Generations before Pink invited listeners to “Raise your glass if you are wrong in all the right ways,” kids who dwelled on the periphery of nearly every communal circle had no odes to oddballs in which to find solace. Today being “socially awkward,” “quirky,” “eccentric,” or “fringe” are qualities that are worn as a sort of badge of honor, and let me tell you, I am here for that. Now, hold on for a moment while I drag over my rocking chair and find my bifocals so I can properly tell you about how things looked back in my day.
There are so many ways that the past several generations have improved perceptions of phenomena previously considered taboo or just plain wrong. What I view as progress is just how very okay younger people are with others being sincerely, authentically themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I know full well that we have, in the words of Robert Frost, “miles to go before we sleep,” and that intolerance and cruelty are not in short supply. But I also believe hate crimes such as the Matthew Shepard murder are rarer than ever before in our history.
I ran in to a classmate from elementary school not long ago, and to my surprise she noted that she’d always thought I was kind, not like other “popular” kids. It was shocking to hear this, because while I never lacked for shelter, food, clothing, and love, I have vivid memories in which my lack of fashionable clothing, zip code, and interests rendered me essentially invisible at school, and certainly never a resident of the shot caller community. I’d always seen myself at the bottom of the social food chain, but my conversation with this former classmate reminded me that the circles of schoolyard clique hell could make Dante’s interpretation of the eternal inferno look amateurish.
I spent nearly all my school years in survival mode—a freckle-faced introverted vegetarian book lover whose (plus-sized) clothes came from discount stores and who spent more time in the barn than at any party—those years were something to endure, and because I was compliant enough not to call any attention to myself, I made it through with battle scars but no mortal wounds.
Others, though, weren’t as fortunate as I. I had classmates who had no permanent address because they moved from shelter to shelter, their clothes were castoffs from donation bins, their only guaranteed meal of the day came from the school cafeteria. They were hurt, angry, and so very alone. Buddy “Highwater” Harris sat in front of me in fourth grade. Tall and skinny with a face crammed with more freckles than even I had, his hair appeared to have been hacked at with garden shears and his clothes never fit (hence the nickname bestowed upon him by several clever boys in our class). He was continually getting into fights, being called to the principal’s office, and having his name written on the board for recess detention by Mrs. Crocker, our teacher. One day he brought a small, battered, green plastic army man and sat it on my desk. “It’s for you,” he said. I froze, eyes downcast, while the kids around us laughed. You might imagine the chorus of “Sam and Buddy, sitting in a tree, k.i.s.s.i.n.g” that broke out immediately. Without a word, Buddy turned and sat at his desk, and while I couldn’t see his face, I could see the red rise slowly from his neck all the way to his ears. I quickly stuffed the small plastic toy into my backpack, the bell rang to begin class, and nothing more was said about the gift. Within a few weeks Buddy was gone. After several days of absences, Mrs. Crocker told us that Buddy had been moved to an orphanage in the lower part of the state.
I never got the chance to apologize for my silence. Truly, I was no better than the kids who regularly taunted Buddy. I’d failed to reciprocate the small gesture of kindness he’d extended to me, failed to see that it wasn’t small at all; rather, it was enormous and courageous. I had no idea where he’d obtained the little army man; it had clearly seen better days. The point was that someone who almost certainly had few possessions had offered up something, the best he had, no doubt, when he could have kept it for himself. My response? Refusal to acknowledge this sacrifice, believing that thanking him would have yanked me from safe obscurity and placed me in the crosshairs of every fourth-grade bully. Memories of this keep me from fully accepting my classmate’s too-generous label of “kind.” And as I listen to Pink’s anthem for outcasts, I raise my glass to Buddy Harris and all of the other underdogs, and toast the uprising of unapologetic individuals and pray that they all assume their rightful place anywhere they want to be.
PartWolf 