Pride Must Be a Place

by Kevin Craig

  Alex drops a fist onto the table, and it’s loud enough to not only startle me but to make a few people in our periphery jump as well.

  “No. This is a job for Super Alex.” He stands up…still chewing rigatoni. “I will get to the bottom of this or my name isn’t Foo Foo the Schnoo!”

  “You are so gay.”

  “Why, thank you, sailor. You come here often?” This is where he makes his exit, complete with a swish and a pirouette turnabout. He marches off to their table and I put my head down and start to eat my yogurt. I mean, it doesn’t matter, right. He made it clear he’s straight. There’s no way in hell we could ever be together. Why shouldn’t Nettie have a chance at happiness with him? She is my best friend and he is the hottest boy in the school. In the town. In the district. In the country.

  Why? Because she’s my best friend. She can’t do this to me. If I can’t have him, my best friend shouldn’t be able to have him. Okay, I know how petty that sounds, but gah. It’s just not fair.

  A couple minutes go by and the best case scenario happens. Nettie waves to me from across the room. Marc nods his head in one of those guy hellos that always feels so awkward to me. And they pick up their trays and follow Alex back to our table.

  This can only be a good sign.

  “Hey, you,” Nettie says as she sits beside me.

  “Hey.” I’m not completely settled down yet, so it comes out a bit on the hostile side. But I don’t think she notices.

  “Hi, Ezra,” Marc says. He slides in across from me and gives me that smile. I’m coming to dislike the smile now. It’s filled with a promise that’s not really there. I guess because I was interpreting the promise wrong, but still. “We were just brainstorming. Thanks for coming to get us, Alex. We didn’t see you guys sitting here.”

  “That’s funny,” I say, unable to contain myself, “because we have sat at this table every day for about…” I look at the watch that isn’t on my wrist. “Oh, three years now. And, Nettie, you usually sit here with us. So it’s kind of, you know, weird, that you didn’t see us sitting here. In the spot that we sit in every day. Kinda since the beginning of time.”

  Too much? Probably. I’m suddenly furious. But I don’t know who I’m furious with. Marc? Nettie? Myself? I shouldn’t be so territorial with a friend. It’s wrong, and yet, I can’t help myself.”

  She bumps up against me and laughs. “Holy, Ez. Breathe. We were only talking club talk. No need to get yourself in knots.”

  “Sorry, Ez,” Marc says. “Yeah, I guess we just got wrapped up in the club talk. We weren’t thinking. Did you notice that the whole school is talking about it?”

  “Hmm,” I say, after purposefully stuffing my mouth with yogurt. I don’t want to give in yet. I know I’m going to, but I want to stay grumpy for a bit. I can’t stay mad at him.

  “Mr. Reason asked me to talk on the morning announcements tomorrow. He thought it would be better to have a straight kid be the first student voice they hear. He said he was fine with making the announcement about the naming contest, but he thinks we should take the reins from now on.”

  “And he thought you were best because you’re popular,” I say, “And not a gross faggot.”

  All three of them stop what they’re doing and look at me with various degrees of shock and dismay.

  “I’m sorry. No. That’s great news, Marc. I’m glad you’re going to do it. You know. I’m just. I saw you guys over there and I know I can never—”

  I pick up my tray, leave the table, walk over and dump the tray and all into the trash and storm out of the cafeteria, trying my best not to shed a tear.

  I hate myself. I hate love. And crushes. And impossible things.

  CHAPTER 11

  The thing about freaking out and making a scene is that you almost immediately regret it, but you can never take it back. I just hope nobody outside our table noticed how much of a spaz I was.

  I want for him to run after me, to make me feel better, to say all the right things. But I know he won’t. I slow down by the washroom, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. Slipping into one of the washroom stalls, I lock myself in.

  I’m such a freaking idiot loser.

  I seriously need to get over this guy or I’m going to lose him as a friend. And maybe even make him leave the club before it even gets off the ground. And why would I jeopardize my friendship with Nettie like that? She’s the best thing in my life right now.

  My self-pity party is interrupted by something that sounds like a pig snort. I hold my breath to see if I can hear anything else, but whoever is in the stall next to mine is obviously attempting to be quiet.

  “Hello?” I say. Everyone knows you don’t talk to other kids when you’re in a toilet stall. Ew.

  No response. No guff, Sherlock. Who’s gonna reply to a toilet talker?

  But then I hear it again. It’s more like a sharp intake of air. Like someone is crying but trying to sound like they’re not crying.

  “Hey,” I say, this time with more force. “Hey. Are you okay in there?”

  Nothing. I bend down far enough to peek under the barrier between us, but the guy must have his feet up on the toilet or something. It looks like there’s nobody there.

  “I know you’re there.”

  Nothing.

  “Look, if it’s any consolation I came in here to do the same thing. I’m having one of the crappiest days of my life. I came in here to hide from it.”

  Another snort. He’s crying even more now but trying even harder to cover it up. It almost sounds like he’s hyperventilating in there.

  “Okay, dude,” I say. “Are you at least decent over there? I’m going to stand on the toilet and look over. Tell me now if you’re not decent and I won’t do it.”

  I wait. I start to count to five but only get to three.

  “Okay,” comes a squeak from my cellmate.

  “Okay, I’m standing up. I’m getting ready to look over there. Are you okay?”

  And I look down on the kid I talked to earlier. Damn. What the hell was his name?

  “Oh,” I say, stalling myself, searching my addled brain for his name. “It’s you. What’s up? You seemed pretty happy earlier. What the heck happened?”

  He looks up at me and I see that his cheek is red and swollen. Who the hell would hit this kid? He’s smaller than any other kid in this school by a mile and a half.

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s okay,” he mumbles. His sides are hitching and he’s trying his damnedest not to cry. Which only makes these things worse, in my experience. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Like hell.” I jump off the toilet, step out of my stall and knock on his door. “Open up.”

  Hank. That’s his name. It floats up out of the darkness just when I need it.

  “Open the door, Hank. Come on.”

  I stand there and wait. Two minutes later, I hear the click. And then he slowly opens the door and steps out. He looks so pathetic, like, he’s just this little tiny boy and someone actually hit him. The pity party has just turned into a rage. I want to find whoever did this to him and snap them in half.

  “Dude. That’s just all kinds of wrong. Who did this to you?”

  “Never mind. It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. Really. It just hurts. Here.”

  He puts his hand on his heart and I feel like I’m going to bawl. He’s so raw and honest.

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s okay. Whoever did it, it’s their issue. Not yours. They’re small little shits. Don’t listen to whatever it is they said to you. They’re wrong.”

  “My dad keeps telling me to stay in the closet at school. I should have listened to him. I’m too small.”

  “So you are gay?” I thought so from the way he reacted to the posters, but I wasn’t sure.

  “Yeah,” he says. “But Mom and Dad worry I’m not big enough to fight my own battles. So they keep trying to convince me to stay in the closet at least until high school is over. You know, just to stay safe a
nd stuff.”

  He’s pretty much done crying now. He’s wiping his eyes with the sandpaper toilet paper the school provides us with, but the hitching of the sides and the wild snorts have stopped.

  “It’s my own fault.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s where you’re wrong. Nothing is your fault. You should be able to be who you are wherever you are. Don’t take the blame for what happened to you. What happened, anyway?”

  “Well, I was talking to a friend about the posters and telling him I entered a few ideas for naming the club. This jock guy walked past me and whispered, ‘great…another fag’, under his breath but not really under his breath. I usually don’t say anything. To be honest, people usually don’t say anything to me. I think I’ve been pretty good at passing. But today, with all the posters and the group. I just felt like, like maybe things were going to change. Like, maybe I could come out.”

  “So you said something?”

  “Yeah. I said, so what.”

  “And for that, he hit you?”

  “Not right away.” He walks over to a sink and takes a wad of paper towel, gets it wet and starts to wipe his face. I know what he’s doing. I’ve done it before myself. He’s trying to wipe off all traces of his crying. Doesn’t always work. “He cornered me later on the stairs. He called me a fag again and just hit me as I was passing him. Then he said if I join the club, he’d find me and that there was a lot more where that came from. Then he called me a Nancy boy and teased me because I started to cry.”

  I get a bad feeling. I know exactly who did this. Trade out Hank for Alex, and it sounds like a typical day in the life of Will Severe.

  “Will did this to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Hank says. “Will Severe. Hero of Nelson High. All-around athlete. All-around good guy.”

  “I hate that flaming piece of rat-turd,” I say. He’s getting worse.

  “Stand in line. I didn’t much care for him before he did this. He’s such a show-off. I hate being in the same room with him. He always seems to be on the point of exploding. Makes me nervous.”

  “Listen, are you okay?” I ask. I’m kind of tippy-toeing it, I’m so anxious. I don’t know if it’s because of what Will did, or if I’m still angry at Marc and Nettie and transferring some of that to Will. But I do know I want to confront Will right now.

  “Yeah,” Hank says. “I’m good. Thanks for listening.”

  “Hey,” I say, trying to make him feel better. “It’s more than listening. So, your parents are okay with you being gay?”

  “Absolutely. They just want to protect me when they’re not here. So they want me to stay closeted. They know it’s wrong, but it’s also necessary. I mean, look at me.” He mimes a magician’s assistant, presenting his own scrawny frame with a wave of his hand. I immediately see his point.

  “Well, this club. I’m hoping it changes things so much that even vulnerable kids can be out and proud and not get their heads kicked in for it. But we have to give it time. I think Will, and kids like him, are going to get more hostile before things calm down. They feel threatened. But I also think, in the end, they’re going to be shamed into accepting us and shutting up. Stick around, okay? Don’t lose the courage you showed today when you stood up to him.”

  “Stood up to him? Ha.”

  “No. You did. Seriously. Silence would have been not sticking up to him. You did good.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. But thank you. For everything.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I want to get going now. There’s something I need to do before lunch is over. You cool?”

  “Sure thing, Ezra. Talk to you.”

  I leave him standing by the sink collecting his courage to face the hallways again. I have one thing on my mind as I let the washroom door slam behind me. Will Severe.

  CHAPTER 12

  Of course lunch is over before I’m able to find Will. Which is probably a good thing. You know how rampaging through the halls kind of gives you a chance to calm down and reevaluate things? Well, maybe getting up in Will Severe’s face is not the best plan of action. One, he’s bigger than me. Two, I would be just as bad as him if I did something like that.

  I find myself sitting behind Marc in science class again. I could not have timed things worse. He knows I’m back here, but he’s not turning around. I don’t know if this means he’s mad at me or he thinks I’m mad at him.

  I don’t have a right to be mad at him, so if he thinks I’m mad at him he’s probably mad at me for being mad at him. Ack. Any way I slice it, Marc is mad at me.

  If I was a bigger person I’d tap him on the shoulder and beg his forgiveness. I’d tell him it would never happen again, and that he could see anyone in school he wants to see because it’s none of my frigging business.

  But I’m not. I stare at the back of his perfect head and I miss every word of Mrs. Connick’s ramblings.

  And I secretly pray that he will relent and turn around. Or toss back a note. Or anything. Just, please.

  He lets me wriggle for most of the class. With less than ten minutes left, I see him trying to do something covertly and then I immediately receive a text.

  Marc Tremblay:That was a pretty boneheaded move.1:48pm

  I can feel the blush on my cheeks at his chastisement. He’s right. I can’t argue.

  Marc Tremblay:This is your free pass. You know it can’t be like this, right? You can’t be possessive. We’re just friends1:50pm

  Way to hammer it home. We. Will. Never. Be. A. Couple. Thank you, Marc. Crystal clear.

  I don’t respond right away. I’m not sure what to text. I’m sitting here trying to come up with the perfect response when the speaker crackles to life and someone—the vice principal, I think—comes on and says, “Will Severe to the front office, please. Will Severe to the front office.”

  I say, “Ha!” out loud and immediately regret it. Oops. Everyone turns in my direction. I’m met with smirks and dirty looks. But it settles down almost right away.

  You:I will never do that again. I swear. I promise. It’s hard.1:59pm

  And, as I click send, the bell goes. We’re up out of our seats walking toward the door and as I step into line with Marc I can now see that he’s reading my text.

  “Dude,” he says. “Number one, I’m not into Nettie that way. Number two, it wouldn’t matter if I was. You have to promise me you—”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I slipped.”

  “This can’t happen, Ezra,” he says. We’re in the hallway now and he stops, faces me, and puts his hands on my shoulders. We are a full stop, eye to eye, with a sea of people walking around us in every direction. “I want to be your friend. But I can’t be if things like this are going to happen. Tell me I can be your friend.”

  “Of course, of course. Friends. It won’t happen again. I promise. It’s just because it was Nettie and she’s my best friend and—”

  “No ands, dude. No buts. Doesn’t matter who it is. Okay?” He stares into my eyes and I wish it was for another reason, but he’s just being solemn, just getting his point across.

  “Okay.”

  He lets go of my shoulders, and we continue down the hall. And I feel like I just shrunk to about two feet tall. This is going to be one of the hardest things I ever did. I hope it’s worth it.

  “Can I talk to you about something else that happened today? Right after I left the caf.”

  “Sure,” Marc says. “What’s up?”

  “It’s this little boy who’s in, I think, grade ten. His name is Hank.”

  “I know him. He lives two doors down from me. Hank Fisher. Yep. He’s in grade ten. Not a little boy. I hope you didn’t call him one. Hank’s a great guy.”

  Oh boy. This might not go over well.

  “When I stormed out of the caf like a prima donna, I went to the washroom.”

  “And?”

  “And, this Hank kid was in there. In a stall. Crying.”

  Again, he stop
s in his tracks. This time, he grabs my arm and kind of yanks it. Like he’s furious. “What the hell? What do you mean? Is he okay?”

  “Ow,” I say. He lets go of my arm and I begin to rub it.

  “Sorry. Hank’s a good kid. I kind of adopted him.”

  “Well, you’re not going to like this.” The warning bell goes for next period. We’re not in the same class together, but we’re in the same area of the school. We start walking again, fast so we won’t get a late slip. “His cheek was swollen and red. He told me Will Severe—”

  “That little puke,” he says, cutting me off. “Will went after the wrong kid this time. Hank’s not even half his size. What an ass.”

  “Well, don’t do anything stupid. You’ll only get in trouble.”

  “It won’t be stupid, Ezra. But it will be deserved. That guy’s gonna feel what it’s like to get a beating.”

  “Okay, now you’re kind of freaking me out, Marc. This doesn’t sound like you. At all.”

  “Normally, it isn’t. But he’s gone too far this time. I mean, Hank Fisher? Really? Hank Fisher?”

  “This is my stop, dude,” I say outside my classroom. “Just go to class for now. Give yourself time to cool down. Will isn’t worth you getting into trouble over. Seriously.”

  “Talk to you later, Ez,” he says as he flies past me in order to get to his class before the second bell. “Thanks for the info.”

  “Think nothing of it,” I say to myself as I enter the class and take my seat near the back.

  I have no idea what I did, but it feels as though I might have started a chain reaction. And I don’t think I’m going to like the outcome. Marc is so level-headed and kind, it’s kind of freaky to see him have a meltdown. It’s unnatural. As much as I wanted to kill Will Severe earlier, I feel sorry for him now. There’s a storm heading in his direction, and let’s face it…Marc would cream him. The bully might have met his match. Finally.

  Obviously, I’m completely conflicted. Of course I don’t want Marc to beat him up and get into trouble, but it’s Will Severe. Half the kids in this school would be happy to see him get what he has coming to him.