The Horcrux
This post is specifically directed at
Mr. Fluffer, since he is my only faithful blog reader without
opposable thumbs and a Facebook account. He wouldn't have seen on his
non-existent newsfeed that I recently published my MFA thesis/first
“book” on Amazon. The book is okay. I would highly recommend
saving real opinions for private interactions and suggesting you give
the book 5 stars on Amazon and say it's the greatest thing you've
ever read. I promise I'll buy you a cup of coffee with the royalties
your promotion causes. Please don't expect anything fancy. It may be
week-old Folger's that I reheat on my stove.
I decided that I was just going to bite
the bullet and publish it on my bday. I thought it would
symbolize...something? I figured if I had momentum and got it done by
that date then my year would be a year of progress and movement
toward... I don't know. During this whole process I've kind of let
myself be okay with the fact that I won't have a big publisher and my
writing is for me and a few people who read it. Publishing was more
of an act of exposing myself as a writer, an artist. It's “coming
out” again and letting people know who I really am and what goes on
inside of my head. And people will/may find that offensive or worthy
of mocking. But I did it. And it's out there.
While doing my final round of edits, I
was reading through a passage and read some of my own vulnerability
in a scene. It was kind of shocking to read through this artifact of
my life, three-ish years in progress. Because part of it is
definitely me, a piece of my history, my thoughts and ideas at a
certain time in my life. But part of it's alien. These characters
that I made up surprise me and make me laugh as if I had no part in
their creation. The manuscript is a piece of me, but also has a life
of its own. The only thing I could liken it to was a Horcrux from
Harry Potter. In the book, these objects are repositories for pieces
of the soul; granted, in the book it's so the Dark Lord can live
forever by scattering his soul so it can't be destroyed.
Which...isn't quite what I'm doing. But I think in all my writing, a
piece of soul escapes into it. It may be a transitory idea or image,
but it's part of me that exists on paper. It's part of me that has to
escape for the whole to survive.
All that being said, please don't stab
your Kindle with a Basilisk fang. It's just awkward for all of us.
So, yeah, real talk for a change. But
here's the first part of the book for your perusal.
Book available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Faggit-Tedd-Hawks-ebook/dp/B00HUMETSU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1390068576&sr=8-1&keywords=faggit
Prologue
That whole week I went over a lot of things. The most important one
was figuring out if it was for sure. Like, I was 98.45346% sure that
I was really gay, but I didn’t want there to be any confusion about
it. This one website recommended writing your coming out story, the
moment or time where you realize that you’re gay, so you have it
and it’s real, a moment you can hold and say, “This is me. This
is how I know who I am, and I am proud to be this way.”
I started
writing like 100 times, but it always felt weird. One story was about
how I wore my mom’s high heels when I was five, and another one was
about Kyle, but all of those felt off. They were part of the story,
but they weren’t the story.
The one thing I did keep coming back to, over and over, was this
scene from my favorite old movie called An Evening with the
Asherfields. Cal always made me watch old movies, but this was my
favorite because of this one part. It’s in black and white and the
main guy, Douglas, is moving through this big, fancy party. He is
really excited about something, because he’s pushing his way
through all these people. Finally, he stops outside a set of French
doors; he stands there for a minute and takes a deep breath. The
camera shoots through gauzy curtains and reveals a woman standing
outside. You can’t see all of her, just her silhouette, but she’s
standing with one hand on her hip, the other hand extended clutching
a long, old-fashioned cigarette holder. Douglas opens the door and
sees her looking really elegant staring at the moon. The camera moves
in closer, and she turns with a halo of light around her head and
says, “Hello, Douglas.”
When I was thinking about my own story that scene always popped into
my mind. Because for me that’s what it was, a moment when you think
the world should stop moving, and you feel something you’ve never
felt before. It’s not sex, but a sort of calm in the middle of
something wild – like the eye of a tornado. Your heart is racing,
and you have a million feelings going through your head, but in the
middle of it all, you have this joyful feeling of peace. It’s
beyond lust and all that, a realization that you have an amazing
connection with another person. And for me that other person was a
boy.
Part One
Chapter 1: Orientation
Cal told me the last thing in the world I should tell anyone was that
I was a Princi-Pal. I tended to agree with him, but there were much
worse things to be. For instance, Tommy Capella showed chickens at
the Kaplan County Fair, which to me seems much more embarrassing than
being in Principal Rothchild’s little student group.
One of the responsibilities of the Pals was helping out the day of
freshman orientation. My sophomore year I was in the cafeteria behind
the welcome table handing out nametags. Another Pal was helping
Principal Rothchild stack the student planners on a table, and the
junior president of the Princi-Pals, SRC, was wandering around,
surveying everything with her cold, grey eyes.
SRC’s name was actually Sally Rae Chilton, but no one ever called
her that. SRC sounded like a kind of bomb, which fit her perfectly.
Everything about her reminded you of the Cold War or something, from
her square haircut, big, round glasses and thick bangs, to her
clothes, which only came in black, grey, and black again.
“I think you should reorganize these, Jack.” SRC glared at me as
she brushed her finger over the nametags. “This looks,” she
paused and adjusted her glasses, “cluttered.”
Principal Rothchild appeared behind SRC and put a hand on her
shoulder. “I think they’re fine, Sally Rae. Is the projector
ready for the assembly?”
“Yes.”
“Check it over again, just to make sure.”
SRC gave a little bow. As she turned, she almost knocked down a girl
and her mom, who had just entered the cafeteria. Principal R. looked
at her watch and almost crapped herself.
“It’s almost 1:30! Will you all be ready?” she asked, looking
at the rest of the Pals and the few teachers gathered.
We all nodded.
“Good. I’m going to finish things up in the office. I’ll be
back in a minute.”
Principal R. had this weird sort of waddle that took her out of the
room. She was a tiny, chubby woman, and when she moved too fast, she
bobbed back and forth like an angry penguin.
As she left the room, the girl and her mom moved up to the table. The
mom was a tiny, petite woman, but her daughter was a whole lot
bigger, not fat or anything, but big and thick. I’m kind of short
and scrawny anyway, but this girl made me look like a chimp standing
next to a gorilla.
“Hi,” the mother said.
“Hello, there!” Mr. Arnold, a science teacher, said. “New
freshman?”
“No,” the mother shook her head, “Mary is actually going to be
a sophomore this year. We’re moving in from Clarksburg.”
“Well, Jack here is a sophomore!”
I think Mr. Arnold saying that was supposed to make me and this Mary
girl talk or something, but I just nodded. It got really weird when
no one said anything for a whole second, so I brushed the hair out of
my eyes and started organizing the nametags again.
“Mary’s nervous about starting, but this school seems nice.”
“Mom.” Mary’s voice was sharp. Her face was beat red. “I’m
not nervous.”
The mother smiled one of those mom smiles – my mom does it when
she’s trying to make me happy, but also acknowledge to everyone
else that I’m being a stupid kid. After the smile, the mom gently
stroked Mary’s hair. I held in a laugh when Mary’s face grew
redder. She swatted her mom’s hand and stalked off across the
cafeteria. Her mother politely nodded and then hurried after her.
The cafeteria started to fill up with kids and their parents. Mr.
Arnold and I were really busy handing out the nametags and keeping
the line moving. Most of the kids I already knew – it was hard not
to know everyone when you went to a tiny high school in the middle of
a corn field. It only took about two weeks after I moved in from the
junior high before I could match up faces with names and understood
who was cool and who wasn’t.
When the cafeteria was filled, Principal R made everyone shut up and
then gave a welcome speech. I think it was the same one she used for
my class the year before, but with some of the inspirational
adjectives moved around.
“Welcome … blah blah blah … We’re excited to see you … blah
blah blah … You are the future … blah … exciting year … blah
blah blah … new friendships and challenges … blah …”
I probably should have been paying attention, but I let my mind
wander during the blah-blahs and was looking at all the new kids.
There were several that I thought would be great for a make out. Not
that I had ever made out with anyone, but there were plenty of people
I'd want to have a movie make out with, preferably in the rain or a
mild snowstorm. When I looked into the sea of faces and saw the new
girl, Mary, looking at me, I almost jumped out of my chair. She
awkwardly looked away and tucked some hair behind her ear.
After a few more blah-de-blahs one of the student council kids stood
up and started separating the kids into their tour groups. I slipped
out of my chair and was getting ready to go to the gym to help SRC,
when Principal R. grabbed me. She said, “Jack, would you mind
leading a tour today?”
“What?” I asked. “I mean, don’t you have enough student
council kids?”
“We have enough for the new freshmen, but I hoped you’d take
around the older students? We have three new kids that are sophomores
and juniors. If you take them around separately, they won’t feel
like babies.”
“What about SRC?” I asked.
I wanted to get out of it more than anything. I don’t really like
being in charge of stuff. I mean, I lost sleep for a week because my
neighbor, Mr. Hurley, asked me to feed his cat while he was on
vacation. I was sure I was going to stumble in on the cat right as it
was dying.
“Meow meow meow!”
[Cat subtitle: Forsooth! Why didn’t you take care of me!]
Most of the Pals, including SRC, had leadership experience, so this
job was right up their alley. I was only in the Princi-Pals because I
won a regional math contest the year before. I bombed out at the
state finals in Spring Falls, but for about three seconds before the
big contest, everyone at school was cheering me on.
“Sally Rae has her hands full,” Principal R. said.
Over in the corner I saw SRC and Bobby, another Pal, at the student
planner table. She was swatting Bobby’s hands because he was taking
a planner from the wrong stack.
“So you’ll do it? Perfect!” Mrs. R was already waddling away
before I could say anything.
It was time to panic then. Sweating was the main thing that happened
to me when I started to feel uncomfortable. It was like the pores in
my armpits popped open at once and rained all over, which was awful,
because then I had pit stains on my shirt and couldn’t lift my arms
up. If I did lift them up, then I got embarrassed by all the
sweating, so the pits would sweat some more. I carried around an
extra shirt in my backpack, just in case I got nervous for some
stupid reason at school.
It was really quite terrible.
I was taking deep breaths when Mary, a tall guy with dark hair, and
this other girl with a really tight shirt, who still had her
sunglasses on, approached me.
Principal R. was following them and gave a wave as she passed by.
“Have fun!” she said. “Just bring them to the gym for the
presentation with their parents when you’re done.”
She angry-penguined away, and I was left staring at this group of
kids. I was sure that my pit stains were visible, so I kept my arms
down to my side like a robot.
“Uhhh, hey,” I said.
No one said anything. Mary and the tall guy looked nice enough, so my
sweat started to slow down. The girl with sunglasses was typing on
her phone faster than any human being I had ever seen.
I really had no idea what to say until the tour started, so I kept
watching the front of the cafeteria to see when the other groups
left. Finally, the silence was broken when the tall guy spoke up. He
said, “Do you like this school?”
He had on a shirt with a skull on it and the band name “Death
Flavor.” His eyes were big, round, and brown. They were staring
right at me. His nametag read “Kyle.”
“I guess,” I said. “Where did you guys come from? Which
school?”
“Clarksburg,” Mary said.
“Holbrook,” Kyle said. “It’s in Kentucky.”
The girl with her sunglasses on, whose nametag read “Delilah,”
smacked her gum twice before saying, “I used to go to Brentwood
Academy.”
“Brentwood?” Mary asked. “What are you doing in this dump?”
“Whatever,” Delilah said furiously texting.
When the last tour group left, I led us out of the cafeteria and into
the band room.
“This is the band room,” I said. “I don’t play an instrument,
but I hear it’s pretty fun. The teacher makes everyone call him
Keith, instead of Mr. Cockrell. I think he’s a hippie.”
“I play piano,” said Kyle.
“Like Amadeus?” I asked. Being best friends with Cal inevitably
meant watching almost every movie ever made. I didn’t even think
about how most people just call him Mozart.
“Who?” asked Kyle.
“Mozart,” said Mary. She smiled at me.
“I’m not that good,” said Kyle. “I’m in a band and just
play basic stuff.”
“You’re in a band?” Delilah said without looking up from her
phone.
“Yeah,” Kyle said.
“Coowl.”
Delilah turned her phone sideways and slid her finger across the
screen.
The school tour
was really dull because our high school was designed by the same guy
who architected the county prison. It’s a pair of big cement blocks
in the middle of a cornfield. One of them is the school gym and the
other is for all the classrooms. The walls are all cement blocks with
white paint on them, and the carpets are this weird teal and purple
color with diamond patterns. Every once in a while you’d see a
poster on the wall that sounded like Principal R.’s speech. “Blah
blah blah … Teamwork!” or “Excellence … blah blah …!!”
I took them
around the first level of the school and showed them the gym, the
fine arts wing, and the freshman hallway. After that we went upstairs
and ventured down the junior wing. At the very end of the junior
hallway there is a row of beat up lockers. They were taken out of our
original high school building that was demolished in the 80s.
Delilah noticed them first. “Those are ugly,” she said.
“I know,” I
said. They were pretty terrible. It was like someone purposefully
dragged them around in a demolition derby. “Those are part of the
original high school and are supposed to be part of our history.”
“I hate
history. I don’t get why we have to learn about dead people,”
Delilah said.
Mary looked at
Delilah like she was full of some disease.
“No one
actually uses them,” I said, “but they’re really famous around
school. That’s where you pick up Cutty Sark every month.”
“The shark?”
asked Kyle.
“No, it’s
this thing…” It was weird that someone wouldn’t know about
Cutty Sark. Not knowing our gossip paper was like being in India and
not knowing cows are a big deal. “Every Thursday students write up
this unofficial newspaper with stuff that happened over the week. A
lot of times it’s just gossip or news that they won’t let us
print in the school newspaper, like who broke up with who and why, or
who was caught making out under the bleachers. It’s called Cutty
Sark, I guess it’s the name of rum and a boat or something.”
“Oh my god,”
Delilah said. “It’s like Gossip Girl.”
Cutty Sark
wasn’t nearly as great as it sounds. Once in a while there would be
a juicy story, but mostly it was about stuff everyone already knew
about. The best story my freshman year was when everyone found out
that Micah Herron and Becky Georgestein were caught having sex in
Micah’s neighbor’s front yard. The neighbor happened to be
Principal R.
I told this
story to Kyle, Mary, and Delilah and they thought it was hilarious.
After leading
them back downstairs I said, “That’s about it guys. You can head
into the gym for the presentation.”
“Coowl.”
Delilah turned away and, distracted by her phone, slammed into the
trophy case. For the first time that afternoon, I saw her show some
emotion, as she scrambled to shove the battery back in her phone and
adjust her sunglasses.
“Thanks for
the tour, man,” Kyle was looking at me again with his brown eyes.
It felt like we were both saying something, even though there weren’t
any words.
“Jack?” Mary
said.
I turned away
from Kyle. “Yeah?”
“This was
really cool. Where do you live?”
“Oh, I live on
the north side of town.”
“I live close to there!” Mary was
grinning ear to ear. “Would you want to hang out some day or
something?”
“Oh,” I
said. “Sure. We’ll probably have some classes together.”
Mary was looking
at me. With that look look. It reminded me so much of Susie
Hamilton, this girl I used to date, I felt my stomach start to churn.
It would have
made sense to tell her then that I was gay, rather than have it all
blow up like it did later. It would have made a lot of sense to have
told everyone at that point.
But I hadn’t
even told Cal yet, and he was my best friend. My dad knew, but he
hadn’t told anyone else. I probably wouldn’t have either, though,
if I walked in on my son watching two guys in wrestling singlets
getting naked on YouTube.
