by James Howe
And this is the part where I should probably count to ten or simply
sit down and shut up, but when I see Ms. Watkins’ encouraging look
and the sea of nodding heads, most of them belonging to the girls,
I can’t take it, I have to say:
“Why does it matter to me what some pop star does to his girlfriend?
I’ll tell you why. I’m a girl too, and I don’t want some guy—any guy—
believing that just because I open my mouth and say what I think
that I’m asking for strong and crazy hands to be the voice
that answers.
And I want to know why you don’t think he’ll hit her like that again, why you don’t think he shouldn’t have hit her like that
in the first place, why you don’t think everyone should be safe from
being hit or bitten or choked. Why
you
don’t
think.”
And Sara Jakes says nothing
and the bell rings
and everyone heads for the door
and Ms. Watkins looks over the top of her glasses
and nods and says,
“Good for you, Addie,”
and I say, “Thank you,”
and stuff the newspaper
into my backpack
and gather up my books
and wonder why
I even
bother.
Women Who Love Women
“Women who love women,”
Becca says.
“They’re made for each other.”
“But Ms. Watkins is engaged,”
says Sara.
“And Addie has a boyfriend.”
“So what?”
Becca says.
“They’re both feminists.
“And anyway,”
says Becca,
“look at Addie. Just look.”
“Look at what?”
Sara says.
“What do you mean?”
“She may as well be a boy,”
says Becca,
“with that flat chest.”
“She did start that gay group,”
Sara says.
“Why would she do that if—”
“She wasn’t gay!”
says Becca.
“How’s my lipstick?”
“Totally kissable,”
Sara says.
“Oh, but no homo—”
“Omigod,”
says Becca,
“you’re one too.”
“Omigod,”
Sara says.
“Gross me out.”
Both girls laugh
while I remain hidden,
waiting
for the bathroom door
to shut and the laughter
to die away.
I Just Want to Say
Thinking that Ms. Watkins is brilliant
and beautiful and amazing and wanting to be
just like her and loving the way she dresses
and how the heel of her right shoe slips off
when she sits on the edge of her desk and
crosses her right leg over her left
and watching her bounce her right leg
up and down and wondering if it will
make her shoe fall off
doesn’t mean
that I’m
a lesbian.
Another Thing I’m Sick of Hearing
If I started that gay rights group,
I must be gay.
So if I start an animal rights group,
what does that make me?
A giraffe?
When Silence Is Silenced
Unbelievable. Inconceivable.
That Mr. Kiley would say no
to the first effort of the Gay
Straight Alliance. I say:
Defiance! He may tell us we
can’t have our Day of Silence
but silence is a form of free
speech, I contend,
and toward that end I will
be silent on that day to say
NO! to our unprincipled
principal’s decision.
Am I being too hard on him?
That’s what Mr. Daly says.
He tells me to be patient,
one step at a time, there’s
always next year.
But why wait? Mr. Kiley says
he worries about disruption,
that teachers won’t be able
to teach, students to learn.
But there’s already plenty
of disruption: name-calling,
gossip, notes being passed,
words being whispered,
messages being texted under
desks and shot through space
like armed missiles meant
to destroy. And me?
Will I be a target, brought down
for standing up for my beliefs?
I don’t know. I just know this:
I will stand up. I will be silent.
I will let my silence speak.
Shine
DuShawn looks down at the ground, snaps
a rubber band, makes some kind of boy-noise
when it hits some pebbles and sends them
flying. He hasn’t answered my question:
“Would you like me better if I let things go,
if I didn’t stand up for what I think is right?”
“I might,” he says when I ask it again, “but then
you wouldn’t be you, so who knows? Maybe
you could just, you know, tone it down.”
“Tone it down?”
“Tone it down, turn it down, whatever. So
you want to go somewhere, do something?”
I kick at the pebbles, say okay, and we go, we do,
we talk about other things or don’t talk at all,
and the whole time my mind is racing like
a mouse in a wheel, spinning my thoughts
and getting nowhere but worn out.
Why should I tone it down,
turn it down, whatever? Is this how it is for girls?
It’s okay to be smart until you have a boyfriend,
then you dim your lights so his can shine?
Or
is this not a girl/boy thing? Joe told me that Colin
said the same to him, back when they were through
being boyfriends because Colin couldn’t cope
with Joe’s being so “out there.”
What’s wrong
with being out there, out there like a star
shining in the night when that’s the only way
the star can be seen? You never tell a star:
Hey.
Tone it down.
It’s Just That
DuShawn tells me later,
“It’s just that sometimes
you say things in a way
that turns people off,
that makes them not want
to hear you, makes them want
to do anything but listen.”
Oh.
It’s just
that.
Strong
They say I’m strong,
and I guess I am.
At least I dare
to stand up and speak.
At least I speak
when others do not.
But what is strong?
Is it being brave?
Is it knowing
what you think and feel?
In my beliefs
I am strong as steel,
in my manner
I am strong as rock.
But deep inside
I don’t always know.
Does not knowing
mean that I am weak?
Or am I strong
when I do not speak,
but keep silent
and accept the truth:
that
I don’t know,
and that not knowing
is a kind of strength?
So Last Year
“Those shoes have got to go,” Becca tells me
as if I’d asked, as if she were the Queen of Fashion
and I a lowly peasant scuffing along in straw
slippers. “They are so last year, Addie, so not
what everyone is wearing.” Do I care?
Later I see this year’s shoes staring at me
from the window of Awkworth & Ames, making
their claim on me, shouting, LOOK! HOW COOL!
And I feel foolish for stopping and staring back,
wondering, Do I want a pair?
I never thought about these things before—
clothes, I mean, the shoes that are in, the shoes
that are out—but something about Ms. Watkins
and the way Becca’s words are stuck in my head
make me question what I wear.
I don’t even like those shoes. I think they’re
ugly, if you want to know. “Ugly as sin,” as my
grandpa used to say. I wouldn’t wear them
if they were giving them away. So why do I
continue to stare?
If I had the right
shoes, if I had the right
shirt, if I had the right
bag, if I had the right
hair, if I had the right
hands, if I had the right
eyes, if I had the right
nose, if I had the right
body, if I had the right
walk, if I had the right
talk, if I had the right
phone, if I had the right
friends, if I had the right
everything, how would
I be different from who
I already am?
It’s Like That Old Julia Roberts Movie
The one where Richard Gere takes her shopping in Beverly Hills
on that street where all the stores look like they’re temples of satin
and gold and she finds true happiness through clothes. I only know
this movie because Joe has a thing for Julia Roberts and we once
sneaked watching it even though it’s R-rated and Joe’s parents have
rules about such things. Well, okay,
maybe it’s not exactly like that.
I’m no Julia Roberts and my grandmother doesn’t look a bit like
Richard Gere and, believe me, there isn’t a street within a hundred-mile
radius of Paintbrush Falls like that one in Beverly Hills. But here
we are, the two of us out at the mall on a Saturday, with Grandma
urging me to get whatever I want, it’s her goodbye present to me
because she’s leaving soon and she says my wardrobe needs serious
help. It’s not that I have a bad sense of style, she says, it’s that
I have no sense of style and if I leave it up to my mother I’ll end up
looking more upholstered than clothed.
Grandma loves clothes, but not in the way the girls at school do.
Grandma wears clothes as if she’s in a play, and not always playing
the same part. “This is my Rosalita skirt,” she’ll say, twirling a whirl
of rhinestones and roses. “My Peggy Sue pumps. My Carmen shawl.
Today I am so Mustang Sally.”
“Try it on,” she insists when I resist an outfit that has “me” written
nowhere near it. “So it isn’t you, or at least not the you that you
thought you knew. Put it on and see who you become.”
I do.
And this outfit that was so not me? Well, it isn’t any more “me”
when it’s on, but it’s opened my eyes to the way Grandma sees,
opened a door to the possibility that clothes might just be fun.
We shop all day, not just at the mall but at the thrift stores too,
the ones down near the bus station and the diner called Betty & Pauls,
where they never learned about apostrophes but know a thing or two
about how to make the perfect milk shake, and Grandma tells me all
the ideas she has for transforming the limp and the lost we’ve rescued
from thrift store hangers and bins into treasures I’ll be proud to wear.
“Don’t think of them as hand-me-downs,” she tells me, “but as hand-me-
ups!” That’s when it hits me how much I’ll miss her when she moves
back home, and I have to drink the entire rest of my milk shake at one
gulp to keep myself from crying.
We make one more stop. “Do you want them?” Grandma asks as we gaze
through the window of Awkworth & Ames at The Shoes, enthroned like
royalty among the rabble of the other merchandise, looking almost smug.
“I kind of hate them,” I confess. “I kind of hate that I hate them and
want them at the same time. And they’re so expensive. I don’t know
how anybody in this town can afford to buy them. Or why they do.”
Grandma puts her arm around my waist. “Sometimes,” she says, “it just
feels good to fit in.”
I take one last look at them and shake my head. I can’t bring myself
to spend Grandma’s money on something I hate. But I don’t say no
when she buys me six of the bangles she’s noticed that all the girls
are wearing. They’re beautiful, and even if it’s only my wrist,
it might be nice to have one part of me at least
fit in at last.
Almost Popular
I am almost popular for about three minutes
between first and second period, standing
in front of some lockers in the seventh-grade
hall. Four girls, then five, surround me, tell me,
I love your new look. Where did you get
that skirt? Awesome bracelets. I’ve got
almost the same ones. We chatter and giggle,
a gaggle of girls, six altogether, did I mention
it was me and five other girls, five popular
girls, our heads together with me
at the center?
It happens in the spring, three minutes
between first and second period,
standing in front of some lockers
in the seventh-grade hall.
Goodwill
By third period the gossip has begun:
Addie buys her clothes from Goodwill.
Even the right bracelets don’t count,
it seems, if they’re on the wrong wrist.
More Important Matters
I put my mind to more important matters
than what I wear and who notices. I tell myself
it doesn’t matter what anyone says. I answer,
“Nothing,” when my mother asks, “What’s
the matter?” I don’t understand these girls,
don’t understand what I am to them or why
what I wear or say or do matters. I get tired
of trying to figure it out.
I put my mind to more important matters.
Please Understand My Reasons
PLEASE UNDERSTAND MY REASONS
FOR NOT SPEAKING TODAY.
I AM PARTICIPATING IN THE DAY OF SILENCE,
A NATIONAL YOUTH MOVEMENT
PROTESTING THE SILENCE FACED
BY LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER
PEOPLE AND THEIR ALLIES. MY DELIBERATE SILENCE
ECHOES THAT SILENCE, WHICH IS CAUSED BY
HARASSMENT, PREJUDICE, AND DISCRIMINATION.
I BELIEVE THAT ENDING THE SILENCE IS THE FIRST STEP
TOWARD FIGHTING THESE INJUSTICES. THINK ABOUT
THE VOICES YOU ARE NOT HEARING TODAY.
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO END THE SILENCE?
“Speaking Card” created by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network (GLSEN) for the National Day of Silence
Skirmish
Ms. Wyman slaps the card HARD on her desk and snaps,
“Remove that tape from your mouth at once!” almost
knocking the breath out of me. I hold my ground,
shake my head, point to the card, my trembling fingers
telling her: READ!
“Ms. Carrrrrrrlllle,” Ms. Wyman purrs. She smiles.
I do not. “Take. Off. That. TAPE!” The class leans
in behind us like we’re headline news on CNN:
DEVELOPING STORY!
ADDISON CARLE, A SEVENTH-GRADE STUDENT IN A SMALL TOWN
IN UPSTATE NEW YORK, SHOWED UP IN HOMEROOM THIS MORNING
WEARING A STRIP OF DUCT TAPE—YES, YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT:
DUCT TAPE—OVER HER MOUTH WHILE HANDING OUT CARDS
STATING HER INTENTION TO REMAIN SILENT ALL DAY IN SUPPORT
OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PEOPLE. SHE
IS AT A STANDOFF WITH HER HOMEROOM (AND MATH) TEACHER,
MS. ELLEN WYMAN, WHO IS KNOWN FOR, IN HER OWN WORDS,
“NOT TAKING ANY NONSENSE.”
“I am not in the mood for your rebelliousness, Ms. Carle.
I will not take any nonsense, do you hear?”
I nod, indicating that my hearing is working just fine even if
my mouth is immobilized by the strip of silver-gray tape
that is beginning to chafe my lips. But I will NOT back down.
My eyes let her know this. Her eyes burn in return.
“Fine,” she says, “we’ll just see what Mr. Kiley has to say,
shall we?”
I walk to my seat,
standing tall.
The class cheers.
I bow.
Victory is mine.