I hated that fucking bus man. Every goddamn day it was something. From the first day of 4th grade in Piedmont, SC USA I knew I wasn’t going to like that rectangular tank filled with Anderson district 1 livestock. What? Maybe 60 seats with 80 fucking kids on the bus. I was the second to last pickup so it always meant a standing room only for me for the first couple of months until it settled. Eyes ahead and don’t say shit was my plan until I got comfortable with mass middle school transportation.

For the first 3 years of my school life I had walked to and from school at Augusta Circle. From first grade to running out of that third grade class for the last time I hiked one mile up and one mile down Faris road, rain or fucking shine. Me and my posse of familiar 6-8year olds, sometimes in ball hugger shorts and other times wrapped up in wool from socks to hat in the winter months. School was an easy breezy the first three years and I thought I’d stick with it for a while. All my friends for the most part resided in Club Key East apartments just like me and we’d pick up a few stragglers from the condominiums right up the street. Life was not bad although my family’s little three bedroom apartment with mom dad, myself and 5 of my 6 siblings (the other had married off) was a little tight but when you’re a kid your focus isn’t on bathroom privacy or turns for shower time. I would’ve liked to have had more tv time to myself but Saturday mornings was the only time slot I was allowed and that was only because I got up at the crack of dawn to cement my tv privileges. I shared a small 10×10 bedroom with my older brother David. The oldest sibling gets control of the bedroom decor. I’d lay down at night staring at my brother’s black light posters while he’d listen to records with his ridiculously big headphones. Sometimes he’d light up a little something under his covers that smelled funny and I’d get a headache and slip into my parents bedroom when they got home from work. One night while lying next to my parents bed in that tiny ass apartment (I often did this when I couldn’t sleep) I heard my dad say what would change my life forever- “I’ll pack and move my things out tomorrow”. My parents had been arguing all night and didn’t realize I had snuck in the room. I had woken up from their whispering that had gradually worked its way up to angry hushed voices. It’s crazy that after 45 years I can still visualize that whole scene in my head. Wrapped up in whatever cartoon themed blanket (probably Peanuts I was a huge fan) I was fixated on at the time, curled up at the foot of my parent’s queen size bed, pitch fucking black bedroom with a curtain over the window that faced the playground that I would never step foot on again. Front row seats to the divorce announcement and I got to hear it before it made the family front page news. I started crying which obviously got my parent’s attention. Both of them leapt out of bed to see what I had heard. I didn’t want them to know I had over heard my father’s statement of resignation so I told them I had a bad dream.

Man was it ever.

That conversation between my parents would be the last they’d share in a bedroom and it caused a mass family relocation from Greenville to Piedmont. My mother had moved on rather quickly (literally overnight) to another suitor and I got upended to a little green bungalow ish home right in the middle of Hwy 86.

My mom was a little eccentric and had made the decision years ago that she “just didn’t have any interest driving a car” so she never did. Her new partner and soon to be my stepfather worked construction across the state line in Georgia so our only means of transportation was out of town 5 days out of the week. We had a plethora of locals my mother would reach out to for drives to the grocery store or snacks at Hazzards. But for school transportation I had one choice. That fucking school bus.

I had never ridden the school bus in my life. Nor had I ridden any large construct of mass transportation. Greyhound, plane, train or spaceship. I didn’t get out much I was an introvert and extremely shy as a child. Even after these busy 52 years I’ve never quite been comfortable in situations of mass seating. Humans aren’t meant to be herded.

First day of school, new school, first time in middle school, first time riding the school bus. Jumping on a 45 foot long vessel with Tonka toy paint with 60 of my peers. Hell of a way to start your life over at 8 years of age. They don’t give out handbooks to kids on how to handle divorce. Therapy was for rich people in Hollywood in the 80s. My behavior was monitored somewhat, for a bit, but I would become a superb actor at hiding my emotions and anxieties. My emotions were pretty much like any other 8 year old child until after my parent’s divorce. When people say “my parents got divorced and I turned out fine” I often wonder if they really ever dug into their childhood. What would make more sense would be “my parents got divorced and my life was permanently turned upside down and fucked” that’s another story for another time. Let’s get back to that fucking school bus.

My first day on the bus wasn’t that bad. It was crowded but the anxiousness of starting a new school was the real star of my anxiety for that week. The first couple of years I would be on the ass end of bus pickups, meaning the majority of the time I would have to stand in between the aisles for about 20 minutes until we pulled up to the bus curb at Wren middle school. I’d have one hand cradling my books (no backpacks yet) while the other hand held me steady palming the top of pleather headrest hoping not to touch another kid’s turbulent head while the bus bounced its way down 86. Sometimes there were places to sit but the high schoolers wouldn’t move over to let me sit down. Its fun to walk down the bus aisle trying to read a teenager’s expression to see if they are going to share some vinyl cushion with you or tell you to fuck off. Which many did and would for years. You evaluate and move on. Sometimes I would get lucky and find a seat with someone just as introverted as me and I would slowly slide in and we’d both stare at the back of the seat in front of us until we got to school. I used to bring comic books with me to read on the bus before the teenagers started taking them from me and ripping them up. In fact that’s how the bullying started.

I was the youngest out of a half dozen or so siblings so I had my share of bullying but never without my parents monitoring. I had never been punched in the face or anywhere else for that matter. My sisters like to pinch me when I was an ass and my brother wouid only yell and threaten to hit me but he never did. Well we did knock the shit out of each other as adults but it was all out of love..

The first few weeks on the school bus were a blur and somewhat quiet. I had made peace with standing and after a bit the school bus driver Calvin would yell at the kids to scoot over so I could sit down. I had spent my first summer in Piedmont making zero friends. We didn’t live in a neighborhood or cul de sac we lived on the side of a fucking highway so running into kids at the neighborhood playground or grabbing your bicycle to catch up with some other’s riding wasn’t an option. In fact my bike had been stolen off of our front porch the first month we had moved to Piedmont and two other bikes would follow over the years. My first week on the bus I had recognized that one kid lived on the same street as me. He was about 5 houses up HWY 86 from me and my age or thereabouts. He was a big boy and I knew his name was Jason because it was inscribed on his belt. I used that little bit of evidence to strike up a convo. I was starved enough for friendship that I had to come out of my introverted shell. “I bet I can guess your name is Jason” I had said to him or something close to that ridiculous statement and he of course looked at me like I was an idiot. I honestly can’t tell you exactly how it went from there but that little conversation scored me a best friend for life. 45 years later and he’s the first person I call when I get bored driving on the road and we’ll catch up for the next hour. But I digress. This story is about that fucking school bus.

I wasn’t a tough kid initially growing up. I wouldn’t say soft either, tangling with my older siblings they didn’t really pull punches when we’d fight but I was the youngest by 6 years so the kid gloves were still used at times. As I mentioned before I had never really been bullied. Sure there were some husky kids in elementary school that could’ve had potential but I never crossed paths. I’d say it was probably around the second week of 4th grade that I got my first taste of it. A real big bite of it you might say. Don’t recall the moment right up to it but I heard a resounding SLAP from behind me and immediately felt a sharp pain run down the back of my neck. A couple of 8th graders behind me apparently had found a giant insect on the back of my neck and proceeded to smash it. Or at least that’s what they said. I had never paid any attention to them or looked their way. Even at 8 years of age I was able to decipher who to avoid just from instinct. These two derelicts were always at the back, always the loudest, reeked of cigarettes (even sometimes smoking on the bus) and as long as the bus driver wasn’t paying attention they wrecked havoc on the kids such as myself. The bus was mostly segregated with the 4th-5th graders in the front and then the teenagers got progressively older as you walked down the aisle. The back of my bus gave off vibes like a mobile teenage biker bar from bad movie. Any given school day you could walk down the aisles and see kids reading comic books and doodling on their notebooks or trying to get that last 10 minutes of shuteye after mom slung them out the door for school and then walk 8 more rows back and have teenagers gambling, smoking, making out and planning their terror on the innocent lives in the top 5 rows. God help you if you happen to find yourself in one of those pleather bench seats that resided in demilitarized zones. For some reason that giant rear view mirror in front of the bus driver’s seat couldn’t pick up any SOS signals in those seats. I always ended up in these seats. If there were empty seats the bus driver wouldn’t allow anyone to stand up.

I’ll call the two in the back Mutt and Fuck because I don’t remember their names. I’m sure to this day if you were to cross their paths you’d think to yourself “I’ll bet their names are Mutt and Fuck”. I liken them to the two bullies from A Christmas Story sans comedy. There was nothing funny about these two and while one was larger than the other that other was still much larger than me. The Gangwer bloodline doesn’t breed large men. At 5’11” 175 lbs I’m bigger than my father ever was. He achieved 5’9” in his prime. In 4th grade I was also small for my age which didn’t help.

The slap in the back of my neck was hard enough to make my nose bleed and that it did, heavily. I started crying and my seat companion who seemed no stranger to bus violence immediately got out of his seat and moved up several rows and sat back down without looking back. I had never been struck like that in my life. My old man had maybe spanked me twice in my life and like I said before my siblings remained somewhat respectful and only left light bruises when they’d beat my ass for fun.

I had hoped my crying would’ve caused some sympathy or empathy but I all received in return was laughter from the last two rows of seats. I spent that whole day in school with a solid headache and a blood stain that had run down my shirt and dried to a dark maroon stain that zigzagged down my striped t shirt. When I got home I had told my mom I got hit in the face with a kickball. Had I told Peggy what had happened she would’ve burned the whole fucking school down. That’s my mom.

I tried my best to stay away from Mutt and Fuck and sometimes they’d lose interest in me, find another poor victim or just call me a motherfucker. Motherfucker was a fun word in the 80’s I guess we could give Richard Pryor and Ed Murphy mad props for making it a household name well before Samuel Jackson ever did. I’d cringe when I’d hear them call me that because it meant my day was about to be an adventure. Would they hit me again? Stomp on my foot as I walked by? Sometimes they’d scream faggot out the window when I got off the bus or point and laugh at all the trash my stepfather kept in the side of the yard. I would catch so much shit for that the next year I would walk to the house next door so no one would know that was the house I lived in. Comic books would get ripped out of my grasp and thrown out of the window. Sometimes it was my homework on the way to school, I would get incomplete grades and then I would get grounded so hooray, the bullies managed to fuck my home life too. I didn’t tell anyone about my predicament. My brother was out of high school at this time and probably would’ve called me a pussy. I only saw my father on the weekends and the last thing I wanted was my dad to worry about on the 48 hours I got to see him was me getting beat up at school. My stepfather and I had not come to terms of relation as of yet and it would be several years before we could make peace with each other.

So I took it on the chin. Sometimes literally. I felt like Andy Dufresne from Shawshank Redemption, swinging my textbooks back and forth to keep Mutt and Fuck away from me. Somedays they didn’t have the energy and I’d only get a middle finger and a smile to remind me that the show must go on. Those two cocksuckers would torment me for two years. Then they stopped riding the bus. I assume one or both got their dream Camaros and started driving to school. I used to fantasize about seeing them lying dead, sprawled next to their wrecked car on 86 or 81, two roads notorious for being a Wren High School graveyard for reckless driving. Dark? You bet. Deserved? You goddamn right. Those bastards made my life a living hell.

There was one random year I didn’t get fucked with it might’ve been 6th grade I can’t recall. I only remember thinking I had made the turn to normalcy. Fairly certain my grades were passable and marginally decent. For whatever reason when puberty first hit me it went sideways instead of up. I got a little chunky in 7th grade. I’m sure it had nothing to do with refrigerator stocked with Lipton sweet tea jugs and 2 liter Pepsi bottles. I also had an affinity for Doritos and junior mints (still do). To add insult to injury my puberty also brought me Gynecomastia. That’s a word a seventh grade boy should never have to be introduced to. Everyone goes through that awkward phase during puberty but as a boy I hadn’t planned on getting 13 year old girl titties. Let me tell you this shit right here, I might as well have painted a bully bullseye on the front of my shirt.

Seventh grade bus rides brought back the bullying (no feeble attempt at alliteration). Add titty twisters to my trauma page for the next couple of years. I started to wear extra baggy shirts and always stood with my back hunched over and my arms crossed to hide my chest. Gynecomastia had a long lasting affect on my confidence and self image. Even when I would kill myself in the gym to try to correct it there is absolutely nothing you can do to make it go away without surgery. I did about a million bench presses and push ups and would never take my shirt off in public. The very first house I sold I used the money to have it surgically corrected. Best fucking $6k I’ve ever spent in my life. To this day it’s a rare moment to see a pic of me with my shirt off.

I had some new suitors for bullying, two more schmucks with small dick syndrome. Most of their pranks were stomping on my foot or flicking the back of my ears. Sometimes on slower days it was “hey faggot!”. You think you get used to bullying and name calling but you don’t. It goes into folders and files under trauma in your head and when you process it even in adulthood it can make you shakable angry as I call it. I kept it to myself. I really didn’t see anyway out of my dilemma at the time. I was just a fucking kid. I’d go to bed shaking in anger. Wake up with headaches from crying the night before. It affected my behavior in school. I was reclusive for the most part. My grades started averaging right at low Cs and would hover around that for the rest of my school career. I was 5’3” all the way until my sophomore year and then sprouted 8 inches without gaining a pound.

Eight grade my bus route went into a tale of lunacy.

The wonderful folks who controlled the bus scheduling decided to reverse the pickups and now I would be first to get on the bus. Pros- I get whatever seat I wanted and it was the front seat right next to the bus driver. I might get a sneer from one of the chuckle fucks but I was relatively safe. Also the bus driver had a thing for one of my sisters so he treated me kindly I could give a shit as to what his intentions were with my sister I was just happy not to get my titties twisted. The cons were the bus picked me up at 6:30 am. My grades were already shit so let’s make Chad get up at 5:45 every morning to see if that helps. Another con was if I wasn’t standing directly by the road sometimes the bus would drive right by me and I’d miss it. Which would bring the fury of my mother upon the school and myself. Sometimes that fucking bus would still drive right by me as I stood with my toes on the white lines of 86. I’d walk in just in time to hear my mom screaming on the phone to come pickup here child.

The most ridiculous part of it was I’d ride that fucking bus from 6:30am- 7:45am everyday. Around 7:30am it would drive right back by my house from the other direction. Like it had for the last 4 years. Finally someone on the school bus board figured out that “well shit! We could’ve picked you up on the way back this whole time!” Whoops! Haha!” It only took two years.

My final year of riding the bus was my freshman year in high school. It was like the bus gods knew my time of yellow tin box herding was coming to a close. Pretty soon my friends would be old enough to drive and I’d luck out eventually. I knew my broke ass wouldn’t be driving for awhile. So to get its last kick in I was put on the after school list. Buses were overcrowded so they added an extra wave. The bus drivers would run their routes until they were empty and then come pick us up for round two which was only about dozen of us at the time. Of those dozen there always seemed to be a couple of motherfuckers still around to fuck with me. For that last year I got on the fucking bus from 6:30 to 7:45 and then 3:30- 4:15. I had one hour after school everyday that I spent outside at the bus pickup. I’d hide in one of the cubby holes for drop off and do my homework and try to stay as invisible as I could. I’d get rocks thrown at me and could hear them laughing and their cigarette smoke around the corner. 9th grade was much more physical. I got headlocks, nut punches, slapped in the face. Sometimes I’d get picked up by my neck and thrown down. I was too embarrassed and scared to tell anyone. When I got home I’d stay in my room until the swelling in my cheeks went down. The only time I hinted to bullying was when I had bruises on my neck from a chokehold. My mother nearly lost her mind on that one. It made me despise school. Not just that year but for the rest of my school career. My grades showed it. I had created my own little fantasy world in my head conjured up with all of my comic books and fantasy novels. I didn’t want to be in this world it was terrible. In my fantasy I was a fucking hero, a badass. I played with action figures and toys until I was 14. Mostly because aside from my three friends I had at the time, my room was my escape. I didn’t want to grow up because it seemed every year I matured life got shittier. I recall going to one of the stores in the Greenville mall to get a new GI Joe vehicle. A girl that road my school bus was also there with her little brother and we had a brief conversation. It was the first time she had ever acknowledged me and I was pleased. I had the vehicle under my arm ready for purchase and she had asked me about it. I was all proud and gave her the rundown on all the specs of the vehicle and the background of the action figure that came with it. My dad always dropped me off at the mall and would come back to pick me up. We talked for a solid 5 minutes. I felt like I was on a date.

The following Monday when I got on the bus I was greeted with snickers and laughter as schoolmates got on the bus from her neighborhood. Our run in that previous weekend had been the topic of conversation before the bus picked them up. Now I was being made fun of for still playing with toys. The cute girl that had made me smile just two days before walked right past me like I was a bus seat . I went home and threw that brand new toy vehicle in the trash.

9th grade my dad passed. Late February. He walked out of his favorite happy hour spot, fell down and never got back up. Massive stroke took him out without a whisper. My father was my hero and my best friend. After my parents divorce I got to spend 48 hours a week with him from 8-14. No one should ever see their parent just part time. I took it hard. I took a week off of school and came back to some heart warming cards from my classmates that had never even looked my way. A few of them even spelled my name correctly.

When my dad passed I kept to myself. My weekends were spent at home instead of my dad’s and I became even more reclusive. I’d draw some dark murky pictures filled with violent connotations. Bloody battles conjured by some really dark thoughts.

One afternoon as I was dropped off by that fucking school bus one of my antagonists pinched the bus window down, shoved his head out and called me a faggot. My mother just happened to be sitting on the front porch with her afternoon iced Lipton’s (it was a fine spring day). I heard the “faggot” just as I was about to hug my mom. She lept up in anger and charged the bus. Had that bus already not started its momentum I have no doubt in my mind she would’ve dragged the kid off the bus and killed him.

Peggy (my mother) was a spirited and proud woman. If you pissed Peggy off you better run. My stepfather was not a small man and there were several occasions he went to hide in the backyard when she got in her moods. When she got worked up she would claim it’s her “nerves”. Don’t mess with my mama’s nerves because it means you’ve pissed her off. Her nerves could make her angry and or sick. The woman was the hardest headest person you’ll ever meet. My wild and wonderful siblings didn’t make things easy for her so I always tried to stay on my mother’s good side. Sometimes she would go into screaming tantrums and shake a bottle of pills in her hand and threaten to take everyone of them so she would never wake up again. . New parents- don’t ever do that shit to your kid. You have not idea what that will do to them. I’d follow my mother around the house without trying to be seen to make sure she never followed through with her pill swallowing plans.

Well after the kid had called me a faggot the bullying world exploded into my mother’s face. The bruises and busted lips I always came home too all made sense to her now. Mom started bawling and screaming. “Who was that? What’s his name! I will find someone to kick that fucking kid’s ass! I fucking will!”

Peggy was pissed and that upset me. I kept my beatings and beratement to myself, I knew what it would do to my mother and her “nerves”. She was in her bedroom on the phone for hours. I couldn’t tell who she was talking to maybe it was the school but whoever it was I bet they still remember the conversation to this day. My mother could make quite an impression on you.

I pleaded with my mother to not do anything. The last thing I needed was have my mom champion me on the bus. I was going through enough shit as it was.

I didn’t sleep that night. I went to bed angry and woke up incensed. I literally had thoughts of murder in my mind. School shootings have always hit me different. I weep for the lives lost and am filled with empathy for the shooters. I wasn’t on the brink of shooting up my school but I had a few targets I would’ve pushed into the bullet if I was present during one. I was filled with hate and rage and should’ve received a superlative award for not scratching that itch for as long as I did.

The last 2 months of my school bus career the schedule had been changed in my favor once again. I was the last pickup on the route as opposed to the first. When I got on the bus the next morning I had no agenda or plan. I expected to get on the bus and resume my face forward and keep my mouth shut. The first person I see is that smug-faced shithead with a big grin on his face. I hate to say the cliche “I saw red” but it’s the most accurate way to describe my mood once I saw that fucker. “What’s up faggot?”- was the last thing he said to me before my trapper keeper split his nose and lip open. The first hit didn’t do it for me so I kept hitting him with it until the trapper couldn’t keeper anymore. My notebooks and stationary went left and right with my arms swinging. When I was done half the kids in the back of the bus grabbed my loose school work and collected it for me. Handed it to me without a word. The bus driver didn’t say a word to me. If anything I’m willing to bet he was thinking “it’s about fucking time someone smacked that cuck.” The girl that had told everyone about my toy purchased slowly sunk in her seat with her mouth wide open. The kid got messed up bad. I went to my seat without a word. I was shaking uncontrollably and tried to sink in my seat. Thinking that if I sank low enough everyone would forget what had just happened and life would go on.

By the time I got to school the assistant principle was waiting on me. I didn’t get expelled but they were going to suspend me for a week. Not sure what was said on the phone with Peggy but I was at school the next day. Apparently a few years before my stepbrother had been expelled from school for an unfair confrontation from a teacher. My stepfather being a rather large man in his own talked Dr. Christopher into changing his mind. I think all my mother did was remind him of who my stepfather was and that he would be on his way when he got back into town and that did the trick. That particular kid never rode the school bus again. Or at least not mine.

As much as I’d like to say that was the end of my bullying it wasn’t but it dropped it by about 90%. Never got fucked with on the school bus again.

I can’t calculate the fights or fuck withs I endured on those 5 years on that fucking bus. There were many. It changed me as a kid. It put a very unhealthy chip on my shoulder. It made me bitter and boy fucking howdy did it made me mean. It almost turned me into the same prototype cunts as the ones that used to fuck with me. Talking about some fucking PTSDs.

For years after high school I would always look for takers. If you looked at me aggressively in a bar chances are I’d swing on you. I’d fuck with the biggest motherfucking alpha male in the group with the thought “you don’t have shit on what I’ve gone through” hoping to prove my self worth by chopping down the biggest tree in the forest or bar..

Bar fights with head butts and feet stomping. Something my old man shared with me. “He ain’t going to do shit when you break his toes.” Listen, it works. To this day I will not go out unless I’m wearing shoes that have the propensity to stomp or kick toes. You never fucking know when you might run into a Mutt and Fuck.

At 52 years old that bus still has long lasting effects on my behavior. That chip is still there. I’m incapable of keeping my mouth shut in certain situations and dangerously hover that line of self perceived vengeance when people act unruly or are inconsiderate to others. Bullying unfortunately can still bring me to violence. Yes two wrongs don’t make a right but steel sharpens steel.

I spent 10 years in Piedmont and I have a love/hate relationship with it. My best friends for most of my life rear from that little town and I’ve called it my home when I lived there. The other side is there were some really ridiculously terrible humans that lived in that town too. Not sure how I’d react to some of them if I saw them out in public. One of them is dead. Shot himself in he head. I feel for his family. Him not so much. I saw another one at Lowe’s a few years back. He looked feeble to me with his reading glasses on the end of his nose trying to read instructions to a hitch mount with his little arm outstretched to see the writing. I was a breath away from thumping the back of his ear. He’d gotten much smaller even shrinkier if that’s a word. I’m 60 lbs heavier after high school. 60 lbs of constant gym visits and beating the shit out of myself to stay hard just in case I ever put in that situation again. Bullying fucks with you until the end y’all. Therapy can help but it’s a thin veil. I walked right past him without a word. I doubt he would even recognized me. I still hate that motherfucker with all of my passion. When he dies if I’m around to hear about it I’ll fucking smile. That’s what I’ve become. When I stopped drinking I put that person away for good too but goddam he stays right behind the door. It wouldn’t take much to open it unfortunately.

I haven’t been in a fight in years. I’ve slapped a few faces for being intolerable or my self perceived “they deserved it” but I hope to never see a fight close up again. It’s taken years for me to come down off that violent vibe. I don’t wear it. To meet me you’d never know. I detest violence which is a paradox because it’s how I would respond if I’m backed into a corner. And no I’m not putting myself on a roadhouse movie pedestal like I can go around and kick anyone’s ass believe me I’ve had it kicked a few times too. There’s a healthy reason why you don’t fuck with people twice your size. At the time I just wanted to see what I had in me and them for that matter. I often wonder what my personality would be had I never rode that fucking school bus. Would I have stayed mousy and shy? My mom was no stranger to speaking her mind. I used to think I took after just my father but I’m recognizing that I must’ve inherited my mother’s “nerves”. My dad was an easy going man but had the reputation of being a 5’9” old veteran that you didn’t disrespect. There was a story that went around about him beating a much larger man senseless with a maglite for being unruly in his bar. Probably being a bully.

Not sure what inspired me to write this particular memory since I haven’t been bullied in awhile. Possibly a spark from an old shit headed neighbor. Something about someone calling you motherfucker brings back some Mutt and Fuck memories. I guess I’ll always have a little motherfucker left in me until all the Mutts and Fucks are gone.