Why I'm Not an Idiot

Fag Flag

I met Matt a year ago.

Of course I'd seen him before. He was in my class, but he didn't hang out with many people in our class. He sat with the same group of friends every day at lunch, like me and my best friend Graham did. I noticed him because of his fedora. I don't know why, but I like fedoras. It was royal blue with a black leather strap and a lighter blue feather on it, and he always wore it.

See, this is why I don't usually tell this story. Whenever I do, I just ramble on about all the little things, like how cute he looked in a fedora. But if I can focus for a second, I can tell you the story.

So anyway, I guess I should have guessed he was gay. Other people did. My school, Chesterson Middle, has a LOT of gay people. Probably about a quarter of the school is gay. Because so many people have come out at school here, there's a tradition of sorts on how to do it. For a whole school week, you're supposed to draw a rainbow rectangle on your hand and keep it on. If it starts to fade, you have to redraw it. Everyone calls it the Flag. The homophobes call it the Fag Flag. I didn't call it anything, cuz I never talked about it. No one can say anything about any flag they see on someone until midnight on Friday, the last day you have to wear it. So basically, you're not officially out until the end of the week, because no one will really talk about it.

You may think that's bullshit, but most people respect that rule. There aren't many homophobes at my school, and if there are, they usually just pretend not to notice the flag. I've heard lots of stories about people wearing the flag and having their friends abandon them on Monday.

One Monday morning, Matt came to school with a small rainbow on the back of his hand.

Graham noticed it before I did. I've Known Graham since I was little. We met at camp, and then realized that we lived only a half of a mile away from each other. Even better, we had gone to the same school for years and didn't even know it. So, naturally, we hit it off easily.

That day, I was at his house after school, as usual, doing homework. While we were doing math, trying to remember how to divide fractions, Graham asked,

"So, whaddaya think of Matt Laffin?"

I was more focused on the math than Matt.

"What about him?" I asked, chewing my pencil eraser. Which, by the way, is a nasty habit I've since overcome.

"Didn't you see?" Graham asked. I looked up for a second, looked back down at the fractions, and shook my head 'no'.

"He was wearing a Flag today. And he sat alone at lunch."

I looked up for real this time. "Oh," I said. "Why?"

Graham looked up and clicked his tongue. He was searching for the right words. Even though we were best friends, and I loved him more than anything in the world - almost more than I loved Chris - I still never told him about what side I stood on. I guess he assumed I was homophobic, like the rest of my family, but I never said "that's so gay" or anything like that. I never made fun of gay people at all. Thinking back, I realize I never talked about anything on the topic. I didn't know I was gay then, either.

Graham stuttered a little bit and then finally said, "I think his friends are homophobic. All the guys he sat with left."

I looked back down at the problem on the paper, as if that was the biggest issue going on right now. My heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird's. How could I explain to Graham that I was, in a way, isolated from my family? He's Catholic, but his family isn't homophobic. I always wondered why my family couldn't just do that, too. I know homophobia isn't just a Jewish thing. Any religion, to a certain degree, could have homophobes.