Disclaimer: Jonathan Larson owns; I'm just borrowing the characters to express my teenage angst.
High school: need I say more?
Like any fairly bright sixteen-year-old, I can't wait until high school is over. All right, so it was fun joking around with my friends back home, but here in Scarsdale I don't know anyone. There will be no joking around, no notes written in chemical symbols. Iodine (Magnesium-g)-Iodine-2(sulfur) Uranium, knitted into a hat from my friend Jessie as 53 12g 53 16 16 92, hidden beneath the rim. I miss you. She wasn't the only one crying when we said good-bye.
"Dad."
First thing in the morning, I wandered into the kitchen still buttoning my shirt. "Can I get a ride to school?" I never understood the ability of adults to be wide awake in the morning, until the day I dunked my head into a sink full of icy water. Since then, no one ever says, "Did you sleep okay last night? You look exhausted!" I cannot honestly say it's a comment I miss hearing.
As for my father, I somehow doubt he uses the icy-water treatment. It seems silly, undignified to even think of around him. Dad's sense of humor is… let's just say it's in my prayers with Gran and Louis Armstrong. "Sure, Tom."
"Thanks." Teenagers eat all sorts of strange things. I crumbled a chocolate chip cookie into a glass and poured in enough milk to give it the consistency of very lumpy oatmeal. Athletes eat raw eggs; I don't think this is any more disgusting, but I've yet to meet anyone who can watch me spoon it into my mouth. My usual attitude towards what other people think is, simply, fuck 'em, but this bewilders me. Cookies and milk is an American classic.
Dad stopped about a block away from school to avoid congestion. I had thanked him and was about to unlock the door when he said, "Listen, Tom, I know you're a good kid…" Oh, no. I knew this speech. Toe the line, he wanted to say. The strange thing is, Dad never gave this speech. When he was called into the school, he would always be completely quiet about it. I only asked him once, when I was in the fifth grade. Dad had to come into school for a conference with the principal when I refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
That night was probably the worst I have ever felt. Dad isn't a talkative fellow, so his silence should have been an accustomed attribute, but it seemed as though he would not even look at me. At dinner, I finally burst. "It's not right and that's the only reason I'm not doing it," I said. "Most of the kids in my class can't even understand the words, and they shouldn't say it and maybe they know… I thought they might be scared not to say, about getting in trouble. I was for a long time, too, but if I can stop maybe other people won't be so scared…"
I was ten and I was scared. It was the first time I had ever done anything truly bad, at least that I saw as truly bad. It was the first time my dad had to come in to the school to meet with an administrator. But he just let me talk myself out, then said, "Do what you have to, Tom." So I did.
Scarsdale was a fresh start. I hardly expected my father, after six years of supporting my efforts through silence, to turn and become that teacher/counselor/principal telling me of my opportunities if I could just behave myself, yet it seemed the time had come. My heart fluttered, almost excited. I faced a traditional teenage experience, the chance to stand up to my father and clash words, beliefs with a titan. It was a rite of passage, and I savored its coming.
He said, "I understand the argument, the acting out, I know you're bored, but please, this is not Los Angeles. Things are different here. There are certain… societal standards it's best to let be, Tom."
That stopped me cold. "Dad…" I licked the roof of my mouth: it had gone dry. "Do you mean, don't let everyone know I'm a homo?" How could he say that? How could my father, who had never encouraged me to do anything but be myself, suddenly decide that something as natural as homosexuality was wrong?
Oh, I had heard the words before. People back home generally accepted it, but there were the necessary few who needed to shout, "Fag!" out car windows. My old high school bordered a neighborhood populated almost entirely by homosexuals, so offensive and obscene comments were fairly commonplace. So was acceptance.
Dad looked right at me, which is more respect than I had ever expected from anyone saying this sort of thing, and he said, "Yes, Tom. That's exactly what I mean."
I suppose, in some way, my teenage rite of passage had come. I swore at my father and slammed the car door on my way out. I had hoped, expected to feel righteous in the way teenagers are supposed to. Their arrogance overwhelms and their pride swells that they have found the courage to stand up for what they believe in and fight against the abstractist concept of The Man. This is all very rock-n-roll.
The difficulty is, I stood up to my father. I respect my father, I love him. Cursing at him didn't make me feel better. It made me hate myself. The abstract The Man is an invention to dehumanize the enemy. This is one of those times I wish I could turn off my brain, stop thinking and just act. Even that thought is refuted. One cannot act without the brain.
Damn!
The school was all right, had a nice façade of red brick. I approached from the back, thoroughly lost myself and ended up behind one of the bungalows. The lack of garbage struck me: obviously, this was a well-avoided place. The angry boy leaning against the wall might be an indication of why.
"Hey," I called.
He looked up. There is something chilling about anger in green eyes. Anger is a blaze, green a living color. It seems the two should cancel one another out; they struggle for dominance. The boy took a cigarette out of his mouth, blew a stream of smoke and said, "Hey. You new?"
I nodded. "Yeah, just moved here. That obvious?"
He shrugged. "You stand out."
"You mean I'm black?"
"No, I don't care about shit like that." He was trying too hard to be bad. He offered the cigarette. "You want?" he asked. "Something to calm you down."
I hesitated. I had taken drugs before, my fair share in fact, but like Dad had said, this was Scarsdale. Things were different here. If being gay was a problem, smoking probably was, too.
"Yeah." I took the joint and sucked a drag. "That's not bad stuff."
"I don't smoke just any shit," he replied. A loud bell crashed through the school. My companion jumped. "I hate the first day," he said with a heavy sigh. "It's too early to ditch anything. Good luck, man."
TO BE CONTINUED!
