Catholic School
By: KK
Copyright @2001

I was forced to be a Catholic. I went to Catholic church, school, confession and all the crap that goes with any organized religion. I knew the Hail Mary's, the Our Father's and every prayer that was supposed to forgive my sins. I did not practice the religion then and I do not practice it now, much to my Grandmother's chagrin.

Mom was raised a strict Catholic and is now a practicing Wiccan. (Obviously God did wonders for her beliefs.) She only put my sister and I in Catholic school because she did not want us to be bussed to a sixth grade center with all those "black kids". Her words, not mine.

We wore the cute little plaid skirts, white button up shirts and knee socks. School sucked. My mother was a stripper at the time and would show up at school, dressed in hot shorts, tits hanging out and plastered on make-up, to publicly scream at me for stealing change for milk. This did not go over well with my wealthy, stuck-up classmates or the nuns. The nuns were frightened of her, which stroked my mother's ego. The teachers felt sorry for me. The students harassed the shit out of me.

Sonya was my one friend. She was also an outcast, because she was a very tall, black girl in an all white Catholic school. Nobody harassed her because she was black and huge. I on the other hand became the daily entertainment for bullies and the girls with nothing better to do. Two girls in particular made my life a living hell. They were well aware that I would not fight back because the last thing I wanted was my mother showing up at school. The teachers and nuns knew exactly what was going on, but they were also terrified of my mother making a scene. Which happened to be one of her favorite things to do.

Free dress day was the worst. My mother would not allow me to choose my own clothes. I felt that she did everything in her power to embarrass me and make sure that I did not ever out shine her. I will never forget the day she purchased the following clothing for me. She was positively glowing and I am fairly certain she was proud of the fact that she was going to sufficiently humiliate me at school. I had green, red, brown and blue polyester pants. I also had matching business shirts with those silky type bow ties to go with the matching pants. The clothes were horrible enough. The brown, leather shoes with tassels pretty much put me over the edge. No, my sister was not forced to dress this way. If my mother could afford Catholic school then it is a pretty safe assumption that decent, in style clothing could have been purchased. I would wear the shoes to school and then change into my tennis shoes after I was dropped off. It was too late though. The kids had already seen the tasseled shoes and my life was over.

I spent three years in that school and it took three years for me to finally stand up to one of my attackers. I didn't actually make the conscious choice to do this. One of my attackers was being especially verbally brutal one day. Threatening to "kick my ass", which never made any sense to me. Fighting accomplishes nothing, or at least I thought it didn't. The entire class was in front of the teacher's lounge and my harassers were in my face, ready to fight. I kept resisting because I was terrified of getting expelled. I know the teachers heard. The students were screaming, "fight, fight, fight!!!"

Before I knew it, my friend Sonya, pushed me into one of the girls and the girl started swinging at me. Instinct and anger took over. The last thing I was going to do was get my ass kicked in front of everyone. I started shoving her, pulling hair and bitch slapping back. Somewhere along the line I remember getting punched in the face. I then recall blindly punching her back. I felt an impact, but wasn't sure exactly what I hit. I do not recall how the fight ended, but I am fairly certain the teachers were watching from the teachers lounge and cheering me on. No one got into trouble and we all went back to class.

I was beyond cardiac arrest when my mother picked me up. I thought that she would know immediately that I had gotten into a fight and that would mean that she would inflict my second beating when I got home. If she did know, she never said a word.

I went to school the next day only to find out that the "impact" that I felt when I blindly punched her, happened to hit her eye. It was a very brilliant shade of purple and blue. I was never harassed again after that and my self-esteem went through the roof. I never became arrogant. But it was obvious that I was not going to be messed with again.

Thank you Sonya. Wherever you are.

Readers Respond

08.01.02

Hello K,
I found your site by accident looking for knee socks for tall girls. I'll
just say...I forgot about the socks. I started another email earlier but
had to save it. I started babbling. I do that alot.
Your "Catholic School" page had me laughing and tearing up. It just
brought back so many memories. Your introduction almost sounded like my
life. Yeah...be very very afraid! lol I never laughed so hard. I just
finished the Abortion Activists page and I want to snatch your page off
this puter' and smash it in their faces. (calm down Jackie!!) I've said
and thought some of the very things you wrote about.
Anyway....I gotta go feed my animals (kids). :-) Wanna hurry up and get
back here. I have a lot to read tonight thanks to you!
Jackie