Grace Notes, Part 2
By Jason Locke
Grace Notes, Part 2
By Jason Locke
I am glad you’re still here. Come, sit down with me.
We’re in my English class. Spring 1994 is the pre-Axe-Body Spray era, if you’re wondering why you’re not identifying it. I like English class, in general. When I was 14, I was awarded a prize for a short story, and Mrs. Williams has read some of my short stories and laughed out loud at their humor. I wrote a really good fairy tale about a Russian Jewish girl who marries an aristocrat that year.
I should, however, note that I am not the same as I was in the Christmas of 1992. I have retreated into the persona of class clown. I wisecrack, and if I don’t do that, I am asking questions. If not, that, I am steadily plotting a story. I can’t tell you which one. There are so many. I take little sheets of paper and tear them into precise squares for plot and character and rearrange them on the desk before me and let my imagination go wild.
There I am, in the far right-hand corner seat in the front row. It is an accident of the roster that I was assigned this seat, but I like it. Today, Mrs. Williams has assigned an essay: “The weirdest person I know.”
I think about my great-uncle Marty, who still unabashedly wears bell bottoms (with flames at the bottom, no less) to do his grocery shopping, gets his hair permed, and loves opera. He’ll do. He is an odd duck. I don’t have much time to think this through, because it’s timed. I write out my little essay and you can tell how pleased I am with it. I’m even smiling a bit.
What happens next is why we’re here. Be patient. Mrs. Williams is going to ask us to pass the papers to the front and to the side. So in other words, they are all going to the front row, and then each one goes to the person to their left. I’m in that far left corner, so it all goes to me. She’ll pick it up.
I glance down and realize, to my shock, that other people have not written about eccentric relatives. They’re written about me. A boy I’ve known since the second grade says that he wishes he could use me for his private punching bag. People comment on how I sit like a girl, how I’m probably gay. A quiet girl I had no idea hated me says I make her sick and he hopes I’ll go to Hell. I stare at these words.
And then, Mrs. Williams asks for three people to come up and read their essays. All three are about me, with the caution that they cannot use any names. I sit, stony-faced through it. I can feel them staring and snickering at me. Every second that ticks by thunders in my ears. I am aware of that sense of being peculiarly present.
The bell rings and I go to Janet Green, the student counsellor. I am trying to keep myself under control as I tell her what has just happened. She looks at me with mild aggravation. “Well, what did you expect?” she asks.
I never go to see her again.
I walk through the empty halls, and every molecule of air feels like sandpaper against my skin. People talk about feeling raw after trauma, but this is different. This is actual sensation, as if every layer of protection I’ve built up has been stripped away, leaving exposed nerve endings in agony. Each breath of air, the weight of light on my skin makes the muscles and tendons beneath my skin rebel, as if they are trying to ball up and shrink away. My body knows something my mind hasn’t fully processed yet: I have been flayed alive in that classroom, and there is nowhere safe to retreat while my skin grows back.
I know. I know. You’re appalled. I can see it in your face. You want to console me, but that’s not why we’re here. Please. Just wait. I know you have questions. Why did the adults facilitate this? Okay, well, much as I love you, you forget how teenagers swing between the vulnerable and the unlovable so quickly. And it is not their job to love us. In fact, it is not really their job to nurture us, contrary to popular belief. It is their job to get us to limp through standardized testing. That’s it. Everything else, everything that distracts, needs to be brought in hand. Mrs. Williams, likely frustrated, made a decision. And my day of reckoning came in the same way most of them do: brutal, precise, unexpected. Perhaps I should be grateful that it came in this way rather than in another, less controlled way. I can wonder that today, from such a distance. But there is a limit. I can give grace to these adults, but not gratitude.
Fourth period has started, but I don’t go to class. I instead walk through the empty halls to the darkened auditorium. The blood in my veins sings to me, begging for release. I feel it. I know instinctively how I want to cut and where. Two long, clean incisions down, not across, the upper forearm. I don’t have anything to do it with.
I don’t do it. Don’t worry. I don’t even cry, because they’ll be looking for my puffy face and red-rimmed eyes. I sit in silence with my pain, spending lunch and the entire class period in silence in that darkened room. In fifth period, I’m back to normal. The next day, I come back to class with a new essay written, and I ask Mrs. Williams to read it. She says yes. I’ve changed it. I am no longer interested in the peccadillos of my aged relative. Instead, I start with the lines, The weirdest person I know is me. I ask the class what harm I have done to them by my existence and challenge them to create tolerance. Mrs. Williams stops me mid-sentence. “You’re attacking the class.”
“But they attacked me!”
“There were no names.”
I storm out of the class. It’s the only time I’ll ever do it in my life.
You know, here’s the thing. I wasn’t sure myself yet that I was gay. In fact, had other people not been so insistent on it, and equally vocal that it placed me at the bottom of the social ladder, I might have come to grips with it sooner. But the truth is that I would have sold my soul not to be at that time. There was nothing good or kind that I could see on m future. And what I hated the most, when I was honest with myself, was that other people took that away from me—the chance to figure myself out and come to terms in my own time. And that I had to say that all of those horrible people were right. It was as if coming out, even to myself, was letting my abusers win. Of all the lies we tell, the ones we tell to ourselves are the most harmful.
In sixth period, a week or two later, Mrs. Britt asks if people would like to move around their seats. The two people on either side of me are the only people that raise their hands. It doesn’t matter that I’ve stopped making jokes, that I have learnt my lesson, that I have made myself smaller and quieter. No amount of good behavior can protect me. Mrs. Britt looks pained, because she genuinely likes me, but, as someone else mutters, he brings it on himself. I don’t know who. I don’t let my gaze leave the textbook. I’m fairly certain, now that I’m thinking on it, that Mrs. Britt said a name sharply, but it doesn’t register. I am alone with the silence. There’s always next year, and the year after.
Just a little bit more. Can you stay with me?
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Time and Head Space When I was teaching full-time, I found it difficult to fit in any writing. It’s definitely not a nine-to-three job! My evenings and weekends were taken up by planning, preparing and assessing, as well as various administrative tasks. Not to mention the demands of family and general life. However, switching to…
“He’s gonna stuff me.” “Don’t talk like that!” Collo grabbed my arms. “He’s just a twinkling fairy!” “Yeah, but look at the size of him!” “Don’t think like that! You can beat him… you’re representing ‘B’ troop. Remember your training! Don’t let him catch you… keep moving… you’re faster than he is.” “Yeah, but he…
In that heady, comforting, all-encompassing safety-net that is the deep love forged by a long life together, my soul-mate and I tried to find ‘our song’. Amongst all the haunting melodies and time-tested lyrics, surely we could find a single song that expressed the depths of our feelings for each other? He suggested some, I…
Who the hell do you think you are? I once heard that authors alternate between two perceptions of their work-in-progress. One is: ‘This is amazing! I’m a bloody genius!’ The other is: ‘This is the worst thing ever written! Ever! In the whole history of story!’ The truth, of course, is that it’s usually somewhere…
The International Children Books Illustration Exhibition opens its doors for six weeks every year at Sarmede, my home town, gathering the usual crowd of fans and supporters from various parts of the country. The Exhibition used to be held in the Town Hall of the village which has permanent mural illustrations done by the artists…
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. That opening line is indelibly inked in my memory. Other fictional characters captured my childhood imagination before the March sisters: Anne of Green Gables, Black Beauty, Big Red. All great stories for children. But ‘Little Women’, Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age story set…
The Brother has a view on modern verbiage ++ Now, c’mere ’til I tell you this. I’m all ears. What is it? The brother has barred himself from watching television above in the digs. Excuse me? Barred himself for the foreseeable future on account of him having been roaring at the TV in the residents’…
We All Have Our Own Opinions Of course we do! Life would be very boring if we didn’t. But there are elements to story that seem to be essential and universal. I’ve listed some below but it’s not exhaustive and I’m interested to hear other ideas. Character I often hear authors talk about the…
Say What? Writing a novel with more than one point-of-view can be tricky. How can you juggle different personalities and motivations – and somehow use them to tell a balanced, coherent and compelling story? How can you ensure that each character has their own ‘voice’ (something that I find extremely difficult to achieve!)? But does…
There’s something about cats. Yes, in January I burst my eardrum trying to cure the ear mite infection I caught from our two. They wont be sleeping on the bed pillows after that. But I mean more. The truth encapsulated in this post from Jennifer Adcock, writer. “You know who doesn’t get impostor…
Sorry! I’ve been a tad disingenuous with this title because I’m not referring to the act of writing on behalf of others, but rather the literal act of writing about ghosts! Trick, or treat? Of course, there are many ghost stories, especially in the horror genre, but I’ve selected a few from other genres to…
The last few weeks, I have been replaying a video game from my distant past. An old favourite by the name of Final Fantasy VII. I used to play this game almost once a year; I kept going back to it again and again throughout my childhood and often used to inform my imaginative play…
“Do you still see the Bulgarian?” The question tumbled out. “Yes.” Her reply was instant, instinctive, intuitive. “His name is Krasimir.” “Sorry.” He stuttered his response. “I didn’t mean to pry… just a silly question. None of my business. Sorry.” “It’s OK.” She attempted to heal. “I have no problem with your question. It’s not…
Over achievers rarely herald from untroubled upbringings. Being born to a mother with low confidence in her own abilities wouldn’t have been so bad, had she managed an ounce of confidence in her own children. Such is life. The poor woman was bullied by her father. He, in turn, had been emotionally wrecked by the…
Ciao. Getting ready for our two-week trip to Northern Italy. Northern Italy you say. What about the rest of Italy? Well, in due course. A friend of mine recently went to Italy and did the typical, American 9 day, 10 night tour of Italy on a bus. “Bring down your luggage and be on the…
“Aren’t you supposed to be writing?” I shove the nagging question away. The computer will still be there when I return to it, cursor blinking patiently at the top of a blank page. It is Thursday, one of my two weekdays designated for writing. I am cradling a cup of coffee and standing in the…
An Issue of Trust I’ll admit, novels with an unreliable narrator are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love them. You start off thinking the character is taking us on a believable journey and that we can trust their telling of the events, then unease creeps in. We start asking questions. We wonder where…
Mention the word Trope to us writers and we’ll recoil. Add the word Cliche and you’ll see us running for the hills. These two five-letter words are not what any of us want in our wonderful, new, original, works, right? But consider this: things only become tropes when they are overused, and they only become…
Save the Cat? My three psychological novels have unlikeable point-of-view characters. Without balance, they can appear two-dimensional – and I’ve discovered that achieving that balance is rather tricky! What do I mean by balance? I suppose I’m talking in terms of the reader’s perception. Is the character’s dark side countered by a bit of light,…
I am made of regret, but not of sadness. During my brief and somewhat misguided youth, I spent my money and spoke my mind. I moved countries and continents. I learned languages, had adventures, and spent my life coloring outside the lines. I don’t recommend it unless you want to come back to where you…
A writer friend of mine and I have exchanged writerly encouragement to each other for many years. The most frequent reminder we bounce back and forth is that writing is really hard. We take baffling things in our life, in society, in the world, often stuff that strike us as chaotic, and we try to…
Dear Grandpoppypops Wish you were here? Look at the size of the stamps now! So much larger than the penny black you showed me from your visit. Not much has changed so far as I can see in human structure, society is still set on exploiting other sections of itself. Your industrial revolution really set…
Flann O’Brien’s much-loved character – The Brother – transported to the 21st century. What would he make of contemporary trends and fads? This episode imagines his reaction to Molecular Gastronomy, Nouvelle Cuisine, and the tampering of a subject very close to his heart. ****************** Now the brother has a thing or two to say on…
This is my first post on this forum, so I wanted to do something short and light. What types of distractions interrupt you when you’re hammering away at your keyboard? The phone rings? Your significant other shouts at you from the other side of the house? Your cat comes in and plops down onto your…
Go beyond the usual guide book notes of the Trevi Fountain and savour its unexpected pleasures.
PART ONE Walk through the heart of Rome and you will be lured in one direction and then another as instantaneously as a magnet does with a piece of iron… The Pantheon will attract you with its metaphysical force of the gods, the Foro Imperiale with its magnitude of power… while the Fountain of Trevi…
My first day as a professional writer, I lifted a police report from the pile at the Coffeyville station and read “Murder.” Now, this was a small town, and I was pretty sure this sort of thing was a rarity. I wasn’t sure there had been much in the way of this most heinous of…
First Things First I’ve never understood people who have a favourite song, book or film. Surely your choice depends on your mood. It’s the same with genre. Maybe today I fancy reading something light-hearted and fun. Tomorrow I might want to feel a shiver run down my spine. The next day I might be enticed…
Lucky seven they say, but the morning I had to load that many strong-minded mustangs onto a lorry at the top of the Swiss Alps with a 4am deadline, it seemed a doomed number. Especially when lorry drivers with ferry schedules and EU regulations have famously short fuses. They have been known to…
Hands up anyone who’s had a bit of writer’s block? Looking around I can see that’s pretty much all of us, right? Even you at the back, hiding behind your laptop screen, pretending you’re doing research into character types, whilst actually playing Royal Match and posting videos of your cat. Why do we have such…
I’m delighted to give you an early peek into this year’s Litopia Book Club selections, together with relevant purchase links. It’s a particularly strong and carefully-selected list, and as you’ll know if you’ve attended one of Jason’s riotous Zoom sessions, a good time can be guaranteed for all! For further information and exact dates, please…
Selling highly-priced, poor-value seminars and writing courses to aspiring authors isn’t just unethical – it’s also damaging to the publishing industry, says Litopia’s Peter Cox in this article for “The Bookseller” That old scoundrel Sam Brannan would have felt completely at home in today’s publishing business. Sam, you may recall, was the original promoter of…
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