I have done a great many bad things in my life, yet some of them I believe are so terrible that they sting with incredible regret, and strike me dumb with shame, whenever I am compelled to think of them.
Once, when I was about 9, which is a terrible age, I knew a boy in my school named Tobias. Tobias was some years older than me, possibly 11, and he was a little different. He wore a corduroy blazer with suede patches on the elbows over a white Fruit of the Loom undershirt, and he swung his arms heavily around himself as he walked. The older girls, who I suspected had all gotten their period and who wore lots of blue eyeliner on the inner rims of their lower eyelids and glossy layers of Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers lipgloss, hung onto his swinging arms and whispered Love’s Baby Soft secrets into his gay child’s ears.
The older boys, who feared Tobias, for he had influence over all the older girls they’d hoped to gain favor with, talked angrily behind his back. Slamming their lockers, they’d say “Fuckin’ faggot! That fuckin’ faggot Tobias!†before snorting heroic gobs of mucus up into their sinuses and spitting into the urinals. Then there was usually a hearty round of armpit farts before the bell would send them all to class. I could hear them clearly from the vents in the girl’s bathroom, where I sat in a stall and hid from the rest of fourth grade.
I remember being hated by most of the school, but it somehow seemed to me that Tobias was hated more. Sure, the older girls were crazy about him, but the boys’ deep resentment of him certainly tipped the scales in his direction. Tobias started to make me mad. How free he was! To swing his arms around so defiantly as he stalked the halls of the middle school we grew to hate more and more every day. Who was he anyway, with this corduroy blazer with the suede patches and white Fruit of the Loom undershirt, hanging upside-down from the jungle gym like a homosexual vampire bat?
One day, I couldn’t take the arm-swinging anymore, and as Tobias swung his arms by me, I said, “Fucking Faggot!†He turned around to face me, and his arms stood still next to his body. The look in his eyes startled me, because there I could see something had broken. It was like watching a light bulb burn out. Normal, then bright blazing hot, then purple for a split second, then totally dark. I had hurt him, without even knowing that I could do such a thing. I was immediately sorry.
I saw Tobias later at recess, his face buried in the lap of an older girl as she brushed his hair and glared at me. I saw Tobias many times after that day, but he refused to see me. I constantly watched him for an opportunity to approach, to apologize, to say I didn’t even know what a faggot was, to say that they hated me too, but he never gave me one. If I had been braver then, I wouldn’t have needed the invitation. It wasn’t like I deserved one. But I wasn’t a courageous child, even though I longed to be.
Tobias went off to high school, and I saw him there, no longer in the corduroy. He was taller, and replaced the blazer with a sweater tied cavalierly onto his shoulders. He saw me in the hallway, and froze – I was afraid. I wanted to say sorry, a million sorrys – so many things, but he stopped me, with a smile. “Hey -,†he said. “Hey-,“ I replied. He opened his mouth to say something else, but just then, a handsome boy with a Mohawk came over and tapped him on his swinging arm. Tobias turned to leave with the boy, and then looked back at me, and nodded before he walked away.