After thinking about Tanner’s suggestion and telling myself several times I could never write a column like he was doing, I finally asked myself the right question: did I want to do this? Did I want to write a column about myself and disgorge my opinions in the school paper?
Forcing myself to answer that made me realize something. I was scared. Scared to open myself up that much. I’d done just that coming out, and it hadn’t worked well at all. Did I really want to jump into the frying pan again?
But then I told myself to stop being so negative. Negative wasn’t where I lived. Never had been, and ‘scared’ didn’t answer the question: did I want to do this?
And surprisingly, I realized I did. One reason was because of my competitive nature, which translated into doing what Tanner was doing and trying to do it just as well or even better. But there was also something else, another reason I wanted to do it. I’d been rejected by the students of the school when I’d come out, and, in my mind, I didn’t think I was the one being rejected as much as it was the idea of me being gay that bothered people, the reality that someone, anyone among them was gay.
That someone was vastly different from them, strange and weirdly defective. Yet I was just me; I wasn’t any of those things. I wanted them to realize that. And writing a column, one that they’d have to read out of sheer curiosity, would be a way to accomplish that.
Tanner had said to write a draft, not for the paper but for him to proof and comment on. Then, when that had been polished, he’d go with me to the teacher in charge of the paper and try to get me on board.
So that’s what I did. He’d said it couldn’t be more than seven-hundred words and would be better to be about five hundred. He joked that none of the students had an attention span longer than that. I think he was kidding.
I wrote a piece the length he’d specified; it could easily have been longer, but I had to keep it simple. I titled it ‘Friends’. I started by saying I was gay but that gay was only one part of me. I went on to list a bunch of other things about me, things that everyone reading it could relate to, all things we shared as young teens. Then I never used the word gay again. I wrote instead how important it was for people to have friends. That especially at our age, how we needed someone we could talk to, to share emotions and triumphs and heartbreaks with, because friends our age understand us better than adults who are not experiencing or attuned to the things we are. I wrote about how lonely it was when you didn’t have a friend to talk to. If you had no friends, it meant that no one liked you. I wrote that feeling universally disliked was a huge psychological problem for kids and the reason some chose suicide.
Then, I mentioned that I’d lost my friends when I came out and how that had hurt, but that I now had a new best friend and perhaps another, and I was feeling much better, able to cope with life at school again. And then came the kicker: I emphasized I’d seen many kids at school who didn’t appear to have friends and how unhappy they looked. This wasn’t about me; it was about all of us and our need for friends and how we could all help each other. All it took was a kind word or something as simple as inviting a lost-looking kid to sit at your table at lunch. How important such an insignificant seeming act of kindness could be. And I closed it with a little humor: ‘I read a quote the other day; I don’t remember who wrote it. But it said “A true friend is someone who thinks that you’re a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”’
I followed that with my last sentence: ‘That’s certainly me: a slightly cracked egg. But then, aren’t we all?’
Tanner gushed over my effort. He made some suggestions and I made some changes, and then we went to Mrs. Black, the school’s newspaper overseer. She read it, looked at me, reread it, and said, “This is going in our next issue. On the front page. And why aren’t you in my advanced writing class?”
“Because I’m in seventh grade and it’s not open to us.”
“Oh,” she said. “Maybe I’ll get that changed.”
So that’s how I became a columnist. It was also how I became a regular kid at school again. It didn’t happen overnight, but little by little, more kids wanted to talk to me. My columns were about problems we all shared and ways to deal with them, and kids would stop me in the hall to tell me about their successes. Some just mentioned other problems; they’d ask me how to solve them. Suddenly, if it’s okay to mix ‘little by little‘ and ‘suddenly’ in the same paragraph, I became sort of popular. It sure felt sudden. Kids talking to me, acting as though I was no longer a pariah, like I was a regular kid again, made a world of difference in how I felt about myself.
≈ ≈ ≈
“You did what!” First time I’d ever yelled at Tanner, but he deserved it.
Tanner gave me a funny look, stood up from my bed, and walked over to look out the window. I knew his mannerisms by now. He did that window-looking thing when he’d been surprised, discombobulated, really, and wanted time to think.
I used the time to continue in the vein I’d started with. “I thought you didn’t like girls. You told me you didn’t like girls.”
He turned to look at me, and in a much softer tone than I was using, said, “I never said that. I said I wasn’t ready to deal with them yet.”
“Well, same thing. And now you’ve invited one to the dance?”
“Calm down. That’s what dances are for: to meet kids, get to know them better, see what it’s like dealing with the other sex, learn how to do that. Most of us haven’t done much of that yet. These dances let us get used to dealing with them.”
“But… but… I wasn’t sure how to continue this. I did know I was upset that he’d asked a girl out. It seemed he was stabbing me in the back even though I knew he wasn’t. It felt like that, though. Betrayal.
“Come on, Trip. I thought you’d support me here! I’ve never asked a girl to a dance. I’ve never been to a dance. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or not do! This is all new and scary, and you’re giving me attitude? Really? Why?”
Could I answer that? I was torn, but I was upset enough to throw caution to the wind.
“Why? You know why. You have to know why. We can’t have spent all the time together that we have without you knowing why this would upset me.”
He stared at me long enough that I felt like fidgeting. I didn’t. I met his stare. It was hard, but I did it.
He went back to my bed and sat down again. “I guess I do know why. But Trip, this is just a school dance where we get to know people. I’ll dance with other people besides Meredith. She’ll dance with other boys. It’s a social thing. And you’re coming, too.”
“Whoa! I’m not going to any fucking dance!”
That might have been the first time I’d ever used that word. It wasn’t one I liked. I almost never swore at all. Saying it now was just an indication of how upset I was.
“Trip, Trip, Trip,” he said, rolling his eyes.
He thought he was being funny. Well, he was, and if I weren’t so pissed, I might have even smiled. But I was, and so I didn’t.
He was watching me and saw my mood. So, he said what he had to say to fix that.
“Trip, I expected more from you. You’re my best friend. Best friends help each other. You going off the rails isn’t helping anyone. I need you behind me on this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I might like her, I might have fun with her, and I might hate dancing and not like her at all. I probably won’t, if you want the honest truth. But I want to find out, and I want you behind me. I want you at that dance. I want you to dance with people, too. Boys and girls. If no other boy will dance with you, I will, but I want you to try asking one. This is what kids our age do, and I’ll be disappointed if you go into a funk instead of being there as my best friend.”
Damn him, anyway! He had me, and he knew it. He knew the exact button to push, and he’d pushed it. Hard.
He made his point, and I was ashamed of myself. I knew he wasn’t gay. Any dreams I had of us getting together were all me fantasizing. If I wanted a boyfriend, I should be looking elsewhere.
But I was so into Tanner. He was beautiful and sexy and strong and smarter than a fox ignoring the hen house while attending graduate school at Harvard. Heck, forgetting about him, not being in love with him, giving him up, looking for someone else wasn’t just hard, it was impossible.
But it was time to put on my big-boy shorts. I knew that. I hated the look of disappointment on his face. Disappointment with me! And I deserved every wrinkle of his frown, every downcast glance of his sad eyes. That was my fault. And, hard or impossible, it was up to me to put it right. He was my friend, my best friend, and he deserved better from me.
I met his eyes. “I don’t know what to wear. And I’m not asking anyone.”
That got a broad smile out of him and a, “Way to go, Trip! Now, just like a couple of girls, we can dither over what to wear.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.