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Mar 30, 2004 Jerold Cordova used to be a bully. I say ‘used to be’ because his life changed one Saturday morning in November, 1952. He was big for the third grade where most of his victims lived; outweighing even our teacher, Mrs. Armstrong, by at least twenty pounds. Most everybody in the East Los Angeles suburb of El Sereno who knew Jerold thought he was a little crazy. But looking back, I’m certain he was as sane as the rest of us. He just had this passion...and we never found out why...to make everything smaller than himself squirm in pain. He was an only child with a mother and father so old that they should have been his grandparents. I guess today, the do-gooders would say none of it was Jerold’s fault. But for us...his victims...fault wasn’t the issue. All of us walked to school back in the 50’s, anywhere from a few blocks to a mile or more. Now, mind you, this was back when it was safe for little children to walk several miles through East Los Angeles to a park to catch bluegill fish, or take 50 cents and go to the matinee at the Cameo Theater. It took twenty cents to get in, leaving thirty cents for refreshments. It was also a time when parents didn’t call the police if a child was an hour late getting home from a long bike ride or hike in the hills, catching snakes or to the wash, catching crawdads. Everybody was basically God-fearing and nice to one another, even those who only went to church on Christmas and Easter...all except for Jerold Cordova. It was a rare day that one or two of us didn’t come running into Mrs. Armstrong’s classroom red, sweaty and out of breath, followed several minutes later by the lumbering bully. We were all his victims...those of us who had to walk near his house on our way to and from school...and we all took our turns at his whipping post. He either hit us, took our sack lunch and threw it to his dogs, or tore our pockets out of our shirts and pants searching for our money. And then he’d push us around until we fell down, because it was a lot easier to kick a kid when he was on the ground. It was especially bad in the winter when there were lots of puddles of oily water in the alleys. And we had to make up stories to tell our parents and Mrs. Armstrong why we were wet and dirty because Jerold told us that if we told on him, he would kill us. We were just little kids and we believed he would really do it. One of my proudest days was when Jerold was harassing a little girl I secretly liked. Her name was Linda Mater. He had her by one of her braids and was tearing at her clothes. I ran up from behind and punched Jerold in the back as hard as I could and then took off running. He chased me for a full block before he was winded and gave up. That was our only defense...running away...until that Saturday morning when Jerold Cordova decided not to be a bully any more. We had discussed the need to do something for most of the summer, but the bigger kids, the leaders, couldn’t come up with a plan. I was one of the three smaller kids, along with Butchy Green and Tommy Matthews. I stepped forward and suggested something that made a few of the kids gasp, but it was the best idea anybody had offered, short of murder. It was a simple plan, and as I look back on it, it was pure genius. Butchy was chosen by the short stick to be our sacrificial lamb. It was Butchy’s job, once the rest of us were in place, to lure the monster out, and then stay close so that Jerold could capture him. Jerold’s house was on the corner, where the two main streets that funneled foot traffic to the school, converged. On weekday mornings, Jerold would sit in the front corner window reading comic books and watching both streets for his victims to happen along. He was as predictable as he was cruel. Butchy didn’t have to throw rocks at Jerold’s dogs or taunt the bully out with any Ivory Soap words, because, like a spider on its twitching web, Jerold was out the front door in a flash and had Butchy pinned against the garage door. Butchy cried out in pain as Jerold held him on his tip toes by an ear and searched his pockets for money. We had been redeeming pop bottles for a week, so there was over three dollars in Butchy’s pockets. As Jerold counted the spoils of his cruelty, we attacked. None of us were very big, but we made up for it that day with our determination and overwhelming numbers. He just laughed at first as we pushed and pulled at Jerold’s bulk until we had moved him around the corner and into the alley. But his laughter quickly turned to fear when we threw him to the ground and rolled him onto his back. Two of us pinned each extremity, while three held his head in a vise grip. Tommy had brought a Zippo lighter and the letter “B” from his father’s metal stamping set. I was chosen to deliver the warning; perhaps because it was my plan, or maybe because I was the smallest kid in Mrs. Armstrong’s class and had taken most of the beatings. Regardless, there I sat, right in the middle of Jerold Cordova’s chest with my feet planted in the ground above his shoulders. As Tommy heated the “B”, I started my short, but well-rehearsed, sermon. “Jerold, you’re a big fat bully! We are sick and tired of being tormented by you day after day, and today, we are going to teach you a lesson you will never forget!” I got the “sick and tired” from my grandmother. “We are going to brand you like a cow!” Tommy nudged my arm and handed me the glowing piece of metal. I held it close to Jerold’s nose so he could feel the heat. “This is going to hurt you real bad, and for the rest of your life, every time you look at yourself in the mirror, you’ll remember that you were once a bully!” As Chad, Bobby and Terry held him tight, I pressed the hot letter to Jerold’s forehead, right between his eyebrows. It smelled awful; like the time my dad burned all those chicken feathers in the incinerator. When Jerold finally stopped screaming, Patty West handed me the hammer and the ten penny nail. While Patty and Linda held his lips open, I pressed the nail against one of his top two front teeth. “If you ever bully one of us again, or any other kid we hear about, we’re going to catch you and hold you down again, and I’m going to put this big nail on this tooth and hit it with this hammer! And after that...after you’ve lost one tooth...if any of us see or even hear that you’ve bullied another kid, I’ll knock out the other big one!” I actually pressed the nail against the tooth...one of the big permanent ones on the top row...and raised the hammer like I was going to hit it right then. I could feel his body tense beneath me, just like when I burned his forehead. I think that was when he wet his pants. We had talked about that...me and the other kids...which was worse, and agreed that a quarter inch scar on his forehead wasn’t as bad as a busted tooth. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe we should have given Jerold the choice. Jerold cried for several minutes before he stopped and asked, “But what if some kid I didn’t hurt lies and tells you I did, just to see me lose a tooth!?” The tears streamed through his long sideburns and into his ears. “What will you do then?” “That could happen, Jerold,” I answered, still holding the nail against his tooth, “but to make sure it doesn’t, I think from now on you should be extra nice and kind and gentle to every kid that you know, starting right now.” I’ve heard a lot of preaching about repenting, and how good it is for the soul, but I’d never seen anybody do it quite like Jerold Cordova did it that Saturday morning. When we finally let him up, he backed away several steps, and through his sobs, told us that he was truly sorry. Nobody saw him for a full week. When he finally walked into Mrs. Armstrong’s class two Mondays later, he asked the teacher if he could step to the front of the class and say something. I think Mrs. Armstrong knew what had happened and gave him a maternal nod as she stepped aside. He had a small band-aid over the burn mark. Except for when I would stay to wipe the blackboards down for Mrs. Armstrong, I had never heard the room so quiet. It was like everybody was holding their breaths. Jerold pulled a well-worked piece of brown paper from his pocket and read. “I’ve been a bully to most of you, and to a lot of other kids in the school, and I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again...I promise. I ask you to forgive me.” The deathly silence continued for half a minute, until Mrs. Armstrong finally started clapping her hands. One by one, all twenty two of us joined in the applause as Jerold wept true tears of repentance and relief. That was in the fall of 1952, and now, over 50 years later as I look back, I can’t help but wonder if branding Jerold Cordova like that was the right thing to do. It sure felt right at the time, and I know one thing for certain. Until my family moved away from Los Angeles in 1959, I never heard of another instance when Jerold Cordova had hurt another child, another puppy, another kitten, another bird, or even a spider. The scar on his forehead and the threat of the ten penny nail evidently worked. THE END ------------ About the author: Roger L. Johnson has published a novel entitled, "Dead Man's Chest." Email: hiouchi@earthlink.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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