Harassment

I grew up gay in the 1950s and 1960s in working-class, urban America. I learned about harassment very early on. I learned to recognize the assessing eye of a bully right off. Once, amazingly only once, I was attacked by a hooting gang of schoolmates on my way home from elementary school. It was a test of my own propensity for violence by a smaller classmate whose family life was far more dysfunctional than mine. I refused to fight and returned home with torn clothes and assorted bruises. My mother, infuriated by the torn clothes, called the tormentor's mother and threatened to punch her out if it happened again, as I recall.  

 

Fifteen years later I cared for my tormentor's mother in a locked psychiatric unit. I learned the depth of depravity of his childhood from her history of being battered and raped by her alcoholic husband. Somehow that successful therapeutic relationship with my tormentor's mother healed more than one wound which I still carried from childhood. She and I developed an enduring respect and affection.

 

Somehow I turned that early incident of being bullied into a personal strategy to avoid violence for the most part. In an all-male high school, dominated by outwardly homophobic Jesuits, I did not encounter any bullying. I established myself as a peer tutor in Math and Science with certain large members of the varsity football team. I extended my umbrella of protection by these stalwart icons of brutish masculinity to several of my more fey classmates, who were my close friends.

 

One of my early intimate relationships was tarnished with an invitation to violent arguing by my partner of the time. He came from a home where he has been abused by a violent father. Despite his tantrums, I refused to engage in the madness of it all. His dish-throwing and rage attacks horrified me. After a neighbor called the police during one of his rages, I packed and left him the rent-control apartment I had striven for years to obtain. I have never regretted that choice.

 

Lately I have been harassed by frequent heavy-breather phone calls from someone in Concord, Massachusetts, an affluent community. I could speculate this petty nuisance was inspired by something I have written here. The cause is irrelevant when dealing with a deranged mind which turns to antisocial behavior to vent anger or disapproval. My attitude is simple: Deal with the behavior.

 

I called the number back. I was greeted with a generic message by an answering device. I politely said, "You have been calling me. You have my number. If you wish to discuss something, simply leave a message or speak with me when I answer." This resulted in more frequent hang-up calls throughout the day and evening. I have subsequently dealt with it technologically with my phone provider. I will most likely call the Concord police to make them aware of the behavior of this person in their community. After all, monitoring a community for aggressive antisocial behavior is what I consider a useful function of local police.

 

I have been rather fortunate as a truthful public writer of my own thoughts and feelings. There have been the occasional aggressive responses to my written ideas in the 15 years I have been publishing on the Web. This phone thing, if related to my writing, would be a first. If it is related to my writing, my speculation would lean toward a guess that it may be related to my thoughts about the recent Marathon Bombing and police response. I also think it may just be the random actions of a sociopath.

 

Learning to deal with aggression without internalizing it is very difficult stuff. Even after a lifetime of practice, I must meditate on it and come to an internal peace with my lack of control over other people and circumstance. I must confront my own anger, my own defensiveness, my own sense of self-worth. I then must use my skeptical and inquisitive mind to reach an nonviolent and practical solution. This is all part of what I consider humanist practice.