When I was younger I had attended a parochial school from fifth grade onto graduation at eighth. It was a nice school, with a good curriculum, a very pretty church, and teachers who really cared about teaching the students. The kids were sheltered when I came in, and were until graduation. This was different from  the kids at my old school, who swore, made inappropriate jokes, and who said the dreaded, “Oh my God” at anything they could.

As part of their sheltering, the students at my new school were friendly when I had entered, but, when I had penetrated their thick societal walls, I learned the secrets of my new class, and the relationships they shared with one another. There was this one kid, who everyone thought was weird, and whom everyone talked about at recess and in the bathrooms in between classes. Here is his story:

The electronic bell rang throughout the school from the office quarters in the front of the school. The kids came rushing in in loud strings of conversation and high-pitched laughter that is associated with children of that caliber. They walked past the Blessed Mother Statue in the foyer, turned down a long hallway on sleek linoleum, ruining it with the black mush of dirty snow, went to their hooks that hung underneath a long-running wooden ledge, and hung up their coats, snow boots, and backpacks. They strolled in alongside one another, the popular girls with each other, the lesser girls, the different groups of boys ranging from groups of three to five, and finally the last kid entered the class.

As all of the cliques talked around their respective desks, that last kid slipped into his--which was in the direct middle of the class. That kid, who had straight dark hair that covered his forehead, was fatter than everyone else, and who did not speak, was Jackson--at least here he is. He looked around the room at the laughing groups of children; he saw girls smiling and reeling over in laughter, he saw boys talking with one another about last night’s NBA game and who they thought was the best and the worst of the teams.

He looked down at his desk, opened his book and notebook to where they left off from yesterday, and began reading. Some of his classmates caught wind of this, and some of the boys interrupted their conversation on alley-oops and free-throws and stared at him with annoyed glares; “What a reject.” one said, “Yeah,” another agreed, “no one likes him.” They sneered at this and went back to their b-ball.

Later during the day, for one of our classes, our teacher gave us an assignment that she let us pick the groups of which we could work in--but with one rule: they had to be groups of four. As the members of the all-hallowed groups of children gave each other “the look” and a nod to each other to negotiate without words of which group they wanted to be in, only Jackson was looked passed, and was not given “the nod.” The great migration to groups took flight, and all the happy children were together in such perfect groups that they had so selfishly built themselves. This was true for all but one kid who was still looking frantically for a group to work with. The teacher, seeing this, placed him in a group of which was met with rolling eyes and long uttered sighs. Everyone in that group did their best to ignore him.

As the years went by, and we entered middle school, things got harder for Jackson.

He got more talkative, trying to start up conversations with anyone he could get away from the groups and cliques. They never looked at him, they dismissed what he said with a glare, and they went back to their friends with disdain on their faces. Kids rolled their eyes when he said something, and they refused to be associated with him.

Since he was rejected by his fellow peers, he spent his recesses reading books--usually about Greek mythology--down by the entrance to the gym at the end of the parking lot. When he must have been done reading a chapter or a story, he would always look up at the kids playing football on the muddy field or playing lightning on the basketball courts. He always made sure to walk to the line to go inside after everyone got there so he wouldn’t anger them.

Lunch was even worse. Since each grade was assigned one lunch table for the year, there was limited space to get a seat, especially with a class of twenty-six. The girls would always sit on the side closest to the kitchen, and the boys would sit on the furthest side away from the kitchen. Since all of the kids made sure to get to their seats fast, there was never even one seat left over, not even one. As Jackson scanned his classes’ table for any one seat open, he found none, and had to retire to the next table over, which was completely empty. No one acknowledged him. I remember looking at him once, while he was scanning the table for a seat. I remember seeing disappointment and sorrow dressed on his face with worried eyes and a drooping frown; he walked around our table, and went to his.

As part of this neglect, he was always picked last in gym class. No matter what the sport was, he was always the last one picked to play. I remember a gym class, when one of the boys  had surgery and couldn’t play, and a girl was a captain of one of the teams, and Jackson was the last to be picked, and the girl who was captain rolled her eyes at Jackson, chuckled at him, and asked, “Is Matthew playing?” Matthew--at least here--was the boy who had surgery and couldn’t play. Jackson looked down at this, and the teacher standing there didn’t realize the situation.

As usual, when kids get older, they start feeling for each other. This was the case all throughout middle school--longtime friends recognized a small glow in each other, which then ignites into a full time flare, which then burned with the newly sweet aroma of adolescent love. The unions created in our class were astounding. But not that astounding that everyone got a mate.

There was a group of kids once, from somewhere near seventh grade, discussing the relationships in the class and who was who’s boyfriend and girlfriend. Jackson was working at his desk a few feet away from them when one of them looked at him. That person then said loud enough for Jackson to hear, “No one would go out with him.” Jackson looked at them for a few moments and then back down. What I saw on his face was as if he was speaking in front of a large crowd and suddenly messed up on what he was saying. What I saw on his face was getting a call that his mother had just died from a drunk driver going seventy in a twenty-five mile-an-hour zone. What I saw on his face was an innocent prisoner being sent to hang at death row. My gosh, these kids plain hated him.

I can only imagine what embarrassment he felt while sitting alone at lunch or always being picked last in gym. Or when he--from his own will and knowledge of his classmates--read Greek mythology books all alone at recess instead of playing football or basketball with the other children because he knew that he was not welcomed by them. Or that time when it was revealed to him that no girl had wanted to go out with him. Or when he sat by himself before class and didn’t talk to anybody--because he knew that no one wanted to talk to him, just hopelessly waiting for that bell to ring, so he, for forty-five minutes, would not be such of an outcast.

This was the neglect I was not even used to from my public school days. These kids were a new flavor--a society all their own and who liked to be kept that way--for they knew nothing else. Their social grooves were cut deep into their minds from the very beginning--ever since they knew who their friends were and who wasn’t.

It is sad to think that even Catholic children forget the ways of their faith and choose those that are wrong and morally evil, not listening to being kind to everyone, and helping those who need it. Jackson was a poor soul, scrutinized by minds of malevolence and put to shame for doing nothing but unknowingly making everyone hate him. He was a true symbol of what bullying is.

We look back on things in life maybe because we forgot something, or we felt bad about something, or even if we wanted to right a wrong; I guess it is fair to say that all of those things may be applied to Jackson himself. You see, we all persecuted Jackson whether we bullied him or if we were a bystander, it really doesn’t matter now that we look back on it from these couple of years what we did to him, because we all did something cruel to him. I don’t know whether the other children in that class will ever remember Jackson when they happen to move on with their lives, but I do know that he, Jackson, will never forget, and whether he forgives them or not is completely up to him.