by Jeffery Self
He had a point there—the audience of my school talent show had grotesquely underappreciated the art of drag the one and only time I’d tried it. The school talent show had always been a mix of everything Clearwater had to offer—from a Florida version of a Norwegian black metal band to the Peyton sisters’ attempt at making their own Cirque du Soleil out of three Hula-Hoops and a bucket of Gatorade. I figured a drag performance would fit right in. Ever since the first time I’d put on a wig in the privacy of my own bedroom, I’d felt so free and it had felt so easy. So I just thought … why not?
Unfortunately, on the afternoon of the school talent show, I found out exactly why not.
My doing the talent show at all was so out of character for me. I hadn’t had much experience getting up in front of strangers onstage. I hadn’t had much experience even talking to strangers, for that matter. This didn’t really hit me until about eleven minutes before I was due onstage. And when it hit me, it wore brass knuckles wrapped around an anvil. Nervous and terrified didn’t even begin to cover it as I sat there, locked in a stall in a bathroom in the backstage area of our school cafe-gym-atorium. I was desperately trying to stop myself from sweating, already feeling beads of makeup-coated perspiration running down from my wig.
My wig, by the way, was terrible. It was a nondescript blue bob I’d bought from the clearance aisle of Kmart, two weeks after Halloween. Also, I was wearing this big, puffy dress that made me look like I was being swallowed by yellow cotton candy, or had fallen feetfirst into a freshly peed-on mound of snow. I had managed to squeeze my feet into a pair of Heather’s heels but my feet were at least three sizes too big. It had never occurred to me that walking in heels would be somehow different from the shoes I was used to wearing. Graceful has never been a word you immediately pinned to my physical prowess; a flailing, tumbling human version of Jenga was a tad closer to accuracy. The heels only served to make matters worse. I felt like I was attempting to balance all of my weight (a number that is absolutely none of your business) on two shaky pencils, while my crammed-in toes felt like they were bound together with a billion of those little rubber bands they use to torture people with orthodontia.
Needless to say, I was a wreck.
I had looked at the running order and was counting down to my turn like a prisoner awaiting execution. I had exactly two performances until I had to walk the plank—or, rather, perform. The bathroom stall was hot, and not helping my sweaty makeup in the least, so I figured it was now or never. On top of being freaked out, I was also mad at myself for being so freaked out. I mean, sure, being a teenage boy at his school talent show in yellow taffeta could feel a bit unnerving, but it was more than that. It had felt so exciting when I’d first thought about it, the idea of stepping outside of myself into this whole other persona and having nothing to lose. But now I was betraying myself. Like I’d invested so much of my heart into it, into the idea of feeling beautiful and important and talented, that the very real and likely possibility that it would go horribly wrong was already looming over me like an avalanche of self-loathing about to crash down.
I clicked open the bathroom stall and took my first few wobbly steps, grasping on to the automatic hand dryer for balance. It immediately, and very loudly, turned itself on, which took me by such surprise that I almost fell into the trash can.
I checked myself in the mirror one last time. My makeup was far from perfect but I’d done the best I could. I adjusted my wig, wishing it was a nicer and more expensive, like the wigs on Drag Race. Then, like a contestant on Drag Race, I took a deep breath and opened the door to the stage. A group of sophomore girls were singing a mostly off-key rendition of an already not-so-on-key Ariana Grande song and it was going over super well, the audience cheering and whistling along. I was lost in thought, thinking about how much easier it would have been for me to do something simple, like stay home, watch House Hunters International, and not compete in the school talent show at all. Then I snapped back to my non-alternate reality and realized that everyone backstage was staring at me. They weren’t making faces, or laughing, or anything flat-out mean … but they couldn’t stop staring, blankly, the way you stare when you find something bizarre in a place you don’t expect to find something bizarre. Like when there’s a dead opossum in a pool skimmer and you just sorta stare at it for a second like, Hm, I wonder what THAT is about before getting a net and wrestling it out.
Just as I was coming to terms with this silent humiliation, I heard the show’s host, Mrs. Patterson, the school drama teacher whose claim to fame was that she’d had two lines in an episode of the short-lived Law & Order: Key West. As she began to introduce me, I realized she couldn’t have cared less about what I, or anyone else for that matter, was going to do—she was too focused on her own role as host. I had a strong inkling that the only reason we had a school talent show at all was so Mrs. Patterson could put on a nice gown and talk on a wireless microphone for two and a half hours.
“And now … JT Barnett!”
Her voice boomed from the scratchy monitor in the wings. I walked toward the stage, and felt I was walking into the oft-discussed posthumous light. My eyes took a while to adjust from the extreme contrast between the dim backstage and the brightness onstage. I wondered, briefly, how Beyoncé pulled it off during her concerts, even managing to DANCE while stage-blind. I thought I might step off the stage any second as my blurry vision adjusted, looking much more drunk than “Drunk in Love.”
The room was mostly quiet as I made my way to center stage. There were a few murmurs and coughs, a few muffled laughs and gasps from people who acted like they’d never seen a boy in a dress before. I was trying to ignore it, telling myself to focus on the song, focus on the performance. I couldn’t see the audience at all, which was a blessing, but I wished I could at least catch a quick glimpse of Seth and Heather to boost my spirits. Instead, I reminded myself that they were out there and I knew they were cheering me on. That managed to boost my spirits enough to start as someone backstage hit play.
I was going to be singing “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid—a song that was definitely in the top five of gay gay gay. I didn’t mind that, mainly because I’d always loved the song and I knew I sang it really well. (Actually, most people could do that song really well. Even Heather sounded pretty on that song, and next to my dad and Cameron Diaz, she was probably the worst singer of all time.)
The song began, and I made up my mind to give it my all. I told myself that I did in fact look pretty no matter how much my shaky nerves were trying to convince me otherwise. I planted my heels firmly on the ground and unleashed my voice from the seashell inside of me. It felt good.
I got through about a third of the song before I heard it—fag or another of those trivial slurs ignorant people use as if they matter. I didn’t care. When someone calls a teenage boy in a dress, singing a song from The Little Mermaid, a fag, their obviousness doesn’t garner a response. Name-calling didn’t bother me—I had half expected it, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin everything. I kept going.
The name-calling got a little worse, a few more stupid snickering teenage-boy voices echoing throughout the room. I could feel the tension building. Why was no one stopping them? Where were the teachers?
When I got to the midsection, which was the part where I could really unleash my inner Ariel to its best effect, there was a loud buzz from the speakers and then the sound stopped cold. Much to my horror, the note I was reaching for instead fell under the sea. I pulled back from the mic as if it had given me an electric shock—and nearly teetered over on my heels. This teeter got plenty of titters. Phones came out, and the audience immediately started muttering and Instagramming.
And me?
I.
Just.
Stood.
There.
Mrs. Patterson came onstage so fast you would have thought someone was offering her a third line on Law & Order: Key West. In a grave tone usually reserved for presidential assassinat
ions, she said there’d been a brief problem with the sound equipment but that it was being fixed and would be back in no time.
“In the meantime,” she said, “perhaps JT would like to finish his song a cappella. What do you think?”
She should have never given them an option. There was some applause. I vaguely thought I heard Seth and Heather cheer. But the bullies were louder, taking Mrs. Patterson’s question as an invitation to boo. At first it was only five or so of them, but then it was ten, then twenty. Then it felt like the entire school had joined in. I was paralyzed, as if each boo was another punch in the gut. Finally I found the energy to rip off my wig and run off the stage. Mrs. Patterson tried to stop me, but only barely. I think she was excited to fill the time with a story about the time she met Burt Reynolds, at least until the sound went back on.
I tried to push my way back to the bathroom stall, past the guys backstage who were laughing and whispering, not so quietly, cruel insults about my body and my voice. I wished they had called me another gay slur—those I could take, those were silly—but the other stuff … it actually hurt. I stayed in the bathroom stall until the talent show was over and I was sure that every single person had left the backstage hallway.
When you put yourself out there, like I had done, and people take that and crap all over it, they manage to make the horribly mean voices in your head that say you’re not good at anything sound as rational and correct as you fear they are. Even as I stood there with my supportive boyfriend, even as he was saying all the right things, he didn’t have a chance against the voices in my head.
“Seth,” I said, “I don’t think this is for me. I really appreciate your thinking of me, but no.”
Seth dramatically slapped the countertop, knocking over the age-requirement sign for buying cigarettes.
“Why?” he challenged. “Give me one reason why not.”
Just one? I thought, cataloging the talent show, the bathroom stall, the boos, the ugly yellow dress; the look of pity from everyone in the backstage hallway flashed in my head like one of those old flip-books.
But then I thought—Oh yeah. I can boil it down to just one.
“Okay,” I said. “How about this? I’m not good enough.”
“But you are!”
“But I’m not, Seth! I’m really not.”
Seth put his phone back in his pocket, shaking his head. “Fine. Forget it. I was trying to help, but you know what, JT? None of us will ever be able to help you until you decide to let us.”
He was saying, Here, take some help, and I was hearing, You are even failing at being a failure—how sad is that? So I struck back.
“Why don’t you find another charity, then?” I said. “Take this third-hand knockoff of a Cher wig and send it to some starving child in some part of the world where they don’t have wigs!”
Seth headed over to the door. “I’ve got to get going.”
But I didn’t want him to leave like that. He was always trying to build me up, and I hated myself for how much I refused to let him.
“Seth. Wait.”
He stopped, took a deep breath, and walked back over to the counter. He kissed me, sweetly and briefly.
“You know what I want?” he said. “For your sake? I want you to open your eyes. You know I love you, right?”
I nodded.
“And you love me?”
I nodded again.
“Okay. Then I wish that you could embrace all of that. All of you and me.”
“And that means me doing a drag pageant?”
“No. It means allowing yourself to go after what you want, even if you’re afraid. It means embracing yourself enough that you allow me to fully embrace you too.”
I came out from around the counter. There was something too weird about fighting over a counter full of discounted candy bars and air fresheners.
“Hey.” I pulled Seth into me. He smelled so wonderful, so clean, so Seth. “I think you’re incredible.”
Seth looked up at me, his chin resting in that little indention in my chest he always called his spot.
“You’re not getting out of this that easy. I just want you to loosen up. Be who you are, one hundred percent. And see how great you are.”
I thought about how much I beat myself up about my love handles and my saggy butt anytime I saw someone like Channing Tatum on TV. I thought about how uncool I felt all the time, every day, as far back as I could remember. I thought about how every time a hot guy posted a gym selfie on Instagram it made me dizzy with envy. I thought about how much I wondered why Seth would want to be with someone like me. And I thought about how little I actually believed I’d ever do anything but pump gas.
I cleared my throat and swallowed my lack of pride.
“I’ll work on it.”
“You felt comfortable and proud of yourself once. I saw you getting ready for the talent show. You were so … you. Don’t forget that.”
“Yeah, and I went straight from that to worst I’ve ever felt about myself, standing up there in front of everybody, being a loser.”
I could tell by how red his ears were getting that Seth was annoyed. They always did that.
Now they were essentially glowing.
“You aren’t a loser, JT,” he said. “Try to convince yourself of that? Please? For me?”
“Okay,” I said.
But I wasn’t sure I meant it.
I HATE TESTS. I GUESS everyone does. I could never trust a person who actually likes tests. The weird thing is that tests are something you mostly only have to worry about when you’re a kid. After college, tests are basically done. Which is one of the many reasons I think life doesn’t really start until after these horrible teenage years are officially over.
One way for me to avoid Seth’s drag teen proposal was to find another way to afford college. To that end, I decided to take the Kingston National Bank Academic Scholarship exam. It took place early on a Saturday morning, the weirdest time to be inside a school. There were about thirty of us in the classroom taking the exam, which was basically an SAT rip-off. Long essay prompts, multiple choice questions, and, the worst part of all, lots of math problems. One of my biggest goals for when I grew up was to never have to do math problems ever again. I just had to get through these, I told myself, and I could get a scholarship, go off to college, and get a job that didn’t leave me smelling like unleaded gasoline. And when I needed to do math, there would be apps for it.
I’d always wanted to write. I used to write in a journal every night, starting in second grade. The early entries were silly stuff—lists of food I ate that day, a poem about how pooping works, whatever. But they got deeper as I got older, and I wished so badly I still had them. My mother threw them out because they were taking up too much shelf space that she needed for the dolls she collected from the Home Shopping Network. She swore they would someday be worth the millions of dollars that would pay for retirement somewhere exotic, like Tampa.
“Pencils down,” Mrs. Bogart, a birdlike woman who worked in the school’s office, instructed at the end of the exam. “We will announce the three selected students first thing Monday morning.”
The idea of waiting until Monday was nauseating. This was my last shot. The last possible scholarship, really. I’d applied for each one I could find—even one for Native American students, because my great-great-great-grandmother’s ex-husband may or may not have been part Cherokee. My grade point average wasn’t horrible but my math scores barred me from the Hope Scholarship and anything else based on academic merit. Other than that, I had no real skills (i.e., sports) to get me into a school’s good financial graces. To make matters even more frustrating, I’d applied and gotten into a few schools, and some of them were even ones I wanted to go to. However, the situation was simple: Unless my name was one of the three called out on Monday, the next year of my life would be the start of a really depressing future stuck in Clearwater. I’d have to distract myself until Monday. So I did what I always did
when I needed to clear my mind. I went for a long drive with Heather and Seth.
“Doesn’t it feel like they play the same five songs on the radio over and over, all day long?” Heather asked, not so much as a question but as a declaration of our times.
“Do you think it’s because there are only five good songs out at a time?” Seth fired from the backseat, his face lit in the glow of his iPhone like somebody telling a campfire ghost story.
“No,” Heather snapped. “There are way more than five good songs out at a time. But the world is full of basic people like you, who don’t hear about a song unless it’s from somebody with three million followers on Twitter.”
We were taking our usual drive down the coast, along the Gulf of Mexico. It’s pretty, even though no matter how long we drove, we still ended up in Florida. No matter how sick of Florida I got, I could never get sick of the water at night. I suspected this was the case with all oceans. I’d only seen the Atlantic a few times, since it was on the other side of the state, but I still felt there was something magical about bodies of water that large, something that said there’s more than you and me, more than college scholarships, more than grim futures at gas stations. Sometimes I felt like the rest of the world was getting to see the big picture, and that I was the only one missing out. But the ocean? The ocean was something none of us would ever understand, and that was oddly comforting.
“How do you think the exam went?” Heather asked, her Bette Davis eyes on the road.
I had told Seth earlier in the day that I didn’t want to talk about the exam, and he was supposed to have relayed this message to Heather. Odds were good that he had, and that she was blithely ignoring it.
“I’d really rather not—”
Seth joined in, egging me on. “I mean, this is huge for you. This is basically your last shot at a scholarship, at college, at a future. This is major, unless of course you were to consider my idea—”
