My life changed dramatically when I was 14. I was never really the popular type, but I had a decent crowd of friends. They accepted me and I felt safe with them. So in the beginning of my Freshman year in high school, I decided to tell them all the truth about me. The events that followed this decision would take my life in a completely different direction. Little did I know that the even that would change my entire high school experience would only last a few minutes.
It all happened so fast. Most of it was a blur, but I'll never forget it. It seemed like a regular night. My dad and brother watched an old basketball game on ESPN while my mother ran around the house cooking and cleaning and generally being Mom. I'd gotten ready for my school's Sadie Hawkins dance. I had decided not to get too fancy. After all, it wasn't prom and my date wasn't really someone I needed to impress. So I wore my favorite pair of brown pants with a plain white collared shirt, and of course, my favorite blue bow tie. Bow ties were and still are kind of my thing. My date was running a little late, but it was okay, I had planned for that. Ricky was always late. And yes, my date was a guy. I was 1 of 2 gay students at my school and we decided to go to the dance together; as friends, of course.
It wasn't easy being out in a small town in Ohio. My mom and brother took it okay. Neither one of them was happy about it, but after a day of my brother not talking and my mom crying, everything seemed back to normal. Now my dad was another story. He wasn't confrontational or mean about it, but I could definitely tell that he wished I was straight. He wasn't sure how to handle any of it. Having grown up in a very traditional way he wasn't used to anything outside of what he was taught to be acceptable. For a while he would deny it, then he would tell himself it was just a phase and that I was confused. He tried taking me to boxing matches and football games. That summer he even attempted to "fix" me by having me help him rebuild an old car. And of course the whole time we were building it he was talking about the women I could pick up in it once it was done.
The kids at school however, were not so polite about it. We were called every name in the book. I had my backpack dumped out in the hallways daily. I was forced to stop eating in the cafeteria when the captain of the football team decided it would be funny to pour a can of soda on my food every day. The football team was the worst of it all. They picked on me a lot more than they did Ricky because they felt threatened by me. I wasn't stereotypically gay. Other than maybe my choice of fashion and my passion for theater, there were no indications at all that I was gay. When I came out it was very hard for a lot of people to accept. I lost a lot of friends. I gained even more enemies. At first I was discouraged. I wasn't sure that coming out had been the right decision. But after things cooled off a little and I learned how to avoid the taunts and bullying, I was okay being a part of the minority. I wasn't going to let a couple of jerks stop me from being me. So when the Sadie Hawkins dance came around, Ricky and I didn't think twice about going.
When Ricky finally showed up at my house that night we still had to wait a little while longer for our ride. Our friend Shannon was going to have her mom take us all in their new fancy car. She was late for everything too. Because it was Spring in Ohio, so we decided to wait outside in the cool early evening air. Everything seemed normal. The sun was setting, leaving the clouds in a golden haze. The early thaw had given the plants enough water to start blooming. Birds chirped in the distance. We were both ready to enjoy our evening at our first high school dance. Ten minutes was all we had to wait for Shannon to arrive. Little did we know, it would be the worst ten minutes of our lives.
I think back on it now and know that we were foolish to think that nothing would happen and that no one would care that the only gay guys in the whole school were going to the dance together. We started seeing cars leave the neighborhood and recognized a few of them as students heading to the dance. At about 6:15 a truck pulled up to us. Half of the football team had been sitting in the truck bed. Before I knew it, two of them were jumping out screaming obscenities at us. As they ran toward us, the other guys proceeded to throw things at us. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I felt a fist connect with my jaw. Ricky was on the ground. A big kid in a numbered jersey had him pinned. Another guy joined in and knocked me over too. They pinned us down, spit on us, punched us repeatedly, kicked us, tore our clothes... After the first couple of minutes the pain went away. It started to seem like a bad dream. I could no longer understand what vile things they were screaming anymore. i just wanted it to be over. I wanted it all to stop. I kept wondering why nobody was stopping them. And then I heard the sirens. The crowd jumped back into the truck and drove away.
I felt so helpless and alone. Ricky was crying and I wasn't sure if the warmth I felt running down my face was from tears or blood. It was probably both. Two officers helped us get to our feet and I heard my dad come running toward us. He loaded the two of us into his car and took us both to the emergency room. My mom was crying, my dad was on the phone with Ricky's dad. We both sat quietly in the back seat, our bodies pulsing with intense pain after the shock had let up. I had never felt anything like it.
After that day, Ricky stopped talking to me. He hadn't returned my calls or emails. Neither one of us had returned to school. I stayed at home with a broken collar bone, a black eye, a split lip and two broken ribs. I was black and blue for weeks. My dad had told me that Ricky also had two broken ribs, several deep cuts on his arms, a fractured wrist and a busted ear drum. A week later I found out that his family had moved away. I was never told where. I wasn't even sure if he was still Ohio. I couldn't help but think that they blamed me for that night.
My parents refused to let me go back to school, but they didn't go so far as to uproot us and move. Instead, they had me transferred to an all boys boarding school called Dalton Academy. I wasn't exactly thrilled when I found out. I would have been perfectly content going to another public school. Apparently my parents felt otherwise.
When they asked me what I thought I said, "I get beat up by a pack of ignorant guys so you send me to a school filled with them? Oh and it's a boarding school, so I can't even get away." I was confused. I had no idea why my parents wanted to send me to a school where I had a bigger chance of getting beat up again.
My mother sat across from me. She grabbed my hand, "Blaine, Dalton Academy has a zero tolerance policy for bullying." Her eyes were welling up with tears. She was always very sensitive.
"I don't get it." I had never heard of zero tolerance for bullying. I was bullied everyday and the staff at school never seemed to care. They all seemed to think that I had brought it all upon myself by choosing to be gay. As if anyone would choose to be treated like that.
"No one can hurt you there." Her voice cracked and she dabbed her eyes with a tissue. "The academics are great and they have an excellent music program…"
My mother didn't finish her sentence as my dad interrupted. "It's what's best for you, son." He was very serious about the whole matter. He didn't spend any time trying to make the place sound good for me. I don't really think he cared how I felt about going to Dalton. "Don't you think you've put your mother through enough?"
There it was. The real reason they were transferring me to a school I'd never heard of. It was my fault I got the living crap beat out of me. I brought it on myself. I cause my mother grief. I knew there would be no winning with my father on this one. I gave up arguing at that point and just decided to let him be ignorant. I resigned myself to becoming a Dalton student and said, "When do I leave?"
"Tomorrow." My father said, very sternly. As if I had a choice.
"What? But Tomorrow is Saturday!" I didn't understand why I had to leave so soon. Maybe they didn't want me to get the chance to say good bye to any of my friends from my old school. Maybe that's just how it happened. Either way, I wasn't happy with the immediacy of the transfer. I thought I would at least have until the new semester.
"Classes don't start until Monday, but you need to be moved into your dorm and go to orientation. Then you need to get fitted for your uniforms." He started gathering a bunch of papers that had been on the coffee table beside the couch. I caught a glance at one of them and it looked to be the broacher for Dalton. I saw a young looking boy on the cover wearing slacks and a dark blazer. I didn't get a great look at it, but I wasn't sure I liked what I saw. I would have to learn to love that uniform.
"Fine. Can I go pack now?" I regret having been rude to my mom, but at the time I felt extremely betrayed. I felt like the family shame was being sent away. All I wanted was some say. I wanted to have a voice in the decisions that would affect my life, but I guess at that point my parents felt that me making my own decisions is what got me into this mess to begin with. That word, 'choice', I was starting to have a real problem with it. What I didn't realize at the time was how great Dalton would be for me and how much I would grow to love it. I didn't know how much it would change my life.