Volleyball

"Don't aim where your eyes are staring, faggot." It was 6th period gym class and I was in 7th grade. I had also just hit Ike Kaler in the ass with a volleyball during a poorly delivered serve. It wasn't the first time I had been called out as faggot. The first time I was called faggot was in 4th grade and I wasn't. "Stop stepping on my toe, fucking faggot." That was Becky Poe, and we were learning square dancing, only I wasn't picking up on it so well.

I wasn't even attracted to Ike Kaler. Ike Kaler had a troubling chin and squinty eyes. He was one of those natural athletes, though. Maybe I was attracted to him. If I was, though, it was one of those dark secret crushes because there was no way I could even think about liking another guy -- especially in gym class. Especially in the gym shower*.

Like a lot of young homosexuals, I wasn't so much with the gym class. I was trying so hard to be someone I wasn't -- namely heterosexual -- that I couldn't be comfortable enough with my body to let my inner athlete shine. And heck, maybe I didn't even have an inner athlete. All I knew was that gym filled me with a loathing and a longing, and that I didn't want to do anything to draw any attention to myself whatsoever.

Which is why hitting Ike Kaler's ass was so mortifying.

It's not often that gym teachers in small towns like Klamath Falls, Oregon, do the right thing. They're in Klamath Falls, for christsakes: it't not like they've proven themselves as wise decision makers -- and I haven't even gotten to the "teaches gym" part yet. And yet my gym teacher, Mr. Roberts...

He was an odd man. He walked with a limp; some 'Nam injury, he said. He smelled of Winstons and Vic's Vap-o-Rub. His voice combined sand paper, glass, and an ill-performed tracheotomy into this oddly soothing dulcet tone. Only he never said dulcet things. "What are you, gimps? I've seen retards -- no offense, Pete" -- Peter was a retard -- "move quicker than you!" Then there was the time he screamed cocksuckers! for no reason in particular, and we had an assembly shortly afterwards about constructive ways to work through anger.

Mr. Roberts pulled me aside. "Bevel," he said. "We've got some work to do." He left everyone in the larger gym and took me to the small gym. "We're gonna teach you how to serve," he said. "And then those cocksuckers'll shut up." And then, for the next 20 minutes, it was just me and Mr. Roberts. I let my guard down. For one of the first times in my life, I had a male adult's attention; I wanted to make him proud. "Swear a little," he advised. "Under your breath. You can do this. No reason you can't." "Dammit," I said. "Yeah. That's a good one. Try goddammit." "Dammit." "Okay," he said. "You just work with that." And I kept serving. "Those guys, you know they don't know what they're saying, right? Those words they call you -- they don't know what they mean." I kept serving. "You can do this. You just needed a chance to know it."

And I kept serving.

It didn't last, my newfound confidence. I didn't leave the small gym a changed guy, more secure in what bits of masculinity I'd engendered. What I did leave with, though, was a newfound respect for the word "cocksucker." And the memory of a man's man who didn't think of me as a sissy.

Fuckin' keep fighting the good fight, Mr. Roberts. Wherever you are.

______________________________

* Dear Straight Guys,

I've looked at you. In the shower.

Peeping Tomingly,

Michael Bevel
British Adventuress