Although Dwayne Horowitz lived just down the block and was the same age as Henry, Joel, Bobby, and my brother David, they were not his friends. His reputation as a bully and be-littler kept everyone at arm’s length. His taunts, punches, hair-pulling and bike stealing were legend among the neighborhood kids. We "played" with Dwayne only when Sally, his diminutive mother pleaded with our mothers to include her only child in our street games. We wondered how such a nice mother could raise such a bully.
“Aw, mom! Do we Have To? He’s such a pain!” We would yell after him when he would knock one of us off our bike, or pull our hair, or pinch our arm. “Dwayne, Dwayne, the BIG FAT PAIN!!!” I began to refer to him as Dwayne Horrible-witz. His face would twist, his tongue between his teeth, avenging a reality of which we had no idea.
But when I think back to those days on Sherman Drive, days of stick ball and SPUD, and Monkey-in-the-Middle, I see something else in my mind’s eye. The hurt and anger in his eyes. The fingernails always bloody and bitten to the quick. The shaggy hair in need of washing and cutting. Dwayne’s bully was his disguise, his way of spitting into the winds of a childhood filled with the swearing and violence of his father, and the pitiful ministrations of his long-suffering mother.
I was too young to understand those realities then. It was only years later, when my own mother returned from Sally Horowitz’s funeral, that she told me Dwayne’s real story of abuse and neglect. Sally had tried to shield her son, but was no match for the hurricanes of her husband’s rages. She was terrified that Dwayne would become like his father, and in those days, he seemed up to the task.
Not long ago, I followed up on Dwayne. He grew up to be a successful businessman, and caring husband and father. I am not sure if Sally ever got to know the kinder man her son became. I also wonder at the boy-turned-man who found the strength to step out from behind the camouflage shadow . . . and into the bright sun.
