Ginger Kid

by Steve Hofstetter

  “Get him to the nurse’s office!” the sub bellowed, knowing that children with broken noses have a tendency to ruin performance reviews. If this got out, he may never be allowed to pretend to teach again—he’d be left drawing hand turkeys all by himself.

  I didn’t even know there was a nurse’s office, but one of the other students led me there as I left a Hansel and Gretel–esque blood trail behind me in the hallway.

  As awful as the hallway looked (one teacher described it as a “war zone”), my nose wasn’t as bad as I thought. Nurse Marion calmly stopped the bleeding and determined that my nose was not broken. And then, instead of sending me to my next class, Nurse Marion asked if I wanted to lie down. After all, I’d had a tough day, and I could use some time to recover.

  Lie down? Instead of going to class? Absolutely. I dare you to find one high school student who would answer that question differently. I was led into a room with three cots, chose one, shut the lights off, and took a nap. My god, it was glorious. Sleeping in school—I should have thought of this years ago.

  Nurse Marion was a kind woman in her forties. At least, I think she was in her forties. When you’re fourteen, everyone older than twenty-five seems like they’re in their forties. But no matter how old she was, Nurse Marion was kind. She was calm and spoke in a quiet, measured manner, and she made me feel like nothing else could hurt me. The nurse’s office was a place to heal—physically and emotionally.

  The “incident of my not-quite-broken nose” was the first time I went to the nurse’s office, but it would not be the last. I didn’t get slapped in the face again, at least not physically. But I did fall.

  Theo still hadn’t physically hurt me, but one day Tommy did. During a class period while we waited for our teacher to arrive, Tommy and Theo were being particularly vicious. Tommy was calling my red hair gay over and over, because he was that sort of intelligent, forward-thinking gentleman. And Theo was balling up his fist and glaring at me, as if he was going to start wailing on me in the middle of social studies.

  Tommy affixed a GAY note to my back, which I removed, and I walked to the trash with the intention of throwing it away. That walk would give me twenty seconds away from the bad cop twins and get me that much closer to the teacher arriving and Tommy and Theo having to shut up for a blissful forty minutes.

  I was sitting back down when Tommy yanked my chair out from under me. As I fell, everyone laughed. When they heard my head crack against the seat, they stopped laughing. Except for Tommy and Theo, who probably high-fived. They had the teamwork to make their dreams work.

  I lay there, dazed. My fall sounded worse than it felt, and I mainly stayed down because if I got up, Tommy and Theo would start in on me again. When the teacher came in, he demanded to know what had happened.

  “Steve fell and hit his head,” I heard an anonymous girl say. She wasn’t wrong, but that was like summarizing a fairy tale by saying, “Hansel and Gretel went for a walk, then made lunch.” Not really the most important details of the story.

  That weak summation of events led my teacher to send me to the nurse’s office, which was way better than a twenty-second walk to the trash can. I was rid of Tommy and Theo for an entire class period as Nurse Marion made sure the bump on my head was just a bump on my head.

  Thus began a tradition for me. When the bullying got too difficult, I’d fake illness and head over to Nurse Marion. She’d always have hot tea for my throat or a quiet cot for a nap or whatever I needed for whatever I was faking that day. I doubt that Nurse Marion believed I was really sick that often; more likely she saw through my shenanigans and was giving me a break.

  Disappearing into the nurse’s office was an extension of what I’d done since I was a kid; I faked being sick a few times a year in grade school, too. When the day was too nice to spend indoors, or I felt like sleeping longer, or I wanted to play atop a snow-covered car, I worked on my acting chops and convinced my mother that school just wasn’t the best idea for me that day. Sometimes I even convinced myself I was sick, only to miraculously recover by around two P.M. I must have had the eight-hour flu.

  At Hunter, the nurse’s office became my sanctuary. The school kept track of absences, but they did not keep track of how many periods one student skipped to get some respite from bullies. All I had to do to avoid getting caught was alternate which periods I skipped. As long as I kept rotating classes, I could go to the nurse’s office one class period a week, and no teacher would ever get suspicious. This was way better than taking full days off from school. These were like mini vacations that no one knew about—they were things to look forward to.

  For most people, the idea of a school-issued cot in a room with fluorescent lights left on does not sound like a vacation. But when your alternative is Tommy and Theo, Nurse Marion’s sounds like a beach cabana in the Bahamas.

  When I was in the nurse’s office, there were no puerile signs on my back or hypothetical fists coming at me. There was tea and sleep and, most importantly, quiet.

  Spending that much time in the nurse’s office was as good of an idea as unscrewing the check engine light bulb in your car. It helped in the short term but was extremely dangerous in the long run.

  I was missing class, which made my grades slip. The number of Ds I got with messages that said something like try harder increased. I went from occasionally being unprepared to being at risk of failing some of my classes.

  Meanwhile, and much worse, I was actually getting sick.

  It wasn’t until many years later that I learned I’d developed an eating disorder. I have what is known as eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), because the majority of the medical community has yet to get past anorexia and bulimia. And before you say, But Steve, you look great!, my EDNOS has nothing to do with how I look; my EDNOS is about how I feel. Also, thank you for saying I look great.

  I wanted to buy some time away from my bullies. Years of constantly pretending I was sick manifested itself in the ability to throw up on cue. I willed myself to actually be sick. Something in my head snapped, and I started associating throwing up with feeling better. Whenever I was stressed, nervous, or anything else that can cause the average person a bit of nausea, I’d begin to believe I was sick and consequently throw up. It’s quite a skill, though one that is impossible to monetize. What a horrible carnival act.

  For almost a decade, I did not know what was wrong with me. I saw specialists, went to hospitals, and took tests with cameras shoved down my throat all because I couldn’t conceive that this was a mental problem. I wanted there to be a physical reason this was happening beyond my control. I didn’t want to admit that this was a setback of my own creation.

  Finally a friend who’d studied in the field of eating disorders woke me up to what was happening. At first I rejected the premise—how could I have an eating disorder? I’d seen very special episodes of various sitcoms and none of them applied to me. I’m a man. According to sitcom and after-school-special writers, men don’t have eating disorders. But the more I thought about it, did the research, and spoke to professionals, the more my friend’s diagnosis made sense. And the more I realized I was being ridiculous. Of course men can have eating disorders. I was one of them.

  I have been fighting against this disorder ever since. Eating disorders are like your first love: Despite how sick they make you, you’re never truly over them. An eating disorder is a lifetime battle; you just learn to defeat it more often than it defeats you.

  I have my methods of handling things—eating healthy and at reasonable hours, getting a decent amount of sleep, and attacking stress with a que será, será attitude. But I still fight the battle a few times a year. My EDNOS typically comes on late at night, when I’m in the least control of my thoughts. If I can just get to sleep, I am always better in the morning. But getting to sleep without giving in—sometimes that can be more difficult than I can ever explain to someone who hasn’t fought a similar battle. Explaining how EDNOS works to someone who has
never experienced it is more difficult than explaining every Game of Thrones character to someone who has never seen the show.

  My EDNOS began because I was learning to run from my problems instead of learning how to face them. Leaving for an hour wasn’t helping me get bullied any less. The strides I’d made in self-confidence when I stood up to Alexa had disappeared. People like Theo and Tommy were making my life harder. But I was making it worse.

  This was more than flinching. I’d unknowingly become my own bully.

  THE WIND IS GONE

  My bullies had another thing in common—they were part of a group at Hunter nicknamed The Clique. Here’s a rule: Any time a group nicknames themselves, it’s a pretty good idea to stay away from that group.

  We’ve all known one kid who returned from summer break and told everyone to call them something like A-Dawg. Sure, Alfred. We’ll call you SOMETHING that starts with A.

  Hell, we had trouble when Ricky abruptly told us to call him Rick. So how is it that a group gets to nickname themselves? It works because there’s power in numbers, especially when the rest of us are scared of those numbers.

  The Clique was made up of students who had come up through the elementary school together. These kids had eight years to bond before they met any of the rest of us. So when we arrived at school and a close-knit group of twenty confident (and mostly attractive) strangers told us that they were called The Clique, no one questioned them.

  As the years passed, The Clique would absorb more members, like the poisonous gas cloud that it was. One of these new members was Scarlet Daly.

  Scarlet Daly quickly became the Regina George of The Clique. She was a classic Mean Girl—extremely beautiful on the outside and extremely cruel on the inside.

  Long after I had graduated from Hunter, I toured a lion’s enclosure, where I was about ten feet from a lion with nothing between us but my clothes and fear pee. That lion reminded me of Scarlet Daly. Majestic, beautiful, lacking interest in me, and capable of tearing me to shreds.

  If you need any more explanation as to the type of person Scarlet was, she ended up marrying Tommy Tillet.

  Stephanie Spencer was another member of The Clique, but she wasn’t like the rest of them. She seemed kind and genuine and even smiled at me (or she was already smiling while I happened to look in her direction). I never spoke to her—but her smile was enough for me to decide I liked her.

  I did everything I could to hide my crush: staring at Stephanie constantly, making sure to sit as close to her as possible, and instantly and obviously changing the subject whenever Stephanie’s name was mentioned. The only way anyone could possibly tell that I had a crush on Stephanie was if they had eyes or ears or a basic understanding of human behavior.

  When the rumors started, I denied them with the amount of defensiveness that equates to admitting something. I denied it so hard that if I’d said, “Yes, I am madly in love with Stephanie Spencer,” fewer people would have thought I had feelings for her.

  I didn’t want it to get back to Stephanie that I liked her—a guy like me wasn’t going to get a girl like her. Her knowing I liked her would accomplish nothing other than her sitting farther away from me in class and growing stingier with her smiles. I had nothing to gain and the bright spot in my morning to lose.

  The most important thing was to prevent the news of my crush from getting back to Scarlet. Letting Scarlet know that I liked one of the members of her pride would be like walking toward the lion waving my arms, covered in zebra blood, and also being a zebra.

  Then one day, it happened. The Steve-likes-Stephanie rumor was getting top billing in my high school hallway. I knew it was temporary; rumor mills never stay on the same subject for more than two or three days. All I really needed to do was stall until a new rumor came out that would bury mine. Maybe a teacher would make out with a student or the school would close due to an E. coli outbreak or World War III would start. Or, more likely, someone else’s crush would become newer, juicier gossip. I just had to avoid the lion until then. But life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.

  Appropriately, it was during lunch when Scarlet confronted me in the hall. She was hungry for zebra, and it was feeding time.

  “Steve, you need to stop pestering Stephanie,” Scarlet said to me as if quietly walking away when Stephanie smiled at me was somehow pestering her.

  At least she didn’t call me Steven.

  “You need to take your gross red self and stick to playing chess with your nerdy friends.”

  That’s where Scarlet was wrong. I didn’t play chess or have friends.

  I didn’t get the chance to speak during Scarlet’s tirade. She went on ad nauseam about how ridiculous I was for thinking I had a chance with Stephanie. After all, a guy like me wasn’t going to get a girl like her. Scarlet was right about that part, but there was no need to say it. Ad nauseam is the correct expression, because the whole thing made me want to go to the nurse’s office.

  I knew I didn’t have a chance with Stephanie—I already told you that a page ago. But I still enjoyed Stephanie’s smile and wanted to sit near her. And as long as I kept it to myself, my crush was none of Scarlet’s business. I wasn’t following Stephanie between classes or passing her unwanted love notes. I wasn’t even really sitting near Stephanie—I always sat a few desks away. I was simply an unpopular boy who had the audacity to exist near a popular girl.

  Finally, Scarlet finished telling me how worthless I was, and it was my turn to respond. By this time, dozens of my classmates had gathered around to watch. I’m sure some felt bad for me. I’m sure some were there to cheer her on. Most were likely somewhere in between. But I am definitely sure that most were watching in the way that, when we stumble on a nature documentary, it’s hard to stop watching until after the zebra is dead.

  Then I saw one face in the crowd that stood out. It was Stephanie—standing rank and file behind Scarlet.

  Had Stephanie put Scarlet up to this? Did Stephanie know this would happen? Was she enjoying watching me get verbally eviscerated? This was the first time I wasn’t happy to see Stephanie’s smile. And then it hit me. I knew exactly what my response would be. And it would be glorious.

  I believe that everyone’s mind is like a computer, and each of us has a varied combination of storage and processing speed. My propensity for analogies like this are one of the reasons a guy like me couldn’t get a girl like Stephanie.

  The reason I have always been fast on my feet is because my mind-computer can access files very quickly. Often my files aren’t as in-depth as someone else’s, and I certainly don’t have more of them. But I can get to each one very rapidly. The problem was that, when I was fourteen, I had very few files that covered social interaction. Sure, I had files on the New York Mets and babysitting and the old movies my parents let me watch. I had the ability to be quick but nothing relevant to say. Imagine what Sherlock Holmes’s power of deductive reasoning would look like if he didn’t have any relevant knowledge to draw from.

  I noticed the scratch on the left side of your glasses and the scuff on the same side of your boots. It’s clear that you have scuffed your boot and scratched your glasses.

  Brilliant deduction, Holmes.

  I was standing there in that hallway faced with my personal Regina George, in front of a growing percentage of my high school student body, and I was given a moment to come back at her. With one perfect response, I could shift the balance of power forever. If I could outsmart and outwit Scarlet, a guy like me could get a girl like Stephanie. Probably not Stephanie herself, since she might have been in on this, but someone else. This wasn’t a physical fight—this was a battle of wits, the thing in the world that I am best at. I just needed the perfect comeback, and I needed it quickly. I was so sure I had it.

  Scarlet had just spent the better part of five minutes reminding me of the pecking order and putting me in my place in front of an eager crowd. She expected me to lay down and take the beating. To have no answer
other than a sheepish, “Yes, ma’am.” To cower before this queen of the hallway jungle. But Scarlet didn’t count on my ability to think on my feet. It was my turn to flip the food chain on its head.

  “Frankly, Scarlet,” I said, followed by an exaggerated pause to make my knock-out blow land even harder, “I don’t give a damn.”

  I expected a chorus of oooooohs, a round of high fives, and for various people to inform Scarlet that she had, in fact, been served. It didn’t quite go that way. The oooooohs were replaced by stunned silence. The round of high fives were replaced by confused looks. And no one outside the cafeteria was being served. As it turns out, most teenagers aren’t impressed by a good Gone with the Wind reference.

  Scarlet broke the silence by laughing—not with what I said, but at it. The crowd disbursed, having seen the devouring they came to see. Scarlet had been the mean girl they all assumed she was, and I’d been the nerd they assumed I was. The food chain had not been altered. The red-headed zebra carcass lay before them, unable to change his stripes.

  I stopped trying to sit near Stephanie after that. And I don’t know whether or not she kept smiling, because I refused to make eye contact. I just went about my day, quietly grazing far from the lions, thankful that I wasn’t swallowed whole. I may have been embarrassed in the hallway, but it could have been much worse. They could have given me a nickname.

  I don’t think I could have faced high school being called Vivien Leigh.

  HUMBUCKERS AND WAWA PEDALS

  I have always been very musically inclined. I could read sheet music from a young age, and at four, my mother caught me playing a concerto on her piano.

  All of that is a lie. I am a musical idiot, and sheet music looks like Braille to me. When I was four, my mother caught me damaging her piano by hitting it repeatedly with my brother’s flute. I don’t even know if concertos are played on pianos. Or with flutes.