Raise Your Glass (3 page)

Of course no one raised their hands because if there is anything worse than being the guy who thinks knowing the answer is cool, it’s being the person who has to prove they know the answer by raising their hand all Mr. Kotter-style. I wasn’t the only person in the room who knew the answer but I was just as afraid to raise my hand as everyone else. He finally called on someone who mumbled a barely audible, “Um, because she was black?”

There were a few snickers from people, and the person who answered tried to shrink back into their chair. Mr. Richardson gave the room a death glare, which was the teacher equivalent of throwing gasoline on a brushfire of embarrassment before it turned into an inferno of humiliation. There’s nothing worse than being laughed at in class while the teacher stomps a foot and claps their hands in an anemic attempt to regain control. It had never happened to me because, until recently, no one could have actually proven I went to Foster High. But I had seen it, and the torture looked horrific.

Mr. Richardson had begun to explain what Rosa Parks was actually arrested for when I heard a fake-ass whisper from behind me. “Maybe she wanted to do it on the bus like Kyle, here, huh?” There is a physical reaction that comes when you realize someone is talking directly to you. It’s a bit like a flush, but instead of warmth, it’s a chill that transcends any reaction you have had from a drop in temperature. It runs down your spine, and it’s what I must imagine being chased in a horror movie must feel like: that moment when the fear turns to panic, and no matter how hard you scream at yourself to move, nothing in your body wants to listen to anything you have to say on the matter.

I knew he saw me stiffen up because his douchebag laughter followed, echoed by the snorting chuckles of two other people. He was performing for an audience.

“That’s what you want, right?” he whispered again. “To get it in the back of the bus like a little bitch?”

I should have been scared. I should have been terrified, to be honest. Minus walking into class buck naked, this had been my nightmare for the past decade, hands down. Getting ridiculed for something I had done was bad enough, but being mocked for being gay? I think I would have preferred going to class naked, as long as it wasn’t so cold my junk didn’t look like it belonged to an infant.

“Least, that’s what I heard. Brad bopping his boyfriend on the bus like all good faggots do.”

I stress again: I should have been scared. But I wasn’t.

I was furious.

I stood up and turned around to glare at the asshole. The look on his face went from cruel leer to absolute shock in two seconds flat. Mr. Richardson stopped talking as the entire class held its breath. “She
didn’t
want to sit in the back of the bus, you retard!” I screamed at him. “She didn’t want to do it in the back: she refused to move to the back.” The people behind him covered their mouths as they reveled in their comrade’s embarrassment. “And if you have something to say, why not be a man and stand the fuck up and say it out loud?”

There was an audible gasp as the class reacted to me swearing. There were few taboos in high school that can shock a class of teenagers, but swearing in front of a teacher will always be one of them. “Mr. Stilleno,” Richardson called out loudly. I ignored him.

“Does anyone else have anything they want to say?” I asked, looking around the class. “Yes, I’m gay. Yes, I’m dating Brad. I have no idea if he’s gay; if you want to know, ask him. And if you want to know what we’ve done, feel free to describe to me in detail what you’ve done sexually and I’ll be more than willing to share.” I thought people’s eyes were going to fall out of their heads from the way everyone looked at me with stark amazement. “It’s the
twenty-first century; I cannot believe my sex life warrants this much conversation. Are we done?”

My heart was pounding in my chest like it was a gerbil trying to escape Richard Gere’s house.

I’m sorry, that was uncool of me. Richard Gere has done nothing to me but make me love him in
Pretty Woman
, and for me to lash out like that was just tacky.

My heart was pounding in my chest like it was a kid trying to escape Michael Jackson’s house.

See? Again uncool. I am a huge MJ fan and he’s dead, so again, my bad.

I was close to pissing my pants as I realized I had stood up in front of the entire class and essentially dared them to ask me about my sex life.

I turned around and saw Mr. Richardson gaping at me with no earthly idea of what to do next. “What to do when the gay kid loses his shit during class” was not covered in the teacher handbook. I grabbed my book and backpack and tossed my stuff inside. “Don’t bother,” I said, saving him the trouble. “I’m on the way to the principal.”

The room was dead silent as I slammed the door open. Insane or not, I knew I just did something that most people would have thought impossible for me less than an hour ago.

I just gave them something else to talk about.

This was the second time in a week I’d been in the principal’s office. Two times was exactly two more times than I had been in the last ten years combined. Mr. Raymond walked into his office, no doubt holding my file, which I’m pretty sure was heavier than it had been last week. He sat down behind his desk but said nothing as he kept reading whatever it was that was contained within my mythical permanent record. I am sure Mr. Richardson had called over before me and informed them of my Rosa Parks meltdown and that Mr. Raymond was once again stymied by what the hell was wrong with me this time.

“Kyle,” he said, closing the folder. “Another bad day?”

I don’t know if it was nerves or just a lifetime of pent-up frustration bubbling up despite my best efforts, but a sharp bark of laughter escaped my mouth before I could stop it. When I saw the blatant lack of amusement on his face, I tried to sober up, but it was too late, I had caught the giggles. I’m not sure if The Giggles is an ailment that is unique to the socially undeveloped, but I know that I had a bad case of it. Helpless to do anything else, I covered my mouth and looked away from the ever-deepening scowl spreading across his features.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, no doubt hoping his tone might act like a glass of cold water in my face.

No luck.

“Bad day?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes. “Bad day? Mr. Raymond, I have been having a bad life so far.”

He cleared his throat as he waited for me to regain my composure.

“I’m sorry, sir, but no, I’m not having a good day.” I tried again without the laughing. “I suppose that’s because I came out last Thursday and it isn’t going well.” His only reaction was arching one eyebrow in surprise, so I went on. “Kelly kind of cornered me and I just admitted it. So I suppose it’s out there now, and it’s been a hard morning so far. A guy in Civics class began going on about it, and I lost it.”

He had his fingers steepled in front of his face, which looked confused, as if my words were in some foreign language and he had to translate them. After a few seconds of silence, he finally asked. “So, then, you admitted to others you were gay?” I nodded, not sure what part he hadn’t heard the first time, but hey, better late than never, right? “To other students? You actually said it out loud?” Another nod. “Well, then, I’m afraid there isn’t much we can do about it.”

I tried not to drop my jaw in shock.

“You had to be aware that this news was going to be taken with some trepidation by most,” he went on, getting up from behind his desk and starting to pace the room. “This is North Texas, Kyle, and people around here just aren’t going to accept it.” He looked back to me, and I saw not one iota of compassion in his face; if I didn’t know any better, I would have said he was angry. “Now, if anyone threatens you with physical harm or actually hits you, of course, we will intervene, but you had to be ready for this when you ‘came out’.” He added air quotes to the last two words, the distaste in his voice evident.

“I didn’t come out; I was being bullied by Kelly,” I retorted, trying to get my metaphorical feet under me.

“Either way,” he said, opening my file quickly and scribbling something down on the first page. “I would suggest just staying away from those people for the time being.”

“How long would that be?” I asked, not so much shocked as I was pissed.

He looked up again. Closing my folder, he offered, “We are only six months away from graduation.”

I could say nothing to that. I was floored: he pretty much told me to just tough it out until school was over. When it became obvious I wasn’t going to say anything back, he added, “Second period is ready to start. You might want to make sure you aren’t late.”

Part of my brain realized he was dismissing me because I got up and grabbed my backpack automatically. The rest of my brain could not believe this was happening. “So you aren’t going to do anything?”

His gaze got stern as he realized I wasn’t just going away. “There are over a thousand students in this school, Mr. Stilleno, and I can assure you a majority of them will not agree with your ‘lifestyle choice’.” Again with the air quotes. “If you were expecting special treatment, you were wrong.”

“Special?” I sputtered, wondering if I had hit my head and woken up in the fifties.

“As long as there is no physical threat, there is nothing we can do,” he informed me with all the emotion of a fish. “We can’t make people like what you are.”

I knew this would be bad, but I never imagined it would be
this
bad.

The bell rang and he looked up at the clock. “You’re going to be late,” he said in a casual tone, as if we had just been talking about what was for lunch.

I turned around and walked out, knowing if I opened my mouth again I was going to scream.

And probably not stop.

The next period was about the same: whispers that stopped when I walked in, giggles as I went by, a couple of rude suggestions from behind my chair, and a long line of nothing from the teacher. I thought maybe Mrs. Jackson didn’t know what was going on, but that thought was dashed when Mr. Raymond walked in halfway through class. He pulled her aside and whispered something while they both glanced over at me. That’s the moment I realized: everything that had occurred so far was just a prelude to the fuckery that was about to follow.

Or, in other words, my bad day had just begun.

Brad

T
HIS
day could not get any worse.

Bad enough that I was getting the
Elephant Man
treatment as I walked down the halls, but as I walked by I could hear the creeping whisper follow me all the way to class. The Creeping Whisper is a virus that moves from person to person as Patient Zero walks down the hall. I steadily ignored the buzz the best I could, but I could hear what they were saying when they thought I was out of earshot and none of it was surprising.

“There he is; I heard he turned gay.”

“Kelly Aimes is saying that he tried to make a pass at him during football camp.”

“I heard Jennifer say he kept trying to get her to sleep with him and his boyfriend; that was why she broke up with him.”

It’s nice to know that, no matter how long and well you may think you know someone, the human instinct to cover the crack of the ass supersedes everything, and when the chips are down, it’s every man for himself. I expected Kelly to lie like a dog, but Jennifer was surprising, even if I couldn’t blame her. She had been broadsided by this, and if I had possessed even a tenth of the feelings I previously had stated out loud for her, I would have given her a heads-up before my declaration. I wish I could say that I wanted to hurt her, even a little, but the truth of the matter was she didn’t even cross my mind when I kissed Kyle.

So I couldn’t fault her for bashing me.

My first class was English, a class I always found slightly confusing, since most of what the teacher bitched about had frighteningly little to do with actual English. We learned some kind of weird, formal version of English that I’ve never heard one person in my entire life use. Worse, every year we were forced to rehash what we’d learned before and then soak up some more odd rules about things like subjunctives.

As with all my classes, I sat with whatever members of the team were there with me. We usually commandeered a corner in the back and spent most of the class busting each other up while waiting for the bell to ring. So I headed to the back, where Sam and Oscar were already sitting, and tossed my backpack on my desk.

They both got up at the same time and moved to a couple of seats on the other side of the room.

I spent the rest of the class sitting in the back with no one sitting by me. I was so depressed I couldn’t even be pissed. I’m not sure what I had thought people’s reactions would be, but that one move alone kind of floored me into stunned silence. I spent the whole hour just wondering if this was how the rest of my senior year was going to be. When the bell rang, I ignored everything and just focused on what was in front of me and nothing more. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that what I was doing was how Kyle had spent the past four years of high school and who knew how many years before that.

I eased up on my pity party a little and realized it was tough all over.

I had gym second period and I’d been looking forward to letting off some of the pent-up aggression that had been building since last Thursday. I tossed my backpack into my locker and had begun to strip my shirt off when I heard a voice ask from behind me, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I yanked my shirt off and tossed it aside as I turned around and found Cory, Tony, and Josh standing there with their arms folded, looking very pissed. “What the hell?” I asked, already fed up with this day and it was only second period.

Tony said, “I asked, what do you think you’re doing?” He was obviously the ringleader, because I could see Cory and Josh just hanging back, letting him do all the talking.

Obviously they weren’t going to go away until they had their fun, so I just played along. “I’m dressing out for gym, the same as I’ve done for the last four years; can I help you?” Tony was in shape, but we both knew he wasn’t in my league. I was curious how far he was going to push his shit.