The Chris Sartinsky Memoirs: Chapter Six: The Awkward Age

I entered the sixth grade and, with it, middle school with no small degree of trepidation. Lockers, periods, different lunches, the whole thing was intimidating. Suddenly, my future began to loom ominously in front of me. There were only three years of middle school and then there was high school and then college and then it was time for a career. I thought I should learn a trade and got a part-time job over the summer working with a local mechanic who paid me under the table to avoid scrutiny for hiring a ten year old.

Unfortunately, I knew nothing about cars. Only three weeks in, my right ring finger was sucked into an engine. It was shredded seemingly beyond repair, but the good people at the Bristol Cosmetic and Reconstructive Surgery Office did miracle work. The only time an observer can tell the difference is after a particularly long shower when it turns a strange shade of brownish purple and swells to the size of a thick marker, but the swelling quickly subsides. I feel no soreness when it rains, though I did feel a strange soreness once and a small freak tornado touched down a few miles from my house only an hour later. I do not know if this is a coincidence or if something in my finger reacts to changes in pressure or wind speed just before a tornado is about to touch down since I was never able to test it again, tornadoes being exceedingly rare in Connecticut. I have lobbied several weather prediction companies and tornado watchers hoping for financing to live in the Midwest for a while and test my abilities, but so far have received no offers.

With no more job, I spent the summer before sixth grade lounging around the house. I decided that since I was clearly not fit for manual labor, I would pursue more intellectual endeavors. I read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov in three weeks. Perhaps less than ready to deal with the implications of the great Russian writer, I attempted suicide in utter desolation after reading the novels. I tried to overdose on a prescription medicine I found in our cabinet. I was unsuccessful in my attempt, so much so that I regained consciousness after only a short forty-five minute nap and no one in the family was even aware of what I had tried to do.

Unfortunately, the episode did not end there. The medicine had unforeseen side effects. It wreaked havoc on my thyroid glands, my hormones and just about every gland, nerve and secretion in my body. As a result, I grew seven inches the night after my attempt. I grew another five and a half inches the next night. At first, my parents only told themselves that I was going through a growth spurt, but this explanation soon proved insufficient after I shrunk a foot and a half the next night. My height continued climbing and falling night after night so that in a period of a week the difference between my tallest and shortest heights might be as much as three feet. Doctors could do nothing for me and the only solution was a series of boots with soles of different sizes so my classmates would not noticing my fluctuating size. Unfortunately, because of the extremity of the growth spurts, the boots had to level off at seven feet four inches, an effect which was aided by boots that were as tall as four and a half feet. As a result, I was very easy to push over and it became something of a pastime for my friends to slam into my huge boots and send me sprawling to the ground. The condition stays with me today, though it is nowhere near as bad as it once was with my tallest lifts giving me no more height than an average pair of stiletto heels.

As one might expect, enduring middle school with such a condition was less than ideal. My life became something of a nightmare. I was teased mercilessly and I was only able to put up a fight about half the time. Even when I was tall enough to handle any physical intimidation, my spirit was depleted. I would spend most of my time between classes hiding from other people, a task which would vacillate between simple and difficult from day to day.

My parents encouraged me to join activities in school to keep my mind off my problems. I tried out for the basketball team, and though I was decent, the coach was intimidated by the prospect of building a lineup around someone whose position would change every day and cut me. After that, I tried out for the school play. The director asked every student to come prepared with a monologue from a movie or play we enjoyed. I found something from “Caddyshack” but accidentally printed a seven page anti-Semitic Fascist political tract. Hopelessly nervous on stage and not really aware of the full connotations of what I was reading, I delivered the whole thing with no feeling. Of my stiff performance, the director said he was relieved that I seemed to be a good democrat but, unfortunately, I was still a terrible actor.

Desperate, I joined the new Calligraphy Club. Struggling and uninspired with school, I poured a great deal of effort and discipline into my calligraphy. I became quite good and the teacher who ran the club even called me a prodigy. I made a sample sheet and my teacher submitted it to a design company who turned it into a font. To date, six brands of publishing software bundle my font, which is named after the teacher who ran the group who took credit for the font and enjoyed royalties until the club was disbanded and he was imprisoned for molesting a seventh grade girl who was on the track team, which he also coached. Her name was Debbie and the font bears her name, which makes it more creepy than anything. It is not very popular.