Bully

 

 

 

I always loved Rachel Porter ;

she was always so full of helpful hints and rules for life.

 

“There are no secrets safe as these,” she would say.  “We’re true to our lies.  I’ll always love what you are and who you want to be.  You have to promise to perfect your secrets; you have to have standards.”  Then she’d smile and squeeze my hand as she climbed onto my lap.

 

When clothes hangers became at-home-abortion kits we were in seventh grade, Rachel said it was only a matter of time before all the kids were doing it.  After all, she started it.   That’s how come none of us could bring ourselves to hang our clothes on the skinny wire hangers anymore; they made us think of the nasty dangling remnants of what she’d done.  And that’s how she first snuck into my thoughts and stayed with me forever. 

 

She said it hurt like hell but she didn’t pay much mind because no way was she going to let that little bastard into the world.  And when Steven Gregory took her to be his wife during the summer after ninth grade, we knew it was since she had another baby in her; his baby.  We could all tell by looking at her plump little belly and the wet spots in her t-shirts and the bags under her eyes. 

 

That’s how come she got sick in homeroom every day and why our teacher, Ms. Stedler, said “God hates a bastard,” she scoffed, “Standards.”  But Rachel, she kept coming to school same as always and when we finally noticed her tummy had stopped growing we asked her what had happened and she would start crying and run off.  So that’s how come we knew she really had loved that little baby; since she cried so much.  But then later she would smile and wink and tell us that god hates a bastard and that everything happens for a reason and that she was better. 

 

“Clean,” she’d say.

 

Then, again in twelfth grade, she’s fat as a melon so Wendy Randall and I ask how she’s been keeping up and she says that God has been good to her and Steven, and she says she’s almost full term since she can feel it move inside her. 

 

“Like a chipmunk doing summersaults,” she smiles and says, “Amazing.”  

 

She says that’s how come she was away all summer; trying to stay healthy and keep clean since she was going to be a mommy.  Then she tells us she knows that Jesus forgives the wicked and that he forgave her for what everything she had done before, and how Steven loves her for real and works hard to keep money in their bank account and food on the table.

 

Then Stephanie Reyas opens her fat mouth and asks how come we haven’t seen her brother in a while and Rachel just smiles and punches her in the mouth; right there in Driver’s Ed. 

So Rachel gets suspended for bullying while fat ass Reyas keeps to herself for the most part, and that’s how come when anyone looks at her she blushes and turns away. 

 

When Rachel comes back everyone acts weird and I feel bad for her because that’s all anyone’s ever been since seventh grade; mean and two-faced to her.  They whisper behind her back and ask awful questions; always wagging their fingers.  So I tell her I can be her friend.  I tell her I can love her, too, more than anyone else.  I say, “Forever.” And she smiles down at my chest and blushes and tells me to come by her house one day after school – while Steven’s at work – and she’ll make some cookies and we can talk.

 

So Thursday night we sat on her couch; eating chocolate chip cookies and teasing each other’s hair.  She smelled like oranges and cinnamon; a warm thick haze around me as I laughed beside her.  She laid across my chest and I could feel my nipples hardening through my shirt, but I hoped she didn’t notice because how could I explain that?

 

Then she tells me it’s all she thinks about and I’m “all she’s ever wanted”.  I smile awkwardly, knowing I’m not what anybody wants, but I smile all the same.  She leans in and kisses me as soft and gentle as goldfish puckered bubbles and I melt into her warm embrace; our bodies pushed together as one.

 

And that’s how I came to be the secret love of Rachel Porter; she promised to keep our secrets secret.  “I’ll never tell,” she said, “A girl has to have standards.”  And I smiled as she kissed me and pulled my head back with my hair.  We made each other happy and kept each other quiet so no one knew; not even blabber mouthed Brenda Banks and her stupid, perfect hair.

 

No one knows anything of it until Steven comes home one day and there we are in his living room and I’m touching his wife, and he gets real mad and he’s yelling and calling her a slut and a whore and swears on everything he’s ever known that God will punish the abomination of her lust and he says, “just you wait,” he says, “we have standards.” 

 

And she cries.  

 

Then he raises his hands to hit me and hurt me – this monster in his house – but she pushes me out of the way and he catches her instead, hard in the stomach, and she starts to bleed out from between her legs and she’s shaking.  He’s too mad to notice – red with rage – and he hits her again, and again, and again, yelling scripture and shaking – punching and crying – verse after verse, until she’s stopped breathing altogether and all I can hear is the dull smack and thud of raw flesh and bone and the shaky whimper coming from his mouth as he falls to his knees. 

 

That’s how come Rachel stopped coming to school and why I spent the rest of the year tucked away at a special camp for troubled teens; “Devil’s spawn,” they said, “abomination.”

 

I knew that I could never love again; not like that.  She had been my friend, my true love, and she was taken from me; ripped away by a big bully who had everyone convinced that he loved her.  But that’s what happens when you go against the grain – the natural order of things; the way things are supposed to be.  I can’t go through explaining all of it again; not anymore.  This is the last you’ll hear from me about the way things have been; the way they are.

 

That’s how come when Jesus says the meek shall inherit the earth what he really means is that the rest of us are on our own; left for dead.  The righteous will find the kingdom of heaven while the rest of us are left to carry on; lonely and stupid and helpless.  And he says when it hurts too bad to go on, be ready for more; that’s what he means by “turn the other cheek”.  And Jesus loves the little children, but not all the little children; not the little children that don’t fit in or the messed up ones that don’t get it right and find their place the first time.  Those kids get cast out in the cold, left to fend for themselves.

 

That’s why I don’t want your blessing. 

 

Because maybe, by some weird accident, you pray for me and I get blessed and make it to heaven and there I am: face to face with everyone who ever judged me.  Again.  And since anyone can be saved and get to heaven, why bother being good or kind or pure or just?  All you have to do is have someone ask for you.  That’s why I figure heaven is full of mean, hateful, and ugly people, and I don’t care to see any of them. 

 

But when they say “Anyone can be saved,” what they really mean is anyone like them; anyone who hates everyone else.  Everyone different.  But as long as the damned stay damned and the ones who know they’re saved stay happy, everything is fine, right?  No, I don’t want your pity; your weak attempt to save face and make peace with everything you’ve ever done.  You can’t use me to fix it; you’re on your own.  Because in your eyes the abominations and spawn of Satan and unclean spirits, girls with tattoos and boys with earrings, and anyone who doesn’t know any better all hold their own special places in hell. 

 

That’s how I learned all about mean people and the ugly things they do to each other, and how kids can be especially mean to other kids and that grown-ups won’t care; so long as the “good” kids are punishing the “bad” kids everything is fine.  And if you cry for help or bring attention to it everybody looks at you funny and calls you a tattle tale; “weasel,” they say, “snitch”.  So you just keep your mouth shut if you want to get to the next class period without a fight.  

 

Then when you grow up you get to sit back and watch; that’s why no one trusts anyone.

 

Stacey Margaret told Maggie Kemp that’s how come she was out from school for so long; because her parents didn’t want their "little disappointment" out in public.  After Greg Thurman shot his baby gravy all over her face when she was sucking him off behind the stage in the auditorium and it got in her eye,  everybody clapped anytime she walked by and whispered “gonorrhea.”  And that’s why coach D told us we had to run extra laps for Phys Ed. 

 

That’s when Mr. Akers decided to call an assembly; so we could learn why bullying was bad and how to prevent it.

 

But Theresa Grey said that’s how come the bullies always keep pushing; the grownups keep fueling the fire.  And since the grownups wouldn’t help, that’s how come Billy Givens got on the bus with a black eye and why he wouldn’t open his mouth to say what happened.  And Philip Bryan and Richard Stephens and Todd White and Greg Nantz and Stuart Foley all put their fingers to their lips so none of us could say what had happened, either.

 

After that they found Todd and Stuart huddled together behind the bleachers on the practice field and Billy with his bruised eye and bloody lip put a finger up to his mouth to tell us all that we didn’t even know anything anyway so who would we tell?  Besides, they were real shit bags; it’s not like any of us were sad for them.  The janitor found them tied together naked with fishing line.  Their boy parts had been cut off and shoved into each other’s mouths.  They’d been cut and bled; both of them carved up real good.  But they were canonized and made out to be heroes; poor unfortunate souls who were mistreated who didn’t deserve it because they were too young and pure and special.  Most likely to succeed and best dressed.

 

Blah, blah, blah.

 

That’s how come we couldn’t have our school dance or meet the following Saturday for the spring car wash anymore; since those two class favorites went and got themselves sodomized.  And with all the grownups saying “violence breeds violence,” they decided to cancel all the football games and pep rallies and every spirit week afterwards.

 

And Susie Tillman said that Rachel Newman told Freida Pinkett and Fran Belcher who said it was Holly and Nicole Young who had said that Nancy Greene told them that’s how come when we get knocked up we shouldn’t tell a grownup; all they want is to tell us what to do and make us feel bad. So that’s how come Rachel Porter came to pull that baby out by herself back in seventh grade and how her brother disappeared and her dad was on the news for so long. 

 

And that’s how come when she invited me over for cookies I knew she was really just curious to see if I was all the way girl or if maybe I still had a little part of the old me; the fleshy dangling piece of meat between my legs that might “fill the void” and make her feel better.  And that’s how come when she first kissed me I tried to hide my nipples being hard but I wanted her to rip my clothes off and throw me on the floor and see my naked body begging for her, because I didn’t know how else to tell her I was still just a stupid boy.  

 

They also said some kids just want attention and nobody is really that sick in high school and that no way could anyone really have cancer and that it was bullshit and she was just bulimic; but that’s how come Katy Bruin came to school with a new bandana every day in eleventh grade and how come everyone coughed and made gross throat sounds and buzzing sounds like hair clippers whirring across their heads when she walked by.  Especially since she was always sick and throwing up in the bathroom.  Even so, no one noticed when her hair finally fell out and nobody cared when Katy stopped showing up for school.

 

And there was Max.

 

His real name was Devin Rothschild, but everyone called him “vampire” and “blood sucker” or called him “red wing.”  But he deserved it I guess; he was hiding with Susan Quartermaine in the third stall of the girls’ bathroom during the Earth Day festival in eighth grade.  They snuck off to be alone and make out, and she pushed his head down past her belly button for a fur pie surprise, and that’s when he licked and slurped and coughed and came up with a mouthful of blood clumped clam jam.

 

He said he’d never eaten a girl out before, but he would do it again in a heartbeat.  He said how it was it reminded him of warm raw meat and how when a girl was all wet and ready to go it was like kissing a loose fuzzy mouth – soft and warm and sticky; sweet, salty and musty.  He said it reminded him of fresh ocean fish and taco sauce.  Susan squirmed and howled, grinding her bloody Mary across his face as she came; squeezing her rotten cherry into his mouth and spurting her thick, sticky, smelly chunky menstrual ooze down his chin and onto his shirt. 

 

That’s how he got the nickname “Max.”   

 

Now I’m all grown up and Rachel Porter and high school and Hickory, West Virginia are all ancient history. 

 

I’ve been seeing a network executive for a local TV station for a few months.  She’s soft and stern and smells like cotton candy and yoga sweat.  She reminds me so much of Rachel; the way she smiles halfway, as if to say “I only trust your face; everybody is watching” she winks, “standards.”  I like her as much as I can, given the things I’ve seen since I was only half a lady, but she seems to take me for what I’m worth.  I never told her about my past, about being born with that hideous phallic failure between my legs.  I can’t bear to lose another fight because of who I was, so I won’t bother telling anyone ever again. 

 

I don’t want to have to explain it.

 

Here’s how it happened:

We smiled at each other over lunch the other day, taking in the warm spring air.  I like the way she sips her coffee with her eyes closed, taking in every bit of the moment – like she’s soaking in that instant when everything is alright – where her life makes sense.  Where she’s not sitting in front of a room full of strangers and not being scrutinized for her every move.  She swears it doesn’t bother her that they look at us funny when we hold hands, but I know a little piece of her still wishes she was the little girl who wanted to marry a rich prince and live happily ever after.  If only she hadn’t been so disgusted by the cock strong jocks of her own high school days, maybe she could have made a man happy.  She knows, deep down, that she should love boys; that she could be a great mother to someone’s kids.  That’s how come she pulls away sometimes: trying to hold on to any shred of God’s grace that might still be hers.  She knows words like “harlot” and “abomination” don’t come free of charge, and that’s why she stopped going to church a long time ago she says, “Standards.”

 

I wanted her to be happy with me, but I wanted us to be happy together more.  I wanted her to look to me for everything and not hide anything.  That’s why I told her I was a boy.  Once. 

 

“A long time ago,” I say, “Richard.” 

 

Her eyes turned red and started to water, and I could tell she wanted to scream or run or curl into a ball and die.  Or maybe she just wanted to hurt me; the liar in front of her who just killed her last hope for a fairy tale ending.  The man with no gun sitting before her now, threatening her sanity; not the woman she walked in with.  I wanted her to hit me, to take out her anger then and there, so we could get back to being us and move on; but she just sat there.  She didn’t move and she didn’t say a word. 

 

So I slapped her.

 

Not to hurt her, just to snap her out of the trance she slipped into when a woman told her a man’s story.  I wanted to jolt her back to where I was; the woman she loved and cared for three minutes before, not the wretched, ugly plastic man she could only see now.  Her memory of me instantly changed; every move, every moan, every smile, every touch; all this time a woman’s gentle skin and soft embrace, now a saggy, disgusting monster sitting in her place. “I’ve got a show to run,” she says.  That’s why she can’t see me out with friends anymore; I’m a liability.  “It’s not right,” she says, “You have to have standards.”  She got up to leave and I told her she was full of shit and then she was running out of the restaurant crying and now here I am; stuck.

 

Again.  

 

That’s why I had it cut away from me like a cyst or an ingrown toenail in the first place; I hated who I was because of it.  I used to hope it would dry up and fall off on its own.  I just wanted it gone.  Can you imagine?  Sitting there, six years old, trying to convince yourself that being a boy was just natural; that it was meant to be. 

 

That everything is okay. 

 

Some kids shave their heads or pierce their nipples or get tattoos or dye their hair.  Most kids want to change; even the smallest thing that can take what they are and turn them into someone else.  There was only one part of me that I ever wanted to be different; so I made up my mind and made it so.  I took the outside in and stepped inside out.  That’s how come I’ll never understand how girls keep falling in love with a phantom phallus; “Penis envy,” they say.  I can’t believe anybody would actually want one because I hated mine so much.

 

My penis ruined everything. 

 

I had it transformed so it couldn’t do more harm.  I took it for granted time and time again and now it strikes like an invisible dagger through my heart.  I’m choking on my own ghostly, dismembered, disfigured tube of putrid plastic man meat.  I can’t bear the thought of having to go through that again; having to explain to everyone why I don’t buy tampons or how it is that I don’t need birth control.  I don’t have time to tell every stranger my life story.  I’m out of patience for your consideration; I’m not your fucking girlfriend. 

 

I always loved Rachel Porter, but when Steven Gregory went to trial, everyone went to watch. 

 

Every detail – every dirty secret – of their lives came into question.  We watched, shocked and stunned, as he confessed in front of everyone how he hit her and used to make her stay in the basement for hours at a time; trying to force her back into the flock with prayer.  She’d fallen from grace and he had to save her soul.  He knew the jury would understand why he did what he did; they had to.  He couldn’t let his whore wife walk the streets again after finding her in their living room face down in another woman’s fuzzy navel pumpkin patch; not after everything he had done for her. 

 

That’s how everybody found out how Rachel lost her first two babies, and why her daddy and brother had gone missing.  Her mom left when she was a baby, so Rachel didn’t have a woman in her life; not one she could look up to, anyway.  She told him that when she was little they used to make her do things, “Sex stuff”, she’d said. 

 

No one moved; the court room grew cold and quiet and still. 

 

He explained that in seventh grade, after her brother and father had each taken turns with her, she messed up and missed her monthly call.  (Not that it was her fault, but that’s how it looked to a town like that.)  He told us how her old man came home one night after his shift at the water plant and found her bloody and lying in the bathroom.  “‘Bleedin’ out like I don’t know what.’  Her words,” he said.  Her dad thought she had fallen so he tried to help her up.  That’s when she stabbed him in the throat with the fetus flailing clothes hanger.

 

She poked the baby out herself; she knew there was no way she could ever love a child like that.  She was too scared to call for help, so she just sat there, bleeding and crying while she watched her father die in front of her; killed by his own babies.  That’s when her brother came in and saw the blood, and the mess, and the chunks of baby between her legs, and the stringy strands of viscera sticking out of the hole in their father’s throat and he passed out right there in the hallway.  All she had to do then was cover his nose and mouth and wait.

 

Steven went on, retelling how Rachel had told him that she couldn’t raise her brother-niece-nephew or daughter-sister-son; that’s how come she did it.  She could never be an aunt to a daughter or a mother to a brother all at once.  Who could?  She had to stop it; rewind and undo all the hurt.  What they did to her was terrible, but Stephen said that’s why she had found him; so he could save her. 

 

He could make her pure again and she could have his kid and love it forever. 

 

He said that she told him all this in ninth grade; right after they found out they were pregnant together and that’s why they got married.  He broke down in the courtroom, in front of all those people, and told us that’s how come he pushed her real hard and killed his baby the first time; he couldn’t bear the sick that stirred inside him when he heard what she’d done.  He didn’t  want to be reminded of what had happened and how she was; how could he bring a perfect little life into the world through such an ugly, dirty, used up vessel?  He said they didn’t have sex after the miscarriage since she was so sensitive and nervous all the time, so that’s how come he believed their second child was a gift: conceived of God and spirit, sent forth through his Rachel to be born unto this world.  

 

I’m the only one in the small, stuffy room that knows better. 

 

Rachel and I had spent every night Stephen was away together; passing the hours on the couch, watching old black and white reruns and sharing gossip about school.  She was warm and beautiful; radiant and majestic and perfect.  Her eyes were bright and full of life and her cheeks were smooth and silky; the perfect rouge and soft blush of a young woman.  She was everything I could ever want; everything I should ever have, and she became everything I would ever be.  She carried a child – our child – for seven months.  Then Steven found us in their living room holding each other, topless and oblivious and in love, and he took her from me.

 

After that, I couldn’t look at myself the same.  I had wanted it gone for so long, now I had my reason: there was no way I could ever use that filthy thing again; Rachel made me a part of her and I couldn’t waste that.  I knew I had to get rid of it; to bury it and make it disappear.  I wanted to make sure no one could ever use it again; not like that.  I wanted to keep our secret memories safe; to carry her with me wherever I went for the rest of my life.  I went away to “Judgment Camp” and never looked back.  I wanted to make her part of everything and I wanted her to be part of me.  

 

In the end I just became what I always wanted to be.

I became her.