Rag Doll

They just called me Rag Doll. I quickly grew to hate the name.
We girls didn’t have too many toys.
If we got a doll. it was from, Goodwill or some such.
Even Maureen got a used doll.
Patricia got a used doll. However, Patricia learned to sew a little. She would get scraps of cloth and make little dresses for her doll. Patricia wasn’t too good at sewing and her doll dresses were not very attractive. If you mentioned the matter to Patricia, you would get into a fight.
Molly got a doll.
I got a doll. My doll wasn’t even from Goodwill. I found my doll by the side of the road. Mom sewed my doll back up a little and then put it through the washing machine. My doll came out clean and, like me, funny looking. My doll was a rag doll and I thought that we were just two rag dolls, against the whole world. Of course, I named my doll, Rag Doll.
My sisters teased me about Rag Doll and I would cry.
Mom soon put a stop to that.
However, I often found my self crying, in a corner, with just me and Rag Doll.
When I got to school, I found out that I was really good at school. I always did my work and I always got good grades. So much for the good stuff.
Out on the school playground, I was just Rag Doll.
My sisters and I would eat the charity lunch, since Mom didn’t have enough money to buy us lunch or even make us a lunch, that we could take to school in the fancy lunch boxes that some of the other girls had.
Some times I would get to play with the other little girls, but they all had store bought clothes and I was just Rag Doll.
If I was alone, I would watch the other kids.
One of the kids that I would watch was a boy, that they called Devil. Devil never talked to the other kids, he just played with a stick that he always carried. Devil could spin and thrust his stick, really fast. The teachers wanted to stop Devil from carrying his stick, but he told them that the stick was a part of his religion and what he did was called the dance of the whiskey stick.
The school called in Devil’s father. Devil’s father was a very large man. Devil’s father also carried a stick. He called his stick a shillelagh. Devil’s father could move and twirl his stick, even faster than Devil. Devil’s father had very large, muscly arms, maybe from twirling his shillelagh, I don’t know.
Devil got to keep his shillelagh and he continued to work, at recess, with his shillelagh stick.
I asked Mom if I could have a shillelagh stick and hit people who made fun of me.
Mom got really mad and told me that I was never even to think of such a thing.; If I did think of such a thing, I was never to tell anyone. A shillelagh was a weapon for a man, not a woman and definitely not for a girl. I then had to spend time in a timeout corner, again just me and my Rag Doll.
I did sometimes watch Devil and he continued to work with his shillelagh. He never talked with the other boys and never threatened to hit anyone.
One day, one of the other boys took a softball bat and tried to hit Devil. Devil managed to avoid the softball bat and then hit the other boy, with Devil’s shillelagh. The other boy was larger than Devil, but Devil kept hitting the other boy with Devil’s shillelagh. Finally the other boy dropped the softball bat and Devil hit him, in the head, with Devil’s shillelagh. The other boy went down and I thought maybe the other boy was dead.
(By now, I was pretty good at hiding in corners, and I was back in a corner, out of the way,)
The teachers came out and started yelling at Devil.
Devil ignored them and again worked with his shillelagh.
An ambulance came and the ambulance men put the other boy on a stretcher and then into an ambulance truck type of thing.
Then the police came and wanted to take Devil away, maybe to jail.
Devil’s father then appeared and he talked really nasty to the police. Devil’s father had a shillelagh, but the police had guns.