"I'm on my way down"
-Marilyn Manson, "The Minute of Decay"
Kurt was five when he heard it.
It was a family gathering of sorts, the Hummel's all gathered in his uncle's yard with beers and lemonade and barbeque. Kurt had planted himself firmly in a little circle with all his female cousins, playing with dolls and putting the frilly paper coasters laid out on the tables on their heads. He had thrown off his new Adidas running shoes to display the sparkling purple socks he'd swapped with a girl in his class (he had to forfeit a tube of his mother's lipstick in the exchange, but look how shiny they were!). And one of his older cousins, a Todd or a Stephen that he didn't talk to anymore, came up and snatched the sole of Kurt's foot. He fell back, his leg raised far above his head and his jacket gathering at the base of his chin.
"Hey," his cousin Linda protested, "let him go!"
Kurt used his other foot to kick blindly at the air, trying to gain some control over the situation because even at this age he knew only bad things could happen when you were forced to the ground.
"Look how stupid you look," the older boy jeered, shaking his ankle and bending it forward. "Your wearing girl socks."
"Ow!" Kurt cried out as his leg was bent farther then his muscles would allow. "Leggo! I am not!"
"You so are!" he laughed, shaking Kurt's leg more. "They're all sparkly-what're you, a fag or something?"
Kurt didn't know what the word meant, but the same thrill passed over his cousin's face when he said it as any other boy's who had said a bad word. The way he said it, like it was the worse thing a kid could be without being dead, made Kurt's stomach flop.
His other cousin, and apparently the big kid's sister, jumped up and gasped. "I'm telling mom!"
"What did you say?" came a sudden shout and all Kurt saw was a large figure loom over him and his foot was released. He tried to gather himself, fumbling into a sitting position to see his father, holding the other boy by the crook of the armpit. His face was red, the same red he was when his truck got stolen.
"Get your hands off my boy," Kurt's Uncle Sam roared, and two were suddenly in a battle of words. Something about him, something about his cousin, something about influences. The only thing he really, truly heard was:
"Where does your kid get off calling my son something like that"
"Come on, Burt. He is wearing girl's socks for chrissakes-"
Kurt's father threw his fist back and swung.
His mother and his aunt, standing at the sides of their respective husbands, both cried out.
"Teach your kid some damn manners, Sam," Burt growled, marching over to Kurt, pulling him to his feet and dragging him away, his wife close behind as a hush spread through the barbeque. They walked to the car, and Kurt never did get his shoes back.
People didn't like him. Kurt knew this. They didn't like his face or his body or his clothes or his entire existence and he thought he had excepted that until all of a sudden, for the first time since he was five, he was actually afraid of what this dislike could do to him.
-oh, wait, another thing.
These memories, this time spent alone in his room with nothing but DVDs and Cds and books, left him to think too long and too much and now what could he do but cry like a girl, cry like a boy who would dare kick off his running shoes to show off his sparkly socks? He couldn't do anything as each insult, each shove and kick and demeaning force, for the first time since he was too young to see over the counter, caught up with him, hit him full force piece by piece like individual bullets. He winced, he shook his head, he pounded his fist against his pillow, he paced he jumped he scowled but they kept coming at him, turning him red with anger, humiliation. He hit himself, smacking his palm to his temple. Small grunts escaped his throat, weaning like that of a Banshee before his face finally fell and he cried, right there in the middle of his room. He didn't make a sound, just let hot tears burn trails down his cheeks, let his shoulders bounce and let his knees rest against his carpet. He slumped over and, no, he hadn't excepted it, not really, because he hadn't thought about it. You can't accept something if you don't acknowledge it's existence.
Please leave a message after the beep.
Hey, baby. It's 'Cedes. Me n' Tina and Brittany and, well, most of us are coming over. Haven't seen ya'll in forever, babe! What's it been, like a whole day in a half? I could hardly dress myself this morning-ha, right, Tina jacked her mom's copy of Chicago and I figure we can mess around with my solo-And, you know, we don't have to talk about…anything, if you don't want to. Just gonna hang, you know? So make yourself decent cause we pretty much there…see ya in five, white boy.
A/N Yeah, that was short. Review?