The Day that Jamie Died, Part 1
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I had just come back from college for the summer of 1991 and was working on my 2nd tour at The Waffle House where I usually worked the late shift crowd. The chaos of my childhood made me uniquely qualified to handle the drunk and starving who longed for the $4.99 All-You-Can-Eat menu. No one wanted that shift, but I lobbied for it. Dealing with people knee deep in Jack Daniels and swimming in the stench of watered down keg beer from a party in the middle of some farmer’s field didn’t seem appealing to my coworkers, but the inebriated patrons that stumbled in, searching for the meaning of life, which at that particular moment could only be consummated with some greasy hash browns smothered and covered, always left a bigger tip either because they were either too drunk to do simple math or they were so grateful to have their bellies filled from someone who didn’t pass judgement. On a $7.00 tab they usually left a $10 or $20 on the table with a smile and I always provided a bartender’s ear, a few laughs and I never let them see the bottom of their coffee mug. Win Win.
It was May 24, 1991 and I was working a double when I got the call from Boof. That’s what everyone called him. Boof was short for BuFu which was short for Butt Fuck. I have no idea how that nickname started or why, but we all just accepted it, including Scott, the owner of the name and who I considered a friend. When an outsider would ask what Boof meant, it always took me aback to explain it because I never thought of it as derogatory. When you tell someone the history of it, they immediately make assumptions that he was not liked. But that was not true. It was a name we all used as a term of endearment, probably started from a funny moment where some conversation probably led to someone calling him a butt fuck and then it got shrunk down to it’s final resting name of Boof. Scott was a sweetheart who would do anything for you and we all knew it. His mom had been our school nurse and we use to go out to his woods and play war when we were kids. I hadn’t seen him since before I left for college. We had been Captains of the football team our senior year where we led our fellow Tigers to a 5-5 record, which had been more wins than we had had the previous two years combined. Success is incremental and in the eye of the beholder.
Growing up in a small town before cell phones, you cultivate the talent of keeping tabs on each other through word of mouth. For me, that word of mouth was my mother, the Gossip of Willard. In the beginning, she started her gossiping career with real love, sharing my friends life trajectories, but later the gossip became more speculative, cynical and judgmental. As I got older and my friends slowed down with families and careers, my mother moved on to tell me about people that I had no connection with, but I would play along and act like I was interested. So when I heard Scott’s voice on the line, shaky, holding back tears, it didn’t feel awkward, but more like I had been away on vacation and I had just seen him last week. Friends you grow up with are like family. There is a connection that is impenetrable to time. But it was odd that he tracked me down here, on the Waffle House phone.
“Brian, it’s Boof. Jamie’s dead.”
My first memory of Jamie was from 3rd grade.
Kickball was the thing to do at recess. It was a mix of baseball, soccer and dodgeball. The rules were simple: kick the ball, run the bases and score as many runs as possible. Those were the rules, but the goals were quite different.
GOALS OF KICKBALL:
Goal #1: Don’t Charlie Brown it.
When the pitcher skillfully rolls the ball towards you, and you start your approach, eyes fixated, don’t start daydreaming about the fame and glory this particular kick is going to bring you. You lose focus and end up swiftly swinging your leg, while lifting your gaze to scan the field, looking for a classmate not paying attention, picking flowers or talking with a friend and then it would happen. You miss. Your leg flies up hard like it is coming out of your socket and the momentum flings you onto your back. At one point, your entire body could be in the air, parallel with the ground. Your dignity hangs in the air long enough for all the kids to point and laugh before it crashes down on your chest and you let out a huge, “Ugh.” Stay focused.
Goal #2: Launch It As Far As You Can.
Get your foot under the ball so you can create lift and launch it to the moon. Even if you don’t kick it as far as you want, the hand eye coordination of a 3rd grader is a toss-up. Half the kids can’t catch that pop fly and so it is worth the risk, because every kid wants to kick that ball as far as you can possibly kick a ball so all the other kids standing in line, waiting for their turn, can watch it fly through the air, into the outfield, over everyone’s head and you become a recess god! Now, this is not as easy as it might sound. This ability has very little to do with being a great athlete and more about timing and luck since the ball bounces and skips along the earth and the ground is uneven. An ill-timed swing could leave you kicking it off the side of your foot. If you can pull this off, you are anointed an athlete and back then, being a good athlete, was one of the few stereotypes we knew and embraced in a positive manner. Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club hadn’t been created yet to show us that stereotypes were bad, which we took to heart and stopped doing immediately and all teenage problems were fixed. Thank you, John Hughes. There is no “I” in team means nothing in the cold hearted world of 3rd grade recess. All you know is “I”.
Goal #3: Dodge Like an Action Hero.
Part of the game is you don’t have to throw them out at first or any base, for that matter. Instead, you can throw the ball directly at the runner and if you hit them below the head, he or she is out. Which approach do you think a 3rd grader is going to choose? This leads to many a leg being taken out while in full sprint and a kid crashing to the ground with an undiagnosed concussion. But if you were quick, could stop on a dime, bob and weave, duck and cover or had the chutzpah to spread your legs and jump hoping you don’t get hit in the nuts, then you could be an action hero. This is a different, slightly more dangerous approach to the game. But what could I do? I didn’t have one of those legs that launched kickball careers. I had scrawny, skeleton legs that looked as if they might break if the pitcher put too much spin on the ball.
I remember many a fielder taking out the runner’s lead leg, the one that was getting ready to hit the ground. Suddenly, there is nothing there to support your weight and you are in a dead sprint and the runner just drops, smacking hard into the dirt and being the empathetic creatures that all elementary kids are, we would laugh even harder than if he had missed the ball at the plate. I mean this was a real crash where the kid might be able to get a toe down before they stumble and tumble through the rocks and grass and the more they tried to get control of their body, the more horrendous the wipe-out was and we were there to watch it in real time. You can’t look more ridiculous than when you try to stop yourself from falling while you are falling. So, you can imagine that no one threw you out at the base. It was Lord of the Flies and we all wanted to take out your legs and see if we could physically harm you and draw blood. When the ball would hit the legs and just bounce off leaving the runner out, the crowd would let out a collective, “Awwww,” saddened by the lack of carnage.
The importance of the game is how Jamie and I came to be friends. The only chance for status upgrade was to be great at kickball and I raced out from recess to get into the front of the line everytime. And one day, Jamie walked up and butted in front of me. The girls liked Jamie and so none of them minded, but I didn’t think he was cute. He was an impediment to my success and I told him that he couldn’t butt in line. Jamie turned to me and shoved me to the ground. I stood up, brushed myself off and let him stay in front of me, unsure of what to do.
Jamie had two older brothers, Shawn and Johnny, and they had taught Jamie how to survive the bullying that brothers can do to one another. He had an edge to him and a knowledge of tricks and shenanigans that was beyond my comprehension and so the bullying didn’t stop at recess. I would walk down the hall and from behind, Jamie would kick one of my legs into the other and I’d fall on my face. One time he crawled along the ground in class, untied my shoe and tied it to my desk so when I stood up, I would fall and pull the desk down on top of me. Each instance drew larger and larger laughs making Jamie more and more popular and my confidence started to drop. Each night I would go home and cry and my mom would ask me why and I wouldn’t tell her. Even third graders knew snitches get stitches.
One day, it was too much and I confided in my mom. My father traveled and wasn’t there to give any advice. My mom used phrases like, “rise above it”, “kill him with kindness”, and “just work hard because what goes around comes around.” I would ask her, “what if I’m not there when it comes around?” And she’d say, “you probably won’t be. Just know that it will happen.”
This bullshit advice was unacceptable. It did nothing for me. So when Jamie tripped me, I guess I was suppose to thank him and laugh and say, “Oh, Jamie, you are so funny.”
My father arrived home as he always did on Friday night and Mom told him what was going on. I couldn’t look my father in the face. I was ashamed of what he thought of me. But he just looked at me and said, “It’s going to be Ok.” The next day, in our living room, he taught me to fight.
My mom was devastated and kept saying that this was wrong. Now I had a lot of issues with my dad growing up, but this was the calmest I had ever seen him, and the best he ever handled a situation. I’ll never forget what he said, “I don’t want him to fight, but he’s only going to have to do it once and he won’t have to do it again. I can either teach him how to protect himself or we can let him keep getting humiliated.” My mom nodded and sat on the couch. My dad dropped to his knees so we could be eye to eye.
He said, “ BJ, bullies don’t want to fight, they want to scare you into not fighting. They want to make you feel bad about yourself so you don’t do anything. And the only way it will stop is if you let him know that you will fight back.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” I said.
“You don’t have a choice if you want this to stop.” My stomach dropped to my knees. I was not a fighter. I wanted nothing to do with this, but I also didn’t want to feel scared anymore. So, I nodded that I understood.
“On Monday, when Jamie butts in line at kickball, you are going to tap him on the shoulder and when he turns to you, you are going to punch him right in the nose.” He pointed to the bridge of his nose and took my right arm into his hands and helped me make a fist. He showed me how to tighten my arm and then how to jab. My eyes grew large and my breathing shook. I couldn’t even imagine doing that. “The nose is a perfect place to hit him because it will hurt and his eyes will water. You cannot hesitate. You cannot wait. It doesn’t matter if he does anything to you or not. Even if he doesn’t butt in line, you are going to walk up to him and hit him in the nose as hard as you can. You won’t need a big swing. You don’t want him to see it coming. Just a quick jab, as fast as you can and when he can’t see because his eyes are watered, you are going to punch him again and again and again. Do you understand?”
I nodded again. In slow motion, he had me practice my jab to his nose over and over and over, teaching me not to have my thumb inside my fist because it could break. Use the flat part of your fist with the top knuckles hitting the bridge as if I would have that kind of control.
“That’s the easy part, the hard part is what comes next.”
I was scared of my father. His violent PTSD outbursts sent me hiding in the closet or under my bed with my sister time and time again. There were times it was hard to know if he loved me, but in this moment, I knew he did. I knew this was an important moment and his senses were heightened getting me ready for life. Men of his generation probably dreamt of the day they taught their son to fight. A right of passage more important than the birds and the bees. And I knew at this moment that he was protecting me and would die for me if it came to that. He was focused and succinct and patient like he had never shown me before and every word had care behind it even though the words were in the shape of a violent act. He seemed to know the weight of what he was asking me to do and though he wanted to protect me from a tough world, there was nothing he could do for me in this situation except prepare me the best he could and he took the assignment seriously.
“What comes next is you are going to get hit back. Once he recovers, he’s probably going to come after you with everything he has. You have to learn to take a punch and protect yourself until the teacher gets there. And lastly, you are going to get paddled for this by your teacher and I don’t care. It will be worth it.”
Now Ms. Dennis had a wooden paddle sitting on her desk that we could all see. The word around all of 2nd grade was that you didn’t want to get Ms. Dennis in 3rd grade. The tales of her paddle traveled the halls of Willard. When we turned in assignments, we had to put them on her desk in a box and in front of this box sat the paddle. It wasn’t rounded like a tennis racquet. It was long and rectangular, probably carved from a tree in her eerie forest that had been destroyed by the lightening she shot from her fingertips. She had even taken the time to drill holes in it, making it more aero dynamic. These holes weren’t placed there by a professional taking their time while thinking about aesthetic, creating a tool that would be used more to scare young children into following the rules than actually punishing them. No. These holes were sporadically placed, uneven in size like she was at home, angrily drilling over a hot fire, thinking about that kid that was making her life hell. This was not a showpiece or a prop to get kids in line. This paddle was made from madness and she wasn’t afraid to use it. To top it off, she had every kid that she had ever paddled, sign their name. There were a lot of names on that paddle, both front and back. It looked like it came from a prison wall. This paddle looked barbaric, right out of Mad Max. And Ms. Dennis was not a small woman. She was short, close to the ground, allowing her to really plant her feet. She also had girth, that if swung on a pendulum, would give that paddle some velocity.
Fighting Jamie seemed less scary than getting paddled by Ms. Dennis.
It was Monday. I was fourth in line to kick. Jamie walked up and butted in front of me. I took a deep breath, tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned, I punched him square in the nose.
The first part of what my father told me was true. His eyes watered and he was stunned. But I didn’t keep hitting. That wasn’t in me and as soon as Jamie, realized what had happened, he tackled me to the ground and we fought and wrestled for what felt like days. My dad never told me how tiring it was to fight. Jamie and I punched and wrestled and rolled around for the entire recess and we didn’t hear the whistle. All the kids lined back up and went inside and Jamie and I kept going. Eventually we were too exhausted to keep fighting and we both collapsed next to each other breathing heavily and stared up at the blue sky.
Jamie eventually said, “Why did you hit me?”
“I don’t want you to butt in line anymore.”
“Ok.”
“And I don’t want you to trip me anymore.”
“But it’s funny.”
I looked over at Jamie who was smiling.
He looked at me as if to see if I was being serious. We both had blood and dirt smeared on our faces. He must have known I was serious because he said, “OK.”
I don’t know how long it took Ms. Dennis to figure out we were missing, but she eventually came out. She had to walk all the way to the back of the playground. Our blue sky eventually filled up with her angry face. “Do you know recess is over?” Jamie and I hadn’t realized it. We sat up and looked around at the deserted playground. “You finished?”
We looked at each other to make sure we were on the same page and then back at her and replied yes.
“Good, then get inside. Make me come all the way out here looking for you two. Get back to the classroom and sit your butts in the hallway.” We knew what that meant. We were getting ready to sign her paddle and we were friends until the day he died.
After I hung up the phone, I raced to my car and drove to the Lambda Chi house at Drury University. I had to find Bubby.
Bubby’s parents named him Karl. Once again, I have no idea why everyone called him Bubby and I don’t remember when that started. I cannot recall a time that I have ever called him Karl and if you met him, you would understand that Bubby is the only correct way to address him. Bubby was always a brand.
Jamie and I had remained friends throughout the years. Our parents even hung out from time to time. But Jamie’s mom had taken him out of Willard and put him in Greenwood, hoping to give him all the opportunities that Sherry, his mother, felt he deserved. And even though, we all remained in touch with Jamie, it wasn’t the same when we didn’t see him everyday. The previous summer, the one before college, Bubby, Jack, Carleton and I had hung out a lot. The summer after high school can create a lot of questions about your future and for us, it was no different. There is a feeling that we all get, that nothing is going to be the same and though, I was excited, there was also a sadness. That summer was probably one of the only times in my life that I felt like my true self because these friends had no expectations of me. We just enjoyed the days we had left. We tried to disappear into alcohol and parties and late night conversations about the past and the now, with the future off-limits, as we tried to ignore the inevitability that all kids must face at some point of growing up.
But as good of friends as Bubby and I were my senior year and as well as I knew Jamie over the years, Bubby was the first person I thought of because he and Jamie had been inseparable since they were kids. I knew he couldn’t hear it from a random person. Boof was a mess. He couldn’t do it. I was now carrying this burden and I felt responsible to find my friend to tell him the news that nobody wants to hear.
To be continued…