Butterflies & Rainbows
By: Rick Beck
(© 2020 by the author)
Editor: Khris Lawrentz

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

beck@tickiestories.us

Part 4

Chapter 13

“I'd never considered the idea I could be a writer before I wrote the novella length story, and I dropped it on Tommy's desk.”

“Do you know how amazing that is?” Carlton asked.

“Shh!” I said.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Maybe I wasn't stupid. I wasn't so stupid that I couldn't learn to read, but learning to write was never a consideration, until that day, while walking across the Census Bureau parking lot, on my way home. I'll write a story and make Tommy and me the heroes.”

“I couldn't have written a story before my ordeal with reading. My understanding of words was minimal, and I couldn't spell, but I could write, and I did write, and the story I wrote was in the composition book in my hand, as I stood in front of the class.”

“Hello, it's me again, I thought to myself. I will now read to you.”

“Oh, no. Not again, I heard inside my head.”

Carlton laughed.

I smiled.

“My feeling of accomplishment was doubled by the way the day had gone. While I read, Tommy sat enraptured. The entire class heard me telling Tommy how much his friendship meant to me, and any future writing I did, would be for Tommy. My friend inspired me. 

At the end of the 2nd quarter, Mr. Warnock gave me an A, to join the A in gym class. I looked at that report card for a long time. The second A told me something I didn't realize before. I could fool people into thinking I wasn't stupid. I'd always been stupid, and one or two things wouldn't undo that.

I'd been the class clown in 7th grade. It was easier to be laughed with, than laughed at. When I started 8th grade, I was the class clown, except Mr. Warnock wasn't having it.

The A didn't mean what everyone else thought it meant. My parents were thrilled. They'd thought the A in gym, was something, when the rest of my report card was the pits, confirming what I knew.

There wasn't that big an impact for me, because I knew the A was a one time deal, because I wrote a story. I didn't know if I had enough words inside me to write another one.

Before Christmas, Mr. Warnock made an announcement to his 8th grade CORE class.

“Starting at the beginning of the new year, I am going to name one student, who will do a special project for me. It will become part of the class each Friday. I'll name the student I select, after the holidays. Have a nice Christmas.”

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and I walked Tommy home, and we threw the football around in Tommy's backyard. When we went back into the house, because our hands were frozen, Tommy made a prediction. I hadn't given Mr. Warnock's comment a second thought.

“It's going to be you,” Tommy said.

“What's going to be me?” I asked.

“You're the one he'll pick,” Tommy predicted.

“Don't be silly. I'm dumb as a rock. He doesn't want me to do his special project,” I said.

“It's going to be you,” Tommy said, and he said no more about it.

We didn't see each other over the holidays, so I forgot about his prediction. I felt good that Tommy believed in me that much, but I knew more about myself than anyone else did.

On the first day back in school, I couldn't wait to get off the bus and see Tommy. We met in the hall and we walked and talked, as usual, making it to CORE class just before the late bell rang. I didn't even mind being back in CORE class.

“The first order of business this morning, I'm going to name a student who will be in charge of giving current events to the class each Friday, during the second period. I'll expect that student to read the papers, listen to newscasts, and gather the facts about what is happening in the world that week,” Mr. Warnock said.

“It will be entirely up to the student what he thinks is important enough to report on, and how much time he gives each story. There will be a broadcast booth in the back of the room, and that week's current events will be broadcast to the class. Charles, I decided that this is a job you will do well. Starting this Friday, you'll be giving your newscast, so you need to get busy reading the newspapers, selecting which stories you want to report on.”

I was a bit stunned. It's not what I expected.

Tommy turned around to say, “I told you so.”

Yes, he did, but how was I going to do, what Mr. Warnock told me I would do. I was among the illiterate a short time before, and now I was to monitor newspapers, magazines, and news reports.

“You'll figure it out,” Mr. Warnock told me. “I trust you'll do a good job. Do it your own way. That will be fine.”

Vegging out in front of the television, once I gobbled dinner and was excused was out. Now I perused the Washington Post & Times Harold, Evening Star, and the News, newspapers. Each evening I sat in front of the news reports, becoming a news junky.

Once I'd gathered the material I needed, I retired to my bedroom and wrote my script, using the stories I thought contained original, as well as, unique information. The day of my first broadcast was approaching, Thursday night, I gathered together the pieces of my script, and I read through it.

On Friday, after first period, Mr. Warnock came back to introduce me to the broadcast booth he'd constructed behind my desk. That's why he picked me. I had to go the least distance to get to where I'd give my first, once weekly, broadcast.

Mr. Warnock showed me how to turn the microphone on. He showed me the settings on the amp, and said to keep it between 3 and 4, which would eliminate feedback.

There might be feedback?

As I got into my broadcast booth, I put my script in front of me, and I looked out at the new seating arrangement. All the desks were turned toward me, not to mention the kids in the desks.

Once I got involved in my script, which I remembered for the most part, once I read through it once, I gave that week's news to my 8th grade CORE Class. It turned out that my broadcast ended just before the bell rang, ending second period.

I'd been reading to those students since the year began. Reading the news was no big deal. It was actually fun. The search for news was like a treasure hunt. I learned things about countries on the other side of the world. I became aware of our government, the politicians, the bills being considered, and the bills the president signed, and made into laws.

By February, I'd settled into my new role as current events specialist. I found obscure facts, connected to the most important stories. By the end of February, I found time to write, Army Buddies.

If I hadn't been a writer when I wrote The Martian Disaster, I'd become one by the time I wrote Army Buddies, my second novella, since December. I spent much of my free time reading and writing, which I believe was Mr. Warnock's plan.

When I showed up on Monday morning with another composition book full of words, Mr. Warnock, proving to be a man of his word, set aside the day's lesson, while I read Army Buddies to his class.

While I believed I was taking advantage of Mr. Warnock, I was quite the hit with the other students in my CORE class. Anyone that could get them out of an hour's work in CORE, was OK by them. I was thanked for the diversion, and complimented on my story telling ability. I'd become a celebrity in Mr. Warnock's early CORE class.

It was different. It didn't make me feel special. If someone stopped me to talk about a story, or my current events broadcast, I talked to them as long as they wanted to talk. Tommy, always at my side in such situations, stood by patiently waiting for us to resume our morning walk. He never said a word about other kids stopping me.

Each day, after school, I walked with Tommy to his house. That made me feel special. We were staying inside during February. It was cold as ice, and walking home was no picnic, but the exposure to brutal weather was worth it.

I felt like I belonged somewhere, and my best friend made me feel at home at his house. I didn't feel at home at my house.

As the third quarter of school was about to end, Tommy met me at the school house door one morning. He was excited, and said that I should come with him.

This wasn't like Tommy. He usually told me what was going on, and what he had in mind, but this time, he set out like a bloodhound was on his trail. I stayed close behind him. 

We turned down the hallway that went past the office. It wasn't a turn we usually made. The best thing to do, if you knew what was good for you, was avoid the office.

Tommy stopped right next to the office door. He paid particular attention to some sheets of paper that were tacked together on the bulletin board beside the office door.

Flipping up the first page, Tommy pointed to my name.

“You made the Honor Roll,” he said.

“It's a mistake. I am too stupid to make the Honor Roll. It's a joke.”

“Standing his ground, Tommy said, “You're on the Honor Roll.”

There was no mistake. I did make the Honor Roll. I didn't know how. Once again, I thought I was somehow fooling my teachers. I'd always been stupid, and this made my life even more confusing.”

“You had to know you had been doing better,” Carlton said.

“I knew that I didn't know what was going on in class about half the time. I wasn't connected to what was being taught. A few things got my interest, but not enough to make a big difference in my mind.”

At that time, instead of arguing the point, I decided I'd wait to see what my report card said.

In the mean time, a copy of the list of Honor Roll students was sent home to the parents of those students. Once I got my report card, my grades backed up the Honor Roll list. I had 3 A(s), 2 B(s), and my ever present C in art.

My A in CORE and gym, was joined by an A in math. I expected to get a good grade in math, because I liked numbers, and it was easy for me to get them to do what the teacher wanted them to do.

I guess teachers knew what they were doing, but it was hard for me to understand how I got from the kid who didn't pay attention in class, to the Honor Roll.

I was confused by this. I suppose they know what they were doing, because I had no idea I'd earned those grades.

There was one thing for sure. That was my name, and it was on the Honor Roll. Everything else was speculation.

On a bright warm March day, dismissed early for a teacher's meeting, Tommy and I decided to do something outside, on the first spring like day of the year.

By early afternoon, we'd worked our way up to Coral Hills. Once we walked past the Coral Hills Theater, and the WM&A Bus Company's offices, we went into an alley that ran behind the theater. There was a garage with three open bay doors, to let the sun shine in.

I followed Tommy into one of the open bays, and he walked up to a man in the back of the shop.

“Hey, Pop. This is Dickie,” Tommy said, and his father turned to look my way.

“So, you're Dickie. I've been hearing about you for some time.”

“This is my father, Dickie,” Tommy said.

The man wiped his hand on a rag in his back pocket, and we shook on it. Tommy's father had a twinkle in his eye and a small smile on his face.

“Anything I can do for you, Pop?” Tommy asked.

“Yes, there is. I've been wrestling with this transmission since this morning. I told the man I'd have it for him today. There's a rear end over there,” he indicated another bench next to the wall.” The parts are under the oil wash. I told the man I'd have his car today, too. If you could put that rear together for me, it won't take long for me to put it in. That way, I'll make it home for dinner.”

“Sure thing, Pop,” Tommy said, heading for the work bench.

I followed Tommy over to another work bench. There was a housing sitting on the counter. Oil was squirting on parts sitting on a screen under the nozzle dispensing the oil,

Tommy noticed the curiosity on my face.

“This won't take long,” he said. “These are the spider gears.”

He held up small circular gizmos with teeth surrounding them. Pulling the housing closer, he began putting the parts in.

“When I put all these parts into place, it will be ready to go back in the car, and the man's rear end will be working properly again.”

“If you say so,” I said.

Tommy turned the housing into the proper position, and began putting one piece at a time into place. He held one piece, connected another piece, adding more pieces as he turned the housing. His fingers adroitly snapped one piece after another into place.

In about fifteen minutes, Tommy had the rear end assembled.

Grabbing a rag from a pile of rags, he wiped his hands.

“Told you it wouldn't take long,” he said.

I looked at Tommy, and then I looked at the fully assembled rear end housing. It was the first time I'd come face to face with a rear end housing, and my friend had assembled the workings that made the rear end a rear end. I was flabbergasted.

“Yes, you did,” I said, not knowing what to say.

“Your rear end is ready, Pop. Anything else I can do for you?” Tommy asked, as we walked back over to where his father was working on a much larger housing.

“No, that's a big help, Tommy. Thanks. You boys go have fun. I should be home for dinner,” he said, leaning over with his arms halfway into the housing.

As we walked out into the afternoon sun, I took a good look at my friend. Tommy was a freaking mechanical genius. He knew exactly where all those little pieces went, and he got it assembled.

“How do you know how to do stuff like that?” I asked.

“I've helped Pop for as far back as I can remember. I watch him work on things, and then I try it, when I get a chance. I like mechanics. It's something I'm good at. It's not hard,” he said.

“It's not hard for you, because you're smart, until fifteen minutes ago, I couldn't tell you the difference between a rear end and a transmission,” I said.

“You know a lot more than you think you know,” he said, giving me a big smile.

I'd never been more impressed by something another kid did, as I was the day Tommy put that rear end together for his father. My father never asked me to do anything for him,” I said.

“Tommy knew you pretty well by then,” Carlton said. “You don't have a lot of self confidence. He knew you were smart.”

“Anyone in my CORE class, who sat through those months I was reading every day, knew how dumb I was,” I said.

“They also saw you write those stories and become an Honor Roll student. They saw a completed picture by the time you left that class,” Carlton said. “They watched you growing, Rick. We all grow in our own time. I'm almost certain, no one thought you were stupid.”

***** 

I'd raised the stakes in 8th grade CORE, after learning to read. I raised Mr. Warnock one story, The Martian Disaster. He raised me one assignment, to monitor current events. I'd present the stories I deemed most important to my CORE class each Friday morning.

With these escalations, it was necessary for me to increase my effort. As a reward, my C in CORE became an A in the grading period. 

My vigilance in reporting on each week's current events, didn't stop me from taking a timeout one weekend to write Army Buddies,

which Mr. Warnock asked me to read to the class.

Mr. Warnock pushed all his chips into the center of the table long ago. He'd decided to take a chance on me, assigning me work far beyond the ability of the boy who entered his class in September. He'd taught me to read, let me read stories I wrote to the class, and assigned me work that required a lot of extra time.

I took the challenge he gave me, and I parlayed it into work that I enjoyed. While doing the extra work, I ended up on the Honor Roll, after writing a second novella that took up a period of CORE to read.

Six months before, I was a basket case, illiterate, and without hope of improving my lot in life. By the end of the third grading period, I was writing high with no limitations on what I could do.

Mr. Warnock made me the center of attention in his early CORE  class. What he knew or sensed about me, was as big a mystery as what Mr. Q knew and sensed about me, but each man had raised the stakes, and bet I'd rise to the occasion.

“What I knew, I owed two teachers more than I could put into words. I'd been dealing with teachers forever, and none of them thought I was worth their time and effort. How I got here from there, I couldn't say,” I said.

“Each of those teachers started you off with a simple task. They treated you like they'd treat any student. Seeing you perform far beyond expectations, they increased the difficulty of what they asked you to do, looking to find your limitations. You responded by doing far more than most students would do. No one had asked you to do anything before,” Carlton said. “You were never dumb, Rick. You'd never been give a chance before 7th grade. I'm sure that taking on physical challenges first, and succeeding, laid the groundwork for you to learn to read, and then, there was no stopping you.”

“I suppose,” I said, hearing his words but not being as sure as he was about the path I took.

“I'd set out to impress Tommy, and having accomplished that, I was satisfied. Everything else that happened, came as a result of Mr. Warnock wanting to see how far he could get me to go,” I said.

“While doing the things he asked you to do, other forces took over. You were able to imagine your role in his current events broadcast. He told you to do it your way, and he loved the results. Writing another story proved the first novella wasn't a fluke.”

“And I wrote it for Tommy.”

“You are extraordinary. You still don't know how smart you are,” Carlton said, shaking his head. “Rick, you can do anything you set your mind to do.”

“I'd like to be a child for a few minutes. I'd like not to be on guard, all the time. I want to trust people. I want to help people.”

“If you set out to do something it's in possible to do, you will fail. Set out to do things that are within reason, and you will do it.”

“I suppose,” I said.

“I interrupted you again. I can't help it. I want to shake you, so you know how smart you are. You're a clever boy,” Carlton said.

,         “Tommy was far more protective of the things that I was doing, than I was. When someone stopped me to talk about my stories, Tommy jumped right in offering his view. He predicted that I'd be the one Mr. Warnock picked for his current events assignment. He found my name on the Honor Roll. I'd never have gone to look at a list tacked on the bulletin board at the office entrance. Maybe he was looking for his own name. I don't know. I don't know what grades Tommy got. That wasn't what our friendship was about. Not for me.”

“He was truly your friend. He saw what was inside of you. I never had a friend that I was that close to. Where is Tommy now?”

“He's married. He has a wife and a daughter. I'm trying to figure out what it means to be gay. We don't see each other very often. It's almost time for me to get out of his life,” I said.

“He sounds like a friend that you want to hold onto,” Carlton said.

“If there was any way to remain friends, and keep what I am from having an impact on his family, I'd go for it. Tommy has been the closest person to me in my entire life. I won't risk doing him harm. I'll slowly disappear, and he'll have some good memories, I hope, and one day, he'll think, I wonder where he went.”

“He might see your disappearance as a betrayal of your friendship,” Carlton said.

“I know that. I can only do what I think is best. Because he was the closest person to me, I can't risk that closeness coming back to bite him,” I said. “This is a cruel harsh world, Carlton. I will not do anything to bring any of it to Tommy's door. He has a new best friend now. He doesn't need me in his life any longer.”

“Friendship isn't about need, but I understand what you're saying,” Carlton said. “I wish there was another way.”

“There isn't,” I said, certain of my facts.

*****

The arrival of notification that their youngest son was on the Honor Roll, caught my parents off guard. They'd watched me gather all the papers together after dinner, and digging into each one. When the newscasts came on, I never missed Walter Cronkite, 'The most trusted man in America.' He ended his news cast, 'And that's the way it is.' And that was the way it was. You knew he knew the truth, and he told us what that truth was,” I said.

“Nothing was said about me sitting, pen in hand, writing down facts I found most interesting. My parents rarely had anything to say once their tirades ended. They ended once I left the dinner table, anyway. I sat with the newspapers in front of me and the nightly newscasts on the television, until I'd had enough to begin my weekly script. Then, I took refuge in my room to write out what I would say.

Once I was an Honor Roll student, their behavior toward me changed. My mother was immediately certain I'd be going to college. I wouldn't be going to college. My father, not sure of what to make of my rise from obscurity to being a good student meant, but if it pleased my mother, he was pleased too,” I said.

“As far as my future was concerned, they saw me having one. It wasn't as easy for me to let bygones be bygones as it was for them. I still watched my step, asked for nothing, and I kept my head down. Disagreeableness was all I knew, a short period of being agreeable, didn't make me want to spend time with my parents,” I said.

“I didn't do what I did so my parents would like me. I didn't like them, but I was stuck with them. Treating me differently wasn't my idea. The fact they did it meant absolutely nothing to me. My mother expected me to go to college,” I said. “I didn't intend to extend my school days a minute longer than was required. She'd be disappointed, and I'd be on her shit list again, and it would all change back to the way it was before junior high school.”

“It's difficult to see things any differently than they've always been,” Carlton said.

“Ain't that the truth. It was nice not to be yelled at every night. I liked that part of it. If they'd tried it a little sooner, maybe when I was 7 or 8, maybe we I would have healed enough for it to matter, but that isn't the way it happened. As you said, it's difficult seeing things differently than they are. Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear,” I said.

“You have a very quick mind,” Carlton said.

“Except for when it suddenly shifts into reverse,” I said. “I'm  damaged goods, Carlton, and I can't change that.”

Chapter 14

For me, life had never been better, which scared me. Life had never even been good enough for me to want to hang around, not until the year before. Now, Honor Roll students, star of Mr. Warnock's early CORE class, Mr. Q's boy, and best friend to a mechanical genius, I had a lot to lose. Which made me very careful.

I couldn't get beyond the feeling, it's too good to be true. How long would my good fortune last, and how fast could it fall apart, all my gains lost?

It wasn't easy for me to think positively. I'd never known happiness, and the prospect I had found it, was fleeting. Anything that could be found, could be lost. I knew that, even if I didn't allow myself to think it.

It would be Mr. Q who broke the news to me. My first mentor, would betray me. For a kid who never had anything, leave it to the first adult I ever trusted, to be the one to betray me. He could do something. He could do anything. He was my hero, and what he'd do was take the blame for something that was beyond his control.

It was May. The weather forecast rain. It was a warm day. When we were hitting the showers after gym, Mr. Q said, 'See me before you leave the gym.'

I didn't shower. I was half dressed, my shirt unbuttoned, and I was sweaty from running inside. When Mr. Q said, “See me,” I went to see him right away. I stood in the doorway of  Mr. Q's office. He was sitting behind his desk with his feet up on it.

“Charles,” he said, hopping up and coming to the door.

He clamped his hands on my shoulders, like he did early on, when he'd take me aside to learn something he wanted me to know.

He guided me out through the side door, beside the gym, that emptied into the teacher's parking lot.

While I'd learned to trust Mr. Q, he was scaring me.

“You are going to the new junior high school, Charles,” he said. “I checked the list. Your name is on it. This will be our last year together, but I want you to make me a promise.”

“No!” I shouted, not understanding what he'd said.

He might have stuck a knife into me. They were about to take everything away from me and they would leave me nothing.

“Your name is on the list, Charles. You will go to the new junior high school. Before we part, I want you to promise me, when you get up there,” he said, pointing to the high school. I want you to promise me you'll go out for the track team.”

“I won't,” I bellowed. “I won't go there. I want to come here.”

The rain hid my tears. I never cried in front of anyone. Nothing could make me cry, but the man I trusted above all others, the man who created an athlete out of nothing, made me cry.

“We're standing here, until you promise me.”

“I won't,” I said. “I won't.”

He held me in place with his hands clamped on my shoulders. We waited. The late bell rang. We waited.

“I'm going to be late,” I spat.

“If your teacher says something to you, you tell them to talk to me about it. I want that promise. I've never asked you for anything.”

It was raining harder, and he wasn't giving up.

“I promise,” I finally said, wanting to get away from him.

I had no idea why he wanted that promise. I didn't intend to keep it. The man had knifed me in the heart.

But what I didn't know, Mr. Q's best friend, since childhood, was the coach of the track team at the high school. My first mentor was directing me to the man destined to become my third mentor, but I didn't want to hear it. I hated Mr. Q. He was just like every adult I'd ever known. I couldn't trust them.

Why he wanted that promise didn't matter one iota, the day he broke my heart.

That day, I didn't care. My life had finally been moving forward, and in a few short minutes, the rug was yanked out from under me. All gains were erased in seconds. 

There was only one person I could trust. Me. 

Treating this information like it was no big deal, Mr. Q lowered the boom on me, and the day was only half over. My mind went into a massive  withdrawal. My mind went chaotic. It was going in all directions. I went through the motions of going through the motions. I didn't know what to do, and the next thing I knew, the final bell rang, and 6th period  science was over.

I needed to get to Tommy. I had to get to Tommy. 

His smile changed to a look of concern, as he watched me charging toward him. He sensed something serious had happened.

“What's wrong? You look like hell,” he said.

“They're opening a new junior high school. Mr. Q says that I'm going there. I won't be coming back to school here,” I told him.

“Let's go ask Mr. Warnock. He's probably still in his room,” Tommy said.

Mr. Warnock's room was only a few doors down from the exit. We ran to catch him before he left.

His door was still open. Mr. Warnock stood behind his desk, putting papers in his briefcase.

“Well, what has you two gentlemen so excited this dreary afternoon?”

“Mr. Warnock,” Tommy said. “Mr. Q told Charles, he won't be coming here for 9th grade. Something about a new school opening, That's not true, is it? It can't be true.”

We stood in front of our teacher, hoping for a reprieve. Mr. Q had to be wrong. I wanted this to all go away. I wanted the new junior high school to go away. I didn't want my life to change for the worse. I didn't want to lose my friends.

“Oh, yes, I did get something on that this morning,” he said. “I think I put it in my top drawer.

Mr. Warnock slid the big top drawer open, removing a large envelope. He put it down on his desk and removed the contents. The first page had writing on it, the second page was all names.

“Yes, here's your name, Charles. You'll be going to the new junior high. That'll be nice. A brand new school,” he said.

I said, “I won't go. I want to come here. I want to be with my friends. Can you take my name off the list?”

“Your name is on the list. You will be going to the new school. You'll make new friends, Charles. It'll be a great adventure. You'll see. You'll like it,” Mr. Warnock predicted, trying to sell me on it.

“I won't like it. I won't go,” I argued, never arguing.

“No way to avoid it. Your name is on the list,” he said.

“Thank you Mr. Warnock,” Tommy said, pulling me away before I lost it completely. “You can't talk to a teacher like that.”

“Why not. My life's over. What's he going to do, spank me,” I said bitterly.

“It won't be that bad, Dickie. It's the rules. You don't get a say,” he said.

“It's my life and I don't get a say? Well excuse me,” I said, needing to strike out at anyone handy.

I'd been betrayed by both the adults I'd grown to trust. In two years, Mr. Q had never let me down, until today. Mr. Warnock took me from one advance to the next, since I entered his class. Mr. Warnock had located my brain, and taught me how to use it.

When I needed him to rescue me, he failed me. My name was on the list, and there was no doubt about it.

They built a new school just to ruin my life.

I'd been doing so well, since the summer I turned 12. I'd soared to heights I didn't realize I could reach. First I came to accept that I was an athlete, and then, not in my wildest dreams did I think I could learn to read and write, and do the things I'd done in 8th grade. 

It wasn't fair, but what about life had ever been fair to me? Why should it finally give me a break. I would be returned to where I came from, and I wouldn't see or be able to reach people I depended upon.

Life wasn't fair, and I had no life as long as people were allowed to ruin it.

Giving up Mr. Q and Mr. Warnock was made easier by their inability to help me. They'd created me. I was nothing before they showed up in my life.

Giving up my best friend was damaging in ways I couldn't conceive then. Tommy was my indispensable man. He knew what to say and do. He celebrated my victories as if they were his. It was Tommy, and his family was part of the deal. They were like my family.

How did I survive without the friendship I'd come to depend on?

Tommy knew nothing about my life before I met him. I would never tell him how lame I'd been, before I walked into Mr. Warnock's early CORE class that past September.

Tommy saw the new school as a temporary set back, and we'd renew our friendship after we'd spend the next year in different schools.

We'd been friends for six months. As the days passed, I had no feeling that we'd be together in a year and a half from now. Nothing could be assured. If they could open up a new junior high school, they could open a new high school.

When Tommy and I said our final goodbye, I didn't see a future with him in it. 

Sitting in Carlton's living room, my mind went numb, as I revisited a particularly harsh period in my life. I wasn't sure what to tell him and what to set aside. I never realized the power memories had hidden inside them. I felt the pain like it was happening all over again. I needed to get a grip.

“It ended what had been my first run of good fortune. Over my 7th and 8th grade years in school, I'd become an athlete, a scholar, and a best friend, because of three people who came into my life quite by accident, or perhaps, some power in the universe said, 'If we don't give this kid a break, he won't survive. The break was over,” I said.

“The cruelty that came with the list, no one understood but me. I wasn't important. I was a name on a list. I'd go to the new school. I'd make the most of it, or I wouldn't. It was all up to me,” I said.

“It wasn't Mr. Q's or Mr. Warnock's fault, but I needed to be angry with someone. They'd do, and it made being separated from them easier at a time when everything would be hard,” I said.

“There was one thing for sure, I wouldn't be depending on any more teachers. I wouldn't allow myself to be as close to anyone as I was to the people I was leaving behind. I'd known such pain as the pain tearing at my insides over the final weeks of school.”

Carlton looked at a loss for words. He simply looked at me.

“Did you go to the new school?” Carlton asked.

“I did. My name was on the list,” I said.

“Hardly seems fair,” he said. “You should have been allowed to continue the success you were having at the school you were in.”

“My name was on the list. That's all that was important,” I said, still angry all these years later.

I sounded like a fool.

“It's not the way things work. I was just another kid, a name on a list. The progress I'd made didn't matter. My name was on the list. The list mattered.”

“I couldn't have done it. I'd have curled up in a ball and died.”

“That's what I did, inside. It hardened me in ways that keep me from getting close to anyone. It was another lesson I learned,” I said.

“How did your friend take it?” Carlton asked.

“Tommy was as stunned by the news as I was. The idea we'd be separated for at least the next school year changed everything. We'd become close in the six months we'd been friends. We spent every afternoon together, and if I went to the new school, the afternoons together were over,” I said.

“It's sad to hear about that,” Carlton said.

“Tommy was Tommy. If he found out the world was coming to an end, he'd have tried to make me feel better. He was my best friend,” I said, needing to change the subject.

“Maybe Mr. Q and Mr. Warnock had no idea how hard the news hit me, but Tommy knew. He felt a similar sense of loss, before we parted. Best friends aren't easy to come by. It was especially true for me. I wasn't making anymore friends. The idea of making a friend, and then losing him, made friendship more of a liability than it ever had been before.”

“I'd give Tommy up, because I had to, but I'd never be that close to anyone else. Having a best friend was the best thing yet, losing one was about the worst thing yet. I wouldn't lose another friend. Losing this one came close to killing me.”

“I understand why,” Carlton said. “Denying yourself something so essential is a big step to take.”

“Good parents are essential to survival, but I survived anyway,” I said. “Certain things took me close to the edge of my mortality. When one did, I made sure I didn't let it happen again. It wasn't a conscious decision. It was what kept me alive, when I had nothing to live for.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” he said, saying no more.

“Tommy sensed the emotional toll the news took on me. There was a lot of silence over the next few weeks. Tommy was afraid of upsetting me, so, when I said nothing, he said nothing too. We were together, and what was there to say?”

On the final day of school, we went to Tommy's house, as usual. Once it became time for me to leave, we stood in his front yard staring at each other. This was the end of our friendship.

“See you next year,” Tommy said, not sure we would.

“Yeah,” I said. “See you next year.”

We shook hands. I hesitated for a second.

I stepped off the curb to walk to my house.

The air had become heavy. I could hardly breathe.

“I started my walk home,” I told Carlton. “I didn't look back. I didn't want Tommy to see my tears. Once I was out of sight, I sat down, and I cried like a baby. I'd lost my best friend. What I thought I had was an illusion. I'd never had anything. It took one new school to cancel it all out.”

“I didn't know what having a friend was like. Once I'd had one, I didn't want another one. I couldn't find a better friend than Tommy had been to me. He lent me his family. He was happier than I was, when I succeeded at something. How did I replace that? He predicted my victories. More than that, he was part of everything I accomplished in 8th grade. In some ways, he was why I succeeded. Because he was my friend. There would be no other friend like him.” 

“What happened, Rick?” Carlton asked.

“I stood up, rubbed the tears off my face, and walked home.

I wasn't going to look back. Looking back only created pain. My life with a good friend at my side, and mentors in my corner, was over. I'd go to the new school. I'd be a lot more cautious about the people who tried to get close to me. I wanted no friends who'd cut and run at the first sign of complications. My life was a complication. 

Looking back at what my life was about for a fleeting moment didn't accomplish anything. Behind me was one lost child, and the people who found me. I'd done a lot of catching up and I matured, while having people on my side. They were gone now.

Maybe I wasn't stupid. Maybe there were things I could do. I'd do my best to keep my grades up. I'd work hard, because, while I did, there'd be no time to think unhappy thoughts.

First, there was Florida.

I'd never left anything behind me before. Florida was a refuge from the insanity that lived in my house, This year I left the life I'd found at school. I left the people who believed, I was somebody worth knowing.

I couldn't wait to see the placid waters of Choctawhatchee Bay. I longed for the emerald sea, the Gulf of Mexico.

I always found peace there. Peace in the midst of the turmoil my life had become..

***** 

“I left Tommy's for the last time in early June. My life had taken on the characteristics of a rolling tragedy. The forces in the universe were aligned against me once more. You can't bypass rule makers, who build a school to make my life miserable,” I said. “Neither Mr. Q, nor Mr. Warnock sensed the pain I was in, or how much I depended on them to keep me moving forward.”

“I've got to be careful with the questions you pose. Your situation defies logic,” Carlton said. “I don't know that I could have gone on under the circumstances you were in, but you find a way to make it work, no matter what happens to you. Your most outstanding characteristic, as I see it, is your ability to overcome whatever obstacles are thrust into your path.”

“There was Florida. That's all that was in my path,” I said.

“Florida had a unique ability to soothe me. It was the only place where I was free of constraint. Even today, when I have a need to sort through things, I head for Florida. It represents peace to me.”

“My beach has been destroyed. There is a row of houses on the ground where the brush stood as a barrier to the bay. My beach is a seawall that allows houses to sit above any storm surge on Choctawhatchee Bay. Now, I drive to the Wayside Park and I can walk to Destin if I really want to ponder things. Few sunbathers venture far beyond the pier. Once in a while I meet beachcombers walking back toward the pier, but very seldom. It's still the most beautiful place I've ever been, but civilization has begun to encroach on the pristine beach. Restaurants, hotels, and stores that sell junk to tourists are spreading out from the entrance to the Wayside Park on both sides of Route 98. One day there will be nothing but businesses from Fort Walton Beach to Destin. No one knows the beauty lost in the quest for the Almighty Dollar.”

“Once beauty is lost, it can't be restored,” Carlton said.

“Knowing the way it was is a burden I carry. Remembering the pristine majestic beauty that was once there, makes me sad for the people who think those shops have always been there,” I said.

“I'd like to have seen it the way it was your first summer there.”

“That Florida doesn't exist anymore, not in Fort Walton Beach. It's simply another overpopulated, tacky, beach town. The Gulf is still there, but there are so many stores. There are sand dunes between the highway and the Gulf. The shops are built in front of the dunes. The locals know how to get to the Gulf, and they take their friends, but you could drive all the way to Destin and not know that the Gulf of Mexico is less than a hundred yards away,” I said.

“It's only been a little over ten years, since I made my first trip to Florida. Didn't take long to commercialize it,” I said.  

“Florida's always had the ability to make me forget my cares and woes. Being taken out of my life in Maryland, and dropping me off in Florida was a trip I was anxious to make. It was especially welcome the summer between 8th and 9th grade.”

Even in the midst of turmoil, Florida didn't let me down. The new family, across the street from Granny and Pop, were still there. They greeted me like a long lost friend. From the first day back, I was invited to sit in on the Canasta games that went on into the night. Uncle Dan could be depended on to interrupt us by eleven, asking, 'Isn't it time to take the garbage out?'

It was a polite way of saying, go home, but subtleties were lost on me, but luckily. Aunt Madeline interpreted.

She'd say, “Leave your cards in place. We'll pick up where we left off, during the day tomorrow.”

“There was an ongoing Canasta game that summer,” I said. 

“In Florida, everything was bigger, better, and more exciting. The problem with Florida, time moved too fast. I was saying goodbye to Granny and Pop, shortly after saying hello,” I said.

“I always wanted to stay for one more week, one more month, forever more, but my life wasn't meant to be that easy.”

“You went back home. You went to the new school, because there was no alternative,” Carlton said.

“I did,” I said. “There was none.”

“I really feel sorry about that,” he said.

“Florida did, what I needed Florida to do. It put time and space between me and the things I'd done in 7th and 8th grade. I still had my resolve, but the anger subsided. I knew what it was like having no one to depend on. I just pretended it's the way it had always been. That wasn't hard. It had always been that way.”

“It was a quiet trip home. There was nothing for me to look forward to. I'd hate every minute I was in the new school. I wouldn't make new friends. I'd keep my athletic ability to myself,” I said.

“There was no joy in the welcome home hug from my mother. I don't remember my mother hugging me before. Being on the Honor Roll changed my mother's approach. Maybe I wasn't so bad,” I said.

“Better late than never,” Carlton said.

“No, it's not true. My mother didn't do anything without her having a reason for doing it. I knew better than to turn my back on her,” I said.

“You were what, fourteen. You'd learned that lesson,” he said.

“I'd lived with her my entire life. I wasn't berated at the dinner table any longer, but they didn't want to take a chance that I might revert back to being their stupid kid,” I said. “They could let up on me, as long as I kept bringing home a report card full of A(s).”

“At least they had sense enough to see it that way,” Carlton said.

“It was only my summers away that had my mother remembering she was my mother. I took no solace from a single hug. I could have used a few hugs when I was six, seven, and eight, but there was none to spare.”

“It was a bit late for my mother to lay claim to motherhood. After fourteen years, I knew where the power center was in our family. My father issued the punishment. My mother called the shots. It was her having us beaten every morning before my father went to work. It was her who led the inquisitions at the dinner table. She had a lousy childhood. I realized that, but she didn't need to make my childhood as bad as she could possibly make it. I knew my mother. Indeed I did.”

***** 

“The new school was the ugliest building ever built. It had three stories. It was a perfect rectangle. Besides the driveway in front of it, the only distinguishing feature were the woods behind it. The entire area was woods, when we first moved there. By the end of the next year, Marlow Heights had sprung up, which took down the rest of the woods where I once roamed,” I said. 

“The school was built beside the creek a half a mile from where I lived. There was one barren street that came from Branch Avenue and it was put there to take you to the new school. The back of the houses on Sinclair Dr., in Hillcrest Heights, butted up against this new asphalt road, that was a ten minute walk from where I lived.”

“Sounds bleak,” he said.    

“They'd thrown it up in a couple of months. There was no street there six months before. It was a basic building. They were told to build a school, and they built your basic school,” I said. “I doubt it took three months to erect that box.”

“You are lucky you survived it. Teenage suicides are an epidemic. With the kind of life you'd been subjected to, I'm glad they didn't destroy your desire to live,” Carlton said.

“I had no desire to live. I had no desire for anything. I wanted nothing. I asked for nothing. I expected nothing. That was my life. It was validated by the new school. It was built as another obstacle for me to overcome. It was built to keep me from being with the people I depended on to challenge me, and made living tolerable. They wanted to help me. They were the only ones to see that I could do something. They may have even cared about me,” I said. “In the end, they simply let the system roll over me, and I was on my own again.”        

“I want to stress this. I had no desire to live. I was alive. It was my state of being, and I had no urge to die. It was what it was. There was no more and no less. It's what was there, and like the rest of my life, I'd find a way to survive it. I was a survivor,” I said earnestly.

Chapter 15

“I survived my early childhood years by escaping inside myself. The chaos washed over me, but it never entered my hiding place. The year I turned 12, forces began pulling me out of my refuge. I had no idea how powerful patience and encouragement could be, and I let it carry me to a better place than I'd been before. It's what happened.”

“I became accustomed to performing. First, in gym, I was performing for Mr. Q. In CORE, I performed for Mr. Warnock and for Tommy. Both men put me on stage. That became who I was. Until then, I had no identity. In a new school, I was left to swing in the breeze. I was simply another kid. No one encouraged me, and there was no one to perform for.”

This was another brand new life I'd been handed by the whim of fate. Without a solid identity, or anything to go on, it was up to me to appear to be somebody. Who I didn't know.

My initial efforts were governed by what I could do. I could write respectable stories, and I was capable of writing fairly accurate appraisals of what was happening on the world stage. I knew the players, and where they played, and I could make my body do amazing things, when and if I felt like it.

There was no plan and there was no direction I wanted to go in, although I thought of hitchhiking to Florida, and making a stand.

I didn't have big enough stones to pull that one off. Maybe in another year or two, that was an option I would consider.

At 14, I was too young to get away with a move like that. Maybe I'd hitchhike to Florida next year or when I turned 16. It was something to think about.

Was it possible I'd be back in school with Tommy next year?

That was a thought I hadn't entertained, because things never worked out that well, if I even hinted I might want something. However, it was a thought. It was a very good thought. Did I dare to hope for it?

“I decided to keep my head down and go about my business,” I said, as Carlton waited for me to finish what I started.

“I see how difficult your life was,” Carlton said. “The safety those teachers provided you, gave you time to start believing in yourself. Losing that protection was a major setback at a bad time. I can see how your confidence might be shaken, but it was you making Mr. Q proud. It was you writing stories and going further faster than Mr. Warnock could have expected. They were your motivation to perform, and without Tommy, you were on your own,” Carlton said. 

“That isn't completely true. I wasn't without people who knew me from 8th grad CORE class. There were five or six girls who were in Mr. Warnock's CORE class with me. They knew all about me. They watched me perform in CORE. It was hard to miss me. I was always reading to the class. Mr. Warnock made me the center of attention in his early CORE class,” I said. “Not everyone was a fan.”

“No boys from Mr. Warnock's class?” Carlton asked.

“Not one, and the girls knew I was treated differently. They saw me as someone who got a lot of attention,” I said.

“Because you had abilities no one else had,” Carlton said. “How many other kids were writing novellas?”

“No, and Mr. Warnock wasn't reading them. He had me read them. He had me read them, because he couldn't read them, and my new teacher couldn't read them. She knew I was a fraud. The buzz from those girls, told her I had a starring role in 8th grade CORE. This alerted her to be careful around 6e. I was an Honor Roll student.”

“I don't understand,” he said.

“The teacher and I had some tension between us,” I said.

“You don't seem like someone who creates tension,” he said.

“It was her tension. I was the source,” I said. “Because she was a woman, the girls gathered around her. They told her about me. Mrs. Maza had yet to form her own opinion about me. I handed my work in promptly. I could answer most questions on history, civics, and I was a whiz on current events. I'd spent six months reporting on current events, but it was early in the school year,” I said.

“She knew enough about you to know you were smart,” he said.

“You need to factor in, I was stupid until I entered 8th grade CORE. In that class, I was still stupid for the first grading period. I didn't get smart until Tommy showed me the Honor Roll. That was the third quarter of 8th grade,” I said. “So I'd been smart for six months, when I entered the 9th grade. I'd been stupid for thirteen and a half years. Six months of not being quite so stupid, doesn't undo the years of stupidity,” I said.

“I could have gotten ten A(s), and I still wouldn't have felt smart, or even halfway intelligent. My name on a list didn't register as any great shakes. So what! My name was on a list. Big deal,” I explained.

“Maybe not, and the only experience I have in school is my own relatively ordinary experience, but you went from learning to read, to writing stories, to collecting, digesting, and knowing current events, which you broadcast to your class. I'd call that a big step forward.”    

“I suppose,” I said.

“Mr. Warnock let me believe I had become smarter, but I never felt any smarter. I don't know that I felt anything. I went through the motions. Mr. Q and Mr. Warnock told me what to do, and I did it.”

“We're not even getting close to what I want to know. You were still writing?” Carlton asked.

“I stopped writing,” I said. “The teacher told me I couldn't write.”

“She what?” Carlton asked.

“I had somehow been fooling my teachers. I didn't fool Mrs. Maza. What she said was, “You can tell a good story, but you can't spell, and you don't know a verb from a noun. No one will ever be able to read what you write.”

“Oh, my God. Some teachers aren't meant to be near students.”

“She was telling me the truth. I knew I was still stupid. I didn't feel any different from when I was stupid,” I said. I didn't fool her.”

“So you stopped writing?” Carlton asked.

“Why write stories, when no one can read what I write?”

“You learn to write by writing. You learn how to spell and do those other things by doing them. Editors correct misspellings and straighten out faulty mechanics. No writer starts off being Earnest Hemingway or Scott Fitzgerald. They write for years before they consider themselves writers. You need to work at it. It'll come to you.”

“I suppose, but can you prove it. Mrs. Maza had proof I couldn't write. Mr. Warnock knew the truth, and that's why he let me read my stories. He couldn't read them. No one could read them,” I said.

“You're a gifted story teller. I know that, because you are telling me your story. You can't ignore the fact you're a writer. Because some lame teacher decides to screw with your head, you can't stop doing what you're good at doing. You said, she said, 'You tell a good story.' You do tell a good story. You need to quit fighting the gifts you have.”

“I suppose,” I said.

“I corrected her in geography class,” I said.

“You what?”

“Told you I was stupid. She was reading a list of exports from Ukraine. She left off a very import export, and I merely added it to her list. I wanted her to know there was another export.”

“And that went over like a lead balloon,” he said.

“Yes, it did. She said that the products on the list didn't include the product I said she missed. One of the girls from 8th grade CORE said, “You should listen to him. He knows everything.”

“That was a ringing endorsement,” Carlton said. “I take it those girls weren't your friend.”

“I didn't have any friends and the teacher didn't like what she said. I knew I'd been put on the spot. I thought I should tell her what she left off the list. I wasn't trying to insult her, but she took it personal. Like I said, it was her tension, not mine,”

“And how long after this incident did she make the comment about your spelling and writing mechanics?”

“Maybe two or three weeks. She always acted a bit distant when I went around her. I don't think she liked me. Hey, no one did like me. Why should she be any different?”

“She was waiting in the tall grass for you. She marked down your impertinence, and she waited to ambush you. While she may have been telling you the truth, she could have been more tactful about telling you. She was a teacher, not a Goddamn Gestapo agent.”

“She was young. She wasn't mean. I as good as called her out in front of the class. I know that now. I was trying to be helpful. I wasn't helpful, and what she told me was true, even if it lacked good taste. “I didn't hold it against her,” I said.

“No, but she held it against you.”

“She was giving me straight A(s) in CORE, but she kept giving me a B in geography,” I said. “Geography is my best subject. I deserved an A in geography. Hell, she could have given me a C in CORE, and after what she told me, I'd have accepted it.”

“Geography being the class in which you corrected her,” he said.

“That be the class,” I said.

“She was demonstrating her power. You might get over on her once, but in the end, she had the power, and you had diddly.”

“Diddly and a B,” I said.

Carlton laughed.

“You take it all in stride. I don't think I could have lived through what you were forced to go through,” Carlton said.

“I didn't have a choice. It's what came my way. I dealt with it.”

“I do remember when we moved from the Philippines to New York. I was going to a country school outside of Manilla, when my father told us we were going to move. I was seven,” Carlton said.

“When we came to America, I went into public school system in 3rd grade. I felt like the world had been turned upside down. Everything is on the fast track. I have a hundred different things to do, and no time to do any of it. I couldn't figure out what the hurry was. I missed having time to think. I thought I was going mad, but by 4th grade, I was rushing around like everyone else. I still had a hundred things to do and no time to do them, but I stopped worrying about it,” Carlton said.

“I doubt I could have done that,” I said. “You had to go to school and learn a new language to boot,” I said. I know I couldn't do that.”

“I had to learn English, so I could teach my parents the language. By 4th grade, I was fairly fluent in English,” he said.

“I'm out of high school and I'm not fluent in English,” I said.

Carlton laughed.

“You kept writing in 9th grade?” Carlton asked.

“I did until the teacher ambushed me in CORE,” I said.

“Writing was an important part of your identity,” Carlton said.

“True, but it was a temporary identity. I began writing in December, and I left that school for the final time in June. Six months of academic success hardly creates an identity. Not after not having an identity for so long. I didn't know who I was.”

“You were on the Honor Roll in 9th grade?” Carlton asked.

“For all four quarters. I spent most of my time studying,” I said.

“Your success was hardly temporary then. You have the heart of a writer. You're telling me this story, and I'm not only following it, I can't wait to hear what comes next.”

“That makes one of you,” I said. “I can't be sure what I am, or what I might become. It doesn't matter that much to me,” I said.

“If you aren't a writer, you couldn't write one story that captivated your CORE class and had the teacher asking you to write more, and you wrote more than one story, no matter the reason why.”

“I suppose,” I said. “Than, I became a writer who didn't write.”

“Mr. Warnock did nothing but encourage me to write more. Everything he did, concerning me, was about him getting me to read and write. He wanted more stories. As far as I know, he made up that current events broadcast to get me to read and write, and it worked, I put in a couple of hours every night after dinner learning current events, and I learned about the workings of governments and countries. I wrote a script every week that took up an hour, which was the time he allowed me. One period, about fifty minutes. I didn't copy what was written in the papers. I used my own words, using the facts I found in the newspapers. Once I wrote those facts down, I usually remembered them. Like remembering the export my teacher missed.”

“How can you doubt your intelligence? That's amazing. You're amazing,” Carlton said. “You went from nothing, and in 7th and 8th grade, you'd captivated two teachers. Did they know about each other?” Carlton asked.

“Neither mentioned the other. One was a gym teacher. The other was a CORE teacher. Did they associate? I don't know,” I said.

“The 9th grade wasn't a bad year. I got 5 A(s) and a B on every report card. I was on the Honor Roll each quarter. It was a good year, I suppose, but I set out to get straight A(s), and I knew why I failed to do that. I knew why,” I said.

“The teacher you crossed wasn't going to let you get straight A(s).”

“No, she wasn't. I knew that when she gave me the second B in geography. I aced all the tests. I answered questions in class. I knew as much as almost anyone in that class. I deserved an A.”

“She shouldn't have been allowed to do that to you,” he said.

“I did it to myself. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I was too smart for my own good, and that wasn't very smart. Anyway, I figured that no matter what I did, someone had the power to limit me. Had I been encouraged in 9th grade the way I was in 7th and 8th

grade, no telling how excited I'd have been about high school, but I wasn't excited. I'd gone as far as I could go in 9th grade, and I wasn't working that hard again. I'd slide through high school, making little effort.”

“I don't know what to say,” Carlton said.

“It got worse, before 9th grade ended,” I said. “I would have gone to the same high school with Tommy, until my parents bought a house in another school district,” I said.

“They did what?”

“My parents wanted a house. At first they were looking in Morningside, which was in the same school district with Tommy, but they bought a house eight miles farther out. It was in another school district. I would never go to that school. I was prepared to take off if I wasn't able to reconnect with my best friend,” I said. “I'd gone as far as I wanted to go, and I thought about going to Florida that summer, and not coming home,” I said.

“You were an Honor Roll student. You needed to finish school.”

“In your America, maybe, but I wasn't going anywhere. I was a faggot. No matter what I did, there was someone who was going to hold that over my head if they found out,” I said.

“You didn't have to let them know you were gay,” he said.

“You don't have to let anyone know about what you feel, I do. I will not go through life hiding in the shadows. When the time comes, I'm going to do something for, or maybe with, my people. People like me. It's the only thing that's important, because it's all that's important to this bigoted society I live in,” I said. “They hate me, and I'm not all that fond of them.”

Carlton laughed.

“You will write,” he said.

“I may write,” I said. “I don't know yet.”

“When the stars align against you, they certainly do a complete job of it. Were you ever able to reconnect with Tommy during your school years?” Carlton asked.

We'd been talking for over two hours. Carlton hadn't said much, but each time he asked a question, it churned up more memories.  The memory of events I hadn't considered since it happened. I sifted through them to select how to say what I wanted to say in response.

I sipped my Coke, discovering that memories of my past weren't nearly as painful as I assumed they would be. In some ways, I was enjoying catharsis, as I spoke, a word I didn't know at the time. I'm not saying I didn't need to pull some of the facts out of their hiding places in the recesses of my mind. I did, but the power they had when the memories were made, had been diminished. Living through a life with no childhood, was more distant memory, than a forceful living thing.

It was surprising how much I remembered, because I was absent for a lot of it. Memories collected in unexpected clarity. There was the recording device inside my brain. It was effective in recalling details.

I long ago accepted that there was nothing I could do about wetting the bed. In spite of my parents' insistence to the contrary, I didn't do it to spite them. Who, in his right mind, pees on himself? We'll set aside fetishes, because this was real life, and whatever gratification comes from peeing on oneself, is of no interest to me.  

 Being an outcast, and having no feeling that my parents wanted me, because they were so devoted to forcing me to obey them, brings a different set of problems with it. Could my childhood make me crazy, it's a question I considered, while I was still quite young. Maybe my parents were right, and I was simply the bad seed. I didn't know.

I was literally, and figuratively, on my own, and I grew up early.

I stopped wetting the bed at about the time I was going through puberty. It was about that time that I had an experience confirming I was a homosexual. I'd suspected it several years earlier. While not being sure of what it was I suspected. It went back to no longer wanting to be at my house more than necessary.

Being punished for something inherent within you, is no less maddening when society does it. That brought me to the conclusion, either I was crazy, or society was. It didn't really matter which. Crazy is crazy. Either way, if you aren't crazy when it begins, can being punished for that which you have no control over, make you crazy?

Maybe a shrink needs to take that one on. I can't be sure.

Society wouldn't be interested. Society is society, and if you don't like it, there are ways to deal with that too. If you go along quietly and don't make waves, who will know if you're nutso or not? If you make waves, society has places for you.

Unfortunately, as time went on, and as I encountered more and more people like myself, the idea of remaining silent didn't appeal to me. Even when society determined to make people like me remain silent, I intended to speak up in favor of people like me. Which meant speaking up for people like you.

What I understood while sitting in Carlton's living room, a man like me who had taken a completely, and not that unusual approach to being homosexual, I understood that I was unacceptable, and Carlton found acceptability by not acting on his secret feelings.

I couldn't do that. With issues around trust, how trustworthy would I be if I used a woman to make myself look like something other than a queer man. At the time we spoke, and I was sorting through the maze of feelings, thoughts, and ideas that was my life, I had no plan. Because of my past, I looked straight ahead. I'd fooled people, since I was 12, and if I continued to fool them, so be it.

What I appeared to be doing at any given time, had no relationship to my feelings. I took it a step at a time, being careful not to look back. To look back was certain to mire me in muck so deep, I would never escape it. Looking straight ahead was the easy way to go. Looking ahead, while not seeing the hatred for you, is tricky.

There were certain facts I knew. If I wanted to eat, I needed to work, which exposed me to people who would hate me for my nature. I kept my blinders on, and I went about making each job into an affair with as little human contact as possible. I wanted no more to do with them, than they wanted to do with me.

I had an advantage, I knew who they were. They only knew what I allowed them to know about me.

I hadn't been unwanted by my parents. I survived that. I would find the people most like me, and see if we could forge an alliance that served us better than what society approved for us.

Carlton's wife and daughters were a new wrinkle to me, but most irregularities were. I grew up hearing only about the happy home, with a husband, a wife, two point seven kids, a dog, and a cat. I knew nothing about gay men marrying, and having families. I would meet as many irregular gay men as regular ones, over the years. 

For now, Carlton represented a new wing of what would be the LGBTQ world. At the time, I knew about the L, the G, and B. These were our acceptable, and we rarely came together.

As I dipped my toe into the undercover world of gay life in Washington DC, I was amazed by the feelings gay people had toward each other. It was as baffling as the meaning of being gay was. How was I supposed to fit in with people who hated each other, almost as much as they were hated. It made no sense.

But at the time I was trying to sort it out, I realized, gay women, lesbians, wanted nothing to do with men, or a man's world. Who could blame them? What woman got an equal shot as any man?

Gay men were horrified by drag queens. Drag queens were the bane of a gay man's existence. They were the reason for all that hatred. Not to mention, gay men believed bisexual men were queers in denial. There was no attempt made to cover any of it up. We were as hateful as anyone, and that's why we made no progress.

We went undercover into gay establishments to meet other men who were undercover, and we all wanted to find love. I don't know about you, but if that ain't crazy, nothing is. We were basket cases.

How would such a disjointed group ever unite, under one banner? How can gay people hate each other, and expect to gain any acceptability with people who hated us all, and thought we were better off dead, a popular religious view.

I kept my distance, while looking for people like me. Being gay was more complicated than the lives of people who weren't gay. Everyone had a different identity for when he was being gay. Men's alternate realities went to town. No one was who he seemed to be.

No way such diverse people could ever unite, but if we didn't unite, our lives wouldn't be worth living. Sooner or later, we had to be honest with other gay people. 

Our society believed in the straight, white, religious, male dominated culture. Cultures that sprang from war, conquest, and religious fervor, and white men ruled in almost every case.

Women had only had the vote for fifty years. Blacks still weren't allowed to vote in some regions, even after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act became laws five years ago. People were literally dying, trying to register black people to vote.

If you weren't of the white persuasion, you needed to keep your head down. If you were of a different persuasion, all you needed to do was hush up about it. Just don't mention you're gay, black, or a drag queen, 'and you'll be just fine, honey child,' but nothing was fine. We were all different, and in theory, we were all equal.

No one told the people who thought they were in charge.

I'd heard about the riots in Greenish Village, at a place called Stonewall. While the papers were careful not to make much of anything gay, this was different. The gay riot lasted from Friday night, until Monday. I didn't know what a gay riot was. I wondered if it had to do with shopping.

When I discovered that the modern gay rights movement had begun, I hardly knew what to say. When I asked, who was rioting against New York Cities finest, I was told, it wasn't the leather boys, the bears, or even the cowboys who pulled us into the modern gay movement. It was the drag queens.

They'd had enough, and when the police came to beat them down, they rioted, and when drag queens riot, you need to pay attention, and when all was said and done, the police got in their cars and drove away, leaving the Stonewall and Village in peaceful bliss. 

I immediately thought of George. He'd have been right up front.

I didn't tell anyone that I was gay, but the year before the night I sat in Carlton's living room, I was sitting on a bench in Lafayette Park, facing the White House, determined to find someone gay in the most notorious gay spot in DC, when I saw a guy entering from the southeastern corner, heading my way.

Phil walked directly toward the northwestern corner, where I had been sitting on a bench for about twenty minutes. He glanced at me as he passed, and then, he looked back over his shoulder at me, as he was about to leave the park.

“Do you want to go to a gay bar, or what?” He said, and he kept on walking.

I fell in behind him. I'd made first contact. It was novel, but everything was the year I went in search of people like me.

No one persuaded me to be gay. Carlton wasn't persuaded to marry and have a family. We were what we were, and our society was in denial about most people in it. If you kept quiet, and if you appeared white enough, religious enough, polite enough, who would ever know you were different.

People who weren't white might run into a little trouble there. The people in charge didn't allow no trouble. No siree.

They were good at pretending everyone was white enough, male enough, religious enough, and suitable enough for them, as long as there was no trouble, and I was no trouble at all, but I was seeing the truth about how people managed to appear acceptable. 

I did that, but our silence gave credibility to the idea preached from pulpits everywhere, 'You'd be better off dead,' and I wondered who fell for that one. Was anyone really better off dead?         

I had no proof about most of what I thought, while sitting in Carlton's living room, presenting the facts of my life in a way I'd never done before. 

I had no doubt, after reviewing the direction my life had taken, the breaks had gone against me, and there was a very good reason why I didn't speak. When you are a tiny fish in a big sea, no one sees you. When the people you are most like, don't speak, nothing is revealed.

I didn't speak, because I had nothing to say, yet.

*****

Chapter 16

Epilogue: 

Butterflies & Rainbows covers a a specific event, during the year I was coming out. I knew I was a queer boy before I turned ten. I verified it the year I time 12. Living mostly inside myself, I tried to have a clear picture of what it was I was feeling.

I was afraid of my parents. They showed me how little they liked me. There was nothing nice about my childhood. It was bad, and it seemed to me, it only got worse.

         Two men altered the trajectory of my life. They encouraged me. The only person I trusted, Tommy, inspired me.

I went from being invisible to standing out for those two men. I was a good athlete before I became a scholar. The easiest thing for me to be, Tommy's friend. He was always there for me and never let me down.

In the time it takes to take a breath, is how fast my life changed.  That's how sudden it was to me. I was this, and then I was that. Maybe an expert in psychiatry could explain it more clearly, but I didn't change. Inside I was still as dumb as a post. I'd figured out a way to fool teachers, the way I fooled my parents. They thought I was there, when I wasn't there at all.

I shut off unpleasantness in the blink of an eye. I could ignore it. I'd been shamed and humiliated every day of my life, and I knew how to escape anything that looked like shame or humiliation.  

My goal each morning was to survive the day. Doing it while pleasing two teachers who were nice, was OK, but each day, I knew, at the end of the day, I had to go home to the insanity at my house.

Had those two teachers not been there, had Tommy not befriended me, I could have become that junkyard dog. I could have become a nightmare, no matter how kind and gentle I was at birth.

Once again, something for a shrink to consider.

I hadn't changed. My actions were a performance for people who showed me some human kindness. There were peripheral events swirling around me at the same time. I had discovered me among the reflexes, reactions, and responses that protected me.

I was never a fully functioning human being and I'm not today.

Some of you will say, get over it, and I have, but retracing how I got here, doing what I'm doing, is cathartic. Believe it or don't, I'm still putting the worst of it into context, and in Butterflies & Rainbows, I write about the worst of it for the first time.

Being discovered, becoming visible, was the easy part. I love writing about it. I wouldn't be here if it hadn't happened.

***** 

My life was jump started at the year I turned 12.

At twenty-two, I went in search of what it meant to be a gay. As I indicated, gay men were less than forthcoming with the truth. If you are looking for love, truth would be important. If you're looking for sex, not so much. We didn't know what we were looking for.

There was no LGBTQ at the time. We were a lot of queers doing our best to make contact with other queers, but it was scary.

The seventies were one big party for queers. Laws changed and we were no longer criminals. We were a bit off in the head for a time, and as the decade came to a close, we were an alternative lifestyle.

I never knew what the alternative was, but what the hell, I felt fine, and it was nice to here I was OK, simply alternating a bit.

We marched and sang, “We're here. We're queer. Get used to it.”

The dying started in the early 80s. At first it was, “Clusters of gay men are dying at an alarming rate in New York City.”

The party was over.

We were on our own. “Let them all die,' was the popular opinion. Did I mention we were hated as much as fellow Americans were capable of hating. They did a pretty good job of hating Native Americans, not to mention the Africans they kidnapped and brought to America to do work white folks wouldn't be caught dead doing.

LGBTQ people were somewhat obscure, because we weren't so easy to identify, but if you were dying of AIDS, it was a good bet, you were one of us. Even when dying, gay men were reminded, they were hated, as if they might forget. 

This is the period in which the LGBTQ Nation was born. Because no one lifted a finger to stop the dying, and doctors did their best, but no one knew anything about the new virus. What I knew, a virus doesn't have a sexuality. A virus is a virus, and it's waiting to infect you. It started in America in the gay male population, but in Africa, people had been dying of 'slims disease,' for years. When there were tens of thousands of dead gay men, millions of heterosexuals would die in Africa,  but they were black, and it wasn't talked about, until it could no longer be ignored.

If gay men were fearful of being found out before, they were petrified of dying now. The nice part of the story, where the AIDS epidemic hit the most people in America's largest cities, LGBTQ people organized assistance for the sick. They cooked and delivered meals, did laundry, cleaned their residences, delivered their meds, and getting them to the doctors.

The amazing part was, little old ladies with purple hair, from the church down the street, with a lesbian on one side, and a trans woman on the other side, filling food containers with hot food, or folding laundry. No one asked  if you were gay. No one asked if you were Christian.

Helping was the right thing for good people to do, and there was so much hatred, so much dying, good people couldn't sit still for it. Sometimes hatred has its limits.

In 1996, the government decided to let us know how they really felt about the queers by bringing the Defense of Marriage Act to the floor of congress, with a half million dead of AIDS.

Rep. John Lewis, civil rights icon, stood on the floor of congress, and he argued, 'This is a bill of hatred. It's only purpose is to deny two adults who love each other the right to be married.”

Civil rights had been changing the conversation by this time.  At one time the black church stood in opposition to anything gay.  Civil rights leaders began going into black churches. They were saying, 'No! No! No! You can't demand equal rights while denying others their rights. It doesn't work that way. You don't have to like them, but we are all in this fight together.'

While change doesn't come easy, especially when it comes to religion, change happened. In 2012, with legalized gay marriage on the Maryland ballot, the state where I was raised, Maryland became the first state of four that voted for legalized gay marriage on election day. In Maryland, a large black vote helped to pass that initiative.

Black lives very much mattered to all minorities, and especially to the LGBTQ Nation.

In June of 2015, in a case known as Windsor, for Edith Windsor, the supreme court ruled that the right for same sex couples to marry was guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and under the fourteenth amendment.

Fifty years after Stonewall, we do have the right to marry. That makes it legal for LGBTQ people to marry, if they so desire. It doesn't mean that the people who hate us aren't still out there, waiting for a time when they can strike back, and undo such liberal decisions that go against their love of God, guns, and power.

Don't doubt for a moment, if they get the chance to overturn Windsor, they will.

With the death of Notorious RBG, a woman who blazed the trail for all woman, as well as all minorities, her seat on the court is being filled in record time. It's being filled so quickly, because the conservatives can't wait to undo everything Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for. They intend to force their way of life on the rest of us.

I fear for LGBTQ kids growing up in America. While they will be some of the brightest, most creative generation ever. They may grow up in an America where hatred is revitalized, and no one dares to step out of line.

Maybe conservatives will give up greed and their thirst for power. It could happen.

I'll leave you with words from Maya Angelou. I heard her say this on the Oprah show. In one of Maya's sage moments, she said, “I did the best I could. When I knew better, I did better.”

When you read Butterflies & Rainbows, think of that quote. I believe Maya was talking to me.

My wish, is for you to find peace within yourself and in your life. I hope you find the love within yourself, and you share it with someone you want to have the greatest gift you have to give. 

Peace & Love,
Rick Beck 

Posted: 10/16/2020