Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I could have tried harder to fit in. But, it was not my nature. I'd have had to pretend I was something I wasn't. And, pretending brought the tunnels.

I was also stubborn and willful. I wanted to be the lemming in the Far Side with the inner tube around my waist. I wanted to listen to the Cure, Depeche Mode, and the Smiths, not whatever Casey Kasem was peddling. I wanted to read Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, not V.C. Andrews. I wanted to be Holden Caulfield, not Holden on Days of our Lives.

I had two middle school friends. One was Lori, a large girl who was bawdy and bold and – after a lifetime of teasing for being big – strong as an ox. She didn't shrink when they came at her. She pushed back. Hard. I wished for her strength. I just didn't have it. I was strong enough to be different, but not strong enough not to get stung by the insults and invectives my differences occasioned.

My other friend was, of course, my mother. She encouraged my flights of fancy. She liked playing with me. But, she also feared what stifling me might do. She hawked me, especially when things seemed hard for me, or when the pressure to conform seemed too great.

Non-conformity exposed me in ways both small and large. As for the small, it was common for my books to be knocked out of my hands, my feet to be kicked out from under me, and for "faggot" to be coughed behind me or scribbled across my locker.

They were right, but they didn't know it. "Faggot" didn't just mean gay in our Paris. It was broader, and it included all things different. If you were straight and liked art, you were a faggot. If you were straight and eschewed sports, you were a faggot. If you were homosexual, as I certainly was, it definitely applied.

As for the large, I was tackled and kicked as I walked home more than once. I developed a sixth sense. I could feel people behind me. Not long after I started high school, I heard steps behind me. I prayed they were not what I knew they were. And, I never prayed. I went to church with my mother, but I was an atheist. Because I was rational.

I quickened my steps. Whoever was behind me quickened their steps.

I knew I had no chance. I turned around to confront whoever intended to confront me.

There were three of them, all in wool masks. They were Seniors (the year on their letter jackets ratted on them), and they were big.

"Hey, Faggot," one of them called out. "Nice makeup."

"Thank you, I work with what I've got," I offered back, weakly, but trying to be funny.

They spread out around me. I was not sure what was coming, but I knew I couldn't stop whatever it was. Before I could act, they did. I was on my back on the ground, a forearm to my throat.

"If you're going to use an eyebrow pencil," one of them insisted, "you may as well use an eyebrow pencil." With a cheap Bic razor, he took my right eyebrow and then my left. He cut my left brow as he did. It left a scar that I learned to love when my eyebrow returned.

I was disappointed they were not finished. I shook my head back and forth, only to have a foot placed on each side, holding me in a vice. The one who had shaved my eyebrows had a tiny pair scissors. He insisted I hold still. I didn't want to, but I couldn't move. I also didn't want those scissors in either of my eyes. I was helpless as he cut my eyelashes off. As he did, he hissed "what are you going to put mascara on now, you little faggot?" I wanted to respond "whatever I have left," but I decided discretion was in order. I said nothing. I choked back tears of rage.

When they were finished, they took off back toward school. I tried to reclaim my dignity, which was shattered and scattered around me. I surely missed some of it, ground into the grass.

When I got home, I stared in the mirror. I could not have imagined that eyebrows were so significant to a person's appearance. Without them, I looked like a freak.

As I stared, desperation replaced my rage. I felt like I was walking through a series of tunnels, each successive one more narrow than the one before. I closed my eyes and held the sink as I got stuck in the last tunnel, my arms pinned to my sides and my body a plug that sealed off the light. In that moment, it would have been so easy for me to stop pretending I was stronger than I was, to climb into the tub, to make quick cuts on my wrists and feet, and to slowly drift away.

The image of my mother finding me jarred me loose. I had found my father. I couldn't have her find me. I couldn't do that to her. I felt the walls recede and free me. I opened my eyes, let go of the sink, and ran a bath.

The persecution was hard on me. I cried myself to sleep many nights, wondering if I shouldn't just conform and spare myself the daily indignities I otherwise endured. I could not decoct which was worse, abuse or obeisance.

Every time I had to, I chose abuse. Obeisance, conformity, being one of many somehow seemed worse than abuse to me, intellectually. At least on my path, I could take some comfort in being authentic, not sublimating who I was to appease others.

It was harder on my mother than it was on me. She ached for me. And feared for me. She'd have really been afraid if knew about the tunnels or the other thoughts that plagued me.

That night, she insisted I report the boys. I assured her I could not, as they had worn masks.

It would also only make things worse. It was one thing to be different. It was another to be different and a narc. Rather than tattle, I chose an eyebrow pencil and fake eyelashes.

My teachers provided no refuge, in any event. The only exception was Michael Kamler, the 27 year old Physics teacher who had moved over from the Catholic High School. Fresh out of graduate school, he didn't earn much, so he and another new teacher – a female – moved in together, to economize. The Catholics objected to opposite sexes living together, even platonically. When Mr. Kamler and Ms. Ostein refused to relent, the Catholics fired them both. PHS snapped them up; before Mr. Kamler, the football coach taught Physics, a subject he could not spell, much less teach.

In my mind, Mr. Kamler was the inspiration for the Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me." He was a young teacher, and he was certainly the object of this school boy's fantasy. He had unkempt, curly brown hair. His glasses tried to hide bright blue eyes, but they failed. He had a permanent five o'clock shadow. He had thick, red lips, and bright white teeth. He had played soccer and coached the JV soccer team. His legs and butt showed it.

Mr. Kamler was almost certainly straight. But, he was also a rare bird in Paris, a liberal. He was in favor of affirmative action. And gay rights. And, horror of horrors, aid to the less fortunate.

The rest of the faculty teased him. I adored him. Whenever I could, I visited his classroom, just to have someone to talk to who did not think everyone else was right and anything different was wrong. He never encouraged me to conform. He urged me to be who I was. But, he also cautioned me that staying true to myself brought certain risks. Principles, he assured me, were not for the faint of heart.

When I showed up to school after the assault, the Administration looked past me. I was invisible to them. They cared not why my eyebrows and eyelashes were gone. They likely wish I was, too.

The students laughed and whispered behind my back, but no one asked me what had happened. Except Lori. She was horrified. She wanted us to attack each and every Senior boy, surreptitiously. Her motto was "To err is human, to avenge is divine. Fuck forgiveness."

There were 43 boys. Only 17 wore letterman jackets. We identified their cars. During the next assembly, we ducked out, grabbed the water balloons we had stored in a box behind the dumpster, and emptied two into 17 different gas tanks. We were indiscriminate and over-inclusive, but it was the era of Reagan, and he preached disproportionate response. We returned to the assembly Reaganites. And vandals. And exhilarated.