Not My Bag

When I was younger, I guess it must have been one of the primary school years... late, tho, almost secondary, I had an experience. I was not one of the tough kids in school. In fact, it must be known, I was something of a fop. I didn't have a lot growing up, in terms of possessions, but I made do. I took my father's old trouser pants, had no talent to make a stitch (still don't) so used safety pins to mend them so I wouldn't trip over them. I took a horrifying pair of scissors to my long shirts, tucking the tattered pieces into my pants (for both adding thickness so the pants wouldn't slide as much and also in case I ever grew taller and needed the shirts to be proper length again; it turns out, yes, I would in fact grow taller). I had a hat. I always had a hat. This was before I found lipstick, or eyeliner. But this was a time when I knew girls. I was just fascinated by them.

A lot of boys were threatened by that. They figured some toss of a boy that had it in with the girls must be up to something, and since they couldn't get close to girls (or didn't want to--this was adolescence after all), I was labeled early on as a sissy or a queerie. Fine as that was, it did put a cramp into my social life, and I began to withdraw a lot from the children at school, preferring instead to primp and puff my myself at a mirror, telling stories of enormous levity to myself, and thinking all along, someday I would fit in because I would discover something that they all would want to emulate.

The girls turned on me at some point. One little bitch in particular was named Gheraldine. She was a destestable whore of Babylonian proportions. She also was quite rich. Her father owned all the bird seed in town or something. We had a lot of birds locally, evidently.

So during school, we were all lined up for something--an assembly, a talent show, a bathroom break, who knows--and on the stairs I was stuck behind ghoulish Gheraldine in her designer heels of death (she was 13, ladies and gentlemen). She caught my eye. My eye was on her black, sequined handbag. I was just gazing into nothingness, the specter of shiny black shinyness of nothing. She chirped, "Oh, do you like it? My bag? Do want it?"

I ached. No. I did not want her fucking bag. I wanted to go home, and crawl under rocks and pretend that I was a spacedragon that was misunderstood by the world but was truly a kind and big hearted friend to humanity. I shook my head. No. I did not want her bag.

She scoffed, laughed, and twirled her hair with her free fingers. She used her other hand to dangle the purse as if to imply I was a mutt hungry for a scrap of meat. When her surrounding party failed to hear her delicate taunts, she made sure her voice carried better for a second reading.

I truly only have had a few moments of malice. But I didn't hit her.

Now I think. Maybe she wasn't such a callous, heartless whore of a human being with a knock-off bag that shone like the inky black of her soul. Maybe she was privately, secretly, and with a true humanitarian interest, looking to offer assistance with a young man cluttered with sexual identity issues. Maybe she thought, "You there, boy, take the purse. Let it be your beacon in this unforgiving world. It's yours. This is my gift to you."

And while I never took the purse, and instead acknowledged her open palm as a slap in the face, maybe she did mean kindness. Years later I would assume my true intentions on my I rejected the purse. It was not fear of being labeled a sissy. It was not that at age 9 or 11, I was shamed for speaking in a higher voice than the boys and a few of the girls. It was not even a pious disregard for the nonsensical beings who roared fits of laughter at the girlyboys they didn't "get."

Truly, perhaps it was that I had the foresight to realize, the bag was pretty and all, but I didn't have any shoes that would go with it.

I'm sure that I would've come up with a witty retort or such had I not instead taken her beloved bespangled purse from her, jammed my unusually tall boot heel upon it, and kicked it clear across the stairs and into a trash receptacle.

Wisdom that I would deem later as true, would dictate that I should have really done both.