FIC: To Be One of the Guys
Title: To Be One of the Guys
Pairing: Klaine! (like I wasn’t gonna sneak it in there)
Word Count: ~1805
Summary: To find your place and protect yourself, well... These are hard tasks, and sometimes you have to choose just the one.
Author’s notes: Someone asked about Beiste’s POV wrt the other piece I wrote SSS and other Distracting Things. This piece is more serious, and the style is an experiment to get me where I needed to be in order to explore this. I hope it gets there.
To be one of the guys, you have to laugh just as hard, drink just as much, and feel just as little.
When you’re around the sofa watching the game, you take another beer and you laugh at the rape joke. You shout at the ballplayers on the screen, angry at them for being such Goddamn pussies. You joke about Tom wearing ladies’ underwear, because gender crossing man, it’s fucking hilarious. Those lines are there for a reason, and by God, he’s put in his place when all the other guys laugh.
As the guys joke about how awful their wives are, you say they’re lucky to have someone around the house to help them with laundry and cooking and stuff, because you’re not much of a cook. Thank God so many places deliver, right? You’ll probably find the right guy sometime. You’re just so devoted to your career right now, and he’s got to understand that. You’re not a feminist, understand, but you’ve gotta find the kind of guy you can respect. A Real Man.
And the guys joke that the assholes around here are all married or queer anyway. Don’t waste your time, and just keep our boys winnin’ games.
At the bar, you do shots with the guys. See, the girls never wanted to do shots with you. Not in Lima, not anywhere. They were all like those wiry little cheerleaders, their mouths rigged up like semi-automatics, blasting out joke after joke. Fatty, cow, moose, manhands, Lurch, tranny, bitch, dyke.
Some guys make fun of you too, but it’s easier with the guys, overall. None of them want to fix you. They sure don’t want to fuck you, and that makes it safe. Safe for you from their trying to make you normal, like that could ever happen, through shame or through condescending “help” on how to “be a girl.” And safe for them from having a woman around who might object to the Guy Talk, the camaraderie built around what women lack. Because you know what all those other women lack, what’s embarrassing about them. What you don’t want to be and at the same time intensely want to be because it would make things just
a bit
easier.
If you were smaller, quieter, took up less space, if your voice sounded like theirs and you could giggle and flirt and be satisfied with that. If you could pass, just pass, as normal, once and a while. It would be easier.
But you can’t, and you won’t. You’ve been mocked at every job and every town you’ve been at, and at this one the worst of all thanks to a colleague who fits the mold of idealized womanhood just as little as you do (maybe less, since there’s not a nurturing bone in her damn body), but seems to have a hard on for making everyone around her miserable.
It’s better being one of the guys, because they’ve got the power, and football’s got them. They give a damn if the football team wins. They couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass if the cheerleaders dance the best or whatever those little girls do in their short skirts when they’re not on the field supporting our boys. Sometimes a guy will demand to know if you’re a queer and the other guys say, hey she’s okay. We never seen Shannon even come on to a girl.
She’s just a big gal, a strong gal. They grow ‘em strong down in Southern Cali. That’s where you’re from, right, Beiste?
You should see ‘er play poker.
But you’re not a queer. Not you. You’ve never kissed a girl. You’ve never had sex with a girl. You’re just a rough and tumble type of lady, and what’s wrong with that? You’re good at what you do, and you help kids and communities.
The guys start talking about those Berrys, how they came into Paul’s shop the other day, all in your face and holding hands, and how it makes their skin crawl, and why are they still here in Lima of all places when they’ve got the money to move somewhere else? There are bluer states, that’s for damn sure.
They could go legal up in New York, y’know.
They don’t gotta move, you say. They’ve got as much right to be here as anyone. But why they gotta shove it in your face? Can’t they just let it be? Blend, is all I’m sayin’.
It’s against the Bible, one guy grouses.
Screw the friggin’ Bible, Tom, you say. It’s just gross, is what it is. Two men all rubbing up against each other-
The guys groan.
-sweet talkin’ and wearing women’s clothing and walking and talking like a girl.
You get up and sashay around the room with your wrist limp in front of you, and you look enough like a guy, in their eyes, that it’s a good parody. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Some gag, and some drink harder.
They’re all over the damn place these days, a man with a decently fully beard complains. Never let you forget about ‘em.
Like friggin’ Hummel’s kid, Tom mutters. I heard he wore a dress to the prom.
It was a kilt, Tom. I heard Cas say the kid sewed it. Himself. He made his own damn prom dress!
God damn. And they made him their prom queen, didn’t they? What could be more sick than that?
It’s in our schools, man!
Don’t you tell Burt I said that. Don’t tell Cassius, either. He’s been around that kid his whole life, it’ll get back to ‘em.
I ain’t gonna say anything, you say. That Hummel kid sang a Streisand song for tryouts this week, flitting all around on this scaffolding like a limp-wristed little... fairy on crack.
The guys roar at the mental image.
Had a rooster like that once, you muse. Always wanted to sit and cluck with the hens, but never chased after ‘em. Crowed pretty good, but thought it was a lady chick.
More laughter. Everyone has another drink.
When you’re in the auditorium, and that kid comes out on stage again, with the Berry girl in tow, you can hardly keep the laughter from exploding out of your lips. But Artie laughs first, and then it’s you and the guys again there. A group of Us against him, and he’s just this wispy, high voiced little queen wearing puffy sleeves, tights, and a ridiculous hat. He’s also just a kid, but the Us has started already, and no matter how hard they try up there, the laughter rolls upward out of Us.
That he stays onstage through the entire scene says something. It’s something you really would rather not examine, but it’s there, and he holds his ground, he perseveres, like the only important thing in this world is getting through that scene. Then his friend starts giggling at the thought of kissing him, and the spell is broken. Whatever super power he was using to keep the scene moving despite the laughter has been sapped out of him, and he sprints off the stage.
The Berry girl stands up, angry, almost in tears. This is not how you run a professional audition! she shouts with such venom and volume that the sound carries through the whole auditorium. When she storms off, Artie is hanging his head and starting to look ashamed.
Who’s he think he’s kidding? you say. Look, I wanna be sensitive as much as the next person, but this show’s a tragedy, not a farce. People are gonna laugh at him. They’re gonna laugh, or they’re gonna think we cast a kid to act like that on stage on purpose. He’s a walking stereotype.
That’s just kind of how he is, Artie says, moving his glasses up on his nose. He chuckles again. Fondness? Malice? You can’t tell.
Emma huffs. Deliberations are put on hold until later, but the consensus is already there.
Later that week, when you see the Hummel boy standing with the old movie dreamboat type you directors cast as your Tony, he eyes you. His gaze is more leveling than death and taxes. He touches the other boy’s arm, with a hand both delicate and powerful, and kisses his lips gently.
You had no idea that this boy you lobbied to get the lead was gay too. He sure didn’t act gay. At least not then. Not on stage.
Now, he’s fragility and gentleness, and he looks around, his eyes wide, betraying a history of public scorn, maybe violence. Anxiety has sucked the enjoyment out of their kiss. But it wasn’t a kiss for pleasure. It was a measure of comfort.
But Hummel, he’s seen you, and he knows that no one will touch them when The Beiste is right there. It makes him defiant. He touches his boyfriend’s hand, squeezes the fingers. Moves his head in close, and they whisper to each other like refugees.
The boy leaves with Mike’s girlfriend when she approaches, and Hummel comes your way, long legs moving in graceful gazelle strides as he smiles the most unfriendly smile that ever cracked a face. He asks you how the football team is shaping up this season, then seems ready to head in the other direction.
No hard feelings, you say, about the play.
It’s okay, he says, his words filling the air with little crystals of ice. Coach Sylvester’s called me a “lady,” too. Last year she had the entire school calling me that. It’s less than nothing to me.
You’re less than nothing to me, is what he doesn’t say, but doesn’t have to. Somehow what you said has got back to him, and now you wonder how, and how much, he knows. Then he spots his brother and hurries across the hall to talk to the tall boy. You’re forgotten in his mind, likely. Just another voice in the shaming chorus, pinning him in and telling him how to be.
To be one of the guys, you have to laugh just as hard, drink just as much, and feel just as little. And tonight at the bar, you do all of these, and more. You blend into the community you chose, not feeling not caring. Not thinking about the community you gave up, for some mighty heavy concessions and dues, and just a little bit of safety.
Pairing: Klaine! (like I wasn’t gonna sneak it in there)
Word Count: ~1805
Summary: To find your place and protect yourself, well... These are hard tasks, and sometimes you have to choose just the one.
Author’s notes: Someone asked about Beiste’s POV wrt the other piece I wrote SSS and other Distracting Things. This piece is more serious, and the style is an experiment to get me where I needed to be in order to explore this. I hope it gets there.
To be one of the guys, you have to laugh just as hard, drink just as much, and feel just as little.
When you’re around the sofa watching the game, you take another beer and you laugh at the rape joke. You shout at the ballplayers on the screen, angry at them for being such Goddamn pussies. You joke about Tom wearing ladies’ underwear, because gender crossing man, it’s fucking hilarious. Those lines are there for a reason, and by God, he’s put in his place when all the other guys laugh.
As the guys joke about how awful their wives are, you say they’re lucky to have someone around the house to help them with laundry and cooking and stuff, because you’re not much of a cook. Thank God so many places deliver, right? You’ll probably find the right guy sometime. You’re just so devoted to your career right now, and he’s got to understand that. You’re not a feminist, understand, but you’ve gotta find the kind of guy you can respect. A Real Man.
And the guys joke that the assholes around here are all married or queer anyway. Don’t waste your time, and just keep our boys winnin’ games.
At the bar, you do shots with the guys. See, the girls never wanted to do shots with you. Not in Lima, not anywhere. They were all like those wiry little cheerleaders, their mouths rigged up like semi-automatics, blasting out joke after joke. Fatty, cow, moose, manhands, Lurch, tranny, bitch, dyke.
Some guys make fun of you too, but it’s easier with the guys, overall. None of them want to fix you. They sure don’t want to fuck you, and that makes it safe. Safe for you from their trying to make you normal, like that could ever happen, through shame or through condescending “help” on how to “be a girl.” And safe for them from having a woman around who might object to the Guy Talk, the camaraderie built around what women lack. Because you know what all those other women lack, what’s embarrassing about them. What you don’t want to be and at the same time intensely want to be because it would make things just
a bit
easier.
If you were smaller, quieter, took up less space, if your voice sounded like theirs and you could giggle and flirt and be satisfied with that. If you could pass, just pass, as normal, once and a while. It would be easier.
But you can’t, and you won’t. You’ve been mocked at every job and every town you’ve been at, and at this one the worst of all thanks to a colleague who fits the mold of idealized womanhood just as little as you do (maybe less, since there’s not a nurturing bone in her damn body), but seems to have a hard on for making everyone around her miserable.
It’s better being one of the guys, because they’ve got the power, and football’s got them. They give a damn if the football team wins. They couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass if the cheerleaders dance the best or whatever those little girls do in their short skirts when they’re not on the field supporting our boys. Sometimes a guy will demand to know if you’re a queer and the other guys say, hey she’s okay. We never seen Shannon even come on to a girl.
She’s just a big gal, a strong gal. They grow ‘em strong down in Southern Cali. That’s where you’re from, right, Beiste?
You should see ‘er play poker.
But you’re not a queer. Not you. You’ve never kissed a girl. You’ve never had sex with a girl. You’re just a rough and tumble type of lady, and what’s wrong with that? You’re good at what you do, and you help kids and communities.
The guys start talking about those Berrys, how they came into Paul’s shop the other day, all in your face and holding hands, and how it makes their skin crawl, and why are they still here in Lima of all places when they’ve got the money to move somewhere else? There are bluer states, that’s for damn sure.
They could go legal up in New York, y’know.
They don’t gotta move, you say. They’ve got as much right to be here as anyone. But why they gotta shove it in your face? Can’t they just let it be? Blend, is all I’m sayin’.
It’s against the Bible, one guy grouses.
Screw the friggin’ Bible, Tom, you say. It’s just gross, is what it is. Two men all rubbing up against each other-
The guys groan.
-sweet talkin’ and wearing women’s clothing and walking and talking like a girl.
You get up and sashay around the room with your wrist limp in front of you, and you look enough like a guy, in their eyes, that it’s a good parody. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Some gag, and some drink harder.
They’re all over the damn place these days, a man with a decently fully beard complains. Never let you forget about ‘em.
Like friggin’ Hummel’s kid, Tom mutters. I heard he wore a dress to the prom.
It was a kilt, Tom. I heard Cas say the kid sewed it. Himself. He made his own damn prom dress!
God damn. And they made him their prom queen, didn’t they? What could be more sick than that?
It’s in our schools, man!
Don’t you tell Burt I said that. Don’t tell Cassius, either. He’s been around that kid his whole life, it’ll get back to ‘em.
I ain’t gonna say anything, you say. That Hummel kid sang a Streisand song for tryouts this week, flitting all around on this scaffolding like a limp-wristed little... fairy on crack.
The guys roar at the mental image.
Had a rooster like that once, you muse. Always wanted to sit and cluck with the hens, but never chased after ‘em. Crowed pretty good, but thought it was a lady chick.
More laughter. Everyone has another drink.
When you’re in the auditorium, and that kid comes out on stage again, with the Berry girl in tow, you can hardly keep the laughter from exploding out of your lips. But Artie laughs first, and then it’s you and the guys again there. A group of Us against him, and he’s just this wispy, high voiced little queen wearing puffy sleeves, tights, and a ridiculous hat. He’s also just a kid, but the Us has started already, and no matter how hard they try up there, the laughter rolls upward out of Us.
That he stays onstage through the entire scene says something. It’s something you really would rather not examine, but it’s there, and he holds his ground, he perseveres, like the only important thing in this world is getting through that scene. Then his friend starts giggling at the thought of kissing him, and the spell is broken. Whatever super power he was using to keep the scene moving despite the laughter has been sapped out of him, and he sprints off the stage.
The Berry girl stands up, angry, almost in tears. This is not how you run a professional audition! she shouts with such venom and volume that the sound carries through the whole auditorium. When she storms off, Artie is hanging his head and starting to look ashamed.
Who’s he think he’s kidding? you say. Look, I wanna be sensitive as much as the next person, but this show’s a tragedy, not a farce. People are gonna laugh at him. They’re gonna laugh, or they’re gonna think we cast a kid to act like that on stage on purpose. He’s a walking stereotype.
That’s just kind of how he is, Artie says, moving his glasses up on his nose. He chuckles again. Fondness? Malice? You can’t tell.
Emma huffs. Deliberations are put on hold until later, but the consensus is already there.
Later that week, when you see the Hummel boy standing with the old movie dreamboat type you directors cast as your Tony, he eyes you. His gaze is more leveling than death and taxes. He touches the other boy’s arm, with a hand both delicate and powerful, and kisses his lips gently.
You had no idea that this boy you lobbied to get the lead was gay too. He sure didn’t act gay. At least not then. Not on stage.
Now, he’s fragility and gentleness, and he looks around, his eyes wide, betraying a history of public scorn, maybe violence. Anxiety has sucked the enjoyment out of their kiss. But it wasn’t a kiss for pleasure. It was a measure of comfort.
But Hummel, he’s seen you, and he knows that no one will touch them when The Beiste is right there. It makes him defiant. He touches his boyfriend’s hand, squeezes the fingers. Moves his head in close, and they whisper to each other like refugees.
The boy leaves with Mike’s girlfriend when she approaches, and Hummel comes your way, long legs moving in graceful gazelle strides as he smiles the most unfriendly smile that ever cracked a face. He asks you how the football team is shaping up this season, then seems ready to head in the other direction.
No hard feelings, you say, about the play.
It’s okay, he says, his words filling the air with little crystals of ice. Coach Sylvester’s called me a “lady,” too. Last year she had the entire school calling me that. It’s less than nothing to me.
You’re less than nothing to me, is what he doesn’t say, but doesn’t have to. Somehow what you said has got back to him, and now you wonder how, and how much, he knows. Then he spots his brother and hurries across the hall to talk to the tall boy. You’re forgotten in his mind, likely. Just another voice in the shaming chorus, pinning him in and telling him how to be.
To be one of the guys, you have to laugh just as hard, drink just as much, and feel just as little. And tonight at the bar, you do all of these, and more. You blend into the community you chose, not feeling not caring. Not thinking about the community you gave up, for some mighty heavy concessions and dues, and just a little bit of safety.