Carolina Confidential

Today, by pure happenstance, I ended up in a conversation with a man who turned out to be the son of my old principal.

And just like that, at 50.5 years old, I was standing in a memory I didn’t expect to visit today.

Now let me be clear: I have told stories about Mr. Hammond for years. Years! Decades, really. If you know me at all, you’ve probably heard one. Usually told with some laughter, some cussing, and at least one “I. Shit. You. Not.”

Because this man wasn’t just my principal.

This man was like a recurring villain in the longest-running drama of my childhood.

And yes, I was a badass kid. Let’s not rewrite history. I was hardheaded, always in trouble, always doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. Smoking. Fighting. Running my mouth. Acting like consequences were for other people.

They were not.

And back then, corporal punishment was still a thing in school.

So when I say I got paddled a lot, I don’t mean once or twice.

I spent enough time in front of Mr. Hammond that we should’ve had a punch card. Ten paddlings, and you get to skip the 11th.

And if he told my mama? It was a wrap. Because then I got the sequel at home.

School spanking.
Home spanking.
Double feature.

Funny now.
Didn’t feel funny then.

And the craziest part—the part people always think I’m making up—is that I could not get away from this man.

I. Shit. You. Not.

I’d move up to the next school.

There he was.

Switch schools.

There he was.

We moved towns once, and I remember thinking, Finally. New town. New school. New principal. My suffering has ended.

Guess who was sitting in the office.

Mr. Damn Hammond.

At some point I stopped feeling like a student and started feeling like I was being hunted. And as funny as that sounds now, there’s a part of this story that still lives in me deeper than the jokes.

I can still remember standing there, turning around, grabbing the arms of the chair while he told me to count the bricks on the wall. “Count the bricks.” Count the bricks while he swung that paddle.

No rhythm. No warning. No mercy. Just me trying to count and breathe and brace myself while waiting on the next hit.

“…six, seven, eig—”

BAM.

“…fifteen, six—”

BAM.

It wasn’t just the pain. It was the waiting. That’s the part I still feel in my chest when I think about it.

The waiting.
The helplessness.

The fact that a grown man could decide when pain was coming, and all I could do was grip a chair and stare at a wall and count bricks like that was somehow gonna save me.

And the wild thing is, he followed me through damn near every chapter of school.

Elementary.
Middle school.
Junior high.
High school.

I was his last 9th grade class in one school and his first 9th grade class in the next when the system changed.

I failed 9th. Then I repeated it. Barely made it through.

By the time I hit 10th the second time, I was already carrying a reputation and acting like I had something to prove every time I walked in the building. I kept smoking. Kept fighting. Kept getting caught. Kept giving people reasons to say I was exactly who they thought I was.

And eventually, I dropped out.

A lot of that was me. I know that now, and I own it.

But not all of what stayed with me was about “being in trouble.”

Some of it was about what it does to a kid to be under the same man’s power for years. To be watched. To be expected to mess up. To feel like somebody is always waiting on you to become the version of yourself they already decided you were.

And maybe I did become that kid for a while.

Maybe when people keep looking at you like trouble, eventually you stop trying to be anything else.

That’s a hard thought to sit with.

The deepest truth I’ve carried about Mr. Hammond isn’t even really about the paddle.

It’s this:

He was the man who got to beat on me, and I never got to beat back.

Now before anybody gets holy on me, I’m not talking about revenge fantasies and nonsense. I’m talking about what that feels like in a child’s spirit.

Powerlessness.

That feeling of having no say in what happens to your body, your record, your future in that moment.

That kind of thing can shape a person.

I think it shaped me.

Not by itself. Not completely. But enough that I can be 50.5 years old, talking to his son by chance, and still feel that old shit move in me.

And here’s where life gets complicated in that way only life can.

As much as I can say that man hurt me, embarrassed me, and left fingerprints on my memory… I can also say this:

If anything in that path had changed, my life might not be the life I have now.

If I had straightened up earlier…
If I had stayed in school…
If I had not dropped out…
If I had not been me, or if he had not been him…

Then maybe everything changes.

Maybe I don’t end up where I ended up.
Maybe I don’t become who I became.
Maybe I don’t have my children.
Maybe my whole story turns into somebody else’s story.

And that messes with me.

Because I’m not grateful for the pain. I’m not romanticizing the paddlings. I’m not calling cruelty “character building” just because I survived it.

I’m just old enough now to admit that life is strange as hell. The people who wound you can become part of the architecture of your life. The things that make you laugh when you tell the story can still make your chest ache when you tell the truth.

And sometimes the kid you used to be is still in there, gripping that chair, counting bricks, waiting on the next hit. But he’s not all that’s in here anymore.

There’s a grown man in here too. A man who can look back and tell the story with a laugh in one breath and a tremble in the next. A man who can admit he was wild as hell and still say, “That didn’t mean I deserved all of that.” A man who knows survival is not the same thing as understanding—but it’s a start.

So yeah.

Today I met the son of Mr. Hammond.

And for a minute, I swear I could feel every school hallway I ever got sent down.

Every office.
Every chair.
Every brick.
Every hit.

And standing there talking with his son today, I thought, How in the hell is this man here too?

And then I came back to now.

To 50.5.
To perspective.
To the strange mercy of time.

Still here.
Still standing.
And no longer counting bricks for somebody else’s swing.

Maybe that’s what today really gave me—not closure, exactly, but clarity.

A reminder that some stories don’t leave you because they’re unfinished.
They stay because they helped build you, whether you asked them to or not.

Until next time,
Stay safe. Make good choices. And as always, stay kinky My friends.

~Dray Orion