A junior at Assumption High School in Wisconsin Rapids, I was standing on one of the city’s post office’s concrete steps on a Saturday afternoon, shooting the bull with John Andrewski, a fellow junior at the school.
Incredibly, a bully with whom I had an earlier encounter, approached us, wearing his habitual half-grin and full sneer. My fear alarm, electric-like shocks, coursed up and down my spine. The bully’s name, Bob Kramer. “What time is it?” he asked Andrewski in a well-ordered, soft but obviously evil voice.
My earlier encounter with Kramer took place four years previously when Paul and Glen Danielson and I had bicycled four miles out to Lake Wazeecha in order to do some bluegill fishing with our fly rods. We took with us differing colored poppers over which bluegills went crazy and attacked with gusto.
Riding those Schwinn and Hawthorne two-wheelers with their fat, balloon tires was a chore to pedal that many miles, but it was no big deal for twelve year olds. Bicycles advanced our adventures into what we considered faraway places. Often, we’d head to the woods and pick blueberries so our mothers could bake us scrumptious pies.
We reached Wazeecha’s shore and started fishing when Kramer, along with four other greasers wearing denim jackets, collars pulled straight up in back, approached us. They looked like members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. They even wore black engineer boots with added chrome studs. One thing above all else: I took note of Kramer’s half-grin, full sneer, as he and his fellow greasers came ever closer.
They stopped. They glared. Not one word.
However, with his ice-cold eyes, well-oiled dishwater blonde hair combed to a duck’s ass in the back, Kramer finally said with an incredibly controlled, ever so soft voice, “Get outta here—now, or else.”
Did I hear him correctly?
“What’d you say?” I asked.
He came to within a foot of me, still wearing that half grin, full sneer, as he said with his meticulous, soft words that bespoke viciousness, “Get outta here—or else.”
“Or else, what?” I asked.
Agreed, that was a stupid question.
At once, Kramer took a punch, which I avoided with a dip of my torso. A moment later, he laced into me. We wrestled for some time, neither of us getting the better of the other.
Obviously, with both of us tired and breathing heavily, Kramer and I stopped tangling and simply glared at each other, he with his full sneer and half grin, I on alert for any movement on his part. In time, he and his fellow greasers backed off. “You think you’re so smart,” he said. He half-smiled. He fully sneered. Then, he and his fellows turned and were gone.
The Danielsons and I remained at the lake, fishing until we had caught enough bluegills for a meal, both Paul and Glen constantly chattering that I had bested that nasty fellow. I knew better.
Returning to that particular Saturday at the post office, Kramer, wearing his half grin, full sneer, repeated in in that extraordinarily soft voice, “What time is it?”
Once again, John hadn’t understood him and asked Kramer what he had said. Kramer came even closer. “What time is it?”
Finally, hearing what Kramer had asked, John took a quick peek at his watch and told Kramer the time.
In answer, Kramer punched John in the stomach. John doubled over.
“Why’d you do that? What’d he do to you?” I yelled as I pushed Kramer away. He smashed my mouth with a crushing right.
That hurt.
In no time at all, my lip felt as if a dentist had filled it with Novocain. I put my hand to my lips and withdrew it. Bloodied. I caught sight of Kramer’s right hand: Its middle finger bore a huge skull ring. With his full sneer and half grin, he backed away. And like that, he was gone.
The bleeding wouldn’t stop. So, I drove my 1931 Ford Model A coupe to Riverview Hospital. By the time I reached the hospital, my shirt and trousers bore plenty of blood. After I told the doctor what happened, he closed the wound with four stitches and then cautioned, “That skull ring was worn for one purpose and one purpose only—to do harm to others, and not just you. Stay away from that fellow.”
“No problem,” I answered.
The areas below and alongside my lips lip were black and blue for a long time. I don’t believe I ever saw Kramer after that incident—until . . .
On my third full week of employment at the Wisconsin State Prison after attending my first two weeks of training classes with dozens of correctional officers and staff, I started my first day of teaching at the Wisconsin State Prison in November, 1968.
My classroom, as with all the others, had connected windows on all four walls. It was after lunch, the start of the Fifth Period. We had four periods in the morning and four in the afternoon.
A student was already sitting at a desk in my classroom, his back to me. As I sat behind my teacher’s desk, facing the student desks, I quickly identified the half grin, full sneer: There was no doubt in my mind. Although taken aback, I did manage to say, “Good afternoon, Bob.”
He offered me the full sneer, half grin, and chuckled absolutely when he said in that horribly controlled tone, “Good afternoon. Are you my teacher?”
I could barely hear him. “If you’re studying English, you definitely are my student because I’m the only English teacher here.”
He never gave me any problems, but would I have trusted him if I didn’t have a correctional officer sitting at a desk, fifteen feet away who could see everything taking place in my room? My precise answer: Hell, no.
I later discovered that a Milwaukee County circuit court judge had sentenced Bob to twenty five years for ruthlessly beating a couple of young ladies in Milwaukee. A dental technician at the prison’s dental lab, he and other long term inmates were taught how to construct false teeth for fellow prisoners.
In time, I read his file. In it, I learned that Milwaukee cops and their DA felt Kramer had killed four other young ladies but they couldn’t prove their hunches beyond reasonable doubts.
Fifty years later, those horrendous acts upon those young ladies remain unsolved.
Up to that point in my life, Bob Kramer was one of the vilest persons I’d ever known but I was in for a rude awakening. I’d meet plenty more who were just as evil and perhaps more so. They were my students for almost twenty-nine years.
As Richard Pryor once said when he and Gene Wilder were going to act in a “funny” prison movie and were able to visit a maximum security prison in order to get to talk to inmates so they’d know how to act like them, Pryor asked the convicts, “What are you in for?”
One fellow replied, “I murdered a man.”
“Why did you murder him?” pursued the comedian.
“Because he was there,” was the reply. (I always picture Bob Kramer answering Pryor with that rationale).
Finished with his anecdote, Pryor literally screamed at his audience, “Thank God for penitentiaries.”
Mister Pryor, I fully agree.
Incredibly, a bully with whom I had an earlier encounter, approached us, wearing his habitual half-grin and full sneer. My fear alarm, electric-like shocks, coursed up and down my spine. The bully’s name, Bob Kramer. “What time is it?” he asked Andrewski in a well-ordered, soft but obviously evil voice.
My earlier encounter with Kramer took place four years previously when Paul and Glen Danielson and I had bicycled four miles out to Lake Wazeecha in order to do some bluegill fishing with our fly rods. We took with us differing colored poppers over which bluegills went crazy and attacked with gusto.
Riding those Schwinn and Hawthorne two-wheelers with their fat, balloon tires was a chore to pedal that many miles, but it was no big deal for twelve year olds. Bicycles advanced our adventures into what we considered faraway places. Often, we’d head to the woods and pick blueberries so our mothers could bake us scrumptious pies.
We reached Wazeecha’s shore and started fishing when Kramer, along with four other greasers wearing denim jackets, collars pulled straight up in back, approached us. They looked like members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang. They even wore black engineer boots with added chrome studs. One thing above all else: I took note of Kramer’s half-grin, full sneer, as he and his fellow greasers came ever closer.
They stopped. They glared. Not one word.
However, with his ice-cold eyes, well-oiled dishwater blonde hair combed to a duck’s ass in the back, Kramer finally said with an incredibly controlled, ever so soft voice, “Get outta here—now, or else.”
Did I hear him correctly?
“What’d you say?” I asked.
He came to within a foot of me, still wearing that half grin, full sneer, as he said with his meticulous, soft words that bespoke viciousness, “Get outta here—or else.”
“Or else, what?” I asked.
Agreed, that was a stupid question.
At once, Kramer took a punch, which I avoided with a dip of my torso. A moment later, he laced into me. We wrestled for some time, neither of us getting the better of the other.
Obviously, with both of us tired and breathing heavily, Kramer and I stopped tangling and simply glared at each other, he with his full sneer and half grin, I on alert for any movement on his part. In time, he and his fellow greasers backed off. “You think you’re so smart,” he said. He half-smiled. He fully sneered. Then, he and his fellows turned and were gone.
The Danielsons and I remained at the lake, fishing until we had caught enough bluegills for a meal, both Paul and Glen constantly chattering that I had bested that nasty fellow. I knew better.
Returning to that particular Saturday at the post office, Kramer, wearing his half grin, full sneer, repeated in in that extraordinarily soft voice, “What time is it?”
Once again, John hadn’t understood him and asked Kramer what he had said. Kramer came even closer. “What time is it?”
Finally, hearing what Kramer had asked, John took a quick peek at his watch and told Kramer the time.
In answer, Kramer punched John in the stomach. John doubled over.
“Why’d you do that? What’d he do to you?” I yelled as I pushed Kramer away. He smashed my mouth with a crushing right.
That hurt.
In no time at all, my lip felt as if a dentist had filled it with Novocain. I put my hand to my lips and withdrew it. Bloodied. I caught sight of Kramer’s right hand: Its middle finger bore a huge skull ring. With his full sneer and half grin, he backed away. And like that, he was gone.
The bleeding wouldn’t stop. So, I drove my 1931 Ford Model A coupe to Riverview Hospital. By the time I reached the hospital, my shirt and trousers bore plenty of blood. After I told the doctor what happened, he closed the wound with four stitches and then cautioned, “That skull ring was worn for one purpose and one purpose only—to do harm to others, and not just you. Stay away from that fellow.”
“No problem,” I answered.
The areas below and alongside my lips lip were black and blue for a long time. I don’t believe I ever saw Kramer after that incident—until . . .
On my third full week of employment at the Wisconsin State Prison after attending my first two weeks of training classes with dozens of correctional officers and staff, I started my first day of teaching at the Wisconsin State Prison in November, 1968.
My classroom, as with all the others, had connected windows on all four walls. It was after lunch, the start of the Fifth Period. We had four periods in the morning and four in the afternoon.
A student was already sitting at a desk in my classroom, his back to me. As I sat behind my teacher’s desk, facing the student desks, I quickly identified the half grin, full sneer: There was no doubt in my mind. Although taken aback, I did manage to say, “Good afternoon, Bob.”
He offered me the full sneer, half grin, and chuckled absolutely when he said in that horribly controlled tone, “Good afternoon. Are you my teacher?”
I could barely hear him. “If you’re studying English, you definitely are my student because I’m the only English teacher here.”
He never gave me any problems, but would I have trusted him if I didn’t have a correctional officer sitting at a desk, fifteen feet away who could see everything taking place in my room? My precise answer: Hell, no.
I later discovered that a Milwaukee County circuit court judge had sentenced Bob to twenty five years for ruthlessly beating a couple of young ladies in Milwaukee. A dental technician at the prison’s dental lab, he and other long term inmates were taught how to construct false teeth for fellow prisoners.
In time, I read his file. In it, I learned that Milwaukee cops and their DA felt Kramer had killed four other young ladies but they couldn’t prove their hunches beyond reasonable doubts.
Fifty years later, those horrendous acts upon those young ladies remain unsolved.
Up to that point in my life, Bob Kramer was one of the vilest persons I’d ever known but I was in for a rude awakening. I’d meet plenty more who were just as evil and perhaps more so. They were my students for almost twenty-nine years.
As Richard Pryor once said when he and Gene Wilder were going to act in a “funny” prison movie and were able to visit a maximum security prison in order to get to talk to inmates so they’d know how to act like them, Pryor asked the convicts, “What are you in for?”
One fellow replied, “I murdered a man.”
“Why did you murder him?” pursued the comedian.
“Because he was there,” was the reply. (I always picture Bob Kramer answering Pryor with that rationale).
Finished with his anecdote, Pryor literally screamed at his audience, “Thank God for penitentiaries.”
Mister Pryor, I fully agree.
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