Nose picking, B.O. and lessons to be learned

Dennis was dead by his own hand and even as I digested the news, the thought bubbled unwanted into my mind that I had never liked him. We met in primary school in the playground and his favourite trick was to run as hard as he could into unexpected victims. Pushing or pulling he seemed not to mind if you cut a knee as you fell over, or bashed the back of your head on the curb. His main satisfaction was in felling others. It was something he just could not stop despite repeated beatings from our headmaster. He was refused to be weaned from his favourite pastime.

In my first day at school, Dennis wet himself. The Headmaster’s wife, Mrs Harris, raged and locked Dennis in the cupboard off her class where the sewing baskets were kept. There Dennis howled for the full two hours until break time while Mrs Harris lectured us all on bladder control. I'm not sure what the rest of the class learnt or Dennis but those two hours taught me that people with grey hair in buns wearing respectable expensive clothes could be vicious beasts deep in their hearts. Every cry of Dennis that soared over her demands, that we sit straight, remain silent and colour in our drawings, left me with a lifeline horror of colouring in. I knew with every crayon stroke that all of our souls were being coloured by the cruelty of that situation in ways that would linger for decades.

Perhaps the soft play dough of young children hearts makes every such event traumatic? Not that Dennis endeared himself to anyone. His spontaneous acts of violence continued unabated in the playground and even grew with each passing year. I complained to my father about his behaviour and he pointed out that Dennis was from a dysfunctional home. I had no idea what that meant but learned that Dennis was being brought up by his grandmother, an eccentric woman whose hair was as wild as her language. 

My father claimed our dog Monty could identify people with unusual tendencies. In their presence Monty would change from a placid ever good-natured Labrador into a barking aggressive hound. He wouldn't bite but barked as if a bear had entered the garden. Dennis's grandmother got by far the worst reaction from Monty and so I reckon dysfunctional was something dogs sensed that we humans had to guess at. It didn't make me dislike Dennis any less.

The headmaster Mr Harris would regularly throw Dennis over his shoulder and carry him out of the class after slapping him hard across the face and knocking him out of the school seat. Beating Dennis seem to be the main educational response to any misdemeanours.

He seemed to search for ways of annoying others. Not just by pushing but by laughing at other’s discomfort. A Kindergarten child was crying in the playground for her mother. She was tiny and vulnerable in this new world absent of parents. I overheard Dennis telling her she’d never see her mother again! That was what school meant. She was so distraught at this news she cried hysterically until she wet herself. At which point, Denis ran to tell Mrs Harris of the incident. Horrified we watched as this tiny girl was frogmarched into Mrs Harris’s dreaded cupboard as punishment. Her cries were far more tragic than Dennis’s as fear rather than humiliation fuelled their volume. I remember I broke four crayons that day pushing the nibs deep into my paper, digging into the white sheets in huge red stripes until they snapped. Why on earth do people think childhood was the happiest days of their lives? Was their childhood so good or what followed so awful in comparison?

In my last few years of primary school Mr and Mrs Harris retired and there were speeches of gratitude to these two monsters. Even the local MP came to sing their praises, mentioning their love of children and dedication to others. When Mr Harris died I remember the same MP weeping real tears copiously while reading a piece from the Bible during the service. I sat in church watching the whole pantomime, thinking what must God think of all this? None of it made any sense to me.  Not the cruelty, nor the adoration of abusers nor the incessant nose picking of Dennis who sat beside me during the service, stinking of BO. The horror of it all was mixed with the smell of pee, the memory of warm crayons between my fingers and bitter injustice burning in my belly.

Towards the end of primary school the girls all grew into giants while the boys remained the same height. At least, that's how it seemed to me. With only brothers at home I knew how to fight and dealt out  instant justice to those I felt due. Any time Dennis played his cruel games with kindergarten kids I’d hammer him. When he pushed others over I punched him hard. It never stopped him behaving badly but it made me feel good. As if at last I could play a role in fixing things. He became my pet project for world betterment. I couldn't control Mr and Mrs Harris but I would try with Dennis.  To his credit he never held any grudges against me. I think he was beaten so badly by adults all round him he viewed our exchanges as just rough child's play. At times, on some strange level, we were close. I watched out for him in the playground and rather than resenting my interference he felt a bond that I was ashamed was one-sided.   

In the secondary school, he attended, my mother taught him Maths.  She used to bring a complete clean uniform, shirt, tie, blazer trousers, socks and pants to school for him each day.  Whenever, he had an accident she would bring him the clean set, from her room, to change into.  Two years into secondary school the wetting stopped but she continued to supply him with new clean clothes when his own were unclean. 

We went our separate ways then, Dennis and I. His grandmother was still a visitor to our home occasionally and treated with good humour. On a family outing, with her in the car, I can remember my father parking outside a huge palace of a house with elegant rhododendrons on either side of the drive. He managed to convince her that his relatives lived inside this massive mansion. She was impressed beyond words and later when he told her he’d only been joking she roared with laughter that was too loud and too long.

Years later, Dennis joined the police. My mother was stopped by the police one night in the Glenshane pass. The officer that peered through the window was Dennis. She said he looked smart and proud in his neat new uniform. He had thanked her that night for her maths lessons in secondary school and told her she'd been his favourite teacher. Dennis we learned even had a girlfriend. Then, out of the blue she dumped him for someone else. 

On a rainy night in his new car, high in the mountains, near our village, he put his police revolver to his head and blasted his life away.  When I heard the news I felt a physical ache within. His ex-girlfriend went on to marry three other men in the years ahead, breaking more hearts no doubt in the process. I wished he had been able to know she wasn't worth it. Not worth one second of the life that should've been his. Too many young men seem to take their own lives in despair and betrayal. Alone in the dark their anger turns inwards with no other bond to hold them in this world.

Dennis had really tried. He'd come through so much in his short life. None of us had ever really understood him. I still hear his cry from the cupboard and can only pledge to be more kind to the souls around me. Some journeys are so tough you can't imagine or know how bereft of love and kindness such lives can be.  If we did, I hope we’d all be different to each other.