At the start of 8th grade school year, I found myself friendless and increasingly stressed out at school.
My friendship with Michael Drolet had ended abruptly after I had written a letter on notebook paper to him. I don’t remember the exact contents but I know it was way too poetic and way too focused on feelings to be considered appropriate communication between two “normal” 13 year old boys.
On a barely-acknowledged level I was starting to have amorous feelings for him and thought he might be inclined likewise.
Needless to say, he wasn’t.
He ridiculed me from there on after in front of other classmates and when that got boring he eventually ignored me as if I didn’t exist.
Now the hunches other kids had about me were confirmed. I was a boy who liked to wear nice clothes everyday including suede shoes, at a time when the de facto dress standard for kids our age was confined basically to iron-on decal t-shirts, faded flare-legged jeans and Converse-style canvas top sneakers. I despised gym class and didn’t get along well with the other boys since I lacked an interest in all boyish things like sports and talking about girls.
I found 8th grade tougher too. The curriculum was stepping up to a pre-high school level in my honors-level courses and expectations were higher.
Home life had become more stressed as well. Though my parents wouldn’t have discussed their financial situation to us kids in any detail, in hindsight, I can see that our standard-of-living was starting to press heavily on their (my parents’) pocketbook. They were in debt up to their eyeballs. They had just bought our house on Pearl Street two years earlier and in that short time, to this year of 1977, they had managed to tear down a couple walls, one interior and one exterior, remodeled the dining room and living room, put in first an above ground swimming pool, then a year later, an inground pool to replace it, a new patio, new vinyl siding and a new roof. Whew! My mom and dad never saw a loan or line-of-credit they could pass up.
So I think it was a perfect time in my life to have found someone who would become my new best friend.
During one of the late afternoon study hall classes, I noticed another kid in class who was drawing in a notebook. I approached him and saw he was drawing elaborate imaginary spaceships, like you’d see in the recent movie “Star Wars”. I showed him some of my drawings and we both started talking about drawing and stuff. We hit it off right away. I noticed one thing about this kid that was very unusual: He seemed even shier and a little nerdier than I was. And I was very shy and nerdy, let me tell you.
His name was John and he was a small kid, short for our age. He was very skinny and had tight curly hair.
That kinky hair would, over the next couple of years grow into a full blown afro, and would earn him the nickname Richard Simmons. Perhaps he was called that for other reasons as well, like a certain "swishiness" in the way he carried himself, eh? Not too overt, but just enough to make you wonder.
It’s funny how a little detail that no one else would likely pick up on sticks in your head when you are attracted to someone…
…a little, mundane physical trait.
In this case, it was John’s hands. They were so slim and fragile-looking. But when he was drawing, they expressed such poetic dexterity and grace. They looked so soft and smooth and his fingernails were mere nubs and looked so cute. (A result as I would subsequently learn, like I would learn all his habits and mannerisms, of constant nail biting.)
(Note: As I sit here typing this post now over 30 years after the timeframe of this flashback, my eyes are slightly glazing over, welling up with a little melancholy tear. Oh how I loved those hands.)
Seated next to John was his best friend, a boy named Camille. We 3 would become close friends that fall.
Camille would not acknowledge it, but with him, there was no question about it...
This boy was queer as a three dollar bill!
I mean, even his name, coincidentally, was totally gay sounding: Camille Saint Onge. Sounds like a drag queen name.
Camille made John and I look practically butch by comparison.
Yet he was reluctant to come to terms with it, and even in later years, would vehemently deny he was gay.
And in these early puberty years, he like John and I was probably just as confused as all gay boys growing up “different”, so to be “out and proud” was both pre-mature developmentally as well as way too ahead of the times. Even most gay adults were mainly in the closet, except for the big cities, in the 70s. There were no support groups or LBGT student organizations like there are today. It was strictly “Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell”.
Camille hung out mainly with his posse of “girlfriends”. The girls all loved to hang with him, especially the few black girls in school. He was sensitive, into fashion, disco and movie stars, and had a razor sharp wit. Camille was the only guy in junior high bold enough to regularly wear platform shoes and rose-colored sunglasses, ala, Elton John.
(Note: Years later, when I first saw the TV sitcom “That 70’s Show” and saw the Fez character…I thought, “OMG…It’s Camille! To a tee.” The only difference was that Fez was a little odd because he was foreign, not that he was gay. Although I think for a while they may have hinted at some homosexual tendencies, eh? I don’t know for sure, I never watched the show regularly.)
Tensions would elevate over the course of that school year between Camille and I over the allegiance of John. John and I were hanging out exclusive of Camille more and more, and before long, we were best friends and Camille relegated to a mere acquaintance.
Over the next summer and the start of the 9th grade a year later, John became practically my shadow. He followed me where ever I went and we became inseparable. I realized I probably had become a surrogate brother figure to him. John was a foster child, and his foster mom was terrible. He was a totally turnkey kid, and since he would have been alone anyway, I had him over my house more and more.
This was still many years before any sexual activity between us, but I also knew I had a certain power over John. He looked up to me and would do anything I asked him. I also, sought to protect him from anything, or, anyone that would get between us.
By Fall of 1978, Camille had become my nemesis. I subconsciously saw him as potential competition in my quest to win the heart and soul of John.
One day, in the school cafeteria, I heard Camille and his “girl power” posse giggling amongst themselves, and when I looked over, I was sure they were pointing at me.
I waited 'til Camille was finished with his lunch and bringing his tray up to the tray deposit station.
Then I walked briskly up to him and as he turned to face me I swung at his face with my right fist.
I caught him square on the nose and heard a loud “SNAP”.
Then I just turned and calmly walked out of the cafeteria as members of his posse screamed and ran to Camille’s side as he fell to the floor.
I walked upstairs and reported to my next class on time and sat at my desk. The news of what I had done had not yet circulated up to this floor. I noticed I was shaking. I wasn’t really sure why I had done what I had just done, other than that I had suddenly felt blind rage towards Camille and reacted to that intense feeling without thinking anything through. To this day, I’m not entirely sure why I did it. Did I think he was laughing at me? Mocking me? Or was it simply I was starting to inwardly realize that I was slowly becoming like him, what I would then, in homophobic denial label "a mincing fag".
After a couple minutes of sitting there waiting for class to start, one of Camille’s posse, a black girl named Crystal, walked into the class (which she was not assigned to) and from behind me up to my desk. As I looked up when she reached me, she punched me square in the face. She hit me just above my left eye. Almost immediately, I developed a bruise that swelled to massive proportions.
“That’s for braking Camille’s nose!”, she screamed, and then she walked out.
The whole class stood frozen in shock, including the teacher.
I just put my head down in my folded arms on my desk and started to cry. Not so much as a result of the pain (though it did indeed sting) but because it was just confirmed that I had broken my friend Camille’s nose. I realized I didn’t hate him after all. But I did hate the monster I had become.
I was sent to the nurse, who checked me out…no major damage (yet from then on my left eyelid would be slightly lazier than my right for the rest of my life). I was sent home. The next day my father and I had to meet with the principal. I was suspended for one day. I had never so much as been in detention before this.
Camille’s nose eventually healed, but, of course, we never spoke again. John and I would become even closer. Aside from me admitting to John I felt sorry for it, we never talked about the assault.
John and I would, years later, have our own parting of the ways, of course.
But not in these halcyon days of sprouting emotional development and self-realization upheaval. Not yet.
My friendship with Michael Drolet had ended abruptly after I had written a letter on notebook paper to him. I don’t remember the exact contents but I know it was way too poetic and way too focused on feelings to be considered appropriate communication between two “normal” 13 year old boys.
On a barely-acknowledged level I was starting to have amorous feelings for him and thought he might be inclined likewise.
Needless to say, he wasn’t.
He ridiculed me from there on after in front of other classmates and when that got boring he eventually ignored me as if I didn’t exist.
Now the hunches other kids had about me were confirmed. I was a boy who liked to wear nice clothes everyday including suede shoes, at a time when the de facto dress standard for kids our age was confined basically to iron-on decal t-shirts, faded flare-legged jeans and Converse-style canvas top sneakers. I despised gym class and didn’t get along well with the other boys since I lacked an interest in all boyish things like sports and talking about girls.
I found 8th grade tougher too. The curriculum was stepping up to a pre-high school level in my honors-level courses and expectations were higher.
Home life had become more stressed as well. Though my parents wouldn’t have discussed their financial situation to us kids in any detail, in hindsight, I can see that our standard-of-living was starting to press heavily on their (my parents’) pocketbook. They were in debt up to their eyeballs. They had just bought our house on Pearl Street two years earlier and in that short time, to this year of 1977, they had managed to tear down a couple walls, one interior and one exterior, remodeled the dining room and living room, put in first an above ground swimming pool, then a year later, an inground pool to replace it, a new patio, new vinyl siding and a new roof. Whew! My mom and dad never saw a loan or line-of-credit they could pass up.
So I think it was a perfect time in my life to have found someone who would become my new best friend.
During one of the late afternoon study hall classes, I noticed another kid in class who was drawing in a notebook. I approached him and saw he was drawing elaborate imaginary spaceships, like you’d see in the recent movie “Star Wars”. I showed him some of my drawings and we both started talking about drawing and stuff. We hit it off right away. I noticed one thing about this kid that was very unusual: He seemed even shier and a little nerdier than I was. And I was very shy and nerdy, let me tell you.
His name was John and he was a small kid, short for our age. He was very skinny and had tight curly hair.
That kinky hair would, over the next couple of years grow into a full blown afro, and would earn him the nickname Richard Simmons. Perhaps he was called that for other reasons as well, like a certain "swishiness" in the way he carried himself, eh? Not too overt, but just enough to make you wonder.
It’s funny how a little detail that no one else would likely pick up on sticks in your head when you are attracted to someone…
…a little, mundane physical trait.
In this case, it was John’s hands. They were so slim and fragile-looking. But when he was drawing, they expressed such poetic dexterity and grace. They looked so soft and smooth and his fingernails were mere nubs and looked so cute. (A result as I would subsequently learn, like I would learn all his habits and mannerisms, of constant nail biting.)
(Note: As I sit here typing this post now over 30 years after the timeframe of this flashback, my eyes are slightly glazing over, welling up with a little melancholy tear. Oh how I loved those hands.)
Seated next to John was his best friend, a boy named Camille. We 3 would become close friends that fall.
Camille would not acknowledge it, but with him, there was no question about it...
This boy was queer as a three dollar bill!
I mean, even his name, coincidentally, was totally gay sounding: Camille Saint Onge. Sounds like a drag queen name.
Camille made John and I look practically butch by comparison.
Yet he was reluctant to come to terms with it, and even in later years, would vehemently deny he was gay.
And in these early puberty years, he like John and I was probably just as confused as all gay boys growing up “different”, so to be “out and proud” was both pre-mature developmentally as well as way too ahead of the times. Even most gay adults were mainly in the closet, except for the big cities, in the 70s. There were no support groups or LBGT student organizations like there are today. It was strictly “Don’t Tell, Don’t Tell”.
Camille hung out mainly with his posse of “girlfriends”. The girls all loved to hang with him, especially the few black girls in school. He was sensitive, into fashion, disco and movie stars, and had a razor sharp wit. Camille was the only guy in junior high bold enough to regularly wear platform shoes and rose-colored sunglasses, ala, Elton John.
(Note: Years later, when I first saw the TV sitcom “That 70’s Show” and saw the Fez character…I thought, “OMG…It’s Camille! To a tee.” The only difference was that Fez was a little odd because he was foreign, not that he was gay. Although I think for a while they may have hinted at some homosexual tendencies, eh? I don’t know for sure, I never watched the show regularly.)
Tensions would elevate over the course of that school year between Camille and I over the allegiance of John. John and I were hanging out exclusive of Camille more and more, and before long, we were best friends and Camille relegated to a mere acquaintance.
Over the next summer and the start of the 9th grade a year later, John became practically my shadow. He followed me where ever I went and we became inseparable. I realized I probably had become a surrogate brother figure to him. John was a foster child, and his foster mom was terrible. He was a totally turnkey kid, and since he would have been alone anyway, I had him over my house more and more.
This was still many years before any sexual activity between us, but I also knew I had a certain power over John. He looked up to me and would do anything I asked him. I also, sought to protect him from anything, or, anyone that would get between us.
By Fall of 1978, Camille had become my nemesis. I subconsciously saw him as potential competition in my quest to win the heart and soul of John.
One day, in the school cafeteria, I heard Camille and his “girl power” posse giggling amongst themselves, and when I looked over, I was sure they were pointing at me.
I waited 'til Camille was finished with his lunch and bringing his tray up to the tray deposit station.
Then I walked briskly up to him and as he turned to face me I swung at his face with my right fist.
I caught him square on the nose and heard a loud “SNAP”.
Then I just turned and calmly walked out of the cafeteria as members of his posse screamed and ran to Camille’s side as he fell to the floor.
I walked upstairs and reported to my next class on time and sat at my desk. The news of what I had done had not yet circulated up to this floor. I noticed I was shaking. I wasn’t really sure why I had done what I had just done, other than that I had suddenly felt blind rage towards Camille and reacted to that intense feeling without thinking anything through. To this day, I’m not entirely sure why I did it. Did I think he was laughing at me? Mocking me? Or was it simply I was starting to inwardly realize that I was slowly becoming like him, what I would then, in homophobic denial label "a mincing fag".
After a couple minutes of sitting there waiting for class to start, one of Camille’s posse, a black girl named Crystal, walked into the class (which she was not assigned to) and from behind me up to my desk. As I looked up when she reached me, she punched me square in the face. She hit me just above my left eye. Almost immediately, I developed a bruise that swelled to massive proportions.
“That’s for braking Camille’s nose!”, she screamed, and then she walked out.
The whole class stood frozen in shock, including the teacher.
I just put my head down in my folded arms on my desk and started to cry. Not so much as a result of the pain (though it did indeed sting) but because it was just confirmed that I had broken my friend Camille’s nose. I realized I didn’t hate him after all. But I did hate the monster I had become.
I was sent to the nurse, who checked me out…no major damage (yet from then on my left eyelid would be slightly lazier than my right for the rest of my life). I was sent home. The next day my father and I had to meet with the principal. I was suspended for one day. I had never so much as been in detention before this.
Camille’s nose eventually healed, but, of course, we never spoke again. John and I would become even closer. Aside from me admitting to John I felt sorry for it, we never talked about the assault.
John and I would, years later, have our own parting of the ways, of course.
But not in these halcyon days of sprouting emotional development and self-realization upheaval. Not yet.