Ring Leader Short Story

The Story “Ring leader,” was about the trials and crises that Kruz faced in her life. Kusz’s story
presented examples of the impact for a person to find his/her own identity. With her unusual
upbringing, Kusz found her own way of personal expression, a nose piercing.
According to Kusz her childhood was not the easiest. “The fact is, grew up ugly-no, worse than
that, I grew up unusual, that unforgivable sin among youth” (Kusz, 2001).She never felt as though she
was good enough by society’s standards. Due to a dog attack when she was young, Kusz had one eye ,
and facial scars. “Thus if you added my oversized body to the disfigured face, and add again my families
low income and my secondary wardrobe, you have a formula for pure, excruciating teenage angst”

(Kusz, 2001). She stated how “hiding from public scrutiny became for me, as for many other people, a
way of life” (Kusz, 2001). Kusz knew her facial scare stood out telling everyone “here is a girl who’s not
like you” (Kusz,2011) She knew she was already different from other girls her age.
Since Kusz had difficulty fitting in with the ‘Popular Patty’ crowd, she tried to conform to their
standards. “I studied the other kids, their physical posture, their music, their methods of blow-dryer
artistry, hoping one day to emerge from my body ,invisible”(Kusz,2001). Even though she tried to
conform to the norm, she was still never accepted. Kusz judged herself according to other people’s
standards, and not her own.
Furthermore, when she was in her 30’s she moved to Minnesota for a teaching position. Her
conformity crises still followed her. She stated “I found suffocating, and anticipating the arrival of that
all-affirming desire of college professors everywhere, that professional certification indicating you are
now ‘one of the family’; academic tenure”(Kusz,2001). Kusz still felt out of place in her professional
environment. “Thus a visitor touring any random campus can quickly distinguish tenured faculty persons
from nontenured ones simply by noting the habitual shape and amount of chapping on their lips”
(Kusz,2001) Kusz expressed that she wanted to belong to the ‘family’ within her position. But she
thought it would be different from what it actually was. “I anticipated a future of senior-faculty
meetings with academia’s own version of ‘Popular Patty’-not a nubile, cheerleading fashion plate, but a
somber and scholarly denture wearer….”(Kusz,2001) Her position was filled with young woman, and she
again felt judged by them. “I found myself incapable of understanding, say the nature of cul-de-
sacs….(Kusz,2001).”I would go to pot luck suppers where the dishes were foreign to me….(Kusz,2001).”
“I was unsuited to become one with the other tenured beings because I was by nature boisterous, a
collector of Elvis memorabilia, and given to not washing my car-in short I was and always would be from
Alaska”( Kusz,2001).
As a result to her non conformity, the week after she received her tenure she pierced her nose.
“The gesture was, for me, a celebration, a visual statement that said, ‘assume nothing’….”
(Kusz,2001).”Polite as was the society of that region, my colleagues never referred to my nose, but I
could see them looking and wondering a bit, which was exactly the thing I had wanted-a lingering
question in the minds of the natives, the possibility of forces they have never fathomed”(Kusz,2001).
She wanted people to know she was not from their area, that she was an outsider. This was her way of
responding to her social crises around her.
Since she received her piercing, her comfort level changed. She stated how her daughter
“declared I was the hippest parent she knew, and decided it was o.k. to introduce me to her junior high
friends…. (Kusz,2001). Zusz states that she still wears her nose ring today. “Because the one-eyed fat girl
who couldn’t wear ‘Popular Patty’s clothes, much less aspire to steal to steal her boyfriends, was long
accustomed to the grocery-store stares of adults and children, who learned over the years to hide
whenever possible, slathering her facial scars with cover stick, is now-in charge.

I have now, after all,
deliberately chosen a facial flaw, a remarkable aspect of appearance” (Kusz, 2001). She likes the ring, it
makes her unique, and gives people a reason to look at her. “I’ve invited it, I’ve made room for it, and it
is no longer inflicted upon me against my will “(Kusz, 2001).The ring for Zusz, is her sign of liberation
from a conforming society. A chance to be herself and feel good about it.
As a result, Kusz didn’t conform to her way of living, until she accepted herself for who she was.
Once she accepted her flaws for what they were, a uniqueness about her. Her Ring was no different, it
was her way of letting herself be alright with who she was and how she looked. Kusz didn’t want to let
her personal appearance hinder the life she wanted. She embraced her own beauty by allowing a flaw to
be placed upon her face. Zusz believed in going after what you want, even if no one else wants the

same
thing. What makes us unique and beautiful can sometimes be portrayed as unacceptable by society. But
it’s how you raise once you have fallen that depicts our true nature.