The kettle drum

It was the end of the eleventh inning, the eleventh year of misery, among subjects I could not understand and students I could not communicate with...We were teens now. We were all angst'y teens waiting for the gates of hell or heaven, or the bull pen to fly open and release us into particles of obliteration and dust...follow the dust...follow the wind...it's done...the course is set, just go go go...get gone...of course, most stayed to the real end...the 12th inning...but I never got into baseball anyway.  How can you when the field is strewn with glacially smoothed boulders and kids, whose heads were just as hard...just go...but there had to be a...crescendo...a building up and a knocking down.

I had gotten with some rough boys...boys I grew up with...boys who were tough, and didn't give a fuck for nothing...I was still the same sensitive clueless, numb nutted, wierdfernuggen, whatever that is, and I just got smart enough to disguise myself among the 'fuck for nothings', so, if some punk even looked crosswise, he would catch the whole gang of us. I understand how the weaker are driven in among the stronger, after that fashion...I developed a 'leather jacket' attitude.  It wasn't me, but it fit well enough to convince the other kids...

It did not convince the music teacher...who knew...I was a weak duck in a dick suit. He said something to me, something insulting, to follow the years of same, and had he been a real teacher, and had I respected him, he would have had me...but as it was...I rose from my place and spoke...and he came at me.  We wrestled...he knocked me in the kettle drum...he pulled me out of it, that big copper tub and threatened to have the principle on me...I said he was a bad and lazy teacher...which he was...and he wouldn't be a teacher much longer...we decided on a draw...

Dad was home that week...dad...I want to join the Navy.  He didn't bat an eye...just smiled and said...best damn idea you ever had...and that summer I went away...from all I ever knew. Dad took me to the recruiter in the city...all the men winked at each other over me, kind of like a secret pervert handshake...it seemed...and this strange calm came over me...and the boy changed to a man...who knows on some level, it will never be the same again...but it will be ok...and it did turn out ok...


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Art: Kettle Drums, artist unknown