ESSAY // PAST FUTURES
Spin
Image by Christoper Spencer
By Angel Eduado
EXCERPT //
It’s 1997. I’m in seventh grade, and I’m a social disaster. I wear the same beat-up high tops and tight jeans I’ve had for two years, along with a blue, white, and red wool sweater that makes me look like a Domino’s delivery guy. While my classmates are blasting Puff Daddy and the Family, I’m putting “Hotel California” on repeat in my Discman. My laugh is high-pitched, abrasive, and directed at things no one else finds funny—puns, knock-knock jokes, and I Love Lucy. I can’t talk to girls. I can’t look at girls. It’s as though I stumbled into a minefield of coolness and made it through completely unscathed. Lucky me.
I tried fitting in. I found a hip-hop mixtape in the cafeteria once and took it home to study. I listened to the Fugees and Wu-Tang Clan and tried to like it. I begged my mom to get me some baggy jeans so I could be in style, but the clothes I already had were “still good” and she wasn’t about to spend money on more. One day—and only because they were on sale—I got her to buy me an oversized pair of black windbreakers. I wore them every day for two weeks, even for Phys. Ed. I didn’t own gym shorts, and, despite my mother’s assurances, the plaid boxer shorts she’d gotten me were not an acceptable substitute—a fact I discovered on the first day of class, when everyone stared at my bare legs. It wasn’t long, though, before people began to notice I wore nothing but the windbreakers, and I had to get rid of them to avoid their laughter.
Then it occurred to me that instead of fighting my oddness, I could just accept it. If I’m gonna be weird, I thought, I might as well be weird. Right?
Suddenly, feeling uncomfortable when I talked to people became the whole point. I’d stop them in the hallway between classes and feign nausea, then laugh at the faces they made in response. I’d trip over myself, throwing my books and papers in the air to make the biggest possible mess, and chuckle as I made a show of picking it all up. My favorite gag was to stand by the girls’ locker room door, which opened right into the main hallway, and wait for someone to walk out. When they did I’d slam into the door and pretend my nose was broken. I milked this for a good while, writhing and covering my face. The girls scurried over, Ohmygod-ing and areyouokay-ing, and I reveled in their disgust when they realized I’d duped them. My persona felt like armor; I was stronger, safer, bolder. People’s mockery didn’t hurt as badly because I had manufactured it. They were laughing and sneering because I made them. For once, I had control. //
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