Book Excerpt
An excerpt from the memoir I'm writing, "Honest Till It Bleeds." Mostly posting for those who might still be interested in why I hated Bill Cable so much in high school.
In seventh grade, I joined up in the middle school play, for sixth and seventh graders. It was the kind of thing that just auditioning meant that you’d at least be an extra, and because I was shy and awkward and fat I got cast as an extra pretty much as soon as they saw me come on stage. Althea was the same, even though she was pretty and probably put in a lot more effort than I did to the audition, and we promptly stopped putting effort into the play, aside from showing up when we absolutely had to and letting ourselves be outfitted. (Althea got to wear a very pretty blue top and skirt. I was put into a bright pepto-bismol pink smock thing. I looked like an oversized bubblegum jelly bean.) Bill, who was considered one of the funniest boys in the class (sorry, Hugh), and liked to ham himself up to keep that title, was cast as the father of the main character. He was a smart kid, too, but it’s a lot harder to be liked as the smart kid than it is to be the funny kid. There was one scene in the play where there was supposed to be this big ballroom dance, and everyone had to get paired up to dance with a partner. Maybe I should have considered myself lucky since I was one of the girls who actually got a boy as a partner; because of a massive imbalance in gender, a lot of the girls had to dance with each other. (Althea in her much prettier dress was paired with a girl. So I guess that was supposed to mean everything was evened out?) (I probably would have preferred the nicer dress. Seriously, it was bad.)
Because Bill was a funny kid, he made jokes about our pair up. Probably he felt as awkward as I did, because no twelve year old feels comfortable being forced to dance with someone of the opposite sex that they don’t really know that well. Maybe he was disappointed too, the girl who was cast as his wife was definitely one of the more popular kids and a lot prettier, but he had to dance with me. But he was trying to make a joke out of it and would throw his arm around my shoulders and tell people that I was his woman, etcetcetc, jokes along that vein. And told people that they should recognize how hot I was. Althea, because she is a good friend no matter what else, instantly agreed and said I was smokin’, but loyalty forming a lie still makes a lie and I really wasn’t buying it.
I was fat, and unpopular, and unattractive, and no one in seventh grade in the midst of puberty is actually that good looking. No matter what seventh graders say. But since I was an extreme example, and I knew I was and I knew that I was because the only time a boy would dance with me or say that I was his woman was when it was a joke and if it was a joke that meant it was funny because of how absurd the idea was. Bill wasn’t the most popular kid because of his looks, but he was still well liked, a lot more liked than I was, and me being paired with him was just another joke.
In my advanced age and wisdom, he really probably didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. In fact, at one rehearsal when it was just the two of us waiting for our cue from the wings and no one else was around, he actually said to me in a very serious voice - not trying to mock me - “You know I’m just joking around with all that stuff, right?” And, you know, there really probably wasn’t anything he could have said at that point to have made it better, but honestly that only made it worse. At least when he was the one joking about it and I knew he was joking and that it was all ridiculous and a farce because I was basically the worst of the worst, I could pretend I was making faces and giving him scornful looks because I wanted nothing to do with him, not out of an automatic reflex to try and shy away from mockery and anything that might be painful. In response, at that moment, I just replied - as scornfully as I could - “I know.” So, not only was I the most unattractive thing in the play, I was also the bitchiest. I couldn’t help it. It was the only way I knew how to protect myself.
My one moment of pride from that stupid play was during one rehearsal when Bill and I were supposed to be dancing together with the other couples dancing, and we had to hold hands and take two steps towards each other and two steps back and repeat ad nauseum, and he was making those jokes like he does, and I pretended like my booted foot slipped and I kicked him in the shin. I pretended it was an accident, and I didn’t really kick him very hard, just enough for him to flinch back and say “Ow!” but it was very satisfying for me at the time. I spent the rest of my high school years hating him. And telling my friends how much I hated him. They kept asking me why, and I would just say that I hated him. This was kind of awkward because everyone liked Bill, because he was funny and smart. He was even elected class president pretty much every single year of high school. And, okay, yeah, he was really funny. But I couldn’t accept that. I just had to hate him, because he was the first boy who showed me that, if someone was even implying that I was somewhat desirable, it was just because of a big joke.
In seventh grade, I joined up in the middle school play, for sixth and seventh graders. It was the kind of thing that just auditioning meant that you’d at least be an extra, and because I was shy and awkward and fat I got cast as an extra pretty much as soon as they saw me come on stage. Althea was the same, even though she was pretty and probably put in a lot more effort than I did to the audition, and we promptly stopped putting effort into the play, aside from showing up when we absolutely had to and letting ourselves be outfitted. (Althea got to wear a very pretty blue top and skirt. I was put into a bright pepto-bismol pink smock thing. I looked like an oversized bubblegum jelly bean.) Bill, who was considered one of the funniest boys in the class (sorry, Hugh), and liked to ham himself up to keep that title, was cast as the father of the main character. He was a smart kid, too, but it’s a lot harder to be liked as the smart kid than it is to be the funny kid. There was one scene in the play where there was supposed to be this big ballroom dance, and everyone had to get paired up to dance with a partner. Maybe I should have considered myself lucky since I was one of the girls who actually got a boy as a partner; because of a massive imbalance in gender, a lot of the girls had to dance with each other. (Althea in her much prettier dress was paired with a girl. So I guess that was supposed to mean everything was evened out?) (I probably would have preferred the nicer dress. Seriously, it was bad.)
Because Bill was a funny kid, he made jokes about our pair up. Probably he felt as awkward as I did, because no twelve year old feels comfortable being forced to dance with someone of the opposite sex that they don’t really know that well. Maybe he was disappointed too, the girl who was cast as his wife was definitely one of the more popular kids and a lot prettier, but he had to dance with me. But he was trying to make a joke out of it and would throw his arm around my shoulders and tell people that I was his woman, etcetcetc, jokes along that vein. And told people that they should recognize how hot I was. Althea, because she is a good friend no matter what else, instantly agreed and said I was smokin’, but loyalty forming a lie still makes a lie and I really wasn’t buying it.
I was fat, and unpopular, and unattractive, and no one in seventh grade in the midst of puberty is actually that good looking. No matter what seventh graders say. But since I was an extreme example, and I knew I was and I knew that I was because the only time a boy would dance with me or say that I was his woman was when it was a joke and if it was a joke that meant it was funny because of how absurd the idea was. Bill wasn’t the most popular kid because of his looks, but he was still well liked, a lot more liked than I was, and me being paired with him was just another joke.
In my advanced age and wisdom, he really probably didn’t mean to hurt my feelings. In fact, at one rehearsal when it was just the two of us waiting for our cue from the wings and no one else was around, he actually said to me in a very serious voice - not trying to mock me - “You know I’m just joking around with all that stuff, right?” And, you know, there really probably wasn’t anything he could have said at that point to have made it better, but honestly that only made it worse. At least when he was the one joking about it and I knew he was joking and that it was all ridiculous and a farce because I was basically the worst of the worst, I could pretend I was making faces and giving him scornful looks because I wanted nothing to do with him, not out of an automatic reflex to try and shy away from mockery and anything that might be painful. In response, at that moment, I just replied - as scornfully as I could - “I know.” So, not only was I the most unattractive thing in the play, I was also the bitchiest. I couldn’t help it. It was the only way I knew how to protect myself.
My one moment of pride from that stupid play was during one rehearsal when Bill and I were supposed to be dancing together with the other couples dancing, and we had to hold hands and take two steps towards each other and two steps back and repeat ad nauseum, and he was making those jokes like he does, and I pretended like my booted foot slipped and I kicked him in the shin. I pretended it was an accident, and I didn’t really kick him very hard, just enough for him to flinch back and say “Ow!” but it was very satisfying for me at the time. I spent the rest of my high school years hating him. And telling my friends how much I hated him. They kept asking me why, and I would just say that I hated him. This was kind of awkward because everyone liked Bill, because he was funny and smart. He was even elected class president pretty much every single year of high school. And, okay, yeah, he was really funny. But I couldn’t accept that. I just had to hate him, because he was the first boy who showed me that, if someone was even implying that I was somewhat desirable, it was just because of a big joke.