[Legally Blind: The Book] Part 1: Chapter 14 - Gauchito Loco

By this point, around the age of fifteen or so, my reputation kept most people away from me, but I attracted even more seriously troubled kids into my world—and usually not to befriend me. One of these inbred jackals, Carlton, had been putting me through hell for years. Unlike the other inbreeds, Carlton was handsome and smart but nevertheless, a predatory brute. His tormenting and harassing left me in a constant state of anxiety and fear. He and his entire family were the primary source of misery to many children and teachers.

But I was no longer a frightened child easily intimidated by those I perceived as more powerful than me, and the pain of my living in fear was beginning to exceed the physical pain I feared I would have to endure if I stood my ground. Since returning from Montana, I saw that the fear was what oppressed me, not Carlton. There was one last thing I now had the balls and the responsibility to do that would finalize my transformation.

I sat on the gym bleachers, as all the students did every morning before class began, waiting for him. He arrived and started stepping up the bleachers. When he was about ten feet from me, I stood and charged at him full force screaming like a Berserker. What little apprehension I had disappeared in the last second before I slammed my much-smaller body into his and saw his look of confusion turn into a look of fear when he realized this was going to happen and there was nothing he could do. I lowered my head just before it smashed into his chest. With my arms wrapped around his body we both went flying off the side of the bleachers, me on top. As goofy as I may have appeared to all the students watching this entertaining display of foolishness, in my mind I cut an impressive image with my Mexican poncho flowing through the air as we careened toward the ground. My memory recorded this moment in extreme slow motion for the sheer joy of remembering it.

I already knew I’d beaten him. Like my face-off with my father, even if Carlton beat the shit out of me, I’d won. My bruises would only validate his humiliation. I never punched him. I could have, but I sincerely didn’t want to. I was on top of him, fists ready to pummel, making a big scene about the fact that I was about to punch him so everyone had time to run to the edge of the bleachers and see—but I was secretly waiting for the befuddled school aid to waddle over and pull me off as I feigned resistance. I didn’t need to hit him. The victory was complete. Additional violence was unnecessary.

Shortly after that event I was nicknamed “Mental,” which had the double meaning of crazy and smart. The smart reference was only known to the boy who’d given me this nickname, Carl, because we used to get stoned and play chess until late in the evening and I always beat him. The nickname stuck with me the rest of my days in that town and I wore it proudly.

The “Mental” nickname also referred to the fact that around this time I was having the frightening experience of what I call flash schizophrenia where I would momentarily flip into a personality that would tell people what I was truly feeling or thinking with absolutely no social filters, and with no memory whatsoever of doing so.

I had a ticking bomb inside me that I had no control over, and my fear was at any moment I would go all “Charles Manson,” whose name was splattered over the news for the Sharon Tate murder that year. The nickname “Mental” went from a clever epithet to an uncomfortable reminder. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I had to distance myself from those I could not tolerate as a safety measure to keep the barbarian in me at bay.