Smiling
Among all my smiles, some joyful, some mere tokens of friendliness, there are two I clearly remember.
One afternoon as a fourth grader, twenty minutes past dismissal, I strolled down an empty school corridor. Sunlight yawning through the windows, there was still time to pass until someone would come to pick me up. Lazy sun, lazy sneakers.
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A blonde-haired boy trod in my direction. Looking roughly two years younger than me, he followed behind me repeating the word “idiot”. Bewildered, I continued walking for a while, until the blonde pounced on me and started punching.
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I had many options. Find someone. Grab his wrist, push him away, mash him against the hallway walls, perform some sort of defense. I chose none. I quietly absorbed the sting of his fists, and I smiled.
When I ask my younger self why he smiles, he says he is unsure of what else he should do. If he reports to a faculty member, peers might laugh at him for being unable to fight a kid younger than him. If he fights back he might injure the boy, and he isn’t confident in jurisdiction resulting in his favor. And so he chooses to smile; a minimal gesture of defense, a feeble claim that he is unscathed by the knuckles that sink into his abdomen. Underneath the smile hides an uncertainty, a fear that taking action will lead to something worse than what he currently experiences.
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The blonde eventually left. I brushed the dust off my shirt, secured the trousers he had pulled down in his assault.
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Two years later, in the same hallway, a line of sixth graders listened at the murmur of a trumpet in the far distance.
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Looking outside the hall window, a girl named Elsa raised her right arm solemnly, her thumb touching the tip of her nose, the other fingers spread apart.
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Tintin, another boy in our grade, noticed her. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s a salute. It’s how we salute to the flag at public school.” Elsa replies.
“It’s ridiculous. You look like a rooster.” he said, mimicking the saluting gesture. A few boys chuckle.
“I won’t let you say that!” cried Elsa.
“What are you going to do about it? Huh, pig?”
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Elsa’s face reddened, she took half a step forward and looked around for support. My lips formed an uneasy curve. This time, my smile was a hideous contract between me and Tintin—well said, amazing joke. In exchange for my signal of approval I requested to not be seen as someone like Elsa. The same smile shoved Elsa away, isolated her, fueled her sense of helplessness.
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Some nights I lie in bed recalling the smile, and the guilt sinks my fingernails into my bedsheets. It is an unsettling reminder of my choice of inaction.
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Smiles shape easily. Just a twitch of muscle, a curve of mouth, and relationships appear secured, problems appear fixed. Yet I can’t help but remember them as a mask I used to hide cowardice. Afraid that action might lead to inconvenience, I swallowed stinging pain, sympathy, indignance. I gave consent to abuse. I staged a grin, cheap compensation for the lack of a fight.
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Smiling, I leaned into silence, attempting to nudge past harm. Waiting for the beast to tire, the storm to pass, foolishly hoping that the smile will carry me safely through turbulence.