Blue Eyes
I met Zach Wilson the summer before seventh grade
at philosophy camp.
His feet shoved into red striped socks and scuffed combat boots,
he wrapped attitude around himself tight
like the studded belt and motorcycle jacket
that to my young mind
screamed
punk rock credibility.
I, wearing a hot pink Suzuki method t-shirt
and electric green cut-off polyester shorts,
had never felt less cool in my entire life.
Zach had red hair that fell down to his chin -
parenthesized a grin so cocky
it nearly overpowered those blue eyes
that cut right through my skinny chest
and pinned my heart against the wall like a butterfly.
Today, nothing reminds me more of Zach than the taste of coffee.
When he heard I’d never tried it
he talked me into venturing off-campus,
in strict violation of the rules
of philosophy camp.
“But we’ll get in trouble,” I protested,
and he grinned and loped away
and I had no choice but to follow
through the back alleys of downtown Appleton,
until we found ourselves in the brick-lined back room
of a coffee shop wedged between two bookstores,
and Zach leaned over the table -
those blue eyes bored dizzyingly into my brain -
as he watched me take my first sip.
And I pretended to enjoy it.
I never touched Zach Wilson
the way I wanted to
in those two weeks in late August.
But we drank a lot of coffee together,
------------------------------------------------
and I carried his memory with me a month later,
when, having been home-schooled my whole life,
I joined the seventh grade at the Mondovi Public Middle School
in a class of sixty-eight,
in a town of sixteen hundred,
where you were
either Lutheran or Catholic.
Where if you wanted to blend in,
you wore Carhartt jackets and Wrangler jeans.
Where if you wanted to blend in,
you certainly did not
mince into the first day of the seventh grade
wearing a hot pink Suzuki method t-shirt
and electric green cut-off polyester shorts.
The bruises I collected over the next three years
taught me to keep my eyes down
and my mouth shut.
But it was the word
that taught me to hide who I was
even from myself.
The word came at me from all directions,
but it was a special favorite of my most dependable tormentor,
Brandon Odegaard.
It accompanied each
of his frequent assaults:
“What’re you looking at,
faggot?”
“Where do you think you’re going,
faggot?”
“Why don't you fight back,
faggot?”
The word slid sideways
out of a grin so cocky
it threatened to overpower those blue eyes
that cut right through my skinny chest
and pinned my heart to the wall in a very
different
way.
A semester before I transfer out of Mondovi,
Brandon Odegaard is halfway through
his two hundred and seventy-fourth iteration of the word.
He’s made it to the first of those paired Gs
and is rounding the corner to the second
when the first and second knuckles of my right hand
whistle a crescent through the air
that ends just where his jawbone connects to his skull
and I feel the joint pop and grind apart
and Brandon Odegaard is on the ground,
blue eyes swimming.
One moment of victory
in three years.
------------------------------------------------
Now as an adult, I can say with certainty
that Brandon Odegaard was laboring
under a mild misapprehension.
I can count on my fingers and toes
the number of men in whom I have been
romantically interested.
If we count Josh Hartnett and Joseph Gordon Levitt,
I might need to borrow a couple of digits from the audience.
I can count on two fingers
the number of men with whom I have actually been sexual.
I am, at best,
twenty percent
faggot.
But this is where I live now:
in a state where marriage equality is finally law.
In a state where the word slides sideways
out of the cocky grins of middle schoolers
every day.
This is where I live now,
between the blue eyes of my memory:
those of the first boy I ever loved,
and the first boy
I ever hated.
I met Zach Wilson the summer before seventh grade
at philosophy camp.
His feet shoved into red striped socks and scuffed combat boots,
he wrapped attitude around himself tight
like the studded belt and motorcycle jacket
that to my young mind
screamed
punk rock credibility.
I, wearing a hot pink Suzuki method t-shirt
and electric green cut-off polyester shorts,
had never felt less cool in my entire life.
Zach had red hair that fell down to his chin -
parenthesized a grin so cocky
it nearly overpowered those blue eyes
that cut right through my skinny chest
and pinned my heart against the wall like a butterfly.
Today, nothing reminds me more of Zach than the taste of coffee.
When he heard I’d never tried it
he talked me into venturing off-campus,
in strict violation of the rules
of philosophy camp.
“But we’ll get in trouble,” I protested,
and he grinned and loped away
and I had no choice but to follow
through the back alleys of downtown Appleton,
until we found ourselves in the brick-lined back room
of a coffee shop wedged between two bookstores,
and Zach leaned over the table -
those blue eyes bored dizzyingly into my brain -
as he watched me take my first sip.
And I pretended to enjoy it.
I never touched Zach Wilson
the way I wanted to
in those two weeks in late August.
But we drank a lot of coffee together,
------------------------------------------------
and I carried his memory with me a month later,
when, having been home-schooled my whole life,
I joined the seventh grade at the Mondovi Public Middle School
in a class of sixty-eight,
in a town of sixteen hundred,
where you were
either Lutheran or Catholic.
Where if you wanted to blend in,
you wore Carhartt jackets and Wrangler jeans.
Where if you wanted to blend in,
you certainly did not
mince into the first day of the seventh grade
wearing a hot pink Suzuki method t-shirt
and electric green cut-off polyester shorts.
The bruises I collected over the next three years
taught me to keep my eyes down
and my mouth shut.
But it was the word
that taught me to hide who I was
even from myself.
The word came at me from all directions,
but it was a special favorite of my most dependable tormentor,
Brandon Odegaard.
It accompanied each
of his frequent assaults:
“What’re you looking at,
faggot?”
“Where do you think you’re going,
faggot?”
“Why don't you fight back,
faggot?”
The word slid sideways
out of a grin so cocky
it threatened to overpower those blue eyes
that cut right through my skinny chest
and pinned my heart to the wall in a very
different
way.
A semester before I transfer out of Mondovi,
Brandon Odegaard is halfway through
his two hundred and seventy-fourth iteration of the word.
He’s made it to the first of those paired Gs
and is rounding the corner to the second
when the first and second knuckles of my right hand
whistle a crescent through the air
that ends just where his jawbone connects to his skull
and I feel the joint pop and grind apart
and Brandon Odegaard is on the ground,
blue eyes swimming.
One moment of victory
in three years.
------------------------------------------------
Now as an adult, I can say with certainty
that Brandon Odegaard was laboring
under a mild misapprehension.
I can count on my fingers and toes
the number of men in whom I have been
romantically interested.
If we count Josh Hartnett and Joseph Gordon Levitt,
I might need to borrow a couple of digits from the audience.
I can count on two fingers
the number of men with whom I have actually been sexual.
I am, at best,
twenty percent
faggot.
But this is where I live now:
in a state where marriage equality is finally law.
In a state where the word slides sideways
out of the cocky grins of middle schoolers
every day.
This is where I live now,
between the blue eyes of my memory:
those of the first boy I ever loved,
and the first boy
I ever hated.
wrubrecht@gmail.com
