An Open Letter to Mike O’Flannery:

I am not sorry for what happened in the junior high school cafeteria on that fall day in 1992. In fact, it was the highlight of my miserable eighth grade life. When your older brother told me the school nurse called his house to ask him to bring you a new pair of jeans to change into, I thought I would burst with pride.

I didn’t have a lot going for me back then. My glasses were thick. I carried my lunch to school each day in a reusable nylon bag filled with Tupperware containers that I left in my locker to grow mold indefinitely. I wore sneakers on gym day no matter what the rest of my ensemble entailed, so that seeing me in a suede skirt, nylons and blue and white New Balance tennis shoes was not uncommon. My nickname was Binky, and I embraced it.

Mike, you were merciless. Each day on the bus you taunted me about things I have blocked from my memory. All I remember is the incessant soundtrack of high pitched mean. You sat in the back of the bus with Dave Wojowiczobrewski and Brutus LaTarte, all sporting the same Megadeth tee shirts and straight black jeans. You probably tried to trip me. Maybe you threw gum wrappers. What I know for sure is that all the little things added up.

The junior high fates conspired to stick us together in the cafeteria, too. It was no twisted desire of mine to sit next to you, and I am sure that it was not a schoolboy crush of your own that placed your lethargic group of loners next to my near-sighted posse. It’s simply that you were freak fringe and I was nerd fringe, so there we sat in sad complicity at the table on the far end of a cavernous room, closest to the vile smell of processed chili emanating from the lunch line.

My friend Jessica ate fluff. That’s important to the story. Her sandwich each day included that nauseating marshmallow product and some peanut butter. I must’ve told her it repulsed me. She must have agreed it was kind of gross. Somehow, a plot emerged.

The day before we carried out my junior high school triumph, I got off at Jessica’s bus stop and we made our way to her kitchen. She was giggling self-consciously about the term you had just thrown out at us as we descended the bus stairs. It was something about a PW, that’s all I remember.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s a PW?”

She was bright red as the verboten terminology swirled around her good-girl head. “I can’t say it!”

“You have to say it,” I told her. “I mean, geez, just spit it out. They’re only words.”

“No, I can’t say it.” She giggled some more, and got redder.

“Would you just tell me?” I had little patience for not knowing things.

“Okay. I’ll whisper it.” She got close and leaned into my ear. “Penis wrinkle,” she said fast and low, before bursting into the laughter of the liberated and running up the steps from the garage into the house.

“Hey, slow down! Penis wrinkle? What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

Inside, Jessica was already on task. She reached into a high cabinet and pulled out the jar of Fluff. “Here.”

I held the jar in my suddenly shaking hands, not sure what to do. “How are we going to pull this off?” I asked. “I mean, should I put it on bread? Or should I bring the whole jar?”

“Just put it in this.” She handed me a Tupperware container like the one that held her sandwich each day, then she gave me a spoon.

“Oh, God. This is so disgusting.” I can still feel the nausea that overtook me as I dipped the spoon into the wide mouth of the jar and plopped several dollops of Fluff into the red plastic. I almost threw up more than once as the heaves traveled from my stomach to the base of my throat. Finally, I secured the lid on both containers and sat down at the kitchen table, contemplating what was to come. The anticipation was scary and new.

The next morning on the bus, your insults flowed off my back like something much more fluid and less sticky than Fluff. I patted my lunch bag knowingly and smiled a real but shaky grin at the prospect of our 11:00 a.m. lunch period. I had never done anything mean before; I’d never been blatantly cruel. The novel feeling of that dangerous uncertainty warmed me against the November wind. When the bus doors squeaked open, I steadied myself against the shimmy of the brakes and disembarked with a fast beating heart.

It seemed like fifth period would never come, but of course it did. I sat next to you and stared at my lunch bag. Jessica looked at me from across the table. I tried to breathe. I had to focus on that normally innate response, lest my lungs ceased operation and I died. Or passed out. The latter was probably much more likely.

Suddenly the lunchroom monitor called our table to the lunch line and you rose. My eyes widened. This was it. As you walked away, Jessica leaned in.

“Are you going to do it?”

“Yes,” I squeaked. Her face began to waver in front of me. I was not doing a good job of regulating my air intake.

“You look really pale,” she said.

I ignored her, and the ensuing minutes seemed like years. Years of more torment. Years of feeling like a dorky, suede-skirt-and-sneakers-wearing failure who couldn’t even run The Mile in the time it took to earn the Presidential Physical Fitness Award. Years of reading books because that was where things happened.

I saw you coming toward us with your tray of gelatinous beef. I smeared a gaping pile of Fluff onto a piece of bread. The mixture spanned the entire width of the wheat square and rose at least two inches high.

You got closer. Without looking at me, you placed your tray on the table and began the descent into your seat. Before your black-jeaned butt made contact, I slid the bread onto the gray smoothness of the folding chair. My aim was right on. The smush of your scrawny frame spread sticky whiteness all over your death metal pants. The Fluff accentuated your non-existent ass. It was everywhere. I thought I’d stopped breathing for good.

Did you think I would never do something like that? Because you didn’t even look my way as you bolted upright and screamed “What the . . .?” Then you were off to the boy’s lav, and, as I would eventually find out, to the nurse’s office, where you requested a change of pants.

When you were gone, I was pale and triumphant. The rest of the fringe leaned in to find out what had happened.

“I can’t believe you did that!” said my friend Christy as she looked me up and down. “Are you okay, though? You don’t look good at all.”

Jessica just giggled, all wide eyed and respectful. Her gaze darted from me, to the remaining Megadeth brothers, to the doors out of which your white ass disappeared.

I wasn’t okay, but I’d be fine eventually. In fact, I’d be better than fine. I had finally defended myself against you. I wasn’t just a nerdy bookworm waiting to find out what happened in the story of good against pre-pubescent evil. I was writing my own ending.

So, Mike, I’m not sorry. I’d do it again in an accelerated heartbeat. I do it a little every day, actually, in so many inconsequential rebellions that shape the person I’ve grown into. I think if you met me now, you’d be okay with that. We might even get along.

Stay clean,
Binky

Guest blogger Binky can be found every single day this month at 24/7, where she writes about life as a work-at-home mother whose boss is a one year old girl with poor management skills and an inability to control her bottom line. Also, you can find my letters over at her place today, so be sure to go check them out and then take a peek at the rest of her blog while you’re at it!

Today’s post is brought to you by the Blog Exchange. Click here for the other “Open Letters.” And if you’d like to participate next month, send an email to kmei26 at yahoo.com.