was good enough to play at Carole and Kevin’s wedding in 1982 and I still love to listen to a flute played well.
In the course of my first year in junior high, someone somehow learned that my family nickname was ‘Wee John’. This became a regular taunt as the boys in the brass section strutted down the hall to get in line. Years later, after we’d moved to Joliet, Illinois, where my dad became Plant Manager of Caterpillar and I was a student at Joliet West High School, one of my best friends in Aurora, Laura Mickey, invited me back to Aurora for a high-school dance. We walked up to the table, and there with his date sat one of the Brass Boys who’d regularly harassed me in junior high.
After some inane conversation, he finally broached the subject and asked, ‘Why did you never fight back, John?’
I shrugged. ‘I figured one day, you’d regret it.’
He was quiet for a few beats. My pulse quickened. I wasn’t sure which way the night was going to go. I’d managed to avoid wrestling with him all through junior high; I really didn’t want to take him now. Oh, I could have. But as much as I loved West Side Story, I’d rather this particular dinner avoided musical plot lines.
Finally, he looked a bit sheepishly at me. ‘You know, everyone now calls me “lawn boy" 13 and I hate
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