The Tree (a short story)

It must have been first or second grade. It had to have been. God help us, maybe third grade, but not older than that. We were out on the playground, of course, and spring had just started hitting the big tree at the bottom of the slope in the corner of the playground. That tree must’ve been 25 feet tall, and all of its branches were far out of reach save one, and that one was about four or five inches in diameter and stuck out about six feet. It was a perfect monkey bar, its offshoot branches worn off by kids’ hands swinging. By the time I reached sixth grade, the branch had begun to splinter by the trunk because of our merciless swinging and had to be cut off.

As kids do, we made up games to play because our playground wasn’t a fancy production. There was the redwood set, replete with monkey bars, a slide, and a tire swing, two large sets of swings, and, literally, three concrete sewer pipes about four feet in diameter and eight feet long set down together like spokes on a wheel. I think they were using the “box-is-more-fun-than-the-hundred-dollar-toy-inside” theory with that one, and it worked. We played all kinds of games on those pipes, and when we were older, we snuck into the playground after dark and made out in them.

One of the games we played was a combination of Hide-and-Seek, Marco Polo, and Tag. One kid, who was “it,” would stand by the chain link fence under the tree and start counting with his eyes closed. The rest of us would hide within a designated area (the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the redwood set), and after the “it” kid was done counting, the rest of us would start counting to sixty while the “it” kid wandered around with his eyes still shut. After the sixty seconds were up, he could open his eyes and find us, but he would have to tag one of us in order for his turn to be over. It was fairly ingenious game, actually, for a bunch of little kids to have made up.

That gorgeous day in March, Jimmy was the first one to be “it.” There were maybe twelve or so of us playing, which was a fair number in those days. He started the count, and it only took about three seconds after we had finished counting for him to open his eyes and tag Christopher.

Christopher was one of Those Kids. In elementary school, you were either Normal or one of Them. Those Kids’ deficiencies ranged from being a bully to being nerdy to having greasy hair to compulsive nose-picking. Maybe in some other schools, Those Kids ended up being islands, isolated from the rest of the pack as well as each other. In our school, though, Those Kids sometimes paired up in the most bizarre ways.

Christopher and his love/hate relationship with Todd was one of these anomalies. Christopher was a Nerd to the Nth degree. He was a little bit fat, short, and pasty. He had bright red hair and an unforgivable smattering of freckles. He had these weird-looking brown eyes and was Smart. He loved outer space, and one time he did a big presentation in front of the class about Mars that seemed to last forever. I think the teacher wanted him to do it to help his self-esteem out, but it didn’t help him get along with us better. Probably the worst thing about Christopher was his nervous tic. Whenever the kid was nervous or frustrated or just plain pissed off, he shook his head. And not in a “No, that’s not right” sort of way; more like in a “Shit, I’ve got a spider on my head!” sort of way. Real fast. I’m sure it rattled his brain some, and if he didn’t have that tic going on, he could’ve probably been a Rhodes Scholar at seven. Things being what they were, though, he was just regular Super Smart, and that was enough for us to blacklist him.

Todd, on the other hand, was quite simply the class bully. He was a big dark-haired dude, and was pasty in the same way Christopher was. Todd was in our lives to punch guys in the stomachs and push girls into snowbanks. He didn’t try to kiss us, mercifully (that job was delegated to Randy, the creepy Casanova), but he struck fear in us nonetheless, not just because we didn’t like getting pushed into snowbanks, but also because we would feel bad when he would beat up another kid. And the kid Todd was the worst to was Christopher. It seemed like he was constantly terrorizing Christopher, chasing him around, catching him, and throwing him on the ground. What was weird, though, was in our collective hatred of both Christopher and Todd, they were often paired together in class projects, where they actually worked quite well together. Once we got onto the playground, though, anarchy ruled.

Todd was playing our game with us that day, too, not because we included him, but because he said he wanted to play and we couldn’t say no. By the way, Christopher was playing probably because one of the girls felt bad enough for him to invite him to play. So Christopher dutifully stood by the tree and started to count after he was tagged.

We all knew that Christopher being “it” was going to be bad. He wasn’t a fast runner, and based on experience, we knew he would run around helplessly after us as we would dart away just out of his reach like he was fishing with his bare hands. He would get tired, he would get frustrated, he would start shaking his head, and with a mixture of derision and pity, we would laugh at him. He would cry and walk away, and we would continue on with our game.

Knowing what we knew, we didn’t bother hiding, or even really moving all that far away from him. We all stood about fifteen to twenty feet away from him, waiting. Suddenly, Todd snuck up right behind him, grabbed his magenta velour pants (part of an 80’s style jumpsuit he always wore), and pantsed him.

His pants weren’t the only things that came off. His underwear went, too.

For a few glorious and horrifying seconds, Christopher’s white ass and tiny boy penis hung out there in the wind for all of us to see. It was like a bloody traffic accident; we didn’t want to look, but we had to. In hindsight, what was almost as disturbing was the fact that he didn’t realize what had happened right away, so his junk was Out There for a bit too long. We all got a good long look before he opened his eyes, reached down and yanked his pants back up.

Some of us were laughing as he turned around, but most of us were just straight up stunned. I was one of the latter, though I recall a sick feeling in my stomach. I was sensitive to other kids being bullied, but not enough to put my own ass on the line. Todd was laughing like crazy, of course. He was doubled over so all we could see was the top of his greasy head.

Christopher looked over at him and started to cry. This was to be expected. But he started to walk over to Todd, and the closer he got, the more our laughter subsided. Todd’s didn’t, though. He couldn’t shut up. I think he was crying, too, he thought it was so hilarious, so he didn’t even see it coming.

“Tooodd!” Christopher intoned, his nasally voice cracking. As Todd straightened up, Christopher kicked him square in the nuts.

There was a silence that followed, the likes of which hadn’t been heard since Lisa Billing told us that Santa Claus didn’t exist. Todd immediately doubled over, then dropped to his knees, and eventually to his side, gripping his kid-nuts just like they do in the movies. His mouth was wide open in a silent howl.

For the first time, Christopher stood over him. He looked down, shaking his head, and, wiping his nose with his sleeve and sniffling loudly, he stalked away. He sat next to the wall the rest of recess, his knees drawn up to his chest.

We left Todd on the ground. You couldn’t help a kid like that, even if his balls were just crushed, and even out of pity.

That afternoon, Todd and Christopher avoided each other, even during art when we were supposed to help each other make our popsicle stick houses. As little kids’ memories go, we had pretty much forgotten about the episode by the next day. I still can’t forget Christopher’s shining ass, though, and Todd’s silent scream. I’d like to think that, since that episode, I actually stood up for the kids who were getting picked on. I just continued on, though, like any other kid trying to survive elementary school and the weird things that happened. When they tore down the old tree after I graduated high school to make room for an expansion, I thought about Christopher briefly and what he might be doing today. I’m sure he’s a computer genius or something and Todd is a used car salesman making a decent living in Oklahoma or somewhere, and this memory has balled up with all the others, mixed into collective playground legend.