Spaz Attack! Part 2 : A New Spaz Rising

I am a spaz magnet.

That was the main idea conveyed in part one of this two part series.

I have spent my whole life surrounded by the strange, the excitable, and challenged. They are drawn to me, and I am nice to them. I have previously detailed my acceptance of my magnetism and even though it was somewhat traumatic to be so spaz friendly as a child, I have come to except my lot in life.

I thought that things would continue on for me in this way, but the story I am about to tell shook my perception of myself, and almost turned my spaz tolerant world upside-down.

I have two little boys, the oldest of which started Kindergarten this fall. He is a bit of a spaz himself. He will yell at you if you are more than five feet away (to make sure you can hear him), has a bit of a booger eating problem, and will do absolutely anything to get his hands on some sugar. He can be very emotional and tends to over-react to small problems. I can chalk most of that up to being a small child, and I'm hoping he outgrows any issues he has that could label him as a spaz in the future. Although he does have some spazzy leanings, his spaz related issues are not the main focus of this tale.

Shortly after he started to attend school, I noticed another little boy (it was hard not to) milling around on the school grounds. Now, I don't think it's cool for a grown man to call a helpless child names, but if you'll indulge me for just a moment:

Super-Spazzy, McSpaz, Spazzeroony, Spazzer, Spazzmeister, Spazbot, Spazzapallooza, Spaz Master, Spazzilla.

Whew... Nice to get that off of my chest. Since I do not wish to continue referring to this 9-year-old as a spaz, and I probably shouldn't use his real name (which is unfortunate because it fits him sooooooo well), I will need to make up a new name by which to call him for the purposes of this story.

Let's see... I've got it! "Zaps", we will call him Zaps.

I became aware of little Zaps on the second day of school. It is usually my duty to pick up my Kindergartner, and since we live very close, I usually walk, pushing my little one in the stroller. Zaps lives one culdesac over from us along the same, main neighborhood street, so we immediately noticed him walking home in the same direction we were but, more importantly, he noticed us.

Zaps is in the third grade, but seems a bit bigger and older than his third grade counterparts. He has a very thick speech impediment in which he replaces "R"s with "W"s. He appears to like wearing his pants as far off his feet as humanly possible, revealing a pair of Chuck Taylor All Stars with an "R" and an "L" written in Sharpie on their respective white toes. I have never seen him standing still, and he apparently likes the taste of shirt sleeves. Over the next few weeks, I observed that he rarely converses with children his own age, preferring to trap and talk to younger children. Besides his own classmates and students who are older than he, it seems that any teacher or school administrator he attempts to speak to also tends to give him the cold shoulder. It only made sense that he would be attracted to me, and I was not surprised when he started to try and either catch up, or wait for us on the walk home. I actually do feel quite sorry for Zaps, as I can only deduce from his constant talking, that there is a high probability no one is listening when he gets home. I can't imagine how hard things must be for a child like that.

Many times I would simply try to avoid Zaps by spending some extra time in front of the school, talking about the day with my son, or we would take a detour through a local park away from Zaps' approved walking route. For the most part, though, we simply dealt with the minor annoyance of Zaps for the first month or two of school; letting him blah, blah, blah about his teachers, kids he knows, and other things that do not concern us. A few times he got in the path of the stroller and slowed down, or he would walk backwards about 10 feet in front of us, staring; both of which I found a bit too dangerous and creepy to tolerate. Small problems, though, that were easily solved by a quick and polite request for him to stop. I did become a bit concerned when I started seeing him display more bully-like behavior from time to time. The frustration and hyperactivity seemed to get the best of him on occasion, as he would step on someones feet, jump in front of someone and block their path, or pull on a coat or back pack. It wouldn't have vexed me much if he was doing this to children his own size, but again, he seemed to be focusing mainly on ones much younger than himself. As always, though, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, simply because I am so used to similar people being around me. Unfortunately, the benefit I afforded him would soon be called into question.

One day, I was sitting outside of the school with my youngest, waiting for the oldest to be released for the day. My one-year-old was throwing a fit about a juice box or something so I wasn't paying attention when the bell rang and students began to stream out the door. I got the juice box debacle solved and looked up to see if the five-year-old had been liberated yet. What I saw was not just disturbing, but brought on a stream of emotion that I had not felt for 20 years.

There was my boy, trapped by Zaps who was doing the "I step the way you do so you can't get around me dance" in front of him. I saw the little, twisted, helpless look on my son's face. I knew that look. I knew exactly what he was feeling, and it all suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks... all along... it wasn't me who Zaps was attracted to... it was the boy. I could feel my ears getting red, my pulse in my temples... I was becoming enraged.

Now, Zaps is still a little boy, and like I said, I felt sorry for his situation and condition, but I can go from "overly nice guy" to "raging jerk" in the blink of an eye when it comes to someone messing with my kids. My son eventually faked left and slipped around him to the right. He hurried over to me with a look on his face like "Do something!" I was stumped, stumped by a socially inept third grader. We began the walk home and the conflict within me was too much to bear. Zaps went on with his usual blah, blah, blah, but I could not hear him. I had to bring a stop to this, but every time I would begin to devise a diplomatic solution, it was drowned in the swirling pool of emotion brought on by the empathy I was suddenly feeling for my son. The realization that he may face the same spaz riddled future as I did at that age had completely consumed me. What was I supposed to do? Just be mean to Zaps? It would be the first time ever, I didn't even know how... but I could not stand idly by and let my son befall the same fate as his door-mat father.

Zaps began backwards walking again, blah, blah, blahing, when my son spoke up.

"Daddy, can I..."

"Daddy, Daddy, Dad-dy." chanted Zaps to the tune of "Nanny nanny boo boo".

My son tried again.

"Daddy, um, when we get home..."

"Daddy, Daddy, Dad-dy."

That was it. I was infuriated. I was going to do it. I was going to throw away years of tolerance and let this kid have it. I was going to...

Suddenly a small, but stern voice rose up over Zaps' blah, blah, blah, and my struggling mind.

"Zaps, I'm trying to talk to my dad, so be quiet or go away!"

Everything stopped. My jaw took a bounce off of the sidewalk. It was my boy, my beautiful boy. He stood there, obviously fed up with the situation, and staring defiantly up into Zaps' eyes.

Zaps took a step towards him, bent down, got about a foot from his face, and made some ungodly screeching noise. O.K., now I was going to have to step in, this had gone too far, I...

Just then, my son straightened up his shoulders, got as tall as his little Kindergarten frame would allow, leaned in closer towards his tormentor and said even more sternly than before,

"GO AWAY ZAPS!"

Again silence. Then, to my surprise, Zaps turned and quickly moved away doing a kind of awkward two hops on his left foot and a skip with his right. He was gone! My Kindergartner had done what could not, and could never do. I suddenly realized that he was free of, or at least able to control the magnetic condition inherited from his dad. I looked down at my boy, a tear welling up in my eye.

"Sorry for being mean dad, but he was really bothering me."

"He was bothering me too son, he was bothering me too."

We walked the rest of the way home in silence, hand in hand, and I can not explain the serenity and relief I felt at that moment.

We still see Zaps during our daily walks home from school, but he doesn't stalk us anymore. We cordially say "Hello" as he does his odd little hop-hop-skip thing past us. I hope that Zaps finds a good way to channel his challenges and stays away from the bullying. Of course, if he's got brave little Kindergartners standing up to him already, he's not very good at it anyway.

So my boy seems to be safe from his father's fate as a spaz magnet. Perhaps it skips a generation, or he was simply blessed with just the right amount of his mother's short fuse. Now, I can stick to teaching him how to be nice to everyone instead of mean to a few, as he has already shown me that he should be able to live a happy life with the spazzes, but not for the spazzes.

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