Tiffany Stephenson - An Apology by Bjorn Skogquist

When I was in the fourth grade, I moved from a small Lutheran school of 100 to a larger publicly funded elementary school, Lincoln Elementary. Wow. Lincoln was a big school, full of a thousand different attitudes about everything from eating lunch to how to treat a new kid. It was a tough time for me, my first year, and more than anything, I wanted to belong. Many things were difficult; the move my family had just made, trying to make new friends, settling into a new home, accepting a new stepfather. I remember crying a lot. I remember my parents fighting. They were having a difficult time with their marriage, and whether it was my stepfather’s drinking, or my mother’s stubbornness, it took an emotional toll on both me and my siblings. Despite all this, the thing that I remember most about the fourth grade is Tiffany Stephenson. The first day of fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary School was emptiness, and it felt enormous. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, but I was too absorbed in my own problems to notice anyone else’s. I was upset that my father, my blood father, was in the hospital for abusing alcohol. Among other things, he was a schizophrenic. I was too young to understand these diseases, but I understood all too well that my daddy was very sick, and that I couldn’t see him any more. My first day at Lincoln was a very real moment in my life. The weather was both cloudy and intolerably sunny at the same time. Maybe it wasn’t that the sun was so bright, maybe it was just that our eyes were still adjusted to morning shadows. It was one of the sequences that somehow stand out in my memory as unforgettable. I remember feeling gray inside. I think that all of us felt a little gray, and I would guess that most of us remember that first day as you might remember your grandmother’s funeral, whether you liked it or not. I walked in and sat near the back of the class, along with a few others. If you were different or weird or new, from another planet, you sat in the back because those were the only desks left. I sat at the far left of the room, in the back near the windows. For a while I just stared out into the playground, waiting for recess to come. Our teacher, Mrs. Bebow, came into the room and started talking to us. I don’t remember exactly what she said that day, because I wasn’t listening. I was numb to the world, concentrating solely on that playground. She seemed distant, far away, and I think that my whole day might have stayed numb if it weren’t for a boy named Aaron Anderson. Aaron, who sat to my right, leaned over and whispered, “My name’s Aaron. And that’s Tiffany Stephenson. Stay away from her. She’s fat and ugly and she stinks.” At that, a few others laughed, and I felt the numbness leaving me. Mrs. Bebow remarked that if we had something so terribly amusing to say, everyone had a right to know just what it was. Of course, we all quieted down. Then I asked which one was Tiffany, and Aaron pointed. There she was, coloring contentedly, sitting alone in the corner, in the very back, just like me. She was not fat or ugly, and as far as I knew, she didn’t stink either. I even remember thinking that she was cute, but I quickly dismissed the thought because I already had a new friendship, even though it was in the common disgust of Tiffany Stephenson. While all this was happening, our teacher Mrs. Bebow managed to take roll, after which she proceeded to lecture the boys on good behavior and then the girls on being young ladies. Every time she turned her back, airplanes and garbage flew across the room at Tiffany, along with a giggle. I don’t think Tiffany Stephenson thought too much of us, that day or ever. A few days later, one of the girls passed Tiffany a note. It ended up making her cry, and it got the girl a half an hour of detention. I was too busy trying to fit in to notice though, or didn’t notice, or was afraid to notice, or simply didn’t care. That fall, both the boys and girls would go up to Tiffany on the playground and taunt her. They made absurd accusations, accusations about eating boogers at lunch, or about neglecting to wear underwear that day. Interestingly, this was the only activity that we participated in where a teacher didn’t command, “OK, boys and girls need to partner up!” What we did to Tiffany Stephenson was mean, but in using her we all became common allies. I wonder if the teachers knew what we were up to when we made our next move, or if they thought that we were actually getting along. I think they knew at first, but we got craftier as time passed. And Tiffany had quit telling the teacher what happened. She knew that when we were ratted on, her taunts got worse. And they did get worse. We were mean, but we kept on because there was no one to stand out and say, "Enough.” When I think about that year, and about Tiffany, I remember that she was almost always alone. Toward the second half of the year, a girl named Sharon Olsen befriended her. Sharon and Tiffany were a lot alike. They spent most of their time together coloring and drawing pictures and those pictures always found their way to the prize board at the end of the week. The teacher knew that they needed a little encouragement, but mostly that “encouragement” ended up making us hate them more. We picked on Sharon a lot too, but not as much as we targeted Tiffany. Through the long winter, our taunts became hateful jeers, and our threats of pushing and shoving became real acts. We carried our threats out against Tiffany, but with no real reason to hate her. A couple of times when we walked down to lunch, we even pushed her around the corner to an area under the stairs. We knew that if no other class followed us, we could get away with our plan, which was to tease her until tears flowed. We always asked her if she was scared. She never gave us the right answer. In a quiet voice she would reply, “No. Now leave me alone.” Sometimes we left her alone, and sometimes we just laughed. Tiffany must have felt so very scared and alone, but she had more than us, she had courage. We didn’t care. The more we could scare her, the better, the closer, the stronger knit we somehow felt. One afternoon, heading for lunch, a few of us stayed behind and blocked the doorway. Tiffany was there, alone again, and cornered by three boys. Looking back, I realized why we began pushing her around. We felt unbelievably close, so close to each other through our hatred. It was a feeling that I have experienced only a few times since. And not only was the experience ours to cherish, it was a delight for Mrs. Bebow’s entire fourth grade class. We were a purpose that afternoon, and we knew it. Looking back to that moment, I feel more remorse from my coldness, than I have felt for any other passing wrong. But then, there, I felt alive, unafraid, and strangely whole. That afternoon changed me forever. By the time we sent Tiffany Stephenson to the green linoleum, she was no longer a person. Her full name, given to her at birth as a loving gesture, was now a fat, smelly, ugly title. There, on the green linoleum of Mrs. Bebow’s fourth grade classroom, amidst the decorations and smell of crayfish aquariums, Tiffany Stephenson received many kicks, punches and unkind words. We didn’t kick or punch her very hard, and the things we said weren’t especially foul, but they were inhuman. This event was the culmination of the inhumane hate and vengeance that had been growing inside of us all year long. And yet, if any one of us stopped for a second to look, to really take a good look at who it was lying there on the ground, curled up in a ball crying, we would have realized that she was one of us. At the beginning of the year, all of us had felt like we were in the back of the room. We were all unknowns. But somehow during that year we had put ourselves above her by force, and I admit that for a long time I couldn’t see my wrong. But I had wronged. I had caused someone pain for my own personal ambitions. I was now popular, and it was at Tiffany Stephenson’s expense. I was a coward, stepping on her courage for one moment in the warm sunlight, above my own pale clouds. Only recently do I realize my error. I wish I could have been the one to say, on that first fall afternoon, “Tiffany’s not ugly, fat or stinky. She’s just like you and me, and we’re all here together.” Really, I wish anyone would have said it. I know now that people need each other, and I wish I could tell the fourth grade that we could all be friends, that we could help each other with our problems. I wish that I could go back. But all I can do is apologize. So Tiffany, for all my shortcomings, and for sacrificing you for the sake of belonging, please forgive me.