anonymity

I must have been 12 or so.

6th grade at Paul Revere middle school in any case.  A shiny new school at the time but already overcrowded.  Rather than build another school, the district decided to invest in “temporary buildings”.  Basically double wide trailer homes converted into classrooms behind the main building.

That’s where you might get in trouble.  At lunch time no one is supposed to be back there.  Everyone is supposed to wait and hang round the cafeteria till the bell rings.

As for me and my friends?  We just figured that was a polite suggestion and didn’t apply to us.  We would regularly sneak out of the cafeteria and hang out on the steps of the temporary buildings.

So there we are hanging out with other kids when we hear a commotion.  The vice-principals are out hunting.  Corporal punishment was very much in vogue back in the early 80’s.

We sneak behind the buildings and peek to see who’s coming.  There’s old man Brailsford.  A sadist that loved to wear a dark blue, three-piece, pin stripe suit and mirrored sunglasses in 90 degree heat.  Slowly swaggering down the road.

He seems to know exactly where to look.  He catches most of us, except….

I duck round the side of the building.  Nowhere else left to hide.  He just has to turn the corner to spot me.  My only chance is to go around him right in the open.  I take a deep breath and walk slowly and steadily around his right side. He’s busy browbeating my friends. I can’t believe this is working but I don’t dare stop walking. At most I’m 20 feet away from him and walking without any cover.

My friend Dean is there with the rest of the kids that got caught.  All the kids are lined up against the wall of a temporary building like criminals.  Dean looks right at me but doesn’t say a word.  One foot in front of the other.  I finally step out of sight and break into a run and make it back to the “safety” of the cafeteria zone.

I later catch up with Dean.  Everyone else got saddled with 3 days detention.  But rather than being mad at me, they celebrate my great escape.  I still can’t believe it.

This wasn’t the last time that this happened.  I’ve walked in front of people who I know in coffee shops and they’ve been totally oblivious to my presence.  Sometimes I have to obnoxiously wave to people for them to notice me.

I have “one of those faces”.  Nothing extraordinary about it.  At times I have been mistaken for almost every imaginable ethnicity.

In a culture where everyone wants to be distinct and individualized it can be a bit bothersome to think that I am totally indistinct.  But I suppose that I have to appreciate this gift for what it is.  The ability to blend into the background and not be bothered when I don’t want to.