Shit!

I am reposting this one because, well, I don't have much to say today. Also, I am reposting it because I like this post. I will be reposting a lot of stuff because there are many new readers to FTM (now that I am done being anonymous).

Some of the old stuff I like, some stuff I read and think, "Did I write that nonsense?"

The summer between 3rd and 4th grade was not a particularly good time for me. My family, recently broken, moved into the lower level of a very old home, where my mother paid $10 a week rent. Looking back, I don't think I was entirely pleased with the way things happened. I told my mom I liked the place because I had too... I had to be supportive. In reality, however, I thought it was, for lack of a better word, shit.

Today I'm going to reveal a secret that I have never told anyone. For over 20 years I have kept this secret between Mike F., God and me. Of course, Mike tried to tell the secret, but nobody believed him, because he was Mike and I was Matt... He was the 'bad' kid and I was the 'good' kid.

When living in that home something made me want to act out. In hindsight I was probably a pretty bitter child at the time, but I wouldn't have realized such complexities in the moment (I was simple too young).

A friend from school, Mike F., was at my home one summer day, and I remember how that day went all too well. Mike wasn't always the best behaved child in the world, but on this day it would be my influence that would make him cave to peer pressure and do wrong. This was an interesting turn, since I was typically thought of as a shy and nice kid, and one who would never dream of doing anything 'bad.'

"Hey Mike," I said, "Let's go write on that house with these crayons." (Ironic, eh?) I pointed to the house next door: A large white house that seemed like a beautiful mansion compared to where I lived.

"Um, why?" Mike asked.

My response was almost as if to state what I thought obvious, "Because, it will be funny!"

So around to the back yard we went, covered by trees and protected by the fact that all the adults, including my mother, were at work. This was a city block, so the homes were all pretty close together, and I recall having to squeeze between a fence and a garage to make it to the back side of the house on which we intended to act out the crime. The effort was very much deliberate.

I started, scribbling the first thing that came to my mind: SHIT.

I stood back and looked on my graffiti in all of it's splendor. There it was--my first serious crime. Mike wrote next. I think he wrote something like "dam." (He didn't have a fondness for dams or anything, rather, he didn't know how to spell the expletive.) We continued scribbling whatever dirty words our immature minds could muster up, but I think my first scribble said it all: 'shit.' That was kind of my general attitude about the present circumstances. One simple word captured so very much.

I remember later that evening when the adults returned home from work. I remember my thoughts as the homeowner walked around back. I remember this because I was nervously watching through by bedroom window. I can still see the expression on her face--the look of horror as she saw what had happened. Surely she must have wondered what kind of ingrate kids would have done this senseless act.

The sloppy handwriting and low height must have been a dead giveaway, not to mention the near proximity to my own home. Clearly, being new to the criminal world, I hadn't thought this dastardly deed very well through. I had the anger but not the street smarts.

I recall the disturbed homeowner knocking on our own door, getting my mother, and taking her around back to show her the damage. I remember wondering, "How did she know to come here?" Even more vividly, I remember the look of horror on my mother's face, as I continued to watch through the window. I wondered if I would be discovered.

And you might think I would be discovered, given the obvious signs of the crime. Any detective would have been able to point the culprit out in microseconds. But I wasn't discovered. My mother, in perhaps what was not the most sensible reaction, asked me if I knew anything about this writing. She was operating under the assumption that her perfect child would never do such a thing.

I answered in the best way that my 3rd grade criminal mind could. "Yes, mom, I do know about it. Mike F. did it. I saw him. I tried to stop him, but he did it anyway."

I was so easy! Poor Mike F. didn't have much of a reputation to protect his name. My defense was flawless. "They'll blame Mike," I thought to myself, "she thinks he's a bad kid anyway." Not only had I deflected blame, but I had propped myself up as a good kid in the process, attempting to stop Mike from the horrible defiling of a home.

She bought it, hook, line and sinker, and poor Mike F., the 'bad' kid who, on that day, I made even worse, got in big, big trouble. I got off without a trial. I was in the catbird seat, and I used it fully.

You might think I would feel good to have gotten off the hook, but I didn't. No, I felt terrible. I couldn't sleep. In fact, to this day I feel bad about it. I could point to all sorts of things, making excuses and whatnot as to why I did it. My life was bad, I was confused, I was acting out, I was psychologically injured, I was experimenting, I was...

Whatever the excuse may be is of little relevance. The simple fact is that I knew better. I knew the very moment that I scribbled the word 'shit,' that I was moving into pretty bad territory.

I also remember feeling that I had let God down. We didn't go to church at the time, and I really didn't know much about God, but I felt a deep sense that He was watching. And you know what? He must have been. He must have said to me, "Matt, what you did was wrong. I am unhappy with your actions today." He must have said this because I felt so bad. I knew what I did was wrong, but how? I got off free, right? I avoided punishment! My mom never saw!

But God saw. He always sees, doesn't he?

And I wish I could say that this experience impacted me in a way as to make me never do bad again, but it didn't. It was one of many events in life that I reflect on and wonder about. Would I change it if I could? Maybe not. I certainly look on this even sometimes, and it parallels many ethical decisions that I make to this day. No, I'm not writing 'shit' on walls with crayon anymore, but I certainly find myself if situations where I can either pass blame or take blame.

My mom let me go that day, but God taught me a lesson. He didn't need to yell, spank or ground me--he had a more powerful tool to work with: my conscience. It was a faith experience at a time when I didn't even know faith.

And let me add something more about Mike. He wasn't a bad kid, just just wasn't my mom's kid. Mike took a bullet for me, so to speak, because he wanted to help a friend. Mike, the kid who wrote cusswords with my on the siding of somebody's home, taught me a thing or two about taking on a burden that belongs to someone else. I wish I could thank him.