The Before Now and After Then

by Pen Name Publishing

  “Yeah, I’ll be ok,” I smiled, trying my best to reassure her that I would in fact, be OK.

  She smiled back. “Your dad is picking you up today to take you to your counseling session. He’ll pick you up right here.”

  I wasn’t even willing to fight having to go to counseling anymore. It really wasn’t that bad and my counselor Neil was pretty cool, I just didn’t think it was helping. The fact that we usually sat in silence, my stance on a refusal to speak while Neil spun a pen in his finger, probably didn’t help me “get better”. The reality was I didn’t know what was wrong with me to “get better”. Neil believed in this kind of therapy where anything that I brought up was what we needed to talk about, so if I didn’t talk, we didn’t talk. I liked having control of that silence. Usually he’d just get up at the end and walk me to the door. “Hang in there Daniel,” he’d say, which was always interesting to me since he called me Danny throughout the entire session. “See you next time.” Although those words weren’t necessarily therapy, they were therapeutic to some extent, knowing that some things were certain.

  I grabbed my bag and climbed out of the car. As Mom drove away, I looked down at the two identical plastic diving watches on my wrist; one mine and the other Sam’s. They were identical in every way except for the color. Sam’s was black and mine was white. Even though I had been wearing them together all summer, I now realized how stupid they looked, climbing on top of each other up my arm. I took mine off and put it in the pocket of my bag, before glancing back at Sam’s watch.

  Eight more hours until I was free.

  Chapter Two

  Creston High School wasn’t much different from my past high school, and it was obvious to me as soon as I walked into the tidal bowl of other students that I didn’t fit into their school of fish either.

  I could tell you how every school was the same and how there was a social hierarchy built into each school, but everyone already knows that and I guess, in the long run, it doesn’t really matter. You can only depend on yourself anyway. The concern for being popular isn’t as great as it used to be, and having been raised by two aging punk rockers as parents, Sam and I were always encouraged to find our own identity. That was a little hard to do when your brother was good at everything and was in fact, the most popular kid in school. I had lived in the shadow of his spotlight for so long that it had felt safe there and even though I didn’t have any of my own friends, I always had Sam. That had been enough.

  In the past month, Mom had encouraged me to meet new people and try to “make friends”, which was the most ridiculous statement in the world, like I was 10 and was going to ask someone over to my house to play. Back in those days, it was easy. Now you had to actually talk to someone, get their number, text them and call them, friend them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. I missed being 10 for all kinds of reasons.

  I knew if Sam were alive, he’d tell me to try and talk to people and be myself. But I didn’t know who I was and Sam wasn’t alive. If he had been, I wouldn’t have this problem because I wouldn’t have changed schools and I would still be following him around to parties and sitting on our bedroom floor while all his friends made fun of each other.

  Sam was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

  After blindly wandering the maze of new hallways, I found the door to my first class, French II, walked inside the empty classroom and chose a seat in the back corner. I pulled out my notebook, a pen and a copy of The Sun Also Rises, which I had just started reading the night before.

  After a few minutes, a short woman with a severe black bob and glasses walked in and set a worn briefcase on her desk. She looked up and smiled at me. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit closer to the front of the class?”

  I shook my head, smiling the best I could. As she took out her class roster she began looking through the names while slowly walking back towards me. “Let me guess, you’re Wally Smith?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Pat Jones? No, no, I know him,” she squinted. “Hmm. How about Danny Goldstein?”

  I looked up in surprise.

  “You’re probably wondering how I know?” she said, retracting her steps toward her desk as a few other students walked in. “With those perfect golden locks, you couldn’t be anyone else but Danny Goldstein.” She let her tongue roll on the last name.

  When we were younger, Sam and I had actually been referred to as The Goldilock Goldsteins because of our matching curly blonde hair. As we grew up, our hair never changed, but somehow, thankfully, we lost the nickname.

  “It’s a mystery. I’ll never tell. But that is, in fact, one of my favorite books,” she commented with a wink, before attempting to bring order to the class.

  Everyone sat down and she told us that her name was Mrs. Sconce, but we were to refer to her as Madame Sconce. We weren’t allowed to speak any English in class, just French. One at a time, she wanted us to go up to the front of the class and say one word that described us. She pointed to me.

  “Monsieur Goldstein?” I put my book down and slowly trudged to the front of class.

  “Uh, my name is Danny Goldstein and…”

  “En Francais, Monsieur Goldstein,” she interrupted.

  I went silent trying to think of how to say what I wanted in French. As I looked out over the faces staring back at me, a muscular kid in my row said with a lisp, “My name’s Danny and I’m a faggot!” exaggerating the words to sound like an OMG teen girl. The whole class burst out laughing.

  Mrs. Sconce stood up from her desk, but when I looked over at her, she just stared back at me, appearing to be in as much disbelief as I was.

  “Thanks Danny,” she cautiously interjected. “That was good enough. You can sit down.”

  I walked back toward my seat and as I passed the kid who had yelled at me, he whispered faggot under his breath again, initiating an eruption of laughter from the class.

  I was used to these words. Fag, faggot, queer, fairy, ass assassin, butt pirate, fruit, fudge packer and gay boy. Physically, our voices had been the only main difference between me and Sam. I’m not quite sure why he was blessed with having a deep, macho voice while mine was cursed with a lisp, but mine was a dead giveaway. I often wondered if I wasn’t gay, if people would still make fun of me for my voice and if they did, would it still hurt as bad. Sam had always defended me to people, and told me not to pay them any attention, but it still hurt. Being made fun of for something you couldn’t change was the worst feeling in the world and as a result, I had developed a strong resentment against my voice, which is why most of the time, I just stayed silent.

  “Mr. Jones,” Mrs. Sconce called out while beckoning with her hand. “Since you apparently have so much to say, why don’t you come up here and share with us.”

  “En Francais, Madame Sconce,” he said, sending a ripple of laughter across the room again.

  He stood up and I realized that although he wasn’t very tall, he appeared to be much stronger than I had thought while he was sitting down. As he walked to the front of the room, Mrs. Sconce moved to the side, almost like she was afraid of him.

  “My name is Pat Jones. I am the quarterback for the Creston High School Greyhounds, and I plan on leading us to another state victory!” The room cheered. He turned and smirked at Mrs. Sconce and then looked over the classroom, back to my corner. “And I am not a faggot,” he called out, walking towards his seat as the room fell silent.

  While he walked back to his desk, his eyes were locked into mine. As I looked away, I noticed a girl three seats up put her leg out, tripping Pat and sending him straight onto his face. Immediately everyone in the room started laughing.

  Pat quickly stood back up and sat in his seat.

  The girl was tall and lanky, with short burgundy hair. She quickly stood up and shoved her finger into Pat’s chest as she said, “Neither am I, but you’re a fucking asshole.” She grabbed her bag from the floor and began walking to the door, turning back to Mrs. Sconce as he
r hand reached the doorknob. “and if you can’t control your own classroom, then there’s no reason for me to be here.” She walked out, slamming the door behind her.

  Mrs. Sconce tried to pull the class together, but she had lost her position of dominance and the entire class knew she was no longer in control. Pat stood up and continued to shout, “I am not a faggot. I am not a faggot,” while I just sunk lower and lower in my seat behind my book. If there was ever a perfect time for the power of invisibility, it would have been then.

  After about ten minutes of complete chaos, the door opened again, and another woman walked in, clapping her hands together. “People, people!” she shouted, silencing the room as she looked around. “We will not act this way or every last one of you can go and sit in Dean Gomez’s office! Do you understand me? Now I want you to give Mrs. Sconce your attention and respect her as a teacher.”

  She turned and said something to Mrs. Sconce, who pointed in my direction. The other teacher looked back at me and smiled sympathetically. Turning back to Mrs. Sconce, she whispered something before hurriedly walking out of the classroom, leaving the door open behind her.

  I looked down at my watch and realized we only had about 5 minutes left in class. 300 seconds.

  Mrs. Sconce handed out a worksheet and told us she wanted us to have it finished by the next day. When the bell rang, Pat stood up and looked back at me. “See you soon, sweetie,” he smirked and blew me a kiss.

  He walked out without a second glance, holding hands with some blonde girl in a short white skirt. They were, no doubt, the power couple of Creston High School.

  I quietly collected my belongings, careful to avoid contact with anyone in the room. As I reached the front of the room, Mrs. Sconce stopped me. “I’m sorry. I should have said something or sent him out of class, but I,” she paused, shaking her head. “I just didn’t know what to say.”

  I smiled and nodded, letting her know I understood. I was all too used to teachers who never stood up for me or punished the kids who made fun of me. When I was younger I had believed it was because they agreed with the hate directed towards me, but as I got older, I realized they were just as afraid as me. It was easier to be quiet and not bring any attention to yourself. It takes someone very brave to tilt windmills.

  Thinking of everyone who had silently witnessed my past made me wonder about the tall girl with the purple hair. Was she, in fact, my modern day Don Quixote? Just as I was walking to the door, my thoughts filled with her words, she popped her head into the metal frame like a giant grape lollipop.

  “Danny! Hey,” she called, her hands on her hips, towering over me. She had on a baggy, black t-shirt and a short black skirt with black tights. Huge black combat boots protected her calves. Before I could get out of the door, she reached around me, embracing me tightly with her long arms. I noticed she smelled like clove cigarettes and coffee. She held on for so long I thought she might never let go. Finally, her arms fell limp.

  “I’m Cher,” she said. “As in Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves and yes, the mother of the one and only, Chaz Bono. My mom is like the biggest Cher fan in the world, so of course I got the incredible honor of being named after the pop diva Cherilyn Sarkisian herself.”

  She grabbed my hand and began walking down the hall.

  “I’ve never heard of Cher or Cherilyn whoever,” I said, sheepishly.

  She stopped in the middle of the hallway. “What? I mean, you are gay, right?”

  I had never really been asked that so bluntly before. There was something refreshing about the way she had asked me. I nodded.

  Cher made an exaggerated swoon. “Thank God! I mean, my mom’s been praying all of her life that I would have a gay best friend and now I’ve found one and I just know we’re going to have so much in common. I can’t wait for you to meet her. And Henry and Maude. Of course you’ll meet them too. You’re going to love all of them.”

  She kept babbling, but I stopped listening because something very important had just happened.

  I had just made my very first friend.

  Chapter Three

  Cher walked me past the cafeteria, telling me that she would rather be dead than caught mingling with the “minions of mediocrity”. Even though I had no idea what this meant, I liked the sound of it. She stopped at the row of vending machines and bought two packages of powdered donuts before grabbing my hand again and leading me into the brick courtyard surrounding the cafeteria.

  Outside, summer was unaware that school had started. The temperature of late August in Indiana hadn’t begun to cool and I started sweating instantly. Other students were scattered around the metal picnic tables but Cher led us over to a giant tree dividing the courtyard. She threw her backpack down on the ground and sat down against the trunk of the tree, motioning for me to sit across from her.

  As I positioned myself on the grass, she began digging through her bag and brought out a large red and black plaid thermos. I watched as she kept fishing until she found a well-used plastic mug adorned with a skull and crossbones. Without missing a beat, she poured herself a cup of coffee and another in the lid of the thermos, handing it to me. I lifted the makeshift mug to my lips and took a sip, overcome by the surprising strength of the still warm coffee. Offering up a donut she suggested, “Let’s play instant history.”

  “Instant history?” I asked.

  “Yeah, your background story. You know, like where you’re from and your family, the kinds of music you like and all that jazz.”

  I laughed. I had never met anyone quite like Cher and especially didn’t know anyone my age who used the word jazz as a metaphor. “I guess my story is just like everyone else’s”.

  I looked around the courtyard. Couples flirted with each other across turkey sandwiches and slices of cheese pizza. A group of guys played games on their phones, while a girl with large headphones, sobbed as she frantically wrote in a notebook. Several guys kicked a hacky sack and several girls sat in a row against a brick wall, their skirts pulled up, as they tanned their legs. I wasn’t really like any of these people. My story was much different.

  “Then I’ll tell you mine,” Cher began. “I never knew my dad. My mom met him at a bar in Chicago where she was a bartender and he was a graduate student at Northwestern University. He fell in love with her long, black hair and told her she looked like Cher. Well, that was enough for her. They dated for a month, until she told him she was pregnant and then she never saw him again. She had thought about trying to get in touch with him when I was born, but she didn’t want him feeling obligated, so it’s just been the two of us ever since. We moved down here after I was born to be closer to my grandma so she could help with me while my mom went back to school. Now she’s a nurse at a drug treatment hospital for teenagers and she sees half of all of these crazies come in and out of her hospital on a regular basis.” She waved her hand over the other kids in the courtyard.

  After taking a sip of her coffee, she started looking for something on her phone. “Here,” she said, showing me her phone. “This is Cher.” I looked at the screen and saw a picture of a thin woman with long, black hair parted down the middle. Next to her was a short man with a funny mustache. “That’s Sonny, Chaz’s dad. He’s dead now.” She showed me another picture of Cher with a huge, black feather headdress. “That’s Cher at the Oscars. She was nominated for Silkwood and Moonstruck, but only won for Moonstruck.” She looked at the picture for a few seconds before clicking off her phone.

  “My uncle won an Oscar,” I blurted out before realizing how crazy my admission might sound.

  Cher’s jaw dropped. I was beginning to figure out that she had a tendency to be highly dramatic. “Shut the fuck up!”

  I started laughing. “No, it’s true. He’s not really my uncle though, just my mom’s best friend.”

  She sat up on her knees excitedly. “Is he a movie star? What movie was he in? Holy shit, my mom’s going to die.” She sat back down and crossed her legs, while running her hand through
her wild hair. “Ok, so every year, for the Oscars, my mom and I dress up and act like we’re movie stars. We wear nametags with our names and then we sit around and drink mocktails, you know, fake drinks, and eat cheese and shout at the TV when our favorites don’t win. Every year I try to be someone super famous, but every year my mom wears this same silver sweater set with a nametag that reads ‘Sharon Stone’, even though she doesn’t look anything like Sharon Stone. This year, I bought this amazing vintage taffeta dress from the thrift store and Henry, oh yeah, he’s my boyfriend, well, he wore a vintage tux, and we went as Meryl Streep and Clark Gable. I know, it makes absolutely no sense, but it was hilarious nonetheless.”

  The speed at which Cher spoke was unbelievable. I had never heard anyone speak that fast in my entire life.

  She took another sip of her coffee and looked at me with a strange look of confusion on her face that reminded me of Dory from Finding Nemo. “What were we just talking about?” She finally sat still, sipping at her coffee. I could hardly believe only moments before she had been railing ahead at full speed. Suddenly, a look of complete recognition came over her face. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry. You were going to tell me about your famous movie star uncle. Who is it? Who is it? No! Let me guess. Is it Bradley Cooper? Is it Ben Affleck?” She rustled around in her backpack, bringing out a pack of Clove cigarettes and a black lighter.

  “Alex Night,” I said.

  Cher stopped moving completely and her eyes rolled up, fixing directly into mine. “Shut…the…fuck…up! Your uncle is no fucking way Alex Night?”

  I nodded.

  She lit a cigarette, throwing the pack and lighter back into her purse. “I have literally read Suburban Wasteland like five times. That book changed my life,” she paused for a second. “Could I meet him?”

  “Sure,” I said. “He’s actually flying in this weekend to stay with us for a while.