One in Every Crowd (14 page)

From: Dark Princess

To: Ivan Coyote

Hello you probly get a lot of emails, so ill try to stay a bit to the point i guess… btw im the girl (Jamie) from the alternative school … kinky switch omni sexual, with ptsd,panic attacks, bullyed from grade 4-12lvl5ish lol didnt really show up after sertian point., etc,…. anywho …sence i was too nervous and over exausted to really speak during your time here on my oppyions on what i think should an dshould not be done about bullying I figured id email you. for one in the murphy centre there is a zero tolerence on bullying and i do personaly find it a safe conforting enviorment over all in terms of free expression etc. How ever…. i do believe in regular school systems they should be taught as a course senstivity training, basic psychology( aka how your actions effect people), how to comunicate your problems, and that it is truely ok to talk to a councolar about your issues.I do not believe everysingle bully is the way they are cause of issues i do believe that some sensitvity training , knowlage, and a good set of communicational skills might help someone who was prone to being a bully … help in terms of lessining the way they do it etc… With that said i do not think it will work for all but some it might … sence that would be a big change a easyer to pass off way to explain it would be not only to show the person how it would effect someone , tell stories like you do, do, but mabye teach people that no one is allone, not the one doing the bullying nore the one being bullyed. As easy as it would be for me to hold hate toward thoes who did bully me the only feelings i allow my self is a will to try to over come everything… This is not perosnaly easy for me i do not think Growing a Thick skin is something people should be Fourced into doing at all i think it is something which should happen with maturity instead.I was bullyed physicaly, verbaly, mostly verbaly i was also psychologialy abused interms of the face my friends would be bullied till they told my secrets and stoped talkling to me anywho back to the view enough personal stories less you want to hear about it all if so feel free to ask i hav no problem telling you . I just find it a bit easyer for me if it alk about it. Back to ideas on how to stop it.I think understanding the person bullied( do not like to refer to them as a victum even tho some are i personaly do not like to view my self as one only because it would mean i had no control and in my eyes quitting school/ending it in someway was some fourm of control…. )understanding them by seeing there prespective, what might be wrong thats makeing kids want to hurt them, if you can help sooth them in anyway what could you do, better councleing and tolerance /senstivity training for school staff members and even Students !!!!!!. Understanding the bully what makes someone bully , what kinds of ways can you help prevent bullies, is there anything you can do to help make a bully less likely to hurt anyone, school punishments like fourced tolerance class work, or senstivity classess, or even videos with tests on how to behave around people im sure after ENOUGH times doing it they will learn or get sick of it , of course also sending them to a guidance councolar before the principal might help as well. Sorry this might be a bit overwalminin in terms of condenced info please email me back with insigh t questions etc.. or even conversation etc……

THERE’S AN OLD CLICHÉ, SOMETHING ABOUT how you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. I travel a lot, and I’d like to add a line, or at least a footnote, about how you also can’t choose who you sit next to on an airplane ride, especially if you’re flying in economy class.

I am a collector of stories, and a connoisseur of characters, so for the most part I love the random way that travelling strangers enter and exit each other’s lives. I relish the chance to spend a few hours listening to the life story of a little old lady who usually only talks to her cat or the postman, or the girl that her family hired to come and clean the house once a week, ever since her daughter got too busy with the twins and the promotion. I notice how thin her skin seems, stretched like tracing paper over the blue veins that map the backs of her hands. How they shake just a little when she holds up a photo for me to see, how she spills a little bit of sugar when she pours it from the tiny packet and has to hold her paper cup with both hands. I savour all these details, and save them as souvenirs. Some people take pictures or buy postcards to remember where they have been. I collect people, and conversations.

One time I spent three hours waiting for the fog to lift in San Francisco with a guy who told me that he spends so much time on the road he never fully unpacks his suitcase, and that he has missed nine of his son’s twelve birthday parties. He was a salesman who had single-handedly cornered the North American market for snow globes. His chest swelled proudly when he passed me his business card and announced that if I ever bought a quality snow globe anywhere on the continent, chances were it was one of his. Not the cheap ones, mind you, but the good kind, where the snow floats around for a while before it falls and collects on the bottom.

When he found out I was a writer, he told me he had spent the last ten years working on a novel, mostly at night in hotel rooms, and that when he finally retired, he was going to take a screenwriting class.

“Maybe I’m a writer too,” he told me. “You never know. Stranger things have happened.”

I told him I thought everyone had at least 1,000 great stories to tell, but we have been taught to believe that only heroes or serial killers or rich people or crime scene investigators live lives worth writing down. He rubbed his bald spot with one hand for a bit, like he was thinking about something he forgot to do, and took a deep breath.

That’s when he blurted out that he hated his job, but the only thing he’d ever been better than everyone else at was selling snow globes, and that his wife hadn’t touched him in three years, ever since he put on forty pounds after his back surgery, and he was pretty much convinced that she was banging his son’s soccer coach and how the worst part was that he didn’t even care anymore, but he didn’t want to leave her because she would get the house, and he loved that house, and his dog, who had lived to be almost fifteen years old, was buried in the backyard right next to the apple tree, and what if his wife sold the house and bought a condo when the kids moved out so she wouldn’t have to mow the lawn, and maybe a dead dog was a terrible reason to stay married to someone who won’t look at you without a shirt on, but he was hardly ever home anyways, except for long weekends like this, and if the weather didn’t get better he wouldn’t make it home at all. Then he apologized and said he didn’t know why he was telling me all this, that he hadn’t even talked to his best friend about any of it, on account of how they worked for the same company, and getting too personal might put a strain on their business relationship. I hugged a perfect stranger that night because I knew his wife wouldn’t, and I think of him now whenever I see snow that falls slowly.

Today I sat next to a man who immediately informed me that he was on his way to Europe to work with the Christian Embassy, spreading the good word of the Lord. Before the plane was off the ground, he asked me if I had a girlfriend. I took this line of inquiry to mean that he thought I was a clean-cut young man, and therefore possessed a soul worth saving. I told him the truth; I did have a girlfriend, and no, we were not married yet, and yes, we were indeed living together, and yes, I was aware that we were living in sin. I smiled inside at just how much sin he didn’t realize we were actually living in, and pondered telling him I was not as nice, young, or male as he appeared to think I was. Then I realized how fun it was to listen to a fundamentalist Christian lecture me on how God wanted me to marry my ­girlfriend, how the family unit in this country was depending on me, and how not fun it might immediately become if he were to find out he was brushing thighs with a full-blown sodomite disguised as a harmless wayward Catholic boy in a crisp shirt and a tie. I knew there was as much chance of me changing his mind about anything as there was that he would ever lead me back to the path of righteousness, so I told him he was right, and that I was going to propose to my girlfriend as soon as I had enough money saved up to buy her a decent conflict-free diamond ring. He took this to mean that he had helped me see the light, and continued the Lord’s work all the way to Toronto. When the plane finally landed, he shook my hand and told me that I seemed like a good person, and that if I were ever in Guelph, I should look up his son, who had strayed from God’s path a little and had pierced his eyebrow and was pursuing an arts degree.

“I’d like him to meet some friends with ambition. People who realize that appearances matter. I pray that he grows up to be just like you.”

“I hope God answers that prayer,” I told him. “I really do.”

I HAD A FORTY-FIVE MINUTE LAYOVER IN OTTAWA, on my way to Halifax. I was halfway through my complimentary newspaper when I heard them arrive at the gate. Forty teenage girls and their thirty-something male chaperone were getting on the plane with me. The chaperone was one of those cool teachers, we all had one at some point, the kind who teaches gym or band and sports a ponytail and over-manicured facial hair. He’s the kind of guy who buffs his nails and lets the kids call him by his first name, which is usually Steve or Rick or Darryl. Maybe he smokes a little pot on the weekends, too, and plays a little acoustic guitar. He wears designer jeans and tight t-shirts that show off his well-muscled forearms. The girls all harbour not-so-secret crushes on him, because, you know, he like totally understands them, plus he’s handsome. The guys have more mixed emotions, a combination of wanting to be him and wanting to kill him, or at least one day beat him in an arm-wrestle. He calls everybody “buddy” or “kiddo.”

Steve or Rick or Darryl clapped his hands together to get the girls’ attention. “Okay, ladies, let’s line up, and have your ID ready. Don’t leave your garbage behind; let’s make a positive impression here, okay? Make sure you have your buddy with you.”

I buried my face in my newspaper. I’ve never been overly fond of teenage girls, especially in packs, even when I was attempting to be one. They’re a mean, judgmental lot, I find, and they still intimidate me. They whisper, they gawk, and they snicker. It takes me back, I can’t help it.

F.H. Collins High School in the early eighties was ruled by her highnesses Wendy, Tracy, Sandra, Jeanie, and Kerri-Anne. It was a time of big hair, small sweaters, and tight jeans. All five girls possessed all of these prerequisites. Their affections were highly sought after, and fleeting. They liked me once for half a day when they found out I was vaguely related by marriage to Jimmy Baker, my dad’s brother’s wife’s little brother, because he was cute, and had his own car. But I soon fell from their favour over my inability to grow breasts or like Depeche Mode.

At least they just pretended I didn’t exist after that. It could have been a lot worse. Ask “Pizza-Face’” Andrea Mullen or “Big-Fat” Alice Byers just how bad it could get.

Not much has changed since then. The jeans cover even less skin, and the hair is a lot smaller, but the Wendys, Tracys, Sandras, Jeanies, and Kerri-Annes still rule the school, and I was getting on a plane with forty of them.

Everything was cool until I had to get up and go pee. The girls were all sitting at the back of the plane. The beverage cart was parked in the aisle two or three rows from the bathrooms. I was going to have to wait in line and be scrutinized by forty teenage girls.

My early teenage girl trauma was later complicated and compounded by the fact that I am often mistaken by them for a young man of appropriate cruising age. From eighteen rows away, I must have looked cute enough to check out. She had long, straight, copper-coloured hair and perfect skin and teeth. I disliked her immediately, just on principle. She fixed her blue eyes on me and elbowed her friend in the ribs. I pretended to be fascinated by my thumbnail and hated myself for caring about what I knew was going to happen next. Ten rows away, all three girls held their heads together and giggled, still trying to catch my eye.

But five rows away, the redhead peeled her lashes back from her eyes and sat up straight. She dropped her magazine and gripped her armrests in horror. Her mouth gaped open. She stared shamelessly at me, and then leaned over and covered her face in her hands. Her girlfriends leaned in to see what was the matter. She whispered something to them and they plastered their mouths with their palms. The redhead made pretend gagging motions.

I was right beside them now, and could hear them.

“That is the grossest thing I’ve seen all year. Oh my God, what is it? Does it have boobs? You look. No, I’m not looking, I feel totally sick. You check, Colleen, you were the one who thought he was cute. Was not. Were too. Oh my God, I can’t tell what it is.”

My face and ears were on fire. Did they think I couldn’t hear them? I calmly put my right hand on the seat back in front of them and leaned into their row. I placed one word in front of the other, in an orderly fashion.

“Why don’t you just ask
it
what it is? Maybe
it
is a human being with ears, and feelings. Why don’t you just ask
it
what
it
is? Maybe
it
can talk, too, and maybe
it
will tell you. Go ahead, ask
it
. Because
it
is standing right here.”

They just stared straight ahead, wordless. They pretended I wasn’t there, like I didn’t exist.

I splashed cold water on my face in the tiny bathroom. I thought about finding Steve or Rick or Darryl and telling him that his girls had failed to leave a positive impression here. Then I decided against it. I didn’t feel like explaining myself, or receiving a forced, toe-kicking teenage apology.

The girls were still whispering mercilessly as I walked past them. They fell silent when they saw me. My hands were shaking. I hoped they couldn’t see that.

I’d calmed myself down by the time the plane landed. I don’t like standing up and waiting in the aisle while some guy way up in first class drags his laptop down from the overhead compartment and puts his jacket on in slow motion, all the while holding up the entire disembarking process, so I usually stay in my seat reading until almost everyone is off the plane.

I caught a flash of red hair in my periphery. I swear I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t planned. I sent no conscious signal to my leg to move, but just as Colleen passed my seat, my foot shot out and tripped her, all on its own. She fell perfectly, knocking over the two girls in front of her as well. The girl behind her tripped over the resulting tangle, and all four of them went down.

The blonde in the striped bell-bottoms leaped up first. “Jesus, Colleen, watch where you’re going. I could have chipped a tooth. I just got my braces off.”

They righted themselves and left the plane without looking back. I don’t think even Colleen knew what I had done.

I sat in my aisle seat, shaking my head at myself. Good thing the two nice old ladies who had been seated next to me had already gotten off the plane, or they would have thought I had cruelly tripped an innocent sixteen-year-old girl with absolutely no provocation.

I tried to feel guilty. I tried to feel ashamed of my behaviour. I was an adult, I told myself, and I should have known better.

But I couldn’t. I thought of Andrea Mullen, who is a lawyer now. I thought of Alice Byers, who overdosed on sleeping pills in her third year of university.

I smiled to myself. Take that, Wendy, Tracy, Sandra, Jeanie, and Kerri-Anne. Truth is, I never liked you guys anyways.