My Crooked Kingdom

[dotinthesky]

When was the first time I did something REALLY wrong? Was telling a friend in kindergarden that I had magical powers wrong? Was sending an anonymous note to a girl in my 3rd grade class wrong? (she freaked out) Was betraying the hiding place of a birthday boy at summer camp, in 5th grade, wrong? (he got pelted with rotten eggs then thrown in the lake; most of the girls never forgave me.)

I grew up in a condominium of three buildings in São Paulo. To my luck, many of the residents had children my age, so I immediately made friends and became part of a big gang of kids. I'd spend all day downstairs, running around, playing hide & seek, swimming or watching the boys play football and basketball (they tried to get me to join in but I never cared much for it.)

I collected board games (but also made my own, like "The Towering Inferno" - a favourite) and we used to play them in the buildings' reception areas when it rained. I loved horror movies and made up games inspired by them for the sunny days: "The Killer Elevator", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Jaws", you name it. My friends enjoyed the games as well and started asking me to come up with more of them each day (to be honest, the games were usually variations on each other - "Jaws 2" was pretty much the same as "Jaws", but involving pool inflatables - so it wasn't such a hard creative act.)

So much power at an early age went straight to my head. I dictated who could play and who couldn't. But I was generally a benefic despot, ruling justly over my people. One day, in a rush of tyrannical madness, I suggested to some friends that they ask another boy what he thought of me. I was curious to know what my subjects really thought. I hid behind the basketball court's wall and heard the boy, Ate (yup, that was his name), snicker that he was annoyed by me sometimes. Out I jumped and planted a punch in his gut, then told him that he was banished from our group of friends.

I forbade all my friends to talk to Ate from that day onwards. He couldn't play with us, he couldn't join us at the pool, nothing. I feel so awful that I did this to him. I think Ate didn't speak to us for months, though it felt like years. Then one day he approached me sheepishly, when he was already sort of talking to my brother, and we became friends again.

We continued to be friends through adolescence, then lost touch in our twenties. The last time I saw him was the day I introduced him to my boyfriend Kevin. Up until then, we'd laugh about what had happened - it was common for all my friends to sit around joking about when I ruled over them like a tyrant - but I still wondered how much of the experience had stayed with him. I don't think anyone ever truly gets over something like that, and it's weird for me to think nowadays that I was responsible for causing that type of pain to someone else, that I was a bully.

Comments

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see now how horrible it is, and can imagine how shitty it is for the person in the receiving end (betrayed in so many ways.) Thank god we grow out of childhood/puberty.

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

Yeah, big time. But we just don't really know what we're doing at that age. I mean, we can barely see beyond next week, let alone into adulthood, so I don't think children should be held responsible for mistakes like this.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think children act out, in many ways, their distorted views of what they perceive the adult world is like (either from their parents, teachers or even TV/film). It can be cute, but it can also be ugly. Nevertheless, it's fair to say kids don't have much of a clue.

[desayuno-ingles.livejournal.com]

True! They really don't. I certainly thought I had a handle on everything and it obviously turned out I didn't. It's a combination of not knowing you don't have all the facts and thinking you do have all the facts, with that teenage feeling you're invincible and also the smartest on the planet.