Peggy said, squinting her eyes in the sunlight.
"They were going to beat him up when all he did was apologize and ask if they could be friends again!" Samantha told her. "He did the right thing. Why were they so mean to him?"
Now it was Peggy who didn't know what to say. "I . . . I don't know, dear. Boys can be like that, sometimes."
"And then Sarah and Lucy, they were telling me that he deserved to get beat up. So I tried to stick up for him and it made them mad at me."
"Forgive my asking, Samantha, but what does all this have to do with me?"
Samantha's eyes began to glisten. "I'm sorry, Aunt Peggy." Tears streamed down her face as she raced to her aunt. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you with anything I said or did. It was wrong of me, and I was just being selfish. You had every right to punish me and tell Mom and Dad about it. I wish I could take back all the hurtful things I said to you, but I couldn't bring myself to admit that I was wrong."
Peggy wrapped her arms around Samantha and held her tight. "It's okay, sweetheart," she whispered. "All is forgiven. It's okay. These things happen, but it warms my old heart that you came over here to do this for me. You've made me both happy and proud."
"I'm sorry," Samantha said again. "I'm so sorry."
"It's alright. Come, let's go inside and get some iced tea. You can call your mother and tell her where you are."
The little girl nodded with a sniffle as Peggy opened the back door for her. Once they were inside, Doc spoke. "Well, where to?"
I waited until we were back on the street to ask him. "How did you know that was going to happen?"
"When you've been a psychiatrist as long as I have, you learn to pick up on certain signals that people send out without even realizing it. Your actions really seemed to have struck a chord with her."
"You honestly didn't know anything about this?"
"How could I have?"
I don't know why I always question him. I've known him for a long time and he's always been honest and open with me. "I know," I finally said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."
That seemed to satisfy him. "Well then, shall we return to the Chronopod?"
The final memory I showed Doc today was an example of something that would become a running theme in my life. It seemed that every time I tried to love people more, they did their best to make me despise them more. I know, obviously, that they weren't acting with that specific purpose in mind, but sometimes it really felt that way.
People generally don't realize the lasting effect their abuse can have on a person. My parents told me on several occasions to "toughen up." Bullies shrugged their shoulders and said, "It was just a joke." The adults in charge downplayed the severity of any complaints regarding bullies. All of this made me feel like a liar, like a weakling, and like I was very alone. No incident made this more clear than what happened that Friday.
When we got there, we located Herbie in the upstairs hallway pulling books out of the top compartment of his locker. There were a lot of kids around; many were dropping off books at the surrounding lockers before lunch while others were simply passing through on the way to their next destination. Still others were congregated in crowds at random places, laughing and chatting away. Little Herbie seemed to get swallowed in the middle of it all. I really don't know how I survived this school.
By this point, I had spent a week of having my attempts to love others thrown right back in my face. On top of all that, Henry wasn't very happy with me either. I'd just about stopped any and all bullying that I myself had done, so I wouldn't join in when he and his friends would start tearing into fellow students. My actions—or lack thereof—were ostracizing me, but I didn't want to join in on the jokes, the insults, or the abuse anymore. So that caused tension between us, and I was on the verge of finding myself entirely alone. He wouldn't fully turn his back on me until midway through the following school year, but the decline in our friendship had definitely begun. Looking back even today, I still don't regret it. He wasn't worth the time or effort that I put into our friendship; he was just another punk kid who thought he was better than the rest of the world, and I wanted to see someone put him in his place. I don't know if that ever happened though, because he and his family moved away.
"There," I told Doc, pointing down the hallway. A solid-looking kid—well, about as solid as an eleven year old can get, anyway—was on his way toward us. He was a sports-player, and would go on to be one of the stars of our high school basketball team. But he was also a well-known troublemaker. He'd instigated more fights than anyone else in our grade, often with no real reason. Some kids thought he just punched people when he got bored. I doubt it was that simple, but either way, I knew enough to stay out of his path.
He was carrying something with him that day, something that I didn't see until after the fact. Now, standing with Doc, I could see him rolling the little packet around in his hand. "See that one? Red shirt? Watch him."
There were no teachers in the hall. No adults whatsoever, in fact. The other students were too wrapped up in their own worlds. So when the boy, Randy Myers, saw me and opened the pack of matches, no one even noticed. Even today, watching him move toward me, I wanted to rip off my belt, leap into view, and beat him to within an inch of his life. I know, I know. I should have a more forgiving heart as a Christian. I'm trying. I'm really trying.
He didn't light me on fire that day. But he tried. While Herbie flipped through his notebook in search of a missing homework assignment, Randy struck the match across the back side of the packet. Now a few students looked up. Some stared with looks of anticipation as Randy moved in closer. But none said a word to Herbie. They were more interested in what they thought was going to happen rather than helping the poor kid out. With his elbows at his side as he looked through his notebook, Herbie's short sleeves were dangling down from his arms. Randy held the lit match against the sleeve hanging from his left arm and waited. The flame danced around the edge of the fabric for a moment or so as it tried to latch on. But the heat of the fire grew too close to Herbie's arm, and his head shot around just in time to see Randy shake the match out with a laugh. Rather than stick around to get blamed or caught, he raced down the hallway in the direction from which he had come.
Herbie looked down at the edge of his sleeve to see a charred circle of black where the match had been. Then, mortified, he looked at the students around him. Their lack of concern did nothing to comfort him; in fact, the thought that they were willing to watch someone try to set fire to his clothes rather than shout to warn him or step in to stop it was absolutely devastating. How could this be how God rewarded him for trying to spread the love of Christ? How could things like this happen to people who were honestly trying to be better? Why did people continue to target him for random acts of abuse and humiliation?
No longer concerned with the search for his missing homework, Herbie slammed the door of his locker and hoisted his bag over his shoulder. Cradling his notebook in his arms, he scurried down the hall in the opposite direction, repeatedly looking over his shoulder until he disappeared around the corner. The other students returned to their day as though nothing had happened. To them, nothing had happened. But to me, I'd just been taught a very harsh lesson that I believe instilled the initial seeds of my distrust and paranoia; seeds which sprouted and flourished during the following years.
Doc suggested as much when we returned to the Chronopod. "Do you think this incident fueled your nervousness around people?"
I let out a long breath. "As a child, I always tried to learn from my mistakes. It wasn't some sort of intellectual thing; I just felt stupid if I let the same mistake happen twice. If I was embarrassed the first time, I'd be mortified and devastated the second time. Whenever something bad happened, the first thing I did was blame myself for it. I told myself these things could've been prevented if I'd done this or if I'd done that. So when this
happened, I remember thinking that I was stupid for allowing it to happen. That I should've been more aware of the people around me because I knew people didn't like me."
"But you do realize today that this wasn't your fault, right?" Doc asked me. "Even if you had somehow provoked that young man, nothing would've made his actions acceptable. Nothing would've made you somehow deserving of being set on fire."
"It's funny," I said, almost grinning in spite of the lump in my throat. "Logic tells me that. The most basic level of my intelligence tells me that. But there's an overwhelmingly loud voice in my head that says I deserved whatever I got because I was unprepared for it. If he had set me on fire, it would've been my fault because I didn't see it coming. I know that doesn't make any sense, but that's how I feel. It's how I felt then, and how I feel now."
Doc put his hands on both of my shoulders and looked me square in the eyes. "You did nothing wrong, Herbert. You did nothing to deserve that. You need to stop placing the weight of the world on your shoulders. Sometimes people do bad things. Just as you have deep emotional issues that you're trying to work through, so do other people. And they react to them in their own ways. Not always good ways. In fact, most often not. But their issues are