In Which We Fight On Trampolines

Vintage Violence: Grades 6-8

by John Gruen

Note: The author attended an all-boys school.

1. I told J he looked like Dickey Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. He slapped me in the face.

2. I swung a lacrosse stick at W's head and missed.

3. B threw me over a desk.

4. A made a spear out of a stick and killed all of the fish in the pond outside of the math building.

5. J, M and I stole food from the cafeteria everyday and put it in an unlocked locker we called the 'yucky locker'

6. M took a bottle of whiskey to his room and drank until he had a .24 blood-alcohol level.

7.  J, B and A used to kick T's ass every day after lunch. I would watch sometimes.

8. T bought a mouse, killed it and skinned it. He brought the body to school the next day and ate it.

9. I kicked A in the testicles for no reason whatsoever. Years later, he told me it was the most painful and confusing thing that ever happened to him.

10. M took a volume of Encyclopedia Britannica into the library bathroom, shat in it, and reshelved it.

11. W, J and J used to try to make me fight a different person every day to toughen me up. I never won.

12. My mom took T and I to Disney World and I got a rash. When we got back, T told everyone that she'd put Gold Bond on my balls.

13. J and W convinced J he was gay.

14. W and J played a game called 'Robinhood Shuffleboard' which involved shooting an arrow straight up in the air and running away.

15. G (and many others) told me that I was going to burn in Hell for being Jewish.

16. All the cool kids made themselves pass out.

17. B broke my glasses twice and called me a faggot when I asked him to pay for them.

18. Coach T made J demonstrate a new kind of sit-up in front of my whole gym class even though he had a visible erection.

19. W used to make A and I fight on his trampoline. This led to many bloody noses.

20. M stole all of my Pogs, and I ratted on him. This led to both Pogs and Magic cards being banned.

21. W made the sixth grade math teacher cry.

22. Someone (unknown, probably W or M) took a shit on the bathroom floor and stuck a AA battery in it.

23. M used to take his mom's muscle-relaxants in class.

24. Everyone hated C, M, C, B and K.

25. D drank a whole bottle of Nyquil before math class.

26. B made the Spanish teacher have a nervous breakdown in class. The teacher never came back to school.

27. P gave me his extra sandwich, which I later found out had a giant loogie in it.

28. One day while picking him up from school, J's father, who was ex-IDF, put J in a sleeper hold and made him pass out.

29. B, who was several years older than us, would whip his dick out in our faces at the carpool line.

30. T peed on all off the faucets.

31. M brought a screwdriver to school and stole all of the doorknobs in the English building.

32. One day a few years later J made fun of me for a failed club I started, and A spit a mouth full of water on me. I went home, started crying and was on anti-depressants the next day.

John Gruen is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can read his entry in Childhood here.

"Society" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)

"Setting Forth" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)

"Long Nights" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Our second trip to the MOMA.

Breaking and Entering was ridiculous.

Rufus is stuck in a mirror with you.