Bushwhacked (uncensored)

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It was September 1982, and I'd just made the jump from Amistoy Elementary to Perry Junior High, a 7th through 9th grade public school in Gardena, California. It was an uneasy first day for me. I was actually entering uncharted territory. You see, by 6th grade, I'd mastered what it meant to be cool in elementary school, without even trying. I'm not going to try to be humble here.

I had that rare combination of athleticism, solid grades, and the boyish good looks that exists only for a few fleeting years, just before the body goes through an awful metamorphosis. In other words, I was not one of those clumsy, zit-faced, mustache-growing 6th graders who'd prematurely started puberty. I'm sure you remember those guys, the ones that entered that awkward boys-to-men stage far too early. They had that pre-teen mongoloid look. They were fugly.

That was not me. By the close of elementary school, I was reaping the benefits of having avoided that unlucky fate. To add to, my cool factor was that I was able to pull off being a class clown and still get good grades. I also had the reputation of being a good fighter, but without yet ever being in one. I secured that status by beating Robert, a 6th grader, in an arm wrestling match when I was just in 5th grade.

I could still hear the sound of the back of his hand hitting the bench. Robert was one of the toughest kids on campus. I entered legendary status.

So all of that's to say that in elementary school, I had it all. I was well-rounded and popular. But little did I know that what made kids cool and uncool on the elementary school playground shifted dramatically in the junior high gym.

I really didn't know what to expect on my first day of elementary school. But within just a few minutes on campus, I knew I was in trouble. The first hint was the gangs. You could immediately feel their presence when entering the school grounds. If you're not familiar with the area, our part of Gardena was a bit rough.

The city sat on the border of what was thought to be one of the most dangerous hoods in America, South Central. You know the place, made famous by the gangster rap group N.W.A. My family didn't actually live in Gardena. Our home was one city over in an all-black neighborhood of Carson. But because my mom worked in Gardena and their schools had a bit more diversity than the ones near our house, my mom decided to cheat.

She used our Gardena babysitter's address so we could attend the schools near her work. The Gardena of the 1970s and 80s was definitely going through some changes. It was an area that must have been identified as uniquely poor because in my youngest years I could remember the local park used to give out free lunches to the neighborhood kids in the summer. Gardena had an even mix of low-income Hispanics, blacks, and whites. But it also had a heavy Asian population.

By the time I was entering junior high in 1982, the city was descending into a dark place. The Crips and the Blood gangs were growing in every nook and cranny of Los Angeles. But Gardena was run by G-13, or Gardena 13.. The 13 standing for the 13th letter in the alphabet, M, which in turn stood for marijuana. G-13 was and is a cholo gang with direct ties to the Mexican Mafia, and Perry Junior High seemed to be their recruiting ground.

But it wasn't just the gangs that were intimidating. at my junior high. The sheer size of the school was daunting enough. Perry had the feel of a large indoor high school, and that's because 30 years earlier, Perry was actually a 7th through 12th grade institution. The campus was so large that it had a bridge that crossed a street so kids could reach the upper campus classrooms and horticulture field, where small farming classes were taught, one of the school's few saving graces.

And the fences surrounding the school seemed at least two stories tall. They looked more designed to keep people in than out. So going from a small elementary school to the large Perry campus was jarring, to say the least. But perhaps what was most unsettling about Perry was its structure. Since the 1970s, America has largely been moving away from 7th through 9th grade junior high schools and shifting towards 6th through 8th grade middle schools, and for good reason, if you ask me.

Over that extra 9th grade year, kids change dramatically. Some go from boys to young men, and their voices aren't the only thing that drops.

So, walking on campus with a mass of kids who look like grown men was a bit of a culture shock. There was one glaring difference between those kids and me, and that difference was puberty.

On that first day of junior high, I walked on campus, and one of the first things I noticed was that the school had armed police officers. Everyone called them NARCs. Why in the hell are there cops on campus with guns? I thought.

My first class was something called Homeroom, a new concept for me, and we were given, you know, our locker number and combination, the home teacher told us some of the campus rules and where the nurse's office was, things like that.

When the bell rang, we were thrust into the abyss to begin our day. Walking to class, I noticed that this was not a place for the weak-minded. Near the cafeteria, there was an older girl thrashing a new kid in a yo mama battle.

Later in the day, we had an orientation in a small theater-like room with 8th graders and 9th graders. I sat near some friends I knew from Amistoy, and for a brief moment, it felt like elementary school all over again. But that didn't last long.

We watched a video about where the name of our school came from.

That's when someone tapped my shoulder. Yo, you in G-13?. a rough-looking 9th grade cholo asked.

Uh, no? I timidly responded. Then why you throwing up the G-Humps? he shot back. I guess.

while fooling around with my friends, I unknowingly made a sign that looked like the G-13's gang symbol. You best watch yourself, Humps, he warned me. My friends acted like they didn't know me. Years of accumulating my cool kid status were wiped away. in an instant.

I was starting from scratch, and it wasn't going so well. Eventually, physical education rolled along and class met on the blacktop. Unlike schools today, gender still existed, and the classes were split up accordingly. The boys had one instructor, the girls had another. Our PE teacher, who we'd call Coach, was a strict disciplinarian with an obvious military background.

We thought he was old as dirt, but he was probably only in his late 30s. Coach walked us through the field and told us we'd be learning a little bit about everything, from gymnastics to calisthenics exercises, and we'd also be broken up into teams from time to time. After our tour, he walked us into the locker room and issued everyone a gym locker. By next class, you need to have an official Perry gym outfit, Coach barked. It's a royal blue and white reversible shirt and blue shorts.

We were dressing in the colors of our school mascot, the Huskies. He told us we could buy it at a local department store on Gardena Boulevard, which was just walking distance from school. He finished with, Don't show up tomorrow without your PE uniform on. I'd never worn a PE uniform before. At Amistoy Elementary, we just played sockball or tetherball or basketball during recess, and then marched right back into class, all sweaty, hands caked with black asphalt from the playground.

But at Perry, things were going to be different.

When school ended, I high-tailed it down to Gardena Boulevard, bought the official Perry gym outfit with the money my mom gave me, and then headed back to school to wait for her to pick me up when she got off work. I went to bed that night happy. I made it through my first day, but I had no idea what was coming.

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period arrived, I went to the gym locker room, jammed my backpack into my locker, put on my new P.

E. uniform, then headed out to the blacktop. Coach lined us up military style, two arm lengths away from one another, so we'd have room to exercise.

We started off with jumping jacks, then push-ups, then sit-ups, your typical calisthenics workout. Then he lined us up on the track to check our speed in the 50-yard dash. I did well.

Coach yelled out so everyone could hear. It looked like my cool factor was about to make a comeback. Maybe this junior high thing wasn't going to be so bad after all. By the end of class, we were worn out. Sweaty and hands and face smudged with blacktop dirt, just like in the sixth grade.

The bell rang and we had about 15 minutes to prepare for our next class, which seemed like a long time to me. But I was about to learn why.

Coach marched us in a single-file line into the locker room, and that's when he dropped the bomb. Showers are mandatory, man. Every single one of you must strip down and shower up after each class.

How could this be legal? How could this man demand that we, minors, strip down naked and shower? I'm not in prison. Or am I? And that's when everything made sense.

The armed cops on campus, the ridiculously tall fences, the gangs, and now forced showers? It was finally kicking in. I was in a kid's Alcatraz. I glanced down the locker room aisle at my classmates and saw some with the same look of despair that I felt on my face. And there seemed to be a common thread to those of us that looked panicked.

As I slowly began undressing like a captured hostage. in disbelief, I quickly surveyed my row and noticed that some of my fellow inmates were already fully in the midst of puberty. I was not. Not even close. I looked down at my bushwhacker, and there was no bush.

I realized I was one of the many inhabiting my row that were, well, let's call us the hairless cats. Making it infinitely worse was that a small but substantial contingent had what looked like full-grown afros where the sun didn't shine. Now, you have to understand, we were in Gardena, in an area that had a large amount of low-income families, along with the absent parents that often accompanied that condition. As a result, many of the students were either forced to grow up fast or flunked a few grades. So some of the 7th grade students were hardened older kids that were much farther along in puberty.

When I was finally fully undressed, forced to strip down to my birthday suit and free willy, I began the long naked march to the shower, where a line was quickly forming to enter. I'll never forget the scene. Many of us baldies were standing in line with both of our hands, cupping our frank and beans, making every attempt to hide our boyhood. Some even got creative, using baseball jockey cups to conceal their privates. If you don't know what those are, they're the things that protect the family jewels from being hit by an errant hardball to the crotch during a baseball game.

Those kids were the smart ones who'd likely been tipped off by an older brother. The rest of us were completely unprepared. As I stood there, shivering, humiliated, naked and hairless, I couldn't help but notice that there was a small faction of students that were having a completely different experience. The kids that had, in the sixth grade, prematurely entered what was then the uncool, awkward stage of puberty, the weird-looking, hair-growing-everywhere mongoloids, were now standing tall, smiles on their faces, with both hands on their hips, fully displaying their manhood. I couldn't believe what was happening.

I was no longer one of the cool guys. I was now the dork with the bald chimichanga. Even the thinly-haired chia pet kids were in a higher pecking order. The whole social pyramid of boyhood was now flipped upside down, and I was at the bottom.

As we stood there waiting in line, trying not to touch one another, with our feet in a grotesque, soapy stew of shower waste, the bushy bros began asserting their newly-found dominance by making fun of the hairless masses.

What's up, Kojak? one said while pointing at the lower half of the guy next to me. For us late bloomers, there was simply no comeback. We were defenseless fish in a barrel, and the bushy bros knew it. They had what was as close to unbridled power as you can get for a seventh grader, because they now knew our secret, at a school, busting at the seams with girls.

Like Thanos, with one snap of their fingers, they could expose us to Perry's entire population of chicks. Nothing could have prepared me for this moment. I had no older brother that gave me a clue to my puberty progress, or lack thereof. My dad, who attended the school, gave me no warning that I'd have to hose myself down in front of nearly fully-developed young men. I stood there in disbelief of the situation, for what could have only been about five minutes, but it felt like hours.

When my turn came, I quickly rinsed off so I could get the hell out of there, and as I exited the shower, Coach's assistant was now seated behind a cage. He grabbed a towel from the stack behind him and handed it to me through a small opening in the cage. When I took it, the first thing I noticed was that this was no ordinary towel. It wasn't even cloth. It was made of a thick, absorbent substance that I'd never seen before.

It seemed to be fabricated from something that wasn't quite cloth but wasn't quite paper either. At this point, I quickly realized something. This weird towel thing was my ticket to leaving the locker room. If I lost it, I'd have to strip naked again, get back in line, face being ridiculed again, rinse off again, then get another towel. when I was done.

So, suffice to say, when you got this towel from the cage attendant, you guarded it with your life. It wasn't quite long enough to wrap and tuck around your waist like a regular towel, so most of us baldies used it to block our Peter. as we walked back to our gym lockers. I sat on the bench in front of my locker and slowly came out of the haze of the past few minutes, just long enough to get dressed. As I walked out of that locker room, shell-shocked, I handed a different attendant my used towel and high-tailed it to my last class.

The only thing that was on my mind was to avoid any and all of the bushy bros that could now easily embarrass me in public. But en route to my next class, news seemed to be spreading fast about the showering. As I passed by the cafeteria, one of my pre-puberty comrades was being destroyed in a Yo Mama circle, and it was obvious that the word was getting around. Yo mama's, so ugly, she scared the hair off your nuts.

The dorks were now the cool kids. The cool kids were now the dorks. I lowered my head and ran to my next class. As I sat at my desk, I didn't hear a word the teachers said. All I could think about was what I'd just experienced.

The showering trauma was now embedded deep into my psyche, never to be erased.

The final school bell startled me awake. Still worried someone from the shower would publicly humiliate me, I ran with my head low to the spot right outside the school where mom was supposed to pick me up. I had about a half an hour to kill before she got off work. So, I began plotting. There was no way I was going to go through that horrific showering nightmare again.

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There was no way in hell. I was going to go through that, stripping down naked and taking a shower again. That's when it hit me. I remembered a key part of the whole ordeal. And it was at that moment that I knew I had no other choice.

I was going to be committing a heist, no matter what the cost. I initially ran through a few options of how I could avoid the humiliation. I could fake an illness in the morning, but that would only put off my embarrassment for one day. I could steal a towel from someone else, but that too would only buy me 24 hours. I'd be back to thieving again the next day.

Somehow, someway, I had to get my hands on a bunch of those imitation towel things. But they were some weird mass-produced industrial product, probably only sold in bulk to public schools and prisons. You have to remember, this was in 1982, before there was an internet, so a 12-year-old finding a gym towel supplier was never going to happen.

That's when I remembered something. The caged attendant who handed me the towels pulled them from a stack behind him. A stack! If I could get my hands on that pile, I could steal enough to get me through a couple of weeks, maybe even a month. Eureka!

I was on to something. But it would all come down to the execution. Now, I must pause here for a second and admit that I didn't have a really good track record for theft. Every time I tried to pull off a heist in my short 12 years of existence, something always went catastrophically wrong.

I could remember the first time I ever dabbled in theft. I must have been about four-ish. at the time. I was at my nana's house one day, and I noticed in the family room there was a five-gallon Sparklets bottle filled about halfway up with money. Coins, to be exact.

Quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. At the time, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. I wasn't entirely sure what money even was, or how it worked. But I knew it was good to have. So I tipped over the Sparklets bottle and snatched up a handful of coins.

I directed my baby sister to do the same. We filled our pockets until not one more coin could fit. But we didn't exactly think it through. You see, I was still young enough that my nana had to dress me. All I remember is when she went to change my pants,

an endless stream of coins fell out of my pocket. Pennies, nickels, dimes, and, like three quarters. I was caught red-handed. Not only was I too dumb to stash my loot in a better place, I was oblivious to the fact that it would have been far more lucrative to focus on the quarters. I was a crappy thief.

When I was caught, I knew I was in trouble. But I don't remember the punishment. I can just recall my nana's reaction. She initially began laughing, but quickly caught herself and smoothly transitioned to a disappointed look. I learned that day what I'd done was stealing, and to never steal from family.

But I apparently hadn't learned the principle that all stealing was bad. That would come a few months later.

It was the early evening, and my mom took my sister and I to the local grocery store, Alpha Beta.

Mom loaded up the cart, then jumped in line to pay. As we were waiting, my sister and I noticed a bag of caramel cubes was open near the magazine rack. No doubt the remains of another miniature thief. We looked at the bag, caught each other's eyes, then slowly glanced back at mom. She was busy loading the conveyor belt.

The coast was clear. So my sister and I grabbed a few pieces of caramel squares and put them in our pockets. Mom didn't see. We'd gotten away with it. But again, we didn't plan it out.

well. As mom small-talked with the cashier, I must have gotten antsy, because I had a mouthful of my favorite candy and was carelessly chewing away. My sister followed my lead. Well, as mom reached for her purse in the cart, she took one look at my sister and quickly deduced she'd just committed a crime. And now she was trying to swallow the evidence.

What's that you're chewing on? She asked. Caramel. My sister answered, with a full mouth. I quickly swallowed mine, but I guess the line of caramel slobber dribbling down my face gave me away.

She raided my pockets and found the goods. That's when she looked over at the cashier and calmly asked to speak to the manager. I knew at that moment we were in deep shit.

When the manager walked up, my mom pulled him to the side and whispered something in his ear. The next thing I knew, the 50-something-year-old man pulled my sister and I to the side, bent down on one knee, and asked me a question I'll never forget. Do you guys want to go to jail?

Wait, huh? I thought, still chewing. Can't believe it! My mom ratted me out! No?

I responded, fighting back the tears, with the delicious taste of caramel still swishing through my mouth. The store manager proceeded to tell my sister and I that he could call the cops immediately, have us handcuffed, and hauled off to prison for who knows how long. That was the moment my five-year-old ass was scared straight. Getting a few squares of caramel wasn't worth being thrown in the slammer, so I never thought of taking something that wasn't mine again. That is, until that September afternoon at Perry Junior High.

I had an abysmal 0-2 record in previous heists, but I didn't care what the consequences were this time. I was not going to expose my hairless Peter to ridicule ever again. This time, I had to meticulously devise how I was going to get my hands on that stack of imitation towels behind the cage. If I could grab at least 20 of those golden tickets, I'd avoid mandatory showers for at least a month. And who knows, in that amount of time, I could sprout a few hairs.

If not, I'd have to recommit the crime. As I sat at school waiting for Mom to pick me up, the plan was coming together. I'd have to break into the cage where the stock of towels were stored and grab as many as I could, without making it look like some were missing. I could then store them in my gym locker and pull out one after each P.E. class to avoid the shower.

But how would I break into the cage? I didn't know the lay of the land well enough yet. So I thought of something simple. I'd fake an injury a good 15 minutes before the shower bell rang. The coach and the locker room attendants would all still be on the field, so I'd probably have the locker room pretty much all to myself.

If I couldn't get to the stack of towels in the cage, I'd find a used one somewhere, anywhere, and live to steal another day. Mom eventually picked me up. We went home. I did my homework. We had dinner.

Then I went to bed and laid there, thinking the whole thing through. This time, Patrick, you're not going to get caught. I thought, what am I missing? I've got to be missing something. That's when I realized I couldn't just pull a towel out every day.

I'd need to play the part a bit more. My hair would have to be wet. when I handed the attendant the towel. The hair on top of my head, of course, because that's the only place I had it. With my hair wet, I wouldn't set off any red flags.

Of course he showered, his hair is wet, the attendant would think. What else am I missing? I couldn't think of anything. I went to bed that night thinking I'd devised the perfect crime.

So the next day, P.

E. arrived and I nervously, but eagerly, headed to the locker room early, hoping to get a lay of the land before faking my injury. And it was time well spent. The cage that housed the towels was really just a small enclosure, where the bottom half was a solid counter, and the top half was made of a thick fence material, making it look like a cage. The attendant handed us the towel through a door in the fence, that could be swung open and locked shut.

When I checked it from a distance, I noticed that the door was slightly ajar. That's when I got an idea. I ripped a piece of lined paper out of my three-ring binder, snuck over there and stealthily jammed as much paper as possible into the place with the door locked. That way, if someone nonchalantly closed the cage while we were out in P.E., it wouldn't lock. Everything was falling into place.

Now all I had to do was fake an injury while the coach and his assistants were out in the field, get sent to the locker, reach into the cage, grab some towels, not too many, then store them in my gym locker. As I got dressed for P.E., I kept running through everything in my head, trying to think if I'd missed anything. Nope, nothing. This plan is airtight.

That day we started with calisthenics again. Damn. How can I fake an injury doing jumping Jackson sit-ups? My plan was already falling apart. But then, about 15 minutes in, coach made an announcement.

Yes. Tumbles are those gymnastic moves that you jump forward as if you're flying like Superman, and right before you hit the ground, you tuck your head and arms and roll onto your back and pop right up onto your feet. It was perfect. If I got hurt doing that, it would look believable. There was no time to waste.

We were now already 20 minutes into class, so when it was my turn to tumble, I went for it.

I grabbed my shoulder, wincing in pain. Coach came over and asked what was wrong.

I hit my shoulder. when I hit the ground. He glanced me over and looked concerned. It was working. That's when he said,

Oh, no. That wasn't part of the plan. I had to think fast on my feet. I kept holding the bottom of my elbow to keep the ruse going.

He cut me off.

I mean, I'll be fine with a little rest. Maybe I should just call it a day, coach. He wasn't having it. Well, you're either going to the nurse, or you're getting back in line. You pick.

I had no other choice. I had to choose the nurse. But I was running out of time. There was only like 20 minutes left in class. There was no way I could go to the nurse's office, get myself checked out, then get back to the locker room to steal the towels before our class let in.

I had to improvise. As I began walking toward the nurse's office, coach yelled out,

There was no one in sight. So I ran over to the cage, and there they were, a stack of towels on the back shelf, and the door was still open. Here was my chance. I leaned over the counter to try to grab them, but couldn't reach. The shelf was too far.

So I hopped over the counter and grabbed about a three-inch stack. But just when I started to climb back over, I heard some voices. Hey, Carl, you think I give one rat's ass what these kids think of me? So I quickly ducked behind the counter.

It sounded like adults. Oh man, how am I going to get out of this? From what they were talking about, it sounded like it was janitors. And each year, these kids get more and more arrogant. Oh, bullshit, man.

Come on, Vern. Kids haven't changed. You have. They kept talking and talking and talking and wouldn't leave. Still ducking behind the counter, I looked over at the clock on the back wall of the cage.

The shower bell was going to ring in about five minutes. Oh, I'm busted. I knew I shouldn't have tried this. What were you thinking, Patrick? The two kept talking and talking until I could hear their voices slowly starting to drift away.

And then, silence. They'd left.

I only had about three minutes before the shower bell rang, so I jumped back over the counter with the towels, ran to my locker, quickly entered the combination, shoved those golden tickets behind my gym bag, and started changing my clothes. When I looked down the aisle and saw one of my hairless classmates sitting there, looking at me. Did he just get there? Did he see the towels? I didn't have time to worry about it.

now. I had to get out of there before Coach showed up. I was supposed to be at the nurse's office. I quickly changed, and right when I started putting my shoes on, the shower bell rang.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I tied my shoes into a quick mess of a knot and did my best version of a speed walk to get the hell out of there. And just when I created some distance between me and the locker room exit, I heard Coach yell out, Hey, Coachie, that was fast. What'd the nurse say? He thinks I went already.

Uh, Coach, she said I probably pulled something. Nothing broken.

Someone needed a large bandage for a scraped elbow. Another kid felt sick. After about 15 minutes, my turn came, and I told the nurse I'd hurt myself, tumbling in P.E. She gently poked and prodded at my shoulder, and quickly surmised that nothing was broken. You probably just tweaked it, she said.

Nothing to worry about. As I began walking out, I realized I hadn't gotten the note. Uh, ma'am, can I get a note to give to my coach? Sure, honey. She grabbed a piece of paper from her coat and scribbled for a second, then handed it to me.

That's when I realized I was screwed. She wrote the time, 2.15 p.m.

That was 20 minutes after P.

E. was over, but I saw Coach near the locker room before class ended. What was I going to do now? I went to my last class and tried to focus, but again, P.E. had me preoccupied.

It took me until late that night to figure out what to do. I went to gym class the next day and handed Coach the note. Uh, what happened to this? I smudged the time with water. It must have gotten wet in my locker, Coach, you know, from the shower water.

He looked at the note, then looked at me again. He was quiet for a second. A long second. Then said,

For the next few days, I went shower-free. When everyone was shivering naked in line, I slipped into the bathroom, washed my hands and face, and dipped my head in the sink to make it look like I'd washed it. Then I'd slip back to my locker, and, while everyone in my aisle was in the shower, I'd change quickly, grab a towel from behind my gym bag, dried my hair with it to make it look wet, and then left, handing that golden ticket to the locker room attendant. on the way out. I was set.

I could do this for another four or five weeks. That's how many towels I grabbed. It was the perfect crime. But about a week after the heist, while in the bathroom faking a shower, I noticed that the guy who saw me in the locker room on the day of my burglary was doing the same thing. I was, washing his hands and face, and sprinkling water in his hair.

He looked over at me and winked. Over the next few days, someone else joined us in the bathroom. The following day, a different kid took up another sink. Before I knew it, every sink was being used by a classmate faking a shower. And we all had something in common.

None of us had entered puberty. The Baldies had caught on to my scam. About a week later, our gym lockers were raided by the Narcs. The Fuzzless were busted by the Fuzz.

Which leads us back to the question, were yesterday's public schools any better than today's?

Well, it depends on how you look at it. But my take is, they might have been worse. My 1980s public junior high gave me no option but to turn to crime. However, I missed a detail in my scheme. Once news spread that I was successfully avoiding the showers, the Baldie crew slowly caught on and followed my lead, just like my sister did with the Carmels.

Towels were disappearing from the cage at a rate that far exceeded the number of gym students. It was only a matter of time before the attendant did the math. Everyone who was caught with towels in the raid had to run extra laps around the field for a week. I was right back to getting in line and facing the insults. A few years later, I too would become a bushy bro.

But as fate would have it, by my early 20s I started losing what I had on top of my head. My hair, or lack thereof, was always keeping me humble.

So, unless today's gym teachers are forcing students to take showers, I think yesterday's public schools are just as bad as today's. Transgender students in the five high schools.

Thanks for listening.

That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot. com. slash goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did.

once they solve a few problems. I'm talking to people trying to figure out how to do things that no one on the planet knows how to do, from creating a drone delivery business to building a car that can truly drive itself. Listen to What's Your Problem on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.