‘Don’t you give me none of your lip!’ These are memorable words from my adolescence. They were spoken by Bobby Beck in my seventh grade Math class, to our teacher . . . whose name escapes me. She was a tough old bat and he was the class baddass. I think Bobby was probably Hyperactive or Attention Defficient or BiPolar by today’s standards: he was always bouncing off the walls and was a perpetual behavior problem; but back then, we just thought he was a baddass. He had auburn hair and lots of freckles and a square face . . . looked sorta like Conan O’Brien.
And, that’s the last any of us saw of Bobby Beck. Teacher grabbed him and dragged him kicking all the way to the Principal’s office and that was that. We never knew what the Principal did with him, whether he killed, maimed or merely beat him or kicked him out, but the kid never came back. In those pre-Ritalin days, I think we pretty much let the depraved deteriorate until they fulfilled their destinies as bums, bank robbers and serial killers. Regardless of whether he was disturbed or simply rebellious, I have to hand it to Bobby: he really pushed the envelope of disrespect. ‘Don’t you give me none of your lip!’ . . . and this in a day when even ‘Shut-Up’ was considered a bad word.
I woke up saying those words to myself this morning. ‘Dont’ you give me none of your lip!’ DYGMNOYL. I have no idea why. But I said it over and over in the foggy moments of awakening. I lay in bed as the world resumed its shape and thought about that year: seventh grade, 13, DuPont High School, Jacksonville Florida. . .
I had graduated from South San Jose Elementary — which was just down the street from home — the year before, and DuPont was a big deal. Not only was it HIGH school, I had to take a school bus to get to it. Taking the school bus increased the sense of independence you felt as you moved closer and closer to a place miles from your home.
Jacksonville was home to one of the disenfranchised members of the infamous Dupont family of Delaware. Aparantly the family gave this branch a pile of money and all of the holdings in Florida if they’d just disappear and never come back. So they had a HUGE house on the river and acres and acres of pine woods. They’d given a piece of land close to the mansion to the Duval County School System to build a high school years earlier . . . And so my school was born and named.
We were the DuPont Dragons. Green and Gold.
Bobby Beck was one of many colorful characters who attended class in this classic red brick educational edifice. We had many rich kids, style conscious and snobby to the end. But we also had some major hicks. I remember Wayne Losco and his brothers and sisters and cousins who came from a place way out in the country called Mandarin. Looking back, Wayne and crew were pretty cool. We didn’t think so: They wore jeans (jeans!) and tee- shirts and black motorcycle boots and turned their cuffs up and slicked their hair back with heavy greese and smoked unfiltered cigarettes and would fight you in a heart beat. They were the James Deans and Marlon Brandos of our class. Only, we didn’t know it. We thought they were stupid country folk, uneducated, unwashed and crude. We called them ‘Snakes.’ Mandarin Snakes.
A lot of trash was talked about Losco and his clan. It was said they lived in a shack on their big crummy piece of land, with no electricity, running water or indoor plumbing. It was said that they all got drunk all the time and liked to go out shooting anything that moved near their property. It was said that Wayne, not the oldest or the biggest, but certainly the meanest of them — that Wayne had been observed masturbating through his jeans in the back of math class on more than one occasion. Go Wayne!
Today, Wayne Losco and his brothers are probably all multi-millionairs. I say that because Mandarin became THE place to live in Jacksonville about 20 years ago. The Loscos had to have sold off most of the previously valueless land they owned to accommodate the thousands who wanted to move down to this new address. Today there is a Losco Road in Mandarin. There is justice.
There was justice back then, too, but it was all twisted up with this weird dominance and submission thing. It was perfectly ok for teachers back then to beat their students. Nobody ever gave it a thought. You misbehaved, you got swats. Most teachers had paddles, the most celebrated of which had holes in them and were usually autographed by the many recipients of their rath. Those teachers who didn’t have a paddle or refused to participate in the regular educational beatings merely took their bad kids to the Principal where they were flailed mercilessly.
Many teachers took great pleasure in the paddling. I remember several who chuckled and even laughed as they swung their tool of humiliation. One such teacher was ‘Coach.’ Coach who? Who knows. He was just Coach. He had a huge and wildly decorated paddle and used it daily, even hourly some times. In my class, his favorite target was Bobby Maddox, a good kid who was merely funny — not bad — who had the first true booty anyone my age ever had. I mean, his butt was large and round and stuck out like a gay gym bunny’s dream. Coach would paddle that thing almost every day. He got to calling Bobby ‘Hamburger Butt,’ and it was a nickname that stuck.
Seventh grade. That’s when Rosalee Summerall quit trying to prove herself. She was a pretty and shy girl who had been in my Elementary School class. She’d gotten her growth spurt way early and towered over everyone in third grade. But that wasn’t the toughest of her problems. At the same time she had sprouted a pair of rich, full breasts that grabbed the attention of nearly everyone who saw her. By fourth grade, Rosalee Summerall was hot.
In fourth grade, most of us didn’t know shit from shinola. I distinctly remember talking with the other guys about Rosalee’s cock. Somehow, we thought that’s what girls had: a cock. Oh, we knew it was some kind of hole thing that you put your wanger into . . . but we thought it was called a cock. So Rosalee Summerall was like Tuesday Weld trapped in fourth grade with Beaver Cleaver and his pals, Whitey and Larry Mondello.
We couldn’t understand how it was possible for a 9 year old to suddenly occupy a 22 year old body. We searched for answers . . .then hit upon it. Obviously, she had big tits and was so good looking because she was a slut! She was fucking the fleet! She was Port Rosalee! Sure, that’s the ticket! And suddenly, without ever opening her mouth, Rosalee had a reputation.
By fifth grade she was wearing pretty pink sweaters that caused everyone from the janitor to my next door neighbor’s father to turn and gawk. She began to develop something more than her tits . . . she developed a sad glint in the corner of her eye. She knew what was being said about her. She understood why the girls hated her and the boys kept their distance. We were all terrified of her. This upset her no end. Here she was a nice 10 year old girl with no friends, isolated in her class, treated differently than everyone else her age . . . all for nothing she’d ever done.
By seventh grade and Dupont High, Rosalee had given up or wised up or both. She had a new attitude. It was, ‘screw you lame idiots. I’m going to get what I need from here, drop out as soon as I’m legally allowed to and then I’m outa here.’ And that’s exactly what she did. I don’t know whether she went on to be a beauty queen or porn star or perhaps a famous novelist or inventor. But I do know that she was probably better than everyone she went to school with, me included. What fools we were.
I had a new friend in seventh grade: Jeff Campbell. Jeff was the first truly nelly guy I ever knew. He was a professional homosexual in training and I’m sure he became a florist, hairdresser or interior designer at some time in his life. Of course, he was effeminate — but so were many of us. What made Jeff stand out was that he absolutely fluttered through his days. What also made him obvious in a crowd was the intense hatred most of the guys in school had for him. ‘Oh, boy,’ I thought. ‘What a great new friend!’
I think Jeff and I became friends at the beach. I don’t know how we ended up there together, but we went exploring in the dunes above Seminole Beach and in short order were hiding under a hollow in the sea grapes, doing each other. Don’t be shocked. From ages 9 – 15, most of my friendships had a sexual component.
From that point on, we hung out. Jeff was a great help to me in understanding why I never made it with the smart set. I had no understanding of fashion. He taught me about Gant shirts and Bass Weejuns. Of course, I had neither and would not until I was an adult and old enough to buy them in second hand stores and outlets. But in seventh grade, you were nothing without a Gant and some Weejuns. Really. You had to have at least one Gant, and if one was all you had, it ought to be blue. If you had two, it should be blue and white. From there, you could do anything you wanted.
Jeff taught me that the real Gants had cross-stiched buttons and a real hanger tab on the back — one that would come out if you pulled it. They also had a label that was sewn in under the collar. He also taught me how to spot fake weejuns. There was the obvious: not fully leather, flaws in the signature penny slit (that was never used for pennys). But the clencher was the tiny hole in the leather above the heel and just under the top hem of the shoe.
Like I said, I had neither. My folks were not going to fork out $7.50 for a shirt just because it had a certain label much less $16 for a pair of weejuns. I was doomed to occupy one of the lower rungs in the laddar of High School. Of course, Jeff, who had all of these things, was on a rung even lower than me, so I guess nelly trumps fashion every time.
(By the way, the store where you bought these things in South Jacksonville was Rosenblum’s in San Marcos. Remember, we didn’t have malls back then and the only department store was downtown where you never went. The neighborhood men’s store was the place. You know, I don’t think I ever went in there, not even to look. I was too intimidated and so sure I didn’t belong. I would lay in bed at night aching for my deficient wardrobe. )
Hey, you know what’s really funny? What I was wearing in lieu of Gants and Weejuns. I regularly wore ascots and dickies with my shirts to school and had a courduroy jacket with fake suede patches on the elbows that was my favorite topper. What a dweeb!!
Jeff was mostly orange. That’s because he was the first person — perhaps the only person — I ever knew who used a self-tanning bronzer. The stuff was ghastly, making him look like he had a skin disease. I remember the streaks and clumps where it would pool making an ugly dark splotch. Of course, Jeff thought he looked magnificent! I remember some of the jocks in school calling him ‘Pumpkin’ . . . but he didn’t care. You know, I think that’s one of the reasons I really liked him: he was so over the top and different that he was the object of jeers and utter hatred every day of his life. But he didn’t care. He was who he was. I still struggle.
Jeff’s best friend was Louise Webster: Weasel Webster. She was a pretty girl with big eyes and little bit of an acne problem. I think she was my first Fag Hag. The three of us hung out together at school and called each other in the evenings. It was marvelous being part of a click — no matter how small or weird. I felt a rare sensation in my psyche: acceptance.
What happened to Jeff? I don’t remember exactly. I think, as we continued through high school, into 8th and 9th grade, he became more and more flamboyant and more of a social liability . . . I couldn’t stand the heat of disapproval by association. Even my oldest and most solid friend, Charles — with whom I shared an intensely sexual friendship for 7 years until, at 15, my family moved away — even Charles began to ask why I was hanging out with that freak. So I think Jeff and I had a bitch fight and went on our separate ways. Maybe we fought over Weasel. If we did, he won.
‘Dont you give me none of your lip!’ It does have a certain ring about it, doesn’t it? I’m amazed that it’s stayed with me this long. So has lots of stuff I didn’t write about . . .yet. Today, I chose to write about these four people: Bobby Beck, Wayne Losco, Rosalee Summerall and Jeff Campbell. I didn’t realize it until just now, but these four are a little heroic to me. Each of them took what they had, who they were, and held it proudly out to the world. They didn’t appologize. They were very brave . . . and strong. They were everything I wasn’t back then. No matter what happened to them down the road, they had an integrity that is very rare and precious. So, Bobby, Wayne, Rosalee and Jeff, wherever you are, thank you. I’m honored to have known you.