Twelve
A few years ago I went through a period of missing my mother greatly. I didn’t realize up until she actually moved to New York that she’d be taking with her all the common everyday things that I had relied upon. Who was going to wash my clothes? Who was going to help me with my homework? Who would cook dinner? And then who was going to do the dishes? It was clearly not going to be dad.
I buckled down and studied harder to achieve better grades on my own. I learned how to do my own laundry. I still couldn’t cook, but I was a pro at ordering takeout. And most importantly, I learned the value and convenience of paper plates and plastic utensils. I have been self-sufficient ever since.
Now, after being in my mother’s care for a week, it took all I had to convince her that I was well enough to take care of myself and go back to school. Robert picked her up Sunday night and the first thing I did was heave a giant sigh of relief, but not before we had a serious conversation about the fiasco the weekend before.
Having had a spotless record up until now, they were giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I now had a list of rules to follow. I would have to check in with mom twice a week. I would have to notify Aunt Grace if I was going out on the weekend and text her when I get home. She would also be stopping by to check on me now and then. These were all conditions I could live with, considering the alternative of being dragged up to mom’s house or Chicago permanently.
Keeping to my word, I did return to school the following Monday, knowing things might be a little tense, but not quite expecting what was in store. What was in store, you ask? You’ll find out soon enough.
I chatted with Kate until it was time for homeroom, after which I stopped at my locker to grab books for my first three classes.
I turned the dial right, then left, and then right again on all the appropriate numbers, lifted the latch, and pulled the locker door open. The first thing I noticed was a note folded small enough to be slipped through the horizontal slats in the locker door. I carefully unfolded it. It contained four words: Watch your back FAGGOT.
I stared at it for a moment and quickly looked around to see if anyone had been watching me,
perhaps waiting for the exact moment I read the note. No one looked suspicious. No one was looking at me at all. Surely my face had turned a deep shade of red. I shoved the note into my jeans and slid the books I needed into my bag. I slammed the door and walked to class, feeling my face turn redder by the second. It felt like any moment I was going to break out in a sweat.
My first class was Spanish and I sat down at my desk in a little bit of a daze. I thought the same question over and over: who could have written the note? I never really had any enemies at school. The only people that knew my sexual preference were Kate and Patrick. And maybe Daniel, although from what I remember, I didn’t confirm or deny it when he groped me in his car. Would Daniel have written it? He probably would be mad and defensive but I thought that if he wrote me a note, it wouldn’t be that. Had he told someone else I was gay?
The only person I was friendly with in Spanish class was Rich, who sat in front of me. While he was kind of immature and a bit of a class clown, he was never a dick. He was actually pretty nice. After a few minutes when the teacher had closed the door and started scribbling the verbs of the week on the board, I thought it was kind of strange that he hadn’t said hello to me after my week-long absence.
The class went on. The teacher welcomed me back. No one said a word to me. I was too preoccupied with the note from my locker to notice much else. Once the teacher had finished what she had to say for the period, it left us with about ten minutes to get started on homework and I tapped Rich on the shoulder.
He half turned around.
“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.
“Uh. Nothing. How’s it going?” he continued speaking without looking at me which was very unusual.
“Had a rough week but doing alright,” I said.
“Cool.” He turned to fully face forward and neither of us said another word. Something was definitely up. Did he know the whole story of what happened? Did he find out that I was gay? Did he write the note? I couldn’t see him doing something so mean. But somebody had done it. And why was he acting so strangely toward me?
The rest of the day dragged on with my preoccupation of the note, and as time went on I noticed how other peoples’ lukewarm responses were very similar to Rich’s. It almost seemed like they were angry at me.
During the last period of the day, I received a text message from Patrick asking if I wanted to hang out after school and I told him to come to my house. He showed up about ten minutes after I got home.
“Something is definitely up,” I said to him the moment he walked through the door. “Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m crazy. But something is going on, Patrick.”
He drew in a long breath and I immediately knew he had something to tell me.
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I asked if you wanted to chill. I need to tell you something. And it’s not good news.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and rubbed his forehead.
“Does it have something to do with why everyone is treating me like crap?” I asked.
“It has everything to do with it. I was talking to Jimmy and Mark at lunch today,” he said. Jimmy and Mark were friends of Patrick that I didn’t know that well, but they seemed nice enough. They were of the geeky-but-cool sort. Kind of like Patrick. “Apparently,” he continued, “there was another party over the weekend and Daniel was there and was talking shit about you.”
“This should be good. Go on,” I said.
“He made it a point to tell everyone the story of what happened to you and him last week. Except he made some adjustments to it.”
“Oh, god. What?”
“He was telling everyone that you two went for a ride in his car and that you were drunk and making lewd advances toward him, and when he wasn’t interested, you grabbed the wheel and that’s how the accident happened.”
I stood there, looking blankly at Patrick.
“Trav?”
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. I didn’t know what to say.
“I know you have to be crazy pissed. I was when I heard. I told Mark and Jimmy what really happened.”
“I don’t get it,” I finally said. “Why? Why me? Why is all this happening?”
“I know. It really sucks. We always knew Daniel was an asshole.”
“So that’s it. Everyone knows I’m gay. And they think I was trying to hook up with Daniel. Which, I might add, is totally gross.”
“Well, who knows if they’ll even believe that? We all know Daniel’s a story teller. No one can ever be sure that what he says is the truth.”
“But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter. It’s juicy gossip so they’re going to buy into it. And now that they think I’m gay, nothing I can say or do will every make them not think it.” I sat down at the table. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I’m really sorry,” Patrick said.
We sat in silence for a while, with me fuming inside my head. How could Daniel do that? He completely turned the facts around and made me sound like some kind of letch that came onto him and flipped out because I couldn’t get into his pants. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I really, honestly, couldn’t believe it. I was innocent. I was dragged into this against my will and made out to be the villain. I’m sure once people got wind of his story they just asked for more and more details, and if I know Daniel, he was all too happy to think of some.
“Look, I have to be at work at 5:00 so I have to get going. But I wanted you to hear this all from me.”
I sighed. “Well, I appreciate you telling me. I just don’t know what to do. I’m so mad, you have no idea.”
“I wish I had some advice for you, but nothing even remotely like this has ever happened to me. I’m so pissed off just knowing about it. I can’t begin to imagine how angry you are.” He got up and walked toward the door. “If you need to talk or
bitch or vent or anything, call me, okay?” I nodded my head and he walked out the door.
“So now what?” I asked out loud, after Patrick was gone.
The following days at school more or less played out like Monday had. Seemingly no one wanted to talk to me and the notes continued. One per day. Die FAGGOT. FAGGOTS burn in HELL. GOD HATES FAGS. For some crazy reason of which I’m still unsure, I saved those notes every day. When I got home, I would pull them out of my pocket and places them on my dresser, making a neat pile. What was I keeping them for?
Ryan had called and texted several times throughout the week and I decided it would be best not to talk to him. As much as I liked him and felt we had a deep connection, trying to forge a relationship had been nearly impossible throughout. Aside from the small disasters that seemed to manifest only whenever he and I got too close, he was still getting used to the idea of dating a guy and I felt the new drama would scare him off for sure. I had a momentary lapse in judgment the day Kate interrupted our almost-kiss, and I decided I was better off for her having done so. He was way too insecure about himself to have a stable relationship now. I reciprocated his texts minimally and left it at that.
Friday, I had the unique opportunity to corner Rich at the library. It seemed pretty odd that he was there because he never struck me as a studying-in-the-library kind of guy.
He was camped out at a table by the windows. The library was mostly empty since no one in their right mind wanted to spend a Friday afternoon at the school studying. He was sitting alone, staring into a text book, and I wasn’t sure what I should do. Should I just pretend he wasn’t there and go about my business? Should I try to talk to him? Aside from the notes, no one, including Rich, was outwardly mean toward me. I was, more or less, just being given the cold shoulder. Before I could give it any more thought, I walked over to his table, and when he looked up and saw me, he seemed a bit surprised. Without asking, I sat down across from him.
He plucked the small white earphones from his head. “Um, what’s up?”
“That’s what I would like to know, Rich. What is up, exactly?”
“What do you mean?” He looked around. Maybe he was paranoid that someone might see him sitting with the gay kid.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a little pissed off that people have been talking shit behind my back. Or maybe it’s because some people are choosing to believe lies started by some douche bag. Or maybe it’s because when I try to talk to anyone they act like you are right now. You know, nervous, avoiding eye contact, always in a hurry to leave. Any of this sound familiar?” I think something snapped inside my head. I was never a confrontational person. I suppose even I have my own breaking point. Enough was enough. I was demanding answers, even if I knew what they were. I wanted to hear it from him. I wanted to make him say it to me.
“So, you’re saying that those things weren’t true?” he asked.
“Well, what do you think?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, looking confused and uncomfortable.
“Oh, god,” I said. “I’m not getting anywhere. Okay. Listen. I’m going to tell you what happened last week.”
“Okay,” he said, again looking around as if to make sure no one was watching or listening to us. Every time he did it, I got angrier.
“Against my better judgment, I got into Daniel’s car knowing he had been drinking. A lot. I thought he just wanted to talk. I didn’t think he was going to take off driving. Does this story correspond at all with what you’ve heard before?”
“Kind of,” he said, now almost looking interested.
“Well the rest will be new to you, so make sure you listen closely. Daniel took me to a dark little park where he said he believed I was gay and started grabbing at my dick and I pushed him off of me. That sent him into a little rage and he decided he was going to go for a nice joyride with no headlights on. What do you think happened after that?” My heart was beating fast. I was nervous and excited and couldn’t believe I was saying everything that I was saying.
“He crashed?” Rich answered.
“Exactly. Now, you’ve known me for a few years and you’ve known Daniel awhile too. If you had to pick which one of us you would trust, who would it be?”
He exhaled loudly and suddenly looked more relaxed. “I didn’t know what to think. It seemed so crazy that that would happen. Man, I’m sorry I’ve been a jerk. I really should have known better. But, you know, everyone was talking about it.”
“Yeah, but no one heard it from me.” I said, standing up.
“I mean, when I think about it, it’s ridiculous to think that you were trying to hook up with Daniel.” I pushed my chair in and noticed Rich actually smiling at me and for a second, it felt good. “I knew it couldn’t be true. I know you’re not gay.”
Now what? I’ve successfully convinced at least one person out of the entire student body that nothing Daniel said was true, and in doing so, I made the thought of me being gay seem preposterous. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Even though the past week had been hell, I kind of got used to the fact that everyone now assumed I was gay, even if it wasn’t under favorable conditions. Even if there were daily threats that so far proved to be nothing more than words a person was too spineless to say to my face. This suddenly became a lose/lose situation. I couldn’t get the truth out about what happened that night without being completely truthful about myself. Either way, I was providing ammunition for everyone to judge me. But, was being in the closet really that great? Did I want back in now? As I stood there processing what Rich had said, I realized I didn’t. I didn’t want to be in the closet and I didn’t want to hide who I was. Maybe if I had been honest about myself sooner, this crazy rumor about me wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.
“Actually, the part about me being gay is totally true. It was the rest that wasn’t.” He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but I turned around and walked away. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t say anything or call after me. Who knows what he was thinking of me now? But at least for once I got the truth out there, even if it wasn’t going to fix relationships with those who turned on me.
As I quickly walked down the school halls after leaving the library, I started to feel overwhelmed. Everything that was happening was all too much. While it briefly felt like a small victory to set the record straight with Rich, I couldn’t help but feel that on the whole, it really didn’t matter. It was too late, and people would continue to believe what they wanted to believe. I felt the tears coming and practically ran through the parking lot to get to my car. I managed to hold it in just long enough to get in and close the door. This is it. I’m finally having the mental break I knew was bound to arrive. Get me a strait jacket and a paddy wagon because it’s time for this guy to go to the nut farm.
I rested my forehead on the steering wheel as I finally began to calm down and was startled by a knock on the window. I nearly jumped through the windshield. I looked up to see Rich looking down at me with a bit of a weird, surprised expression on his face. I guess he hadn’t expected to find me mid-meltdown. I couldn’t talk to him again. I couldn’t talk to anyone at that moment. I started the car and tore out of the parking lot, nearly crippling Rich in the process. I had to get out of there. I had to go.
I turned the music up and drove around the back roads for a bit, but no matter how loud I made the volume, it couldn’t drown out all the static in my head. I was driving aimlessly and manically seesawing from being okay one minute to crying the next. Eventually it started to snow and I decided to make my way home.
Once in the driveway, before getting out of my car, I took out my phone. Before overthinking it, I called Ryan.
“Hello?” he answered. “Hello? Travis?”
I didn’t know what to say. I let my phone drop onto the passenger seat with Ryan still calling my name on the other end and got out of the car. As the snow quietly fell around me, now heavier and gathering on the ground, I ambl
ed to the back of the house. In the back of the snow-blanketed yard was the small mound of dirt where I had laid Lucky to rest. I dropped to my knees and brushed the accumulated snow away and then laid down beside it.
The snow was turning the world black and white, and the silence was mesmerizing. Eventually, the cold of the snow and wind stopped stinging and I was somehow dozing in and out of sleep. What if I stayed there forever? What if I just laid there until I was as cold and dead as Lucky? How long would it take? An hour? A day?
If only I could turn the calendar back two months. I would have taken my cat to the vet. I would have trusted my first instinct and passed on going to Karen’s party. I would have found a way to keep Robert away from my mother so she didn’t get knocked up and no marriage would be taking place. I would have chosen a different seat on the bus.
Somehow everything had spiraled into chaos and I was no longer in control. I had been white-knuckling this ride the whole way down and I was too exhausted to hang on for one more second. The chaos had won. It was time to let go.
Lucky Page 12