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Powell and Me
I knew it the first time I saw him walking through the hall between classes: something hard around the eyes, a certain tension in his posture. This guy was dangerous. When you're a queer in high school, you tune into that look almost immediately. I've heard guys talk about us having a sort of sixth sense, "gaydar" they call it, that spots other gay guys. I don't have it. (I have a "gee, if only" sense, I admit.)
But I have got a "gay danger" sense.
I wish I went to a school where it was okay to be queer. Or that I could hide being queer, like Alan. Nobody knows Alan's one of us. I mean, he doesn't look queer. He's a jock, even: wrestling. He says wrestlers always get teased about being queer, but he ignores it, or demonstrates a few takedown holds if guys get too pushy about it. He offered to teach me some of that stuff, but let's face it: if I tried it, I'd be the one on the floor. What I've got is "flexibility," my gym teacher says. They have to put something positive in the assessment reports, I guess. In elementary school, you weren't supposed to say "queer," or "faggot," or any of that stuff, but they never really said that it was okay to be queer.
I'm pretty sure my Mom knows. Sometimes, when Dad says, "Grow some balls," Mom gives him this look, like "You know he can't do that," and he just throws his hands up and leaves the room, or something. I think it started when he was trying to teach me to play catch, and I couldn't. I mean I could catch the ball, sometimes, but I could never throw it back.
I figured out I was queer at summer camp after sixth grade. Some of us used to get together when we had a chance and mess around. We had contests to see who could cum first, for example, or shoot farthest.
One of the guys had some hetero porn, and everyone else got all excited. But what excited me was seeing the other guys get hard.
I got hard-ons at camp, a lot. And not like the "what-the-hell?" hard-ons I used to get waiting for the school bus when I was younger. I knew what was causing my summer camp hard-ons: Gary Quinn, Counselor Gary, who was the head lifeguard and ran the waterfront activity. On sunny days, when he stood just right, the shadows would make him look like Captain America, or something. I actually pretended I couldn't swim very well, so Counselor Gary put me in the Trout group, with the other guys who could almost swim. Counselor Gary spent a lot of time working with the Trouts, and I loved it.
Every once in a while, somebody I didn't know--usually an adult or a way older kid--would start a conversation while I was in the park, or waiting for a bus or something, and pretty quick it was "What do you like doing for fun?" or "Do you ever play with yourself?" Shit like that. It just was creepy.
By the time I finished seventh grade, I couldn't hide it any more: I was what you call "delicate:" thin and graceful and girly. The teachers knew it. Nobody--none of the teachers, anyway--ever said anything, I don't know, just nice about being queer. They either pretended not to notice, or they sort of gave me a look a little like the guy I was talking about earlier. His name was Powell. Just "Powell," as far as I knew. I didn't even know if it was his first name or his last--everyone just called him Powell.
I finally got to high school, and it was easier--a lot easier. There were other queer kids, and they were pretty cool, most of them, so I sort of had a gang to hang out with. But there were also guys like Powell, that you just had to avoid, or at least make sure you weren't alone. I heard he beat up a kid at another school real bad, so that's why they moved him to our school. Thanks for nothing, school board.
The real problem was that Powell and I took the same bus. None of my queer friends did, but Powell did. Technically, we were still sort of at school on the school bus, so if anybody did anything out of line, you'd wind up in detention, or they'd call your parents, or worse. So Powell just sat there in the back with his buds, kind of simmering. His friends were smart enough to keep a lid on themselves, but the word was that Powell wasn't. Good thing he got off before I did. If I got a window seat, he couldn't "accidentally" bang the back of my head on his way off the bus.
But that's not what happened, at all.
I fell in love--or I thought it was love, anyway, with Mike Silvers, and we had...a thing. We experimented with kissing and stuff, and cocksucking, and just enough with butts to think we didn't want to do that. And then we broke up. I was just as sure it was Mike's fault as he was that it was mine, so we were both pissed off. Anyhow, we broke up between first period and second and I was in no mood to put up with anything and--Lockdown!
You probably know what those are, with the terrorists and stuff, and there were drills, but this wasn't a drill, and if you were in the hall you were supposed to go to the nearest open room, and there was this little prep room, or something, mostly for teachers, and I ran for it. Just before I slammed the door, Powell threw himself against it and knocked me out. Well, not really, but I was out of it for a few seconds, long enough for him to lock the door and turn around and see me.
"Oh, fuck!" he said. I just looked at him. "You stay away from me, faggot!"
Well, I was just about as far away from him as possible, in that little room. So I just nodded.
"You hear me, faggot?"
And I sort of lost it. I was already all bummed about Mike, remember. "Fuck you, Powell. You want something from me, you call me Eddie. My fucking name is Eddie!"
And Powell lost it. He grabbed a chair and threw it at me. I was able to dodge it, or maybe he had a lousy aim, and I charged him. Picture that. I weigh about a hundred pounds, and Powell weighs, I don't know, maybe half-a-ton. Way more than me, anyhow, and all muscles. I sort of bounced off him onto the floor, and I knew I was dead.
Nothing happened.
I looked up and he was just staring at me, like he couldn't believe it. "What the hell?" he said, but not loud or mean, more like, well, "what the hell" when you really don't know what's going on. "You fucking crazy?" he said, like he was serious.
I just kept looking at him and I said, "I don't give a fuck what you do. I'm queer, and I'm Eddie and you should call me Eddie." It didn't come out all neat like that. I was so angry, I just spat words.
"We should be quiet, man!" Powell hissed. "Terrorists."
I thought what the hell, you started it, but I didn't say that, because I guess I had been yelling, and because "terrorists" shut me up, too. I just nodded, and scooted back to my corner of the room, and Powell backed into his corner and we both sat. And waited for the "All clear" announcement.
And waited.
It was dead quiet, like even quieter than the school library. And slow. I mean, the time was slow, like it is when you've got nothing to do, not even read or listen to tunes or anything.
"You got a phone?" Powell whispered, at last.
I grabbed my pocket, but it was empty. There was this rule about no phones in class, so I just usually left mine in my locker and grabbed it for a few minutes at lunch, and then it went back to the locker until the end of the day. "No," I whispered.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"Just wait, I guess."
So we did, for an hour or a few minutes. "Jesus, fuck!" Powell hissed suddenly, like his mouth was all tight. He was getting all tense.
"Be cool," I whispered. "We're safe."
"I ain't scared!"
"You should be!"
"What do you mean, 'I should be'?"
"Terrorists, for chrissakes!"
"But--"
"Being scared is like being on high alert, so you hear better and fight harder and stuff." Powell frowned. "You been scared, right?" I went on. "So when you're scared, you're all tensed up and ready to..." Insight dawned--my first one ever, I think. "You're always scared, huh?" So help me God I have no explanation for why I thought that, let alone why I said it.
"Fuck you, man," Powell whispered, and he sort of curled up, wrapping his arms around his knees. "You gotta be ready for shit, you know?"
"Well, being scared is like being all ready for danger. That's what I said."
Powell was quiet for a few seconds. "How long we gonna be in here?"
"How the fuck should I know?" And we both got quiet for a while, and my heart slowed down and I started thinking about Mike Silvers, and ow...and all of a sudden I was weeping. If I'd been home in my room alone, I probably would have been bawling, but it was school, and I wasn't alone, and there were terrorists out there.
"You're crying."
I just nodded.
"Crybaby." I didn't answer or anything. "You really are scared, huh?" Powell said. He sounded surprised.
"It's not that. It's personal." I kind of inhaled all my tears and tried to squeeze further into my corner.
Silence. Then, "Why are you a fag?"
I popped my head up and snarled. "Why are you straight?"
"Huh?"
"Why are you--you like girls, right? Why?"
"'Cause I'm a guy!"
"So am I! I just...girls don't turn me on. Guys turn me on. That's all. It's no big deal, when you think about it. I mean, if I'm not into girls, that means there's more for you, right?"
Powell thought. I mean, all of a sudden, it was like he was actually thinking, not all tense and wired, just...thoughtful. "Maybe," he said at last.
"I'm queer, you're not. I have brown hair, you have black hair. I'm scrawny, you're--" I almost bit my tongue off.
"I'm what?"
"Not scrawny?" I offered, fingers crossed.
"How come? I mean, why don't you exercise, or something? Act more... like a man?"
I shrugged. "It's just...Fucked if I know. It's just how I am. Queer." And then, I thought for a moment and said, "It's not like I'm going to infect you, or anything. So why--"
"Why do I pick on you?"
"Yeah."
"Because...it's what you're supposed to do to faggots. Everybody knows that!"
"But why? Why not just leave us alone. Ignore us?"
"You can't just ignore someone who's right in front of you all the time."
"I ignore lots of people," I protested. "I can't even tell you who wasn't in class, before...before the lockdown."
"Because they weren't there! Jeez."
I laughed--or I almost laughed, but I put my hand over my mouth and it turned into a snort. "You got me," I gasped. "Good one."
Powell actually smiled for an instant. Then he frowned again and said, "But why are you...like that?"
"Queer?" He nodded. "I don't know. I don't fucking know! And even if I did, I'd still be queer, so what difference does it make?"
"You didn't...you wouldn't come on to me, though. Right?"
"I wouldn't dare." Then, my eyes got wide. Was it possible that Powell was...I just stared.
"Would you?"
"Of course not. You'd pound me into the floor. I'm not stupid!" But was Powell coming on to me, somehow?
"So...I scare you is why you wouldn't make a move on me?"
"If you're asking if I think you're a good-looking guy, well..." I'm about to die. "Yeah. You're a decent-looking guy, when you don't look like you want to tear someone apart."
"That's weird. I never heard a guy say that."
"Did you ever ask?"
Powell snorted. "No. Never did. Guy at the bus stop said something once, though. Creeped me out."
"Been there."
"A guy came on to you? I mean, right there in front of everybody? Well," he dropped to a whisper, "what...I mean, did you, you know?"
"Fuck, no. I just sort of grunted and moved away. Got on the bus, soon as it came. It was the wrong bus, even, but just to get out of there, you know?"
"You didn't want to deck the guy?"
"I couldn't even deck a third-grader, let alone a grownup, so no. I mean, sort of, yeah--I wanted to. I guess if I had balls I'd have told him to go fuck himself, or something. But he didn't exactly say, 'Wanna fuck?' or anything like that. But I was pretty sure he was going to."
"That's scary."
"I spend a lot of my time scared. Terrorists scare me. You sure as hell scare me!"
"Sorry. I mean, I guess I was trying to, or something. Don't know why, really, you know?"
"You call me--us--queer, I get on the wrong bus. Same thing. For you, it's like 'get away from me,' and for me it's 'I'm going to get away from you.'"
There was a noise in the hall and we both froze. But nothing happened.
After a few minutes, Powell muttered, "Guy flashed me when I was maybe ten. Scared the shit out of me. I ran all the way home. I told my dad that night, and he said I should have kicked the shit out of him, or something--like it was my fault."
I was quiet, trying to imagine Powell at ten years old, kicking the shit out of a grownup. Like that could happen. I mean, I suppose it could, but...Then I thought about Powell scared and ten years old. "I'm sorry about that. That was fucked up."
"You mean my dad, or the que--the other guy?"
"Both, I guess, actually. I mean hell, if you're scared or freaked out, your dad's supposed to help, right?"
"Yeah! Yeah, but he didn't!"
"Bummer."
"Yeah, well, he helped me get tough, though." Powell sounded more like he was telling that to himself, than to me. "So anyway," he said a few seconds later, "how come you laid into me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Back when I...when you told me your name. Eddie, right?"
I nodded. "I was pissed."
"Sorry, I guess. I mean--"
"Not at you. I mean, not really at you. I was mad at...this guy. We were...we broke up, this morning."
"Broke up? You mean like boy-girl breakup?" I nodded. "Bummer."
"I really liked Mike--him. He was...I can't exactly explain it."
"You loved him?"
"I guess. More than he loved me."
Powell sort of threw his head back and looked at the ceiling. "It's always like that. It's like, why can't you at least stop loving each other at the same time, so it doesn't hurt so much, you know?"
I nodded. "That happen to you?"
"Couple of times. Girls fall for me 'cause they think I'm sexy, or something--they don't come right out and say that, but...anyhow, just when I start to think, maybe...I really want to, you know, be in love like other guys, but if I do--fall for a girl, it's like boom! And they want to end it. They..." Powell sort of ran down.
"Love sucks, sometimes."
"Yeah."
"ALL CLEAR. Everyone go to your Home Room for instructions. Go to your Home Rooms. All Clear."
We both stood up. "I wonder if anything..."
"We'd have heard sirens, cops all over or something," Powell said. (There were sirens, we found out later, on the other side of the playground.) He walked over to the door and opened the lock. Then, he turned around. "Hey, I'm sorry about the queer thing." He held out his hand.
I shook it, just sort of...That's what you do, right? "I would have made...you know...just so you know...I mean you are a good-looking...never mind. I should shut up."
"Yeah. Yeah, you should. But thanks for the compliment." He grabbed the doorknob and took a deep breath. In school, there's rules, and one of them is that everyone's got a role to play--the fag, the bully, the nerd, that sort of role. So I got ready to be Eddie the fag, and Powell got ready to be Powell the bully.
But I don't think I'll ever forget the smile he flashed, just before he opened the door.