There were a few teachers and a couple students who caught on that somewhere in my head was a brain that was functioning at a different RPM than everyone else's. They tried, sometimes their best, but I was mostly free-floating, not a teacher and not a student.

I did well enough in most of my classed to barely pass and get the required credits to graduate. My guidance counselor was useless. I picked some odd classes to take, none of them truly useful in real life, except possibly typing. I failed my music theory class. Most of the kids in it had been taking band or chorus since they were in the sixth grade. I had recently discovered the guitar and was taking a Guitar One class, learning very little, and I had signed up for Music Theory in the hope that I could take the information from both classes and put them together. I was still functioning under the delusion that I could learn just like everybody else.

I took a Childcare I and later Childcare II because I knew that I was extremely fearful of people and I thought that if I could learn to deal with five year olds, fifty year olds might be a little easier. I learned a lot in those classes. I did learn to get along with the children and I learned to get along with my classmates. The teacher was an idiot. She had two children of her own and apparently was a single mother. While her kids were in the care of others, she was at the high school teaching kids to take care of other people's children. Figure that one out.

One day I decided I was tired of being afraid. I was sixteen, I was working at Kroger, a grocery store, after school, and I was having to deal with the public and my co-workers in addition to school and my step-forther and morther. My father was out in the county with his second or third wife, living his own little life. I decided I was going to go up to all the people I was afraid of and tell them I was tired of being afraid of them. This worked out fairly well, including with my boss at Kroger's, whom I talked to at a banquet at our church. When I got to my step-forther, it all went to hell. He was already drunk. I can see that moment still. I remember where he was, how he was dressed, what he smelled like and how he spoke. He was completely surprised by my words and his reaction was to tell me that I should be afraid of him and if I thought I was too big enough in my britches to take him on, then he would take the buckle end of his belt and beat the shit out of me and if the cops got called, it would be his word against mine.

That October, on the 10th, I think, I left his house and never went back except for a few times to visit many years later.

I was almost six feet tall, weighed about 170, was strong as a young ox, and could walk anywhere in the county, and part of the state. I barely had to shave, except to remove a bristle here and there. I didn't have any clue about my size or appearance. I had spent so many years being made small that I thought of myself that way. This has happened again and again in my life. Sometimes I run into people who believe that I use my bigness to intimidate people. Sorry, but that would require me to be aware of it.

I moved in with my grandma for most of the rest of my high school years. I continued to work at Kroger and I stayed in school. I didn't hear from my stepfather. My mother tried to call and I had very little to say to her. I don't think my father was aware of where I was until much later. Though it is possible that he visited my grandma's and didn't care. Many things have slipped from my memory.