Totally Joe

by James Howe

  Anyway, trick-or-treating: Let’s see, it was Colin and me; Bobby and Kelsey; Kelsey’s friends Amy and Evie; Skeezie and his sisters, Megan and Jessie; Addie; Drew and Sara (Sara broke up with Justin last week and is now Drew’s girlfriend) (we think) (nobody’s really sure about that); and Colin’s sister, Claire. DuShawn didn’t come with us because he said trick-or-treating was for little kids and he’d meet us at Addie’s for the party later. If he had come with us in the first place, he might still have said what he did, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as bad.

  Anyway, up until the bad part we were having a really good time. Colin and I kept going, “Hey, Bert!” and “What is it, Ernie?” and cracking everybody up with our voices, and it was decided that we had to be the ones to say “trick or treat” at every house because the sound of it made people laugh even before they opened their doors—and then when they did open their doors, well, they freaked when they saw us, what can I say?

  For almost an hour, it was the best Halloween ever. Colin and I walked together the whole time, being Bert and Ernie and sometimes holding Claire’s hands between us and swinging her up in the air. She was dressed as the flying carpet from Aladdin (a hand-me-down, store-bought costume, but on her totally cute), so of course she had to fly. It was so much fun being the three of us. It was like, I don’t know, Colin and I were connected through Claire or something. Almost like we were holding each other’s hands instead of hers.

  Anyway, we came to this street corner and everybody started to run across. Colin went to grab Claire’s hand, but she had already gone ahead with Bobby and Kelsey, so he grabbed mine instead. By mistake, like. I guess I should have gone, “Bert, let go of my hand!” But I didn’t. And he didn’t let go. We ran across the street together like that—you know, holding hands. For all of maybe five seconds.

  Guess who was watching from the other side.

  DuShawn and Kevin and Jimmy.

  DuShawn looks at us and goes, “Bert and Ernie? That is so gay.”

  If that had been all, it would have been okay. I mean, not okay, but we could have told him he was being a jerk and it would have been over. But Kevin had seen us holding hands, I guess, because he said, “That’s because they are gay.”

  DuShawn said, “Huh?”

  Kevin goes, “Bert and Ernie. They’re gay. I mean, you never see them with girls, do you? They live together, right? Next thing you know, they’ll be getting married. Hey, maybe that’s what Colin and Josephine are gonna do.”

  “That is so sick,” Jimmy Lemon says, and he and Kevin start making barf noises.

  At that point, I don’t remember who said what. I probably should have told Kevin and Jimmy to shove it, but I heard somebody else saying it for me, and, besides, I was too busy watching the look of panic spreading over Colin’s face under his yellow makeup. Addie was yelling at DuShawn, and DuShawn was yelling at Addie and then telling her he was sorry and then telling Kevin and Jimmy the two of them had better go. Which they did, but not before Kevin said something about faggots holding hands. I guess the whole thing didn’t last more than a minute or two, but it seemed a lot longer.

  On the way to Addie’s house, Claire asked Colin if Bert and Ernie really were gay, and Colin said, “Of course not. Anyway, does it matter?” Claire thought about it and said, “Not really.” “So don’t worry about it,” Colin told her. But from the way he avoided looking at me, I had the feeling he wasn’t exactly taking his own advice.

  At one point, I heard DuShawn say to Addie, “They were asking for it, dressing up like Bert and Ernie. I mean, what do they want people to think?”

  “Are you blaming the victims?” Addie said, and then she was yelling again, and DuShawn was going, “I’m not saying that, I’m not saying that,” until finally he agreed that maybe he was saying that, and for, like, the thousandth time he was sorry.

  The party was over before it began—and not because of the food, which was actually pretty good. (Addie’s parents are fantastic cooks, even if all their cookbooks have lame names like The Joy of Soy.) It’s just that we were all feeling weird, especially since a few of the kids there knew about Colin and me, but most didn’t, and now those who didn’t were probably wondering.

  Colin was still avoiding me. I tried getting him to talk by being Ernie, but that just got him annoyed (I could tell by his furrowed unibrow), and finally he said it was getting late and he should take Claire home.

  Late? It was, like, eight o’clock—on a Friday night!

  I went home pretty soon after that myself. Like I said, the party was so over. Before I changed out of my costume, I went online and e-mailed Colin.

  Subject: Ernie to Bert

  Date: October 31

  From: phonehome217

  To: blackbirdboy

  Hi Bert,

  That was fun tonight. Except for when Dumb, Dumber, and Dumberer showed up. Did Claire have fun? She sure is cute. So write me, okay? Me and R.D. (Rubber Ducky) are lonely. What? What did you say, Bert? I can’t hear you. I’ve got a banana in my ear.

  Ernie

  I checked my e-mail three times before I finally went to bed. I didn’t hear from Colin, but Addie wrote to ask, RUOK? I sent back the shortest e-mail I ever wrote in my whole life: No. I mean, what else was there to say?

  LIFE LESSON: Trick-or-treating is for little kids.

  NOVEMBER

  I is for

  INSTANT MESSAGE

  Subject: RUOK?

  Date: November 2

  From: phonehome217

  To: blackbirdboy

  Hi Colin,

  Are you mad at me? You haven’t e-mailed all weekend and when I tried calling you, Claire said you’d call back but you didn’t. Maybe she didn’t tell you I called? I’m sorry about Halloween but it isn’t my fault some people are jerks. Are you sorry we dressed up as B&E? I’m not. I thought we were way cool and so did

  blackbirdboy: hi ernie

  phonehome217: hey bert! I was just writing you! I mean, Joe was just writing Colin. ruok?

  blackbirdboy: yeah. sorry I didn’t call you back. How was the rest of the party?

  phonehome217: you mean the party that wasn’t?

  blackbirdboy: yeah, that one. Drew says it sucked.

  phonehome217: Drew is right.

  blackbirdboy: Sara broke up with Drew and went back to Justin. Drew is all mopey. Sara told Justin about Halloween.

  phonehome217: what about it?

  blackbirdboy: going trick-or-treating, the party, everybody’s costumes. Justin told her it sounded lame

  phonehome217: How do you know what Justin said?

  blackbirdboy: Justin told Drew & drew told me

  phonehome217: oh / Justin and drew are speaking to each other?

  blackbirdboy: yeah, they’re good friends

  phonehome217: weird

  blackbirdboy: when I got home on friday you know what my dad said? He said, what are you supposed to be? I told him Bert. He said, from Sesame Street? That’s kind of gay, isn’t it? My own DAD said it!

  phonehome217: why would he say that? He’s supposed to be a grown-up!

  blackbirdboy: meaning?

  phonehome217: meaning grown-ups aren’t supposed to call things gay

  blackbirdboy: I think my dad’s got a hang-up about it.

  phonehome217: Why?

  blackbirdboy: He always says these things. Like what he said about Paul the decorator, remember?

  phonehome217: yeah. so what did you say back?

  blackbirdboy: nothing. it made me feel sick, really sick, like I was going to throw up

  phonehome217: DID YOU?

  blackbirdboy: no, but I ran upstairs and got out of that costume real fast

  phonehome217: is that why you’re not speaking 2 me?

  blackbirdboy: I’m not not speaking to you / I just needed to think about stuff

  phonehome217: RU about to break up with me? Because if you are you should do it in person or at least on the phone!!!!!!!!!

 
blackbirdboy: I AM NOT BREAKING UP WITH YOU!!!!!!

  phonehome217: but you wouldn’t talk to me at the party and you didn’t call me back

  blackbirdboy: can I tell you something? will you shut up and not interrupt me and be all worried I’m going to break up with you?

  phonehome217: moi? shut up?

  blackbirdboy: I’m waiting

  phonehome217: ok ok

  blackbirdboy: ok … so … here’s what I think / you’ve had lots of time to know what it’s like being gay. Because you were always different and maybe it was just obvious to you that’s what you were. I just figured it out last year and at first I was all like no this can’t be me, I can’t be this way! but then I

  blackbirdboy: saw a couple of gay characters on tv and I thought how they could be me and then I read this book with these three teenage guys figuring out they were gay and one of them was so much like me I couldn’t believe it and then there were these signals. Like, I love playing sports but part of it is that I like being

  blackbirdboy: with other guys so much and then there were these other feelings

  phonehome217: I know what you mean

  blackbirdboy: yeah well it kind of scared me to have those feelings, but then I guessed that even though we were different in lots of ways maybe you had the same kinds of feelings and the more I watched you the more I thought you were pretty cool and I wished I could be like you AND DON’T INTERRUPT ME. the thing is that even if

  blackbirdboy: I can handle what it feels like to be gay inside I don’t know if I can handle what other people do with it. I think maybe it was a mistake to have dressed up like we did and it was a BOG mistake to hold hands like that. It was stupid

  phonehome217: thanx a lot / and what do you mean a BOG mistake?

  blackbirdboy: sorry / a BIG mistake / and you know what I mean and I don’t mean I think we’re stupid or you’re stupid / I mean it was stupid to hold hands like that

  phonehome217: “I want to hold your hand.” The Beatles

  blackbirdboy: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” The Beatles

  phonehome217: what’s that from

  blackbirdboy: “Blackbird”

  phonehome217: so that’s why you’re blackbirdboy

  blackbirdboy: yeah, it’s my fave beatles song and you’re phonehome because of E.T.—but why 217?

  phonehome217: birthday—feb 17

  blackbirdboy: I knew that

  phonehome217: you did?

  blackbirdboy: sure. Last year—remember?

  phonehome217: yeah, you said a little bird told you. who was …?

  blackbirdboy: “blackbird singing in the dead of night”

  phonehome217: ?????

  blackbirdboy: I’m the bird who told me. I saw it on a paper in the school office one time

  phonehome217: when you wished me happy birthday I couldn’t believe it. You were my birthday wish

  blackbirdboy: wow! really?

  phonehome217: no, I’m lying. YES REALLY! So when is your bday?

  blackbirdboy: aug. 2

  phonehome217: You’re a LEO?!?!?!?!

  blackbirdboy: why is that surprising?

  phonehome217: you don’t seem like a leo. I should be a Leo and you should be me—Aquarius

  blackbirdboy: do you believe in that stuff?

  phonehome217: not really

  blackbirdboy: what do you want for your birthday?

  phonehome217: “I want to hold your hand.” The Beatles

  blackbirdboy: “I am only waiting for the moment to be free.” The Beatles

  phonehome217: huh?

  blackbirdboy: i’m not ready to hold hands—in public and stuff. I’m sorry, ‘cause I know you want to be more “out of the closet” and all that

  phonehome217: it’s okay

  blackbirdboy: really?

  phonehome217: yeah, I’ll just have to wait until your moment to be free. hey, isn’t it weird that we both know so much about the Beatles and E.T. and Bert and Ernie? Are we like retro or something

  blackbirdboy: I guess

  phonehome217: so how about those Yankees huh?

  blackbirdboy: WHAT?

  phonehome217: I ran out of things to say. Do you wish I liked sports?

  blackbirdboy: no. do you wish I wanted to get my ear pierced like you do?

  phonehome217: DO YOU WANT TO? Next weekend, we could do it!

  blackbirdboy: Repeat: DO YOU WISH I WANTED TO GET MY EAR PIERCED (WHICH I DO NOT)?

  phonehome217: I kind of do, but it’s ok

  blackbirdboy: my dad’s yelling at me to get off the computer. I’ll see you in school tomorrow ok?

  phonehome217: ok

  blackbirdboy: so like sweet dreams and stuff ok?

  phonehome217: U2

  blackbirdboy: hey ernie

  phonehome217: what is it bert

  blackbirdboy: Ernie, you’ve got a banana in your ear

  phonehome217: I’m sorry, Bert. I can’t hear you. I’ve got a banana in my ear.

  blackbirdboy: LOL

  phonehome217: LOL TTFN

  blackbirdboy: TTFN

  LIFE LESSON (OR QUESTION): There’s a song (not the Beatles) that says we’re “born free,” so how come we have to wait?

  J is for

  JOE

  OKAY. I’M SURE J COULD BE FOR OTHER THINGS, BUT THIS IS MY ALPHABIOGRAPHY, SO J HAS TO BE for Joe. The only problem is, I don’t know what to write. I just finished IM-ing with Colin, and that’s all I can think about.

  Well, maybe not all. I’m thinking about tomorrow, too. Monday. Back to school. Wondering if Kevin and Jimmy will say anything about seeing Colin and me holding hands.

  Oh. My. God. What if they do?

  I may have to call in dead.

  Soooo … to get my mind off Colin (♥) and Kevin and Jimmy ()… I’m going to go interview my parents about when I was a baby and stuff. Maybe that will help me figure out what to write.

  J is for Joe: The Early Years

  I, Joseph Daniel Bunch, was born twelve years and almost nine months ago in a hospital in Albany, New York. My mother says I looked straight into her eyes when we met, so she knew right off I was going to be special. (She just didn’t know how special, right?) My dad says the first time he saw me I was so skinny he called me “String Bean.” Those were his first words to me: string bean. Nice.

  My first word was “poo.” I know what you’re thinking, but you are so wrong. It was because I had a Winnie-the-Pooh doll that I took everywhere with me. I still have him. He’s my favorite of all my stuffed animals. And, yes, I still have all my stuffed animals and I don’t care who knows it! (Except maybe Kevin and Jimmy.)

  According to my mom, I showed an early “creative flair,” meaning that I liked dressing up and playing make-believe from when I was very little. She said she couldn’t keep me out of her closet, so she finally gave me some of her old clothes and made a dress-up trunk out of a box this big truck from my grandparents had come in. (Hated the truck, loved the box.) I called the box my “mannabah.” To this day, nobody knows what I meant by that, and I am sure I have no idea.

  One thing I remember from the early years is my uncle Scott’s wedding, which happened soon after we moved to Paintbrush Falls. Uncle Scott is my dad’s younger brother. He likes to say he makes his money making money. I used to think that meant he was in his basement printing up counterfeit bills. Then I realized he didn’t have a basement. My dad says his job has something to do with banking. Whatever. Frankly, Uncle Scott is kind of a snob, but I didn’t know that back then. All I knew was that I got to dress up in my best clothes—I actually liked wearing ties, what can I tell you?—and go to this grown-up party in Schenectady.

  The wedding was awesome, especially at the beginning when Aunt Lainy walked down the aisle and at the end when she and Uncle Scott kissed. Uncle Scott is very handsome and Aunt Lainy is very beautiful, so it was sort of like a fairy tale. Besides, I liked kissing. I called it “getting smoochy.”

 
; The party afterwards was even more awesome than the wedding. There was this huge bowl of fizzy punch with different colors of sherbet floating around in it and a fountain in the middle of it! And the wedding cake, which must have been taller than I was, had, like, a zillion sugar flowers all over it, with little gold leaves! Looking back, I’ll bet the whole thing was way tacky, but at the time I felt like I was in a movie.

  That was the beginning of my wedding obsession. I had this doll Aunt Pam gave me (she had me so figured out) (a lot more than my poor grandparents, who gave me a fire engine for Christmas the year after the truck) (again: loved the box).

  Anyway, I wanted a wedding dress for the doll—formerly known as Cinderella Beauty and renamed Lainy—and Mom took me to the mall, but we couldn’t find one, so she got this woman she knew to make one that would look just like Aunt Lainy’s dress. It took more than a month, and when we finally went to pick it up, I practically peed in my pants I was so excited. But when the woman saw me, she laughed and said, “I never made a doll’s dress for a boy before!” I totally wanted to die.

  (This was my first clue that maybe to other people there was something “wrong” with me.) (Not that it stopped me from dressing up or playing wedding.)

  My mom says that I played wedding for about a year and that I kept asking everybody if they would marry me. Even Jeff. (That was the only time anyone can remember Jeff threatening to clobber me on a regular basis.) I had my Lainy doll marry my Ken doll. I also had her marry some of my Barbies. And G.I. Joe. (I hated that the soldier doll had my name. I mean, please. I didn’t play with him much. He was another Christmas present from my clueless grandparents. One time when they were visiting, my grandpa asked me if G.I. Joe had been in any wars lately. I said, “No, but he and Ken got married last week.” Every Christmas since then, my grandparents have sent me a check.)

  J is for Joe: The Middle Years

  I’m in the middle years now. I mean, not really, but I’m counting my future as the “later years.” So this is me now:

  1. I am 5’ 2” tall.