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My story:
It seems that when I begin to write this story that the locker colors in my high school are most vivid. Why would I even associate the pain I felt during school with locker colors? It’s because each hall had a specific color to designate grade level.
Green:
It is 7th grade year. I am 12. I am scared because all summer I had heard stories of lockers getting stacked and books falling on your head. I have heard tales of many persons being jumped in the restrooms for lunch money. I don’t know if these stories are true or not, but I do know that I am frightened and I really don’t want to be harmed.
On the first day of school it has become apparent to me that in spite of my fear of lockers being stacked, there is something else waiting for me. All the rumors from elementary school have followed me across the parking lot. They have passed through the doors of the high school and down the hallway. On my locker is written the word ‘fag’. It was the first day of school. I only came to discover later that this new name, this word, this mark of shame was to define me for the next 5 years.
I quickly learned not to cross into the main school hallway as if I did I would be fair game for bullying. I learned this during second hour. Jock alley, as it was known, was a main passing hallway to other parts of the school. This is where the finest and the most popular gentlemen hung out. As I was new and young, my name had already traveled across the lot and to my locker, it was only a matter of time before I learned how it would hurt.
Since I didn’t have many friends at that time, I walked alone into the hallway. The normal chatter and banter silenced and I felt eyes turning towards me. This silence, which seemed to last forever, was finally broken with the hissing sound of the word ‘Faggot’. It became louder and louder as each ‘jock’, from grades 7-12 who stood there, chanted it. I recall turning red and keeping my head down. It was then that I realized there was no escaping.
Lunch hours became worse as no one would sit with me. I arrived in the lunch room and sat alone—which was how it was to be for the next 5 years. I recall walking and asking others in my grade, who were once friends, if I could sit with them. The answer was “no”. I finally found a place by myself at a far table. I ate with my head down and never faced anyone.
September turned to December, which turned eventually to May—the year became progressively worse. I realized that being quiet was my only defense. I learned to not smile. I learned not to speak up. I developed a nervous tic of pulling my clothing, which was mimicked.
The word written on my locker followed me all year—I learned that by showing no emotion, showing no reaction only exacerbated the situation. Once I spoke up to defend myself, and when I did find my voice, which had not changed yet as I was still only 12, I was immediately dubbed Fag-Smurfette. I learned that if I had to speak up in class that the only way I could do it was if I could whisper, so I spoke in a barely audible fashion until teachers gave up on calling on me. . . all that was green turned to grey afterwards.
Grey:
8th grade year was no better. By this time the rumors of my perceived gayness, my perverted state, my illness, had traversed the parking lot and had infiltrated the grade school. In the green hall fresh new voices added to the choruses of the older students. I became more and more an object of ridicule as the younger students realized by bullying me that they were free of the bullying.
In the grey hallway I had a locker. F-A-G did not meet me on the first day. But a few months later, someone nearby had memorized my locker combination and my locker was opened during the day. When I went to open it between classes-- the disposable bags from the girl’s bathrooms had been smeared across the inside of my locker, on my coat, on my books. Tampons and pads from the machines had been stuck and hung to all hooks inside and a note was placed in my locker. It read: “Here fag, you want to be a woman so much—you can start by learning to use these.” I remember standing there trying not to cry. Teachers were in the hallway. They saw what was falling out of my locker. Finally one came up to me and without a word she grabbed the items and helped me clean them out. She said nothing to me. She said nothing to the kids who were standing around laughing. She only went through the motions of cleaning things up.
Two days later scratched into my locker door was written the words “We kill people like you” and “The KKK is here to stay-Die Gay!”
Things were no better than the previous year. I ate alone. I walked with my head down. Grey turned to Pink and I became a freshman.
Pink:
Freshman year started off with a parent protest of my presence at the bus-stop. It was brought up to the school board that some parents did not want me to be on the bus as I may molest their children. My mother and father, who knew that something was wrong, learned of this later when I was asked by the bus driver not to remain on his route. For six weeks my mom drove me to school until a new bus could be found for me to ride. However, the same sort of protest arose. For two weeks I had to ride in the front of this bus with the Superintendent sitting beside me. The bus driver was then instructed to have me sit in the front seat closest to him. I could tell that he was not happy with my presence on his route.
High school gym was painful. For some reason the new rumors of me possibly being a molester had become so bad that I was told by the gym teachers to change my clothing in the stalls as other students complained that I looked at them while they were changing. How could I? All I remember is the gym locker room floor, the dirty color of the lockers, the rancid scent of cheap cologne and deodorant. I never looked at anyone because I learned 2 years before this that if I did I’d be ridiculed or punched.
I’d sit in study hall and read rhymes about me on desks. I’d read how I was gay and going to die of aids. I’d read on the desk not to sit there because during 5th hour I sat in that desk. I don’t know if anyone heeded the warning. I only remember sitting there with my face down trying to read and hoping that no one would see me.
The word that was written two years earlier on my locker was already branded on my forehead. I walked with it branded on my back. I felt the sting of it from younger and younger kids as more and more parents and older siblings instructed the younger ones of how evil I was.
Eventually the color pink changed to yellow. It was no better.
Yellow—
There may be once bright moment to be associated with this bright color as a new teacher who was extremely compassionate wrote a note on my paper one afternoon. She must have heard the taunting and known that it went on—she wrote to me “Promise me that you will not let them crush your soul”. It was too late. They had done it. What little bit of soul I had did lighten though. At least someone saw the pain. She never encouraged me to speak in her class. As usual, I kept quiet as I was afraid of my voice—afraid that I may sound feminine. I didn’t even know that my voice had changed so much from that time in 7th grade. It didn’t matter. If I did speak when I was called upon it was still in a quiet whisper. My head was always down.
Sophomore year was more of the same. New generations added to the now familiar litany of gay, fag, homo, molester, pervert—I had a more colorful life than I could imagine as every story of my sexual preferences, every possible sexual thing I had ever done (hell, I was still a virgin when I was 27), was told over and over again. Looking back, I had no idea how vivid their imaginations were. I’d suffer attacks on the bus—as I was told by the bus driver that I could no longer sit in the front as he was implementing a new system and I’d have to buck up and be a man. In the back I’d be taunted—I didn’t fight. I would close my eyes and imagine that I was not there.
Dark Grey.
AIDS. “I hope you die of AIDs! You will not live past thirty and I will laugh at your death, Aids”. My new name became AIDs. Mike and his girlfriend, Diane, who were both so very much the epitome of Christian Children, would remind me every morning of how I was going to die of Aids because that’s what God gave fags. They would hiss this at me as I’d get my books. I’d pray that the bus would arrive earlier to school. If it did, I’d not have to hear their words—but more than often it didn’t and for 180 days—that was my welcome every morning. Of course there were variations.
By this time my name was so well known that even younger kids, as young as elementary school began to add to the chorus that I heard in the halls. Fed up with having to protect me, the bus driver did nothing to keep the chants from occurring when I entered the bus every morning. I guess, however, it did get out of hand when I was told one after noon that I would not be riding bus 17 anymore, but bus 19. The collective cheer of each voice on the bus was my last memory. They were rid of me. They were rid of the pervert, the gay, the molester, the fag, the guy who would die of Aids.
By this time I had no social skills. I had no dates. I had no friends. I walked alone. My own brother, who was two years younger than me, would not walk to the bus stop with me. He was allowed to remain on bus 17. I was shuttled to bus 19 and it was more of the same. He did not support me when I went to explain to my parents why I had to walk 2 blocks down and they said I was blowing it out of proportion. (It was not until a few years ago, when I finally had a major breakdown that my parents apologized and they realized it was worse than they thought).
Bus 19 was worse than all. It was there that I learned that I had to sit on the floor as no one would let me sit with them. I went to complain and the bus driver told me I was lying. I went to complain at the office and the bus driver was called in and I was told once again I was lying. To prove to them that I did sit in a seat, the principal rode for two days with me. I was allowed to sit on a seat then. When he left, I had to sit on the floor. How the bus driver got away with that—it’s so against the law—but this was in a small rural area—he just let it slide. The bus driver, being a devout Baptist that he was, told me that he didn’t want me to sit in the front with the younger kids as he heard I was a molester—a fag—and he would not have them in danger.
I learned to squat to make it appear that I was seated so he could drive the bus later when another complaint was raised.
My senior year was no better. I had senior photos done. I begged my parents not to buy them as I hated the thought of having my photo placed in the yearbook. They purchased some for family members and for me to give to friends. Hell, I still have the box of wallet sized ones. I was not asked for one by anyone. The year was marked by nothing special. There were no dates. There was no prom. There was nothing-only torture of the same magnitude. During graduation ceremony when my name was called there was a hush and a ripple of giggles in the audience. I wanted to cry. Even more, I wanted to cry for my parents who didn’t know why there was a collective bit of giggling from the audience.
Did I want to strike out? Did I wish death on all of them? Yes. Did I strike out? No. I went deeper and deeper inside.
Many years later—after therapy—I got over my nervous tic and there are time when I still clear my throat before talking. I don’t trust many people as I saw the ugliness beyond imagination in human nature. I barely spoke a word during those times—even now it’s hard to write all of this.
I wish I could have written this narrative better. I wish there was a way to give it some of the pain I felt so the reader would understand.
And yes, I am gay.
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