Disturbed

My life did not start off quite so dramatic as this book did, but it was not for lack of trying.

I must have been a very fussy baby, for my mom said she could never get anyone, to agree to watch over me ever. Therefore she claims I made her miserable her first years of motherhood.

I was just like every other kid on their first go round in a strange place, nervous and anxious.

However, I had waited with eagerness the day prior, simply to go to the place of learning.

I was smiling from ear to ear, willing to learn and make friends with the other students

Only, I wasn't like the other kids at all.

On my first day of independence, I managed to slip away from the class.

Literally we were all single filed into a cafeteria, and the next minute, I was alone in the hallway, roaming into uncharted waters.

Somehow, I found my way to what I perceived to be a doctor’s office, I later found out it was the nurses office, and had a time trying to convince the nurse that I really needed to use the little girls restroom.

Needless to say, that day ended up with my mother giving me, the sternest talking to about right and wrong actions in public, on the ride home after the principal had called her to come pick me up.

And my father giving me the worse, extension cord beating a child has ever received in my lifetime!

Later that night, as I lay in bed, I heard my parents fighting.

I could hear my mother, begging my father to calm down, to accept that I was confused and going through a phase.

I heard my father slapping my mother around, raging about how he would never allow his only son to become a faggot!

I pretended to be asleep as I heard, my fathers heavy footsteps, come charging towards my room.

I barely breathed as he reached my room and almost flew across the floor towards my bed.

But my real breathing almost stopped, when he sat on my bed and placed a pillow over my head!

I laid still and silent, I felt his grip tighten on the pillow and press down on my head.

Suddenly, he released his grip and muttered, “if you ever act gay again boy, I will kill you!!!” before releasing the pillow, raising up off of my bed, walking calmly towards my bedroom door, and then slamming it shut as he exited to go to bed for the night.

As an adolescent I can truly say I tried, I tried to be what my mother had said I needed to be in order for the world to accept me. And I for damn sure made myself be whatever would keep my father from killing me and possibly my weakling of a mother too.

I avoided playing with the girls and their dolls in my neighborhood and gave them solid advice and protection from bullying boys instead.

I would make sure to play with the boys who were nice looking and beat up the boys who seemed to be picking on the weaker boys.

I got good grades so that my teachers, never called my home again!

And I was naturally good and agile at sports so I joined every team and made my father super proud with bragging rights abundantly.

And for awhile this worked. I pretended to be perfect James.

The boy every kid wanted to be friends with, the boy everyone choose to want to hang out with.

In six grade I was pretty popular.

For the most part I had friends, or mostly people who wanted to be apart of my coolness.

I had managed to fool most people into thinking I was quiet, cute, funny James.

The guy the girls could come to and talk about their problems and also the guy who could score a touchdown, home run, or end winning goal, better than almost any other player besides superman!

To say the least, I was already a name before eighth grade and I loved it.

I almost forgot who my true inner self was, the kindergarten boy dying to use the little girl’s bathroom.

That is until I entered freshman year of high school.

Freshman year, I entered high school with hopes of gaining a scholarship in science and a reputation in sports.

I had the entire scenario planned, I would sports my way through school, graduate and then move far, far away from my parents, and work at a pharmaceutical fortune 500 company.

My greatest fantasies, never once included me waking up from my self induced, coma of delusions.

But awaken I did the moment fifth period started and my current life stopped.

Smartness did not run in my family, but I was pretty smart. So my fifth period consisted of calculus nerds and overachieving wanna be scholars.

And then sitting in row two, I spotted a guy who looked so amazing, that he seemed out of place.

I felt my insides tingle as I watched him settle into his chair and pull out his tablet to gather the notes needed for math.

I watched him and held my breath as he swallowed.

I felt dizzy as I watched his adam’s apple, bob up and down, I imagined I was the spit that was sliding down his throat.

And then, I felt a wave of nastiness and nausea, wash over me and I quickly asked the teacher, If I could be excused to go vomit in the bathroom.

Inside the bathroom stall, I noticed that I was hard and firm in the lower region of my pants, and then fully vomited into the toilet and all over the floor.

This was the first day since kindergarten, that I had been sent home by the school nurse and principal.

Only this time it was worse, for instead of stern lectures and a beating, I was faced with the reality of deep down inside, I yearned for something of the other kind, and I had no control over wanting it.