#1022: Langer the F@ckin’ Wanger

RECORD STORE TALES #1022: Langer the F@ckin’ Wanger

In grades seven and eight of grade school, I was just trying to survive.  It was a waiting game now, a trial of perseverance.  At the end of grade eight, I would be out of there.  My sister Kathryn called it the “Hell Hole”, which is pretty messed up when you think about it, at the ages we were.  Just kids.  But I only had to survive two more grades and I was done.  I’d start fresh at Grand River Collegiate Institute and leave the Hell Hole behind me, forever.  Those kids would mostly all be going to a different school, and I’d be with Bob Schipper, whose massive frame intimidated every bully around.

I tended to cautiously keep to myself and a handful of people that I thought I could trust a little bit.  Recess was usually pretty bad.  Killing 15 minutes in the cold, while trying to stay out of the attention of other kids.  It was a lonely existence but survivable.

One afternoon I was out minding my own business by the baseball diamond when the school’s wildest bully, Langer, grabbed me by the throat and threw me down onto the benches.

“I heard what you called me!” he yelled in my face.  He had a sidekick, a face I can’t remember, the Grover Gill to his Scut Farkus, except very real and not at all funny.  I remember his Grover standing behind him smiling as he choked me.

“I called you Langer,” I recalled as I tried to speak.

“No you didn’t,” he menaced.  “You called me Langer the fuckin’ wanger!”

“I did?” I said puzzled.  His friend laughed behind him.

“Yeah you did!  Say you’re sorry,” he threatened.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

He let me fall to the ground.  Nobody came to help, no teachers saw and no students cared.

“I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here,” I thought to myself as I counted the months in my head.

In eighth grade I saw him attack a much smaller kid, a sixth or seventh grader with a lisp.  Rock Hudson had just died of AIDS, and AIDS jokes were all the rage with the bullies that year.  The funny thing is, we had sex ed that year and the teacher asked the class if we knew what AIDS was.  Nobody knew exactly.  “It makes you old,” was the closest guess any of them had.  But sure, go ahead bullies, make AIDS jokes.  They just equated AIDS with gay, as bullies often do.

Langer grabbed this smaller kid and demanded, “Say you’re Rock Hudson!”  The kid didn’t know what that meant and said so.

“SAY YOU’RE ROCK HUDSON!” repeated Langer.

“Hudsthon” said the kid, enough to satisfy Langer to release him.

Langer was actually one of the few bullies who did follow me to highschool.  However, his selection of classes were physically separated from most of mine, plus Bob was there, and Langer kept his distance when Bob was around.  One day he did have a try, but I found him easy to dodge.

“Hey Ladano!” he said I entered the computers lab.  “Did you masturbate this weekend?”

“No,” I answered quickly, “But you did.”  I had never come up with a one-liner so fast before.  I was proud of myself.

I felt his hand grab the back of my shirt as he pulled me out of the classroom and back into hall.

“You’re dead!  Today after school!” he threatened.

“Fine!” I said in defiance.

“We meet where you parked your bike, after class!”

“Sure!” I answered.

I walked to school that day; I didn’t ride my bike and didn’t need to go to the bike racks to get home.  I just exited through a different door and walked home as normal.  Langer never followed up and that was my last encounter with Langer the fuckin’ wanger.  The last of the schoolyard bullies, faded away forever.

 

25 comments

      1. During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, one of my bullies died in a drowning accident. I felt mixed about it too. This particular bully used to give me hockey style body checks into the wall anytime he saw me walking in the school halls. That’s what some people used to try to guilt trip me into feeling sorry for him. They’d say, “All he did was check you.” Like that made any difference. My thoughts these days is that while it’s terrible he died, he’s not around to make your life a misery any more.

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        1. The only guilt or shame I feel is that Langer died over 10 years ago. But I didn’t use his first name. I deleted that. But hey… it’s not like this stuff is a secret. He was a known bully. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about his death.

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  7. I get picked on at work regularly. I’ve been picked on a lot throughout my life. I’ve also been called a bully at times, which to me makes no sense when it’s me being poked at all the time, or at least it seems that way to me. Maybe I’m delusional and don’t know it. The torment I feel is real…maybe there’s a song in all of this, I don’t know.

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  8. I had a guy like that in school too. In such a small community, it was inevitable from kindergarten to the end of high school. And he’s probably still out there being a dick to other people. Some people are just best avoided.

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