The house across from mine has almost been built to completion. It's been a year since they've begun and now stands a more than modest home. The new owners are probably one of the several Hispanic families on my street.

For 25+ years at least, that land has been an empty lot. A parcel of land that stood vacant for as many years as I can recall. At first glance, that barren plot of land seemed only like a pile of dirt. Nonexistent. Barren. Useless. But during my youth, it served as a bus stop to pick up all the students living around here, whether it was elementary, junior high or high school. The dirt land served as a "use your imagination" type of pseudo playground before the bus arrived. There was nothing better to do afterall, so we would play in the puddles after the rain and pretended to make a vat of soup by throwing rocks and twigs in. Other times, we would dig a hole and put bugs in there to fight (although they never did) and called it the bug arena.

I still remember waiting for the bus that early morning when I was 6. A few other kids around my age were waiting with me. Since the buses came in succession picking up kids for the different school levels, we were also in the company of a high schooler who lived up the street, adjacent to ours. His name was Jeff and he had brown hair -- the rest of the details I don't recall.

I was wearing a nice white cable cardigan that day to keep out the morning chill. The other kids were either a year older, the same age or a year younger than me. Jeff was the eldest there and there weren't any other people in between our ages with us. As we were waiting for the bus, I heard, "click click click", the sound of a metal ball or something hitting against a metal can. The scent of something unfamiliar filled the air and I turned around.

In Jeff's hand was an old can of spray paint he found in the dirt lot. And on my pure white cardigan sweater was blue spray paint. Nothing was written. Just a slew of zig zagging circular designs, randomly "tagging" his mark on me. As opportune as it may seem to him, his bus pulled up moments after that and he casually tossed the can of paint aside as he boarded and left.

The rest of stood there in disbelief. Numb. As if the world slowed down. What was I to do? I could go home, as my house was right across the street, but I decided to shamefully wear the sweater and board our bus instead. Perhaps because all the other kids were young also, we didn't have a clue on how to handle something like this. Afterall, he was older and we all knew that we didn't have a chance in hell to deal with him one on one.

I felt like it was my fault. I felt ashamed for some reason. Why me? It's because I'm not like the other kids right? I had black hair, slanty eyes, yellow skin and I was easy to pick on in their eyes. I was different. And I was not welcomed.

I walked into class with my sweater on that morning with my head hung low. The teacher immediately saw my sweater upon my entrance and quickly pulled me aside to ask me what happened. She immediately took me to the principal's office to have the situation rectified. I explained what happened at the bus stop, I gave them his name, I relayed the entire sequence of events to them. They made a call to the high school, to his parents and to my parents.

When I returned home that day, my mom told me that my sister waited until he got home from school that afternoon and marched right over to him to give him a piece of her mind. She was after, much older than he was and she's pretty darn tough when she needs to be. Around dinner time, Jeff's parents came over to our house and apologized to our entire family. They made a very reluctant Jeff say a few words too.

Maybe some would say Jeff was just a naughty kid. Others may say, out of all the kids, he chose the yellow one to pick on and that it was a racist motive. Whatever it was, I really don't give a shit.

Because my favorite white cable knit sweater could never be worn again.

Anyone care to buy me a cardigan? :|

I'm out.