Croation Unbound

In the old country my ancestors grew fast, lived hard, and died young. The land was harsh, and if they wanted an existence they existed as quickly as they possibly could. The women tied scarves around their heads, and spent all day in the fields hunched over until at the age of thirty their torsos were parallel to the ground. They ate whatever they could find when famine took the land. They were not yet old when all the teeth had fallen out of their malnourished mouths. The men were hulky and big. Not built for speed, but to pick up heavy objects all day and carry them from place to place in a sweaty dejected saunter. Their only past time was to lift their fists to the sky and curse God. Their one hope that they would die fast so that their suffering would not be extended. I have never met my ancestors, but I carry their genetic heritage with me. Which is why I hit puberty in the second grade.

In Croatia that was, the cycle of life began early to accommodate the harsh terrain. In his early teen years a boy became a man. His duties were a man’s duties. His body was a man’s body. He grew a beard and chewed tobacco. He found a woman to have ten or twelve children with, hoping he would have at least one child big enough to use as a plow horse. When he was thirty one years old he dropped dead in the fields, his only respite knowing that his children would live on to shake their fists at the sky and curse God. This was fine in Croatia that was. As a third generation American citizen, this developmental plan left something to be desired when I wanted to be integrated into society.

Given that my body was on the fast track, grade school was very confusing. My natural genetic urge to walk up and down in lines for hours behind a plow, translated into wandering aimlessly around the playground. My sudden urge to bear young and curse God with a shaking fist could take no root in the society of children I lived in. My one natural genetic joy was when the teacher would ask me to carry large boxes of books from one place to another, which I did with a strong sense of purpose that it was somehow correct.

From the first grade to the sixth, I was easily a foot taller than all of my other classmates, and the only understanding I had of puberty was that my voice cracked when I tried to sing, and that sometimes my penis became very rigid at random intervals. When that happened I had to find a reason to sit down until it stopped. This was especially embarrassing if I happened to be wearing sweat pants. By the time I was in the sixth grade I had the kind of peach fuzz mustache any adult Mexican would envy. I had to shave twice a day lest I grow a beard. Being so out of sync with my classmates was awkward in the extreme, with only one good side. For a very significant stretch of time, I knew what it would be like to have super human powers. Given how fast I came into my adult size and strength, I may as well have been Kryptonian.

At the age of eight, wrestling at birthday parties or sleep-overs, I soon had to have ten or more opponents to hurl through the air just so no one became discouraged and gave up hope. Working as a team, if two people could hold down each of my legs and another pair of people hold my arms then the remaining four children might have some chance to pin me. I laughed off their friendly punches to my stomach, aimed at taking me down. The last time I indulged in wrestling, my friend Richard tried to take me on one on one, doing his best to hurt me. With well-meaning Frankensteinian gentleness I threw him across the room into his family’s entertainment center, whereupon he cracked his skull. After that, I became so over-come with guilt that I gave up on so-called rough housing.

At nine, I was no longer a force to be reckoned with, but an impotent giant who would not defend himself. A giant who could be taunted because he was afraid of hurting people. Worse, when my Grandfather signed me up for the Cub Scouts and no uniform could be procured that could cover my girth I became a clown for the amusement of my classmates.

As though paying some kind of strange comical homage to a not yet famous Chris Farley the sleeves of the uniform barely covered half my fore-arms, and the buttons across my chest always made me feel as if I breathed too deeply they would shoot off across the room like bullets. Putting on my kerchief was like being constantly choked by an old man with a mild case of arthritis. They danced around me on the playground every Friday when I wore it to school, taunting.

“Santa Claus, Santa Claus how much do you weigh? I’d hate to be a reindeer that has to pull your sleigh!”

My legs, limber and quick from loose fitting jeans would scramble over to them, while one arm stiff and slow would try to catch them as I turned my entire body Godzilla-like to try to make the motion quick enough. They always got away. I felt like a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to solder circuits. I wasn’t built to be gentle.

Scout Camp was humiliating for the most part. I had a whole circle of merit badges, that had been meant to be applied radially, except somewhere in the middle of the process my Grandmother had screwed up one of the inner circles so I had a spiral of badges going across my left breast like a stripper’s pasty. I looked like one of those absurd Middle-Eastern generals who has so many badges you can’t help but know he doesn’t really deserve any of them.

Event after event my uniform proved too restricting to make me competitive. Those who I had once beat in wrestling as easy as one swats a fly, laughed maliciously as I struggled. At every step I was encumbered by my uniform and my fear of hurting someone else. Their laughter stung. I had never laughed at them. I always gave a fair hand. I began to feel sad. Then anger wormed its way in.

Herded from place to place, I began to take off my uniform a piece at a time. First the kerchief so that I could breath. Then I undid the first two buttons of the uniform. Then the buttons on the sleeves. I could almost flex my bicep. Teams divided for tug of war. Rich kids against poor kids. Popular against unpopular. I looked at the popular kids across the sand pit and the line. I had beat every single one of them at one time or another. Not only beat them, but dominated them completely. Now they sniggered because I was handicapped and afraid of hurting them. Graceless taunts. Mean spirited. The parent volunteer blew his whistle. Five of them, four other poor kids in front, and me bringing up the rear.

One of the rich kids spit into the sand pit with contempt. The Croatian beast within me began to wake from its slumber.

The first of my team went into the pit. The rich kids laughed. “Get in the dirt where you belong! We’re gonna kick your butts!” I let go of the rope. My team began to rapidly go toward the sand-pit, angry. In a few seconds we would have been lost, but I only needed one moment. I tear my shirt off like the Hulk, leaving me only in the white undershirt that fits me just fine. I grab the rope again, just as the only other member of my team gets pulled into the sand. Five of them. One of me. My muscles flex, tasting freedom. I smile.

There are other ancestors in my blood, apart from the stubborn farmers. They pull the rope with me. The raiders, the warriors, the barbarians. They had died out because they were not builders, nor were they quick, but their strategy was not speed or building. Get a man close enough, and that man was theirs. They believed in strength. Give them something to hold onto and victory was assured when the contest was might against might. The rope is burning in my hands, so I square down and scream. Five of them. My entire genetic lineage.

Leaning back at an angle, I hold them off. All five of them pull as hard as they can. I scream at the heavens, curse God, take my fate from him and put it back into my own paw like hands. I pull on the rope with my legs, only holding on with my hands. The five lurch forward. I roar again, the sound of a raider burning a village and plundering, swinging a sword as heavy as a barrel full of water.

They’re straining, struggling, accusing me of cheating, then they can’t say anything because the effort is too great. I keep shouting, and pulling. I have to get back all the slack they managed to pull across in those first few moments. So bit by bit, I do.

The first one goes in the sand. He doesn’t want to let go and holds on until the ref pulls him off. “It’s not fair!”

“What isn’t fair?” The ref asks.

“It’s not fair!” the boy repeats, angry. The ref almost blows his whistle, because it does not look fair. It looks like someone let a man loose to compete against a bunch of boys.

When the second boy goes into the sand and gets pulled away, I no longer bother to use my legs. To show my contempt for their sportsmanship I pull only with my arms, like I’m curling weights. We were not yet twelve. They were boys. I almost had the body of a man.

Heaving and spitting. Cussing under their breath when they think they can’t be heard. I laugh uproariously, my eyes wide and crazy with the glory of it all. I jerk the rope hard, again and again, like I’m reeling up a hose. I pull them all into the pit in rapid succession, then I throw the rope behind me like Hercules discarding the serpents he strangled in his crib.

“He let go of the rope!” they complain.

“He let go of the rope to take his shirt off.”

Fire drunk, I fall to the ground bellowing laughter. I lose the foot races. I win everything else.

At the end of the day I raise my fist to the sky, and Curse God, because this, and brute labor, is my one true ancestral past time.