Let's Not Meet Again

Pedophile In The Making

I was in first grade when I first met Russel T. He was a fellow classmate. I remember he had blonde hair that was basically a rat tail growing into a mullet and always wore neon shorts, cut off muscle tees (early 90's) and this punkass smirk.

He seemed older than all the other kids I guess because he was allowed to do so many things we weren't, like ride his bike to and from school without an adult and I'm pretty sure he had been held back a year.

I was always a little jealous of the former. I couldn't even ride a bike without training wheels.

All my life, I have been teased about being shorter than everyone else my age. My sister told me I looked like a toddler of 3/4 from the ages of 5-8. Small size t-shirts for kids my age would come down to my knees. I was used to being called the usual names: "shorty" "smallfry" "lilbit" typical shit kids and adults taunt with. Tall privilege is a real thing.

Anyway, having made lots of friends and with kindergarten fresh under my belt, I figured first grade would just be more of the same. But nothing prepared me for the kind of bullying Russel T. had in store for me.

At first it was just irritating stuff. I had long dark hair and my mother bought me headbands of all different colors to coordinate with my outfits. On the playground, Russel would run up to me, grab the headband off my head and I'd spend the rest of recess chasing him and yelling for him to give it back. Usually a teacher would intervene and tell him to return it.

One time, she turned away as he was walking up to me to give it back and he told me under his breath to open my mouth. When I didn't, he jammed the headband between my teeth and patted my head roughly saying, "Good girl," then ran off, turning his head back to look at me and smile with his eyes narrowed into slits.

Other times he would chase me and if he caught me, he'd try to kiss me but that was pretty normalized behavior on the playground so I'd just run over to the teacher until he gave up waiting me out.

Once he just walked up to me, picked me up under my armpits, and carried me over to the monkeybars. I never played on them because I was too short to reach them from the ladder rungs and they were spaced too far apart for me to cross.

He lifted me up and told me he'd let me go if I could just reach up and grab onto them so I did, and he did let go of me much to my relief, but all I could do was hang there as he reached up and slid his hand up inside one of my short legs and touched the edges of my underwear.

I gasped and looked straight down to find him smiling up at me in a way I had never seen another child smile.

The second time he tried to do that I grabbed onto the monkey bars, kicked him in the face, and used him to break my fall when I let go. The teacher saw this and I got into trouble.

I tried to explain what he was doing but I was embarrassed, inarticulate, and stuttering. I hadn't even learned a lot of the words I needed to say in order for her to understand exactly what was going on and why it was not okay. She cut me off and just shook her head smiling weirdly saying,

"He picks on you because he likes you."

I remember feeling completely shocked by her words. I didn't care how he felt. What the hell did it matter? I just wanted him to leave me alone. She was no help and as I sat inside the chalk square sectioned off for kids who were in "time out" Russel ran past me laughing and pointing. Then he did the Michael Jackson crotch grab and ran off.

I was disgusted.

I started to dread recess so I'd purposely get answers on my worksheets wrong so I would have to sit inside and redo it with the teacher's helper while she graded other stuff or made decorations for the classroom. It was peaceful. But soon it made things worse.