by Will McMillan
God damn it. As if school wasn’t already hard enough. As if I didn’t already struggle to keep up. Every subject an obstacle, every lesson a fight between me and the textbook, be it spelling, or reading, or math.
Math especially.
Using my stubby fingers to count after Miss Douglas passed out our math tests, hunched up at my desk, streams of sweat seeping into my collar. The clock on the wall ticking, counting down a fast 30 minutes. Hoping I can finish before the clock counts me out. Hoping none of the other kids in my class see me sweating, see me frantically adding and subtracting. Counting one, two, three, four with my fingers…screwing up…then counting one, two, three, four again. And again. Wondering why? Why is this so hard for me? And why is this so easy for everyone else? My fingers wrapped so tight on my pencil it chews dents in my skin. Numbers swirling around in my brain, stacking up in staggering, teetering jumbles.
And this was only fourth grade.
And now this. Now, as we walked into the classroom after recess, before we could even get to our desks, before Miss Douglas can pass out the tests, Bruce Lucky is stopping all the boys and making us show him our fingernails. If you hold your hands up in front of your chest, no space between your fingers, you were fine. If you hold your hands out from your chest, fingers splayed, well, guess what that means?
YOU are gay. YOU ARE gay. YOU ARE GAY.
Great peals of shocked laughter, from Bruce, from all the other boys and the girls, if you showed your nails the wrong way. The gay way, as if you were waiting for another coat of sparkling, bubble gum nail polish. “Oh my God!,” they screamed. “You’re gay! You are gay!”
As if blending in wasn’t already hard enough. As if sweat didn’t stain my hair every day, counting all the ways I might be found out. Counting the one, two, three ways I’d already come close (you said you liked puffy stickers, you said you liked Cyndi Lauper, you said your favorite color is purple, God damn it) … then counting the one, two, three ways again. And again. Seven hours in each school day, so many ways to be gay in each hour, piling up in my brain like fallen, dead branches. Something fragile just waiting to burn. And now, here was Bruce, adding more to the pile, more fuel for the burn. Wondering why…why is this so hard for me? And why couldn’t this happen to somebody else?
And this was only fourth grade. Things were only going to get harder.
Will McMillan is a queer writer born and raised in the untamed wild of the Pacific Northwest. To date, his essays have appeared in The Sun, Bending Genres, Hippocampus, and Cheap Pop literary journals, among many others. His essays have been nominated for Best Fictions, Best American Essay and the Pushcart Prize.
Emerge Literary Journal 