Infected With Where I Live

John Price ‘08

It was hard to concentrate on ones homework with wads of rolled-up paper striking ones forehead. It was even harder if it was a writing assignment. And it was the hardest if sniggering insults accompanied those wads of paper.

Trevor lowered his head closer to the desk and closed his eyes tightly. He wanted to rise up, and he wanted to scream at them. But he did not. To scream at them was to challenge the status quo, and to challenge the status quo was to get a detention. The grip of the thin white fingers tightened against the pen. It may have burst if he was stronger.

“Fag,” a sniggering whisper. Another wad of paper bounced off his temple. His eyes opened, and he stared at the offending party with startling green eyes.

If it were a better world, the bully would have faltered, would have seen the cyanide in those green eyes. This was not a better world. Another wad of paper pounded into his forehead.

“Does that matter?” A whisper. A voice left relatively unchanged by puberty. It was a voice that bullies sought to break. A voice they wanted to destroy, to burn.

The study hall teacher ignored them. His book was very interesting. The Da Vinci Code. It had been the only book he had honestly read since high school.

The bell rang. Trevor slipped the paper into his messenger bag. The thin black strap slipped over his equally thin shoulder.

“Goth fag,” a tormentor whispered as he bumped past his desk.

He opened his mouth to speak. No words came out. Someone poked him in the back with a pen. Trevor did not bother to look. He knew who it would be. One of the hive mind. One of Legion, for they are many.

He left his study hall and shouldered the strap closer to his thin body. Pale hands flicked away dyed black hair from his forehead and from in front of his eyes. A variety of pins covered the solid black messenger bag. One called for an end to war. One advertised his like for a number of underground bands. A rainbow-colored one called for the establishment of gay marriage.

That last one had gotten him scorned and picked on and actually beaten up once.

It was lunchtime. And lunchtime was never fun.

Black boots slipped one in front of the other in a delicate and graceful fashion. Unlike most boys his age, he was refined, cut in ways to make him sensitive and almost feminine, never effeminate.

His skin was pale, unmarred by the ravages of acne and stubble. And for that, he was punished.

A shoulder shot out against his back and almost caused him to fall down the steps. The boots skidded against the ground, and he caught his balance. Thin fingers straightened the pink tie as he walked down the stairs, ignoring the muttering of the phrase ‘emo fag.’

Those same thin fingers grasped the railing, and he slowly walked down the steps, trying his very best to ignore the mock catcalls, propositions, and insults thrown at him. The cafeteria was so close to him. And even closer to the end of the day.

He only had one more period. And then he would be home. A smile spread across Trevor’s pale face like a candle placed in front of a white sheet. It was strange to have one’s last period be lunch, but the school was still messing around with schedules and a new grading system, involving terms and quarter-periods and such things.

He felt that his parents may have complained if they cared about such things. The short walk down the hall was a thousand miles. He endured pokes. He endured insults, each one designating him as being part of another meaningless subculture.

The air was cool in the cafeteria, and it made him happy for a moment, until he felt something like a hydrogen bomb dropping into his stomach. There was the problem of finding a place to sit in the relatively small lunch period. He could always sit alone, but there was always the embarrassment. And the way that the teachers assigned to moderate the period stared at you. How some of them would talk to you and ask why you were not sitting with the other kids.

He bit his lip and stuck his hand in his pocket, lightly digging a quarter in between his fingernails painted with a pink sharpie. Light feelings of pain took away feelings of nervousness and embarrassment. That lesson was from a while back.

Without any attention from his tormentors, he bought a bottle of Coca-Cola™ from one of the machines strewn about the cafeteria and bought a candy bar from another.

His table was at the far end of the cafeteria, nearest to the back door one got to by cutting through a few locker rooms. That was never a problem. He usually left before the jocks would be there. And if he was a bit slow?

Well… Trevor did not like to think about that very much.

A fry pelted him in the back. And another on the top of his shoulder. He stared down the opening of his bottle of Coke™ and watched the bubbles pop up on the surface. It was pretty in a way. Really pretty, in fact.

He felt something wet smack into his hair, and he sighed. The first two fingers, including his thumb, scraped off what turned out to be ketchup. A white container lay on the floor beside him, with remnants of ketchup inside. It had come from that.

He sighed again, very interested in the carbonation of his drink.

The principal spoke on the intercom. There were words about things that Trevor did not listen to. He caught a few mentions of service opportunities and various charities. It almost brought a smile to his face that many of the tormentors would be giving to those charities or doing those service opportunities. All the while, they would be calling for democracy to be brought to all nations, perfect equality, and all of that.

But the tormentors would still torment him. Because he was not a person. Trevor was different, after all.

And then the principal stopped. And then the bell rang. And then Trevor rushed out of the door.

His goal was to keep the jocks and popular kids and the ones from trying to fit in beat him up that day. It was not that the explanation of the bruises resulted in awkward explanations to his parents. It was that his parents ignored the splotchy purple and black and grey-yellow blemishes against the perfect snowy-white skin.

And then he was out of school. The semi-cold air hit him, and he raised his messenger bag further onto his shoulders. He nearly sprinted home. Away from school. Away from the people that made fun of him and threw ketchup at him and called him fag and poked him with things.

Now he was home. And he sighed, letting his fingers drift across the doorknob. He opened the door, and he took off his boots, leaving them on a small mat.

Father was asleep. As was Mother. That was a good thing. Mother would be yelling at him about things she did not understand, telling him how he was killing her and Father, telling her how disappointed they were.

Father would just stare with that look of disappointment in his eyes. Every now and then, he would drink. And then he would be angry at his son, calling him a faggot like the kids at school. Father never hit Trevor. At least there was that.

He dropped his messenger bag on a couch and unknotted his pink tie. He unbuttoned his dress shirt. He ran a hand through his hair, and it smelled of ketchup.

A smile lingered upon the pale face. Trevor turned and ran up the staircase and into his room.

Socked feet pattered against the staircase, and he swung down the hallways and opened the door.

Each wall of his room was a different color. Blood red. Purple. Black. Pink. The walls were covered with pictures of bands he liked and art he liked and other things he liked. The floor was strewn with articles of clothing and books and money and CDs. The bed sheets were purple. The smile widened, and Trevor flopped onto his bed. He picked up his headphones from a crate that served as his nightstand and slipped them on.

The music was intoxicating, and it made him smile.

He took a book from the floor next to his bed.

The book comforted him, and it showed him different worlds and places and people that existed or could exist.

The boy’s eyes left the book, and they flicked about the room. Picture to picture to article of clothing to book to lone drumstick. No one was here to call him fag. No one was here to hit him. No one was here to yell at him. No one was here to tell him how disappointed they were.

There was only him, and it was beautiful.