Ok, It's just one of those nights where I just can't seem to get to sleep and work starts in a few hours. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the worst day of my (short) life. This is the first time I've ever told this to anyone, but since I'm around others who understand how this feels, I felt it was time to tell the story. So this is probably the worst event of my 23 year life.
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Cut to: May 1998
I'm in the seventh grade and it's two weeks till summer vacation starts. For the last few months I've resorted to carrying my female clothes in my backpack, since my mom had gotten into the habit of ransacking my room in search of my clothes.
So anywho, I'm talking to a friend about my past weekend visiting my cousin in Mexico when I look toward my backpack and to my horror, see one of my classmates, George, going through my "things." He looks up and into my eyes with a look of horror. I immediately jet towards him and try my best to silence him with whatever excuse I can muster at the last second. I'm 13 at the time so the best thing I could come up with then was that they were my cousin's clothes and that she must have left them in there accidentally. I seem to silence him with my endless stream of BS, but I know I'm screwed. The best I can do is damage control.
So the 2nd period class bell rings and I make a bee-line to the nearest restroom to destroy the evidence, but it is obvious that some of the things can't be flushed or disposed of discretely as there is a crowd of boys there with me. So I flush what I can and try to make it to the end of the day.
Third period class goes by without incident. I feel like I could make it to the end of the day. Just maybe.
So, I get to fourth period. The last class of the day, also my most hated subject: math. One of the other people there, Luis, is a friend of the guy that went through my backpack earlier. Everything seems to be going well, but he keeps looking up at me every once in a while and then looks away.
Five minutes till the final bell rings and school is over. The class has begun to wind down and we're all getting ready to leave. Luis walks over with his friend Pierre. He tries to grab my backpack but I manage to snatch it away. I try to get away but he does something that will completely destroy my life for the next two years: he tells the teacher that I have women's clothing in my backpack.
I am officially screwed.
The bells rings and fortunately most of the other people in the class haven't heard the commotion because they were all talking loudly as they always do right before class lets out. The teacher, Mrs. Porras, commands me to stay after class and orders me to empty out my backpack. I had gotten rid of almost everything, but there were one or two things left. I could feel my heart struggling to pound its way out of my chest. I began to slowly take one book at a time out of the pack, stalling for time. As I did this, I positioned the last book on top of the remaining clothes. When I got to the last book I just said "That's it, there's nothing else other than that." She looks at me with a look of disgust, pauses, and then tells me to leave.
Needless to say, I RAN like I've never run before to my waiting car. I didn't sleep at all that night. Thoughts of all my classmates knowing my secret raced through my mind.
The next morning I waited for what I assumed would be something akin to a public lynching.
First period came. Nothing. Was it possible that this had all blown over already?
Nope. Come second period I get called into the vice principal's office. Mrs. Porras had taken it upon herself to inform the Vice Principal of the previous day's incident. I am once again subjected to a search of my belongings by a security guard and then given a speech about how he should call my parents to inform them about my deviant behavior. I try the same story I had told George the previous day, but again it convinced no one.
He didn't end up calling my parents in front of me, but I do believe he called my mom after I left the office.
And that was it. I was outed to an large group of people, to this day I still don't know who knows, because I know George and Luis told people. I remember the next year in the middle of science class, the guy next to me, Nick, turned to me and bluntly asked me if I was gay and then told me that Luis had told him of the previous school year's events.
After that, there's not much else I remember about my middle school days other than that I lived in a continous haze for the following two years. I had no confidence at all anymore, I feared people, and trusted absolutely no one. For a long time suicide actually seemed like the only way out.
Fortunately, I am a complete Self-Preservationist-Guitarist-Narcissist :P , so things didn't end up tragically, but they easily could have. Looking back on it now, I could have easily sued or filed a complaint on most of these people, but as a frightened kid there was nothing I knew that I could do. I expected that sort of reaction from kids my age, but the adults were just as bad if not worse.
And that's it, that is my horror story. I'm sure some of you all have much worse, but this one nearly killed me as a kid. It was this event that changed the course of my life more than any other.
I'm going to stop typing now, as I'm sure I'll be liable for killing someone through sheer boredom. If you've read this far, here's the meaning to life, the universe and all things: 42.
