Back to Southbury. I had one other bright spot in my life. I was still a member of the Cub Scout troop that I had belonged to in Oxford. Now, Oxford was only one town away, but emotionally and practically, it was as good as being a light-year off. However, it's closness in proximity allowed my Cub Scout troop,packed with my old friends, to still be within membership distance. When we had "den meetings," I was my old self again. People liked me. I said funny jokes, and kids laughed. One such meeting was planned for a Saturday, and it was to be at my house. A meeting of the two worlds- "Oxford Friends" in "Southbury Turf."

The pack of kids, all dressed in the silly uniforms and kerchiefs, came to my house, and for the first time in a long time, I felt confidence, even in this "strange place." We played all day, and I was the meeting's celebrity, showing all my friends my toys, my secret hiding spots, and having group-fun in the places I would normally be alone in. When they left, they left me with a renewed sense of purpose, and a feeling of hope. Like a proto Stuart Smalley, I made my own personal affirmation of being "good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it if people didn't like me." It was nothing wrong with ME, I thought, it was this stupid TOWN, this stupid SCHOOL, and I was allowing myself to be defeated by it.

No more! I vowed. Was I not "The Little Warrior?" Come that Monday, the kids of Southbury would see a new, and reinvigorated Josh Dobbin, and be forced, by dint of sheer willpower, to accept me. My plan was simple. During the Cub Scout get-together, I had kicked several "homers" in Kickball. What I would do was screw up my courage and fortitude, and stage a triumphant return to the Kickball field in Recess… I'd suffer through being the last picked, but I'd play like a boy possessed. I'd catch pop-ups, I'd steal bases, I'd kick home runs, and I'd win their acceptance, and finally break the evil spell of nastiness that had settled upon me in that cursed town, like a cold gray fog.

Getting on the bus that morning, my leg was shaking with the adrenaline rush of the intense mental planning. I had an odd calm, leading up to recess. It WOULD happen. It must happen. It is only fair that it happen, and the world MUST be fair.

Recess came. My time had come. I swallowed back the fear, and approached the kickball field. As I knew would occur, I was picked last. This was fine, for tomorrow, after the stellar performance I was about to stage, I'd be Captain of the team, and get to do the picking myself.

I eventually ended up on the team helmed by this kid named Kevin Something-or-Other, who was the leader of the classes derision toward me. Even better! With him swayed, I'd have achieved total victory.

Well, Internet Friend, I am here to tell you that despite the sitcom conventions to the contrary, when the heat is on, and in the WKRP world, Les Nessman gets to CATCH that fly ball, the real world is not so poetic or kind. My psyching myself up led to too much mental pressure, and at my "at bat" (which, in kickball, is really at "at foot"), I tensed and choked, and kicked a series of fouls, and an easy pop up that was caught by the opposing pitcher. This was met by the groans and catcalls of my teammates, of course. I was flushed and near tears. But not yet defeated. It was a setback, that was all.

But onto the outfield!! There, I would shine, and recoup my losses. It must be so. I knew something they did not. I was favored of Old Lady Fate. Fate had decreed thatI had been miserable too long. Today was my day. I felt it in my bones. Kevin Something-or-Other assigned me to the far left outfield, where he was sure that I'd do the least damage. I accepted this, knowing that Fate would see me through. We had a pact, she and I. I'd catch a ball, and make a stunning play. The inning dragged on, and I was alone out there with the gypsy moth caterpillars.

Then it happened.

The fickle finger of Fate morphed into a foot, and that foot possessed the foot of a kid on the opposing team, who booted the ball high, high, high up into the air… Toward me. It was an astonishing kick. And as it floated to me, the world slowed down. There was enough time to live an entire day within my head. I saw myself catching it, and then running full speed toward the kid who had tried to steal 2nd base, and unleashing the ball with wicked speed and unerring accuracy, pegging him for the double play. This was it!! I watched the ball come down, and grabbed for it. Everything was riding on this catch. I was going to make it.

It bounced off my chest, and onto the field. I nearly puked from the shock of it; I had screwed it up...I stumbled after it, and, so flummoxed by the miss, and so in a shambles, fell as I tried to scoop it up.I could not find the strength in my legs to get up, it was as if my bones had become limp pasta. I quaked with shame, and disappointment. It was like a movie, all right, but not the "Good Guy makes the Play" scene. It was the "Camera pulls up as the hero looks skyward and screams 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!' "scene.

My plan was turning terrible in every possible direction. I had to fight back the tears of too much hoping, suddenly gone all awry. Crying will only make this worse, I thought, so I can't cry. I was sure this was the lowest point of my very young life.

I was wrong.

Kevin Something-or-Other, the pitcher and captain, cupped his hands over his mouth in a makeshift megaphone, and cried out "You SUCK!!!"

It was the last straw. Like Popeye says, "That's all I can takes, I can'st takes no more." I had hit a cieling of humiliation. And it all suddenly went supernova. All of the pain and anguish of the school year, up to that point, all of the lunchroom time wandering around, looking for a seat, all of the queasy dread of going into class each and every day, all of it… It crystallized into one pure, focused, furious and liberating moment of unbridled anger. My vision was red. Really. I mean, you read about crap like that, but whose vision actually goes red? Bellowing like a war-mad Viking, and turning the heads of nearly the whole recess field, I rushed the pitcher's mound with fury. Like a sword-tortured bull. I was quite literally not in control of my faculties. With the inertia of my ample frame, and sinister intent of my anger, I body checked little Kevin with all my might, and put all my hatred into the hit. It was just like Vader said in the movies, there IS power in the Dark Side. He honestly flew off his feet. My eyes were stinging with tears, and I had focused all of swirling hurricane of emotion onto this boy. He became, in that moment, the single symbol of every bit of my suffering, and as I checked him full in the chest, I hated him.

Then the cloud passed, and I realized what I had done. This was no way to make friends. He was getting up, and the kickball teams suddenly surged forward, and formed the tribal ritual of the "fight circle." I didn't want to fight him! I wanted him to be my friend, and accept me, I wanted all of them to just be my friends, and it had all gone wrong. As he stood up, I shook my head, and said, "No, please, let's stop this."

This was interpreted as me being afraid to fight, and heartend him to swing at me. I was not. I knew what would happen in a fight. And it did.

Kevin rushed me, swinging. He was a spry, athletic kid, but I had fought in tournaments. Lump or no, I still was a practiced and disciplined fighter. compared to your average 3rd grader in any case, and was still flexible and unafraid of exchanging blows. It was, simply put, not fair. I was crying loudly all throughout the conflict, not out of fear, but because my plan had not just crumbled around me, it had exploded. Still, here was a fist coming toward my face, and I had to deal with the here and now.. I blocked it, and threw him to the ground. It was sickeningly easy, as I recall. And I didn't want to do it. I was in some sort of awful mental "zone," I so did not care about fighting, or winning, that I was invincible. The punches seemed slow and easy to intercept. I didn't want to punch him, or hurt him; I only wanted to stop him. I may have even been babbling, "please stop, please stop." It's a bit fuzzy. I know this: He got up, embarrassed at being so handily deflected and countered by chubby bawling kid, and furious, and tried again. I blocked everything he threw; he could not get near me... Then I knocked him down with a straight side kick to the chest. I just wanted it to end. Tears were pouring from my eyes, but I was accomplished enough as a fighter, and trained enough to easily stop his totally unschooled attack. How had everything become so instantly, irrevocably bad, with such good intentions? This could not possibly be more miserable.. Fate had tricked me; I was supposed to emerge victorious, and win the day. How could this be?

Then, Fate stepped in. I had doubted her, but here she was, as I could only have dreamed it...Like from some movie, I see that coming from the swings, running full speed is the speedy little Shelly Curtis…Yep. Concerned look on her face, running full tilt. .

What? She had been watching, and now, was coming! Toward me! For me!

My mind raced, trying to fill in the possibilities. All was NOT lost, it was Fate, and Kevin was getting up again, and swinging, and I blocked him, and swung his arm around his back, and immobilized him, it was a textbook execution, and Shelly Curtis, beautiful, pretty Shelly Curtis was closer, and running toward me, and she had seen it all, and saw what I went through and every fantasy in my head of her secretly loving me was coming true, and she would hold my hand and walk off with me, and wipe my tears away, and tell me that I was so brave that she understood and she ran through the fight circle, just like in a movie, and it was more than I could even hope for, and thank you, Fate, and she yelled "Leave him alone! Leave him alone!" And the world was good and just and fair and I was right to believe in fairy tale endings to stories and she was closer still and...

... she kicked me in the shins as I held Kevin's arm behind his back and said, "Leave him alone, you big FATSO."

"Leave him alone, you FATSO."

It was like a sledgehammer hit me in the gut. No, it was like being eviscerated. No, it was just indescribable, and no matter how many words or images I may attempt to sling at you to capture the feeling, none of them can do justice to just how my world had broken into a million pieces. If the longing that I had built up for acceptance was a sort of pain, then this was a MAC truck of Grade-A agony, all in one quick moment.

I actually gasped for air, and stumbled, as if drunk.I did, indeed, leave him alone. I let go, and he did not continue the fight. Shelly Curtis, pretty Shelly Curtis, was asking him if he was all right, and she was so obviously in third grade girl love with him, and she was holding his hand. My mouth was dry, and my eyes were on fire.No teachers came to break it up either, it was over. The circle dispersed, and I staggered away. Shelly Curtis was standing next top Kevin Whoever-his-Last-Name-Was, and she was yelling at me, calling me a bully, and a fatso.

I was mute with shock. There were no words. I think I might have managed to mumble "But..but.." Not knowing anything else to do, I ran from the kickball field, and stood, silent, by the door to the school. Alone.

The fragile balance that I had worked up, that turned the nightmarish days there vaguely bearable, was rent asunder. I remember clutching my stomach; the out and out hurt of the words had actually caused me to feel like I had been kicked. I waited for the bell to ring, and let me back into the school.

That hurt stayed there for days. I didn't even cry, after that. It was too all-encompassing a despair to even give it tears..My world, little though it may have been, it was the only one I had-- It was all gone. I could no longer even indulge in the silly post-school daydreams of sitting and holding her hand. I had used that mind-play as a balm to ease the ache of being left out.. Now, the thought of summoning up an image of her face, that which I had done on the bus ride home (where no one talked to me) every day, was more painful than anything I could imagine. It was no longer the calm, half smiling face of my imagined girlfriend, but an angry mask, mouth upturned, repeating over and over "Fatso."
.
The next few weeks were an endless gray shuffle that found me nearly numb. I was like a shell-shocked war veteran, who continued to walk, even though his innards had been blown out. Third Grade student and desert-wanderer Josh Dobbin, having come to within inches of his oasis, had found it to be a mirage, and it shimmered out of being, and forever out of reach.

Epilogue:
Things did not go so well for my dad at the farm. The farm owner was a certifiable psychotic with actual paranoid delusions, and my dad ended up quitting, even before the school year was finished. I had started 3rd Grade there, but the last three weeks of school, I left. With news that I was to leave, I gained an odd sort of "popularity." People suddenly wanted to know where I was going, why wouldn't I stay out the remaining few weeks? It was enough of a "mystery" to win me some friends. Or at least, people who wanted me to sit with them at lunch. My dad got a new job, and we returned to a better house, in our old town, and I returned to my friends. Shelly Curtis' soul-shattering word "Fatso" had left me in a funk that saw my appetite diminished and nearly gone, for months. Over the summer vacation, I lost a bunch of that weight, and returned to 4th grade triumphant, among my friends and was the terror of the kickball field. I even had a "girlfriend." Things were good. They got even better. In an ironic turn of events, I went to a private High School, Freshman year, and was in classes with none other than Shelly Curtis. She did not remember me in the slightest. No, I never ended up dating her, or anything. That would be weird, huh? She was very nice, as it turned out.

It all seemed an extended, unreal and unpleasant dream. But it stayed with me, every year of my life. A little drama, small in scope, to be sure. There are kids whose parents beat them. There are kids who go to bed hungry. But pain, I think, is sort of like a gas. It expands to fill whatever container it might be in, so it seems like the most all-encompassing pain there could ever possibly be. That's the heartache of the Fat Kid. To him, it's everything in the world, and nobody could possibly know or imagine it. So do me a favor. When next you pass by a mother and child in a supermarket, or a department store, and the little boy is a chunky, round cheeked kid with oversized pants and a baggy shirt, try to smile at him. Hokey though it may be, try to send him good thoughts. Chances are, he's going into Hell every day, and a big yellow bus brings him there. Don't be overt and pitying, but still, try to be sincere. Smile. Let him know it's for him. The kid, I can tell you from personal experience, lives on those moments, and they sustain him until the next one. Hopefully, he'll grow up and learn the lessons that the exclusion of being a fat kid can bring- he may even grow more noble for the experience. But for now, just smile at the kid, won't you? He needs it.