Michael & The Wall

It was during a lull before lunch on the day of the field trip that Michael fought a brick wall. Although unprovoked, after watching his rapid punches into that masonry, you would have thought otherwise.

Above: The KU Campus Union, where the brawl with the bricks took place

The assault didn’t last long, and soon the class was staring at Michael and his bloodied fists.

“What?!” I remember he yelled out, his wild eyes shooting back, more shocked at the shock than the shock itself.

Anyone who knew Michael would describe Michael along the lines of, “Yeah, you know Michael...it’s Michael.”

I remember Michael and his English papers. He was always penalized a letter grade due to his insistence on not using capital letters. Despite this, he was not dissuaded, as Michael didn’t believe in capital letters.

He’d told me that there was no point in them as you already knew a new sentence began after a period. It was a redundancy and an annoyance to Michael, and I thought he had a valid point. I also thought the 10% penalty was excessive.

Also, when Michael wrote something, he wrote out his words in letters so small you’d have to raise the paper up to your face, or request a magnifying glass to decipher the text. He didn’t care though.

Michael was also the same guy who hadn’t cut his hair in more than six years. He managed it via a long, dangling ponytail and was frequently asked when the last time he cut it was.

“First Grade,” was his response. It’s still unclear how many times Michael had answered this question, or why he didn’t just post a sign on his clothing.

“Are you alright?” I remember my science teacher asking him after the brawl with the bricks. Then there was a slight pause, and then he replied with, “Yeah.”

I still had to know why he decided to fight the wall, even though it was clear he’d fought the wall, and the wall had won. I remember him saying something along the lines of, “I felt like it” and, “It deserved it.” Regardless of the motive, it didn’t matter what the reason was. It was another Michael moment—in a series of Michael moments.

When I think back to that day, I now realize that this event perfectly captures Michael’s life. Everything about Michael was about breaking through a wall, whether that was about breaking through a wall of expectations, a wall of conventions, a wall of noise, or a wall standing in Michael’s path towards finding himself. Each Michael moment was another page scrawled out in his book in tiny font with no capital letters, and when Michael read from those pages, people listened.