First day of Fall semester 2022
I don’t like when people call our town racist. I mean it’s only natural that we whites call the shots since we are the majority, 51% of the population, with the rest more or less evenly divided between beaners and nig… blacks. I almost forgot that you can’t use the N word unless you’re one. It’s not like we’ve had any cross burnings in years. We even have … blacks on our high school football and basketball teams. You know, they’re like genetically predisposed for that. Not any beaners though, they are pathetically useless both in sports and academically. Excepting Pablo of course. With a pitcher like that they couldn’t keep him off the team. Not that the baseball team is of any importance anyway. The few chinks, like Sissy, are terrible gunners and of no consequence socially. Sissy is not really her real name but who can pronounce that?

The school is run by the star athletes, especially the football players, and the most pretty and popular (white) girls (well, one in particular), just as it should be in an all-American high school. Girl athletes? You must be joking. There are a few but can you really call them girls? Definitely not ladies anyway. Cheerleading is another matter. Cheerleaders are traditional.

Of course, there are no gays in a moral town like ours. “Transgender” eeeeuuuuh. Don’t even think about such abominations.

Well, that’s what I thought until I started my junior year today. There was a new boy in school. Athletic body, very handsome, a smile to die for, socially skilled, smart, extremely self-confident … and wearing a skirt.

John, the quarterback, asked him out in a taunting way. What John hadn’t expected was for the new kid to accept. You should have seen how John blushed. However, he is not one to ever back down so he’s picking up the new kid, Martin, tonight at seven.

One year later, first day of Fall semester 2023
How empty it feels that Martin has left us. I really miss him but I’m determined to continue his good work and so are my good friends. Friends. That’s one of the many, many things I have to thank Martin for. I never had any friends before he started in our school, only hangers-on.

Just imagine that it all started with that date Martin had with the QB. Well, it wasn’t obvious at first but I later found out that Martin discovered that John was in the closet. A closet Progressive. John was willing to carry the ball as long as there was someone to run interference. And Martin sure ran interference. He relentlessly undermined the existing power structure. For example he gently and without any apparent malice gave, Cheryl, the reigning alpha bitch, make-up tips. Good ones. He also helpfully gave her fashion tips (extremely good ones that Cheryl needed but didn’t know she needed) and so on. She was furious but there was little she could do except being a bitch. That was not a tactic that was useful against Martin. She couldn’t even turn him down when he asked her out. That just wasn’t done. It had begun with John and EVERY player on the football team. Then it had become the “thing to do”. Of course, part of the reason was that Martin was the perfect date for girls AND boys. He could be manly and attentive and girly and attentive depending on who he was dating. No matter how much that person tried to sabotage the date they always wound up with a happy memory. I know, I had my date with him. It was impossible not to succumb to his charm.

Part of his magic was that you never knew where you had him. One day he could come dressed in jeans, the next in a very pretty dress, the next in a suit and tie … Always in the very best taste and worn with panache. Even the very short skirts. Once it was so short he was sent home to change. Still, it was in very good taste. Charismatic, mysterious, urbane (he had lived in New York, Paris, Tokyo, LA …) we all fell under his spell.

He encouraged (that is, ruthlessly pushed) those who tried to hide because they were too scared to show themselves. It all started with Juanita. A terribly shy girl. By nature and because she was a Latina in a not very welcoming environment. As it turned out she is a stunning beauty and much smarter than she had let on before. At the start of the Spring semester, she was admitted to the cheerleading squad. She was only the first of many he helped stopping hiding. Nerds, Blacks and Latinos stopped skulking around afraid of being noticed by the bullies. I was one of those bullies. I never did anything physical but I had the fastest and most deadly tongue in school. We were all gently and efficiently neutralized. The natural dominance of whites in school was more and more diluted. The collapse of the alpha bitch queen bee’s clique was only a first sign.

Another way he undermined the established order was that he got the students interested in other sports than basketball and football. Aided and abetted by John. During the year especially the baseball team improved dramatically. The status of those sports increased, as did girls’ athletics. And weirdest of all: He got us interested in LEARNING. Something we had left to the Asian-Americans before. That is the two Chinese-Americans and one each of Vietnamese-American and Japanese-American.

Looking back I still can’t understand how he could do all that even with the enthusiastic help of John, the QB cum student president who built up new and lasting structures in the shadow of Martin.

In particular I can’t understand how Marting managed to help me the way he did. Or even why he wanted to. At the time I was a truly despicable person and what was even worse was that I knew it and hadn’t done anything about it. I had been too afraid. Oh, I had hidden it well but during that date with Martin I blabbed. I had expected to have a normal date but somehow we had started to TALK. I mean really talk about deeper issues. And then I spilled it all. That was the beginning of truly grueling period for me.

I too had on purpose “dumbed down”. That had to be rectified. I only had less than two years to do that. Martin got Cixi to tutor me. Now I’m on the honors roll, just.

I had also slipped and told Martin about my love for baseball. Of course I had never let anyone in school know about that but I spent every summer with my cousins playing baseball. Martin got Pablo to coach me. The first time Pablo almost ran off in as soon as he saw who he was going to coach. He was not going to coach me, that was an affront to humanity. Martin persuaded him to go through with just one session. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. While Pablo is a great pitcher he’s not a very good at batting. Another thing he IS great at is coaching. He saw talent in me. I had a good basis that he refined. I never was a strong batter. I never manage to hit the ball out to the fence. On the other hand, with Pablo’s help, I ALWAYS hit when I swing no matter the junk the pitcher puts on the ball (and Pablo can pitch them almost as bad as a Major League pitcher). And I can, mostly, make them go where I want them to. Now I’m going in as a pinch hitter when the bases are loaded. That leaves me time to identify the weakest outfielder in the opposing team and direct the ball in that direction, or rather a few steps behind him, no matter whether in the left or right field.

In Spring I was included on the school team, as were several others. Most of us wouldn’t even have been considered B.M (before Martin). It worked out well once teammate Archie stopped being a stupid idiot about it.

You might have noticed that Martin was shameless in using others to help him help others. He persuaded Juanita to date Bill, the fullback, for some time while he himself dated DaShawn, the halfback. Or rather they double dated. Until Bill and DaShawn finally came out as a couple.

This year the school is completely different from last. A much better place thanks to Martin. I’m captain of the baseball team. Pablo is still the MVP but is more than happy to leave the captaincy to me. Either of us being captain of the baseball team would have been unimaginable B.M. The head cheerleader, and my girlfriend, Juanita is considered to be a shoo-in for Prom Queen, something equally unimaginable B.M. There is even talk of me as Prom King. A year ago, being on that podium was my ambition and my imagined right. Now I’m inclined to refuse any nomination. Seeing Juanita up there is enough for me.

Talking about the baseball team there are two girls on the team now, one of them black, since there still is no girls’ team in school. Did I say two? I meant three since Archie came back after summer as Arabella. And that was without any intervention from Martin.

Martin helped me with so many things that I got to know him better than anyone else in school. That is, not very well at all. I never met his parents. I never visited his house. What I did see were only glimpses behind the mask. Oh, Martin was hiding and acting with the best of them. How do you think he could be the perfect date for EVERYONE?

Martin helped me become myself. He helped me having friends. He even helped me to love. How he could do that without personal experience is beyond me. With all the time we spent together I felt we were becoming friends. I think I even was beginning to fall in love with him, the only boy I ever loved. Obviously he realized that I was coming too close to him since he all of a sudden went very cold to me. I still could see his loneliness, his insecurity, his longing for something else. Too bad he was too afraid to do what he helped others to do.

Perhaps I shouldn’t judge him. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was his family. Perhaps all his moving around had left too many scars. I don’t know. I really don’t know. I wish I did so I could help him. Or rather could have helped him since he didn’t come back to school this semester. He moved again.

I’m terribly sorry I can’t repay my huge debt to him. I have to settle to pay it forward. Someone has to pick up where Martin left.

Raymond
Juanita’s boyfriend
Honor Student
Captain of the baseball team
Formerly known as Cheryl (the alpha bitch), someone very alien to me today.