The Street in Front of the Library

 8^th grade, 1982

 

8^th grade was a time of change for me. I suppose it is for most people. Honestly, until that time, I had little care for my personal appearance. One day, something clicked with me, and within the meager means I had available, I began trying to stay clean, keeping my hair looking nicer, dressing in the few outfits that I had that didn’t look totally cheap. My teachers noticed such a change that they commented to me.

In my middle school, 8^th graders were required to participate in gym class. That of course included showering and changing, a process that was increasingly causing me to be severely uncomfortable, especially from being naked in front of the other guys, and showering right next to them. I did what I could to minimize my exposure. But naturally, for the most part, I wasn’t able to hide for long.

I approached the gym teacher early in the year about my locker location, and was able to get permission to move to a locker well away from the guys most likely to cause trouble. That worked for quite a while. But like always happens, once you get comfortable, things change. A few of the guys changed up how they showered and changed, started going straight to the shower instead of talking. That was my move, so they showed up with me just starting my shower. They were large, and clearly masculine, and I was anything but.

I tried nervously to hurry. I was embarrassed for them to see me. Showering while trying hard not to show any “sensitive” body areas is not an easy task. They noticed me trying to shower while covering up, and started to snicker. They didn’t say anything, though, and soon, I was out of the shower, drying off in just a few seconds, and heading out of the locker room fully clothed but very damp. To tell the truth, I thought that might actually be the end of it.

Because life is always complicated, there are always multiple stressors. My parents were very conservative. There had been a lot of news in the papers lately, with a gay boy who had committed suicide at my school. My dad was blunt about the futility of suicide, but my mom had lots of acid things to say about gay people. In her opinion, he was dead because he was gay. I remember her saying if he had had the sense to actually be male, he’d have been just fine. Between her and my grand-parents and brother, I knew that gay people were considered wrong, at best.

There was a boy in school, an 8^th grader names Rodney, who was a happy bully. By that I mean that he was a bully, and happy about it. Like many bullies, he was big and strong, but mainly just loved scaring people. I had a habit of going to the library after my after school activities, because it was only a 30 second walk from school. I waited there for my parents to pick me up. One day, as I was walking down the street to the library, I saw the two guys from the gym shower calling across the street to Rodney. I couldn’t hear what they said, but I heard him yell back “Who?”. They then pointed at me.

I recognized that something was going on, and turned to go into the library. Unfortunately, I was still a decent distance from the library, and Rodney easily ran across to me before I got anywhere near the door. The two guys on my side of the street were about 30 feet away, looking on, laughing. Rodney didn’t even look at me, merely stopped running once he was across the street near me, and kept walking right past me like I wasn’t even there.

I turned and saw him moving off. So, I headed across the sidewalk toward the library. What I didn’t know was that he had turned around and was coming up behind me. He punched me in the back of the head, which stunned me. We were right out in front of the library. He came around in front of me and one of the two laughing boys grabbed me by the arms from behind. Then, Rodney punched me in the face. He then leaned in close and told me to never, ever say I wanted to suck his dick again.

I was even more shocked than when he had punched me. I hadn’t even thought it, let alone said it. He saw the shock on my face, and laughed, calling me a little fag. Then, suddenly he was gone, and I was standing there, with a headache and a bloody nose, and broken glasses.

Soon my parents were there to pick me up. Naturally, they demanded to know what happened. I told them who did it, and their next question was of course why? I tried to explain that I honestly wasn’t sure, but at this point, my dad cut me off, and told me he was disappointed in me for “not winning the fight”. I don’t think he meant to be cruel, because honestly, there’s not a cruel bone in that man’s body. But honestly, I wasn’t wanting to say anything about any accusation of being gay, and I was so shocked still that nothing coherent was coming out of me anyway. My dad’s blunt statement that he didn’t care why, as long as I assured him I hadn’t done anything wrong, ended it for the moment. I was glad he at least took the approach of taking my word for it.

But my mom of course wasn’t satisfied. She wanted financial retribution. So, my parents took me to the police station, to try to file assault charges. They made a police report, and the police photographed me. The officer was a member of our very conservative church. I did not mention the accusation of being gay. The police talked with Rodney and his dad, but were not able to find enough to file charges.

Weeks later, I tried to talk about it with my parents, but they seemed upset about something else, and my dad, not really knowing what had actually happened, told me that when he had said before that it was ended, it was ended. I knew he meant it.