A Fall Evening, 1996…
The winds of late September were here, and the night was falling fast. As the day retreated, the shadows crept in, and amongst them I felt as if I belonged, a mere shadow amongst shadows. But I was en route to a much different place, admittedly with great reluctance. They asked me here, and so I came, neither interested nor disinterested in the event in question but merely compliant, because other than the shadows and constructs of my mind, they were my only true friends.
And yet, from over a mile away, the roar could be heard, and I braced myself for the sensory assault that was R.S. Vann football. This was no small event, but something that was taken very seriously by nearly all of the Vann parents and students. As we made our way into the crowded parking lot, the glare of the powerful halogen floodlights was an unstoppable force, cutting through the night and granting the event the brightness of day. But my sight was not the only of my senses to be overwhelmed, for the band was playing vigorously and the crowd cheering; the scent of freshly cut grass and the swell of humanity abounded; the press of the crowds around me nearly constant. Only my sensation of taste remained my own, for the time being at least, the rest I surrendered the moment I stepped out of the car.
They had invited me here as one of them, which was admittedly reassuring. It was a hybrid relationship in which I was almost a R.S. Vann student, but yet not. No one from Southside accompanied me. My denial instinct had been working overdrive, yet I was all too aware that I had not found a place at my high school as of yet but still floated on the edge of every social group I encountered there. Genie was the one exception, welcoming me and desirous of my attention, though I suspected it was more for my attentive listening then any true pleasure derived directly from my company.
There was something alive in me that I did not understand, but it made me different in an obvious way, and eventually I became so used to being different that I did not fight it, and that only made it more so. There was an entire list of qualities that made me unique, and though oftentimes uniqueness is a strength, it is not conducive to social inclusion. High school takes group membership to an even greater extreme, where conforming to the group is a necessary part of social success. Unfortunately for me, conformity was never a skill I was good at and one I have rebelled against all my life. So, I exacerbated my already poor social integration by refusing to conform. And to a great extent I was just being me, which I do not regret because I cannot change who I am and never wanted to. But nature had made me more different in more ways than most and if anything in childhood leads to social isolation, it is being different. Ignore and survive would become my motto, because fitting in seemed impossible, and instead of group membership I sought out individual friendships. But people tend to prefer to interact socially in groups, not individual relationships (outside of immediate family and romance). So, my strategy was ineffective at best.
But it wasn’t the more superficial differences that concerned me. There was something larger at play that I did not understand. School was increasingly frustrating and overwhelming (which was mostly due to symptoms of ADD and an inability to cope with change that resembled mild autism spectrum), social relationships confusing and impossible. The world was a stressful assault, and I constantly retreated into my mind and in the real world sought out safe harbors, environments where my differentness was tolerated. But the world was only becoming more demanding, not less so. Gradually in addition to retreating into my mind I began to entertain darker thoughts as a release, thoughts that were disagreeable to me, inconsistent with who I was and as unpleasant to acknowledge as they were difficult to resist.
And yet a small part of me welcomed the change. It felt like these new thoughts were just another escape, a way to vent my low spirits. It seemed that as long as they remained just thoughts, there was no harm to them. But one thing I would learn the hard way is that when you allow those thoughts to flourish, they can, over time, leak out. And that can be, if you’ll allow my frankness, catastrophic.
But I was just a teenager trying to survive high school. What it came down to is that they were asking me to be someone I am not. Trying to fit in was an eternally futile endeavor but not one that I could avoid. And so my imagination flourished as I tried to ignore the world, but so too did the dark thoughts.
And yet here we were, a crowd cheering its guts out over the movement of a ball across a measure of grass. I’m not sure I could have been more out of place with my philosophical musing and standoffish behavior. They came, some with painted faces, most bearing “I love you Vann” shirts and wearing the light blue, white and red of their school mascot, the Patriot. The bright colors, the cheers and the jeers. It was a fantastic display of energy and one in which I could not in any way relate.
But I was glad for the old gang to be together again. They were in high spirits, speaking animatedly, at times jesting, then suddenly arguing, and soon laughing again. Only the core members (Matt, Aaron, Evan, and myself) were there. Yoshi had begun to connect with the popular crowd at Southside and as far as I knew he was with them somewhere. I could not account for the other absences, and those present apparently did not much feel these absences, for they neglected to acknowledge them.
I was told the Patriots were good, vastly superior to the Southside football team. I didn’t even know who they were playing and didn’t really care. Some team in red uniform faced the Vann Patriots in their light blue and white. I could not help but feel perplexed. I seem to be surrounded by an overflowing, almost bursting happiness, and I struggle to understand it. The crowd pulsed with enthusiasm and shouted cheers. Where does this joy come from? How do I let it in? I want to feel this flood of positive energy inside me. I want to smile and jump and scream and cheer. But as hard as I tried, it all seemed so trivial. All I had was silence and a shrug of my shoulders, nothing more. Because I wasn’t one of them. I was not one of them, so even though I stood as a member of the crowd, I was utterly alone.
I found myself picturing the scene as a metaphor. An epic battle between good and evil. In my mind’s eye I see heroic warriors charging at an enemy horde. They would triumph or be annihilated, their whole way of life, their very existence on the line. But this reality is nothing like that scenario. The stakes are trivial, and yet appearances would seem to refute that.
In the beginning I had no idea what would happen to us. For years we had been inseparable. They had always had my back and me theirs. Matt had understood me best and given me counsel, Evan and I had done everything together, from almost burning the house down to forging my report card to chasing girls. Aaron was steady, determined, always true to his word and never let me down. We had no politics and no cliques among us, a unique situation in teenage life. They knew how to let me be me and still be part of the group. My friends pretend they don’t notice, but I know they do. How could they not? My smile is mostly absent, and then it is there as an afterthought, vanishing as soon as it begins. When I try to force a smile, it looks robotic, almost comical. I burn with frustration at my intransigence.
To me it mattered less which high school I went to and more the friends I had around me. I had no loyalty to either school. I just wanted to be with the gang, as always. It was less a bond of group membership but rather more like several bonds of individual friendship that were shared. Deep down I suspected I would never truly be a Southside Tiger. I didn’t belong in IB. I was too learning challenged, had too many problems. IB students were organized, determined, and capable. I was none of those things and trying to build a social life at that school from scratch seemed like more then I was capable of. Me, a person who could not deal with change even in small amounts, was overwhelmed by the challenge of adapting to Southside. R.S. Vann would not have been perfect, but I didn’t belong in IB. I had no clue of how to make my situation work, I was just doing the best I could in a bad situation, and that seemed to become a trend for me.
I could not help but speculate on my surroundings, bored as I was by the game itself and not always following the conversation, especially when (as it often did) it veered into Vann specific topics. I wondered if anyone found this event as peculiar as I. I would look about me for anyone who stood out the way I did, but they were few in number. The few of them that existed were not likely to be here.
I tried not to look at the girls at all. For inevitably acknowledging them led to two things that ran in parallel: adoring them and analyzing them, neither of which was helpful. Adoring them inevitably led to wanting them and someone of my limited social skills was not going to be successful in that endeavor, as foolish experience would prove time and again. And analyzing them was just another over-utilization of my intellectualizing everything.
I did not want to get caught up in those emotions. But they were all around me, and almost every one of them possessing traits that I could not help but adore. People would tell me that these girls didn’t understand, but someday they would. I only believed the first part. Others told me I didn’t need them, which was true and untrue at the same time. I didn’t need people to be me. I very much could be me all by myself. But even I could not survive alone forever, though circumstances would often force me to try.
As I wandered through my mental playground the game progressed, with both sides scoring, but by halftime the Patriots were settling into a comfortable lead, which left my friends in good spirits. The talk mostly revolved around their experiences at Vann, which give me even more excuse to space out during the conversation. Matt, as usual, avoiding expressing his inner thoughts, instead focusing on common topics such as the manner of the different instructors. Evan complained about the cliques, while Aaron spoke about the workload. One thing they all seemed enthusiastic about was the advertisement of tryouts for the academic team, which all expressed interest in joining. At least they were predictable. Matt would always deflect, Evan would always compare himself to others, and Aaron would always be focused on the task at hand.
And so they chatted about high school and the athletes played their ball game… while I wandered in my mental playground. Every now and then my eyes would chance to meet another’s, and I wondered what thoughts were moving through their mind and if they knew which ones were moving through mine. In my mind, conversations with various persons, some present, some absent, some who never existed at all but were merely collections and pieces of people I knew or merely wanted to know or tried desperately not to remember.
I could fall in love at the drop of a hat or pledge my life to a cause in an instant, but I could not bring myself to care about football or high school. Someday, I promised myself, I would.
My mind drifted as the crowd roared, and gradually I slipped farther. Scrambled, and surging without warning, thoughts suddenly here and suddenly gone, only to randomly resurface, and all the while a benevolent presence watching and whispering, her eyes the greenest emeralds, her smile the gentlest suggestion, her scarred soul, a record of both torment and triumph that she would never speak of but could not hide. She needed no name, but had one, she knew my fears but had none. She would see this through. I don’t know how I knew that.
Then the other, pacing in the background, stalking the world at large… She would never give an inch, never admit defeat, never back down. She was principles more than anything else, and when her eyes flashed you knew she had made her decision. To her, compromise was unthinkable, and justice was not only blind, but unfeeling.
They were constructs of my mind. I knew they weren’t real and never pretended otherwise. They were useful only in saying the things unsaid that mattered most. But I built them up as reflections of the greatest parts of me. Skye was all patience, compassion, but brave and steadfast. She understood me better than anyone. I never needed to explain myself to her. And if she could have been real there was nothing, I would have liked more then to meet her. Ashes was strong willed, decisive, impulsive, and never willing to compromise, especially when it came to her principles. They were feminine because I was not allowed to be feminine. Not that I wanted to be feminine, but the aspects of myself that society associated with women I gave to them because I felt compelled to only express my masculine traits. If I had been discouraged to be masculine, they would probably have been men. In short, they were concepts to represent parts of me, and I probably could have created countless numbers of these concepts to represent all the things I could not be. But I knew who I was and what I wanted. So, when the world was bringing me down, which was often, I simply retreated to my mental playground, where there was one no to tell you you were wrong or to treat you like you were different. And they, my constructs were always there to give me company.
