To Thine Own Self Be True
by mike
The Watcher
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Chapter 2
The Watcher
Having a lot of time to myself accomplished several things during my exile in junior high. I did a lot of reading which exposed me to different perspectives and forced me to think things through. This is very important because I'm a very emotional person. I tend to just want to rush in and get things done and worry about the consequences later.
I was looking for ways to be more appreciative of being gay, even though it was turning to be pretty lonely so far, and I came to the realization one day that if I had been straight, I would probably just be another blond, southern California ditz. That was almost as scary as the thought of being groped by some smelly, testosterone driven boy. The other thing was that after two and a half years of keeping a low profile, anyone I was at Milliken with totally forgot about what had happened in light of trying to survive at Hemry. Coming in at the lowest rung of the food chain tended to put personal survival above all else.
Because of my grades and test scores, I was enrolled in the AP courses. I didn't mind, I had discovered that I liked being challenged intellectually. I even like the idea that I could conjugate a sentence properly, though I wouldn't think of doing so in a conversation with any class mates. Also, I took my mom's advice; I tried out for cheer leader rather than any of the girl's athletic teams. I did seriously consider trying out for track, but there was some perception that athletic women might be gay. I think it has to do with some movie 'Personal Best' I think. I tried renting it once, but the video store said I needed to be 17. It's on my "When I'm old enough list". The list is now four and a half pages long, half of them would probably make my mother faint.
Anyway, the cheerleader thing is actually ok. The routines are really fun and allow me to work up a good sweat and get my juices flowing. I just have to be careful when I have to hold one of the other girls in a routine. Can't let them know how much I enjoy that particular aspect of cheer leading or I'll have a repeat of junior high quicker than you can say alleyoop.
I have made friends with the girls on the cheer leading squad and while only one of them is in AP classes with me, they're not too bad to talk with as long as I can keep the conversation away from boys. I usually switch to talking about fashion. They all readily talk about fashion and it's something that I do know about and enjoy, though I do feel anything more than 15 minutes tends to become inane unless their talking about Victoria's Secret. When they do, I just shut up totally and listen, nodding my head in encouragement to anyone willing to continue the discussion. But I never allow myself to talk during these times knowing that my enthusiasm would quickly reveal my true interest. I also have to work hard at controlling my breathing, especially when Vicki pulls out the latest catalog and points out the latest line of lingerie. The first time she did that, I nearly fainted.
The others noticed my reaction, but thought that I'm just really innocent. I play the innocent card when they talk about boys and sex. While I feel like gagging hearing about the two in the same conversation, I pretend embarrassment.
While Vicki and Lauren seem to derive pleasure in seeing me embarrassed with these conversations, I tolerate it to maintain my cover and also because they do the Victoria Secret thing also to get a rise out of me. I've learned to take the bitter with the sweet. I've read about how Jew's at their Passover meals do something representative of this concept. I hope to make friends with someone Jewish someday who might allow me to share this experience.
I celebrated my sixteenth birthday last week. Dad took me to the Ice Capades, without mom this year. The tension between them is awful. I get ill just thinking about it. Dad keeps coming home later and later and sometimes he works all night. I don't see him too much anymore, so the Ice Capades and dinner with him were really cool. I don't think of my dad as a guy, he's my dad. It's outside of guy territory, though I have started to think of him as a guy when he's yelling at mom. He reminds me of Tony when he would try and harass Valerie. It makes me really sad to think that my dad could be anything like Tony, anything like a guy.
Now that I've got all those recent thoughts out of the way, here comes the strange stuff. I woke up this morning feeling really lightheaded and just a little queasy. I looked in the mirror and my face was really flushed. I took my temperature and it read 103.4. I took a shower and then told my mom how I had felt after waking up and about my temperature. She asked how I felt now and I realized that I wasn't light headed anymore or queasy. In fact, I felt really good. She decided to take my temperature again just to be sure. This time it was normal. I didn't have a clue as to what happened, but I headed off to school feeling better than I could ever remember feeling, almost euphoric. Feeling euphoric is one of the things on my list, just not having to do with school, so I'm not crossing it off yet.
When I got to school, I went to my locker and Janice came up to me to talk about the Science project we were assigned last Friday. As I'm listening to her talk, I suddenly felt threatened from behind and without thinking, I spun around and grabbed a hand that was just about to grab my derriere. I instantly recognized the perpetrator as Craig Flower, an obnoxious football type who had been trying to get me to go out with him. All this information processed at the same time that my other hand reached up and grabbed him by the throat and I then completed my spin by tossing him over my head and onto the floor like he was a blowup doll.
Now Craig is a junior and a varsity linebacker, six foot two and weighing in at about 215. So he made a loud thud as he hit the floor and made an even louder grunt. I had no idea what or how I had done what I had just done, but I knew I had to say something quick to divert attention. It's almost always the first one to speak who gets heard and believed.
"Craig I'm so sorry, you slipped on my orange peel I dropped." I yelled while quickly bending down, pretending to wipe something up with a tissue.
Craig wasn't about to even consider that he had just been tossed around by a tiny little girl, so he quickly accepted the apology and then got a look on his face.
"No problem Buffy, but if you really want to make it up to me, you'll go to Thompson's party with me Saturday night." He said in a confident manner, thinking he had me cornered.
Well I don't like to be manipulated, so I fell back on my standard excuse. "That sounds like it would be fun Craig, but I'm not allowed to go out with guys until I'm sixteen." I replied in my most conciliatory tone.
Having heard this one before, Craig new it was hopeless and just let out a grunt and stomped away.
Everything happened so quick, I hadn't had time for what happened to register yet. I wanted to figure out what was going on, but something was telling me that major wiggins could ensue, and I better be someplace where I could indulge in a major freak out without anyone seeing. I clung to this sage advice and went about classes as if nothing had happened.
Everything was going along fine until cheer leading practice. I was out of time on all the routines. I was ahead, moving too fast. I was jumping too high and when I did the leap off the human tower, I overshot by twenty feet.
Seeing that I had misjudged, I went into a tuck and roll as I hit the ground springing up after the roll feeling exhilarated and somewhat embarrassed. I turned to the rest of the squad and apologized profusely, and claiming dizziness, retreated to the locker room. That's when I fell down the rabbit hole. Only the rabbit turned out to be a nice old guy who wore tweed and said his name was Merrick.