My braces stayed on into the next year
and with them some additional insecurities. Sure, Jeanmarie got braces, too,
but her braces attached to a huge smile, in a dewy face, surrounded by sleek
hair falling above perfect B cups. For me, there were too many things going on
with my general head area and not enough going on with my general chest area. I
was splattered with freckles; I grew funky eyebrows and spring-loaded hair big
enough to eat Manhattan. My chest was, as Mike Gouveia blazed on the algebra
blackboard, like the plains of Montana.
I walked into history class that morning
after the first bell and well before our lazy teacher. Everyone was looking at
me. More than normal, more than my paranoid 13-year-old eyes usually noticed. I
sat at my desk and looked up to see
written in hot and unrelenting white. I was ambushed, stun-gunned, and spotlit, dragged by those chalked words to rest between the bearded lady and the wolf boy as the flattest and reddest 13-year-old on earth. Everyone whispered and stared for my reaction. Someone leaned over to ask if I was alright as I burned up with my own embarrassment. Todd Montgomery walked in, looked at me, looked where I was looking and, as there were no erasers near, smudged the words out with his own sleeve. “You’re such buttheads,” he said, “Grow up.”
JESS FARRIS IS AS FLAT AS
THIS BOARD
written in hot and unrelenting white. I was ambushed, stun-gunned, and spotlit, dragged by those chalked words to rest between the bearded lady and the wolf boy as the flattest and reddest 13-year-old on earth. Everyone whispered and stared for my reaction. Someone leaned over to ask if I was alright as I burned up with my own embarrassment. Todd Montgomery walked in, looked at me, looked where I was looking and, as there were no erasers near, smudged the words out with his own sleeve. “You’re such buttheads,” he said, “Grow up.”
He was a lemming who stopped at the edge
of a cliff. The whole class, me included, gawked at him. If there was anything
more shocking in 7th grade than random cruelty it was acting on pure kindness.
Both were as arresting and daring as car chases or people making out in
public. I left my
state of mortified dumbness for gratitude and realization. I felt like my mom
had just told me the glasses I’d been looking for all morning were on my head,
or like Dorothy, when she found out she could have been home at the beginning
of the movie if she’d just clicked her heals. Really, it was that easy? We
could just stand up and fix things? Whoa. My world changed.
I’m still occasionally reminded of
middle school and Todd Montgomery. I was reminded recently in a bar with
friends when a man told me I dress like a deranged grandma. I smiled, re-fell in love with my floral dress and cardigan, and called
him a butthead. I am my own Todd, I thought. I was reminded yesterday when I
stood in a crowded Metro North train and saw a pregnant woman walk the aisles.
Nearly everyone watched her and some asked if she wanted to sit, but one man
stood up and pointed to his seat, saying, “Here, sit here.” He has the Todd.
And I’m reminded when I see people I know hurt, shocked into immobility by the
direct and unexpected harshness of someone else. Oh, this is easy, I think. We
can just stand up and fix things.
