Well, on this day, the second day of first grade, a bunch of us were on the merry-go-round, spinning happily. Then someone started to chant "All the Mike Goldstones get off and push!" We all started saying it and Mike, who was on the merry-go-round, did as he was instructed. Most of the time when you got off and pushed you could get back on. Well this wasn't the case with Mike. Everytime he tried to get back on the merry-go-round, all the kids would start yelling "All the Mike Goldstones get off and push!" If he tried to get back on anyway someone would kick him in the chest.
This brought alot of attention from the rest of the playground to the merry-go-round. All of a sudden a three first grade classes were piled on the roughly 15 foot around merry-go-round yelling "All the Mike Goldstones get off and push!" We were spinning very slow and Mike was the only one pushing. He was sweating and crying and snot was dripping out of his nose. I remember that clearly. His head was shaped like a light bulb and his hair stood up and made it look even bigger. This became a ritual on the playground everyday. Not all the kids participated in this ritual but, I would say about 15 of us did. If Mike tried to hide or run away he was hunted down, captured and one of his arms were held to the railing of the merry-go-round while he was forced to push. The only kid Mike could pick on was a fat, little hyper active kid named Randy Townley. Randy had blonde hair and horn rimmed glasses with a thick black, elastic strap to hold them on his hyper active head. He would get mad if made fun of and throw desks and have what we called "temper tantrums. Just telling him he was having a temper tantrum made his current temper tantrum even worse. Once we got him so mad by telling him the teacher was going to pull his pants down and spank him in front of the rest of the class that he turned beet red, started squealing like a pig, hyper ventallating and crying at the same time and he threw a book a the teacher who was about sixty years old and really mean. She called him Randolph and told him to stop throwing his temper tantrum and at that point he began stomping and swinging his arms around and squealing. The principle had to come down and wrestle him down, subdue him, and take him to the nurses office.
Mike held Randy down at reccess one day and made him drink the reminants of a discarded laundry detergent bottle found on the playground. Later that day Randolph Nelson Townley threw a desk across the room, in one of his most spectacular temper tantrums ever. I imagine that it was an ill side-effect of the laundry detergent. Randolph went on to middle school and high school with the ridicule and torment following him, not only from Mike Goldstone but, from all forms of rejects, dweebs, and losers who felt they could take a shot at picking on someone else for a change. I digress.
Because Mike Goldstone only lived seven houses away from me and went to the same school I did, I often (reluctantly) associated with him. This was usually when there were no other kids available to play with. One summer, I was invited to his birthday party. I accepted mostly because my parents accepted on my behalf after an invitation via phone call from Mike's mother. Mike's mom was a very strange creature. Let me see if I can provide a visual for you: She had red hair, by red I mean that super orange red that even a child know is unnatural and if it was naturally that color you would wonder what planet she came from. Her skin was a pastey white color, that is what skin you could see. Her face was covered by layer upon layer of thick pancake make up to the point that it almost looked like a mask. Michael Myers from the Halloween movies comes to mind. She wore dark, large lensed glasses even indoors, and always wore black ( a friend when I was older refered to her as Vampira). She was very thin, almost aneresicly thin and she smelled like burnt spahgetti noodles, in fact the whole Goldstone household smelled that way.
So anyway, I went to Mike's birthday party and I was one of three people who showed up and the only one who had brought a gift. I think I gave him a Star Wars action figure. Mike's mom removed the gift promptly because unbeknownst to me Mike was not allowed to play with toys depicting violence (the Star Wars figure came with a gun). I discovered this fact on a subsequent visit to Mike's bedroom which looked nothing like any child's bedroom I had previously witnessed in my young life. The only thing remotely child like in Mike's bedroom was a hand held ball bearing pinball game, an Atari game counsel, with the only game he had Pac-Man (the game Combat that was included with the counsel was promptly discarded by his mother I presume merely because of the name), and some hamsters. In fact Mike had a whole Habitrail complex devoted to those hamsters. I think he had about five hamsters in all. I remember all of them were girls too. I imagine the naked genitalia of the male hamster offended Mike's mom in some way.
At the birthday party, Mike's dog a female dalmation named Darla ( I am assuming male dog genitalia also offended Mike's mother) had started barking. When I say barking, I mean that persistant, relentless barking that unintelligent dogs with emotional disorders engage in. So Mike in an effort to calm the dog or something, went over to it an started petting it. The dog was tethered to a stake in the middle of the yard, and isolated from the birthday events. So I, being the animal lover that I was and still am today, followed Mike to interact with the idiot creature. Upon arriving at the dog, who was no longer barking and receiving the attention I presume it wanted, I stuck my hand out to pet the animal and the dog instantly bit me on the hand. I yelped and pull my hand back but, it was already too late. The dog had bitten down on my hand so quickly and with such force that the two canine teeth had left a now bleeding impression in the flesh on the back of my hand. I don't remember if I cried or not but, one thing I do remember is upon seeing this Mike turned ghostly white and looked scared. I walked up to the house to report my injury to Mike's parents so, I could get a band aid or something. Upon seeing my wounds Mike's mother went into the house and emerged with a leather belt. Mike's dad washed my hand off with the garden hose (for some reason I was not allowed in the house). Assuming Mike's mother was marching into the back yard to beat the dog, my eyes followed her so I could witness the due justice that the dog was about to receive. Mike who was still next to the dog watching his mother come towards him with the belt, fell upon the ground on his back with his hands and legs in a defending position and started crying and screaming. The dog upon seeing this display started barking and jumping around and upon Mike. Mike's mom started whipping Mike with the belt and yelling at him. I don't remember what exactly she was yelling but, I seem to recall it was something like "This is why you can't have (or don't have) friends!" She was hitting him with the belt on the hands, legs, crotch, stomach, chest and arms. I assume she just wanted to whip his ass but, he refused to turn over. At some point during the beating, Mike decided to get up and run toward the house. As he started to run Mike's mom grabbed a handful of Mike's hair (Mike had crazy hair that was straight and wirery, parted in the middle and kind of rose up kind of high in two arcs eminating from the part in the middle of his light bulb shaped head). With Mike under her control she continued beating him with the belt while marching him toward the house with one handful of his hair and the other hand whipping his ass with the belt. The dog continued barking and I think it might have bitten Mike while he was on the ground getting whipped. Mike's dad silently walked me home after that and apologized to my parents for the dog bite. He explained the dog had received all it's vaccinations and told my parents they shouldn't worry. I didn't need stitches or anything so after my mom put methiolate and band aids on the bite marks I went outside to play. The next time I saw Mike was in what I am guessing was few weeks later, his mom had shaved off all his hair and the kid down the street, Guy, who was about the only other person who would hang out with Mike, started calling him Butchy. I think Mike's mom shaved his head every coulple of days after that because he had a butch until we went back to school and he didn't have any hair until probably wintertime of that school year. He was the only bald kid in our school year book. I believe now, that Mike's mom shaved his head because she had ripped a chunk of it out during Mike's beating. Either that or she shaved his head because she was a creepy, neurotic whacko. NEXT