The Fence

Sure. I was a restless, unfocused, could-not-concentrate youth, which my parents tried to cure by putting me on Ritalin twice a day, every day from the age of 7 to 17, but it wasn't so much misbehavior on my part as it was the inability to sit still.

My teachers all liked me. I wasn't known for calling out or disrupting class or bothering other children. Rather, it was my constant seat-shifting or "perching," as my second grade teacher Mrs. Wilson called it. To this day, even as I type this post, I'm sitting with one foot tucked underneath my tush and the other foot on the ground, pushing back and forth so that my swivel chair is in constant motion. When I stop to take a thought I instinctively take my hand off the keyboard, put my finger in my mouth and gnaw at my fingernail. Then, back to the keyboard.

"You're a smart kid, Eric. If only you would sit still for a little bit would you get out of these classes in no time," my 5th grade special education reading and math teacher, Mr. Cantalosi, said to me as I bit my bottom lip and looked down at the ground. But something that day clicked. For the first time I felt recognized, realized, noticed and was given encouragement opposed to instruction. It wasn't the "Oh Eric, would you just sit down and pay attention" mantra I had heard ad nauseum throughout my entire elementary school career. I felt like I could do this and immediately I got a sense of breaking out. It was a feeling of wanting to kick, of wanting to punch my way through and succeed. I wanted to prove people wrong. This is the same feeling that would visit me when my mother told me I'd be seeing a "special doctor" who wanted to "run some tests." It was around Passover when she delivered this news and despite her code words, at 10 years old, I knew exactly what a "special doctor" meant. I was going to a therapist! What? Did she not think that I watched TV for hours on end every day and knew what it meant when a kid was told he was about to see a special doctor? My family was hosting that year for Passover and because of this my mother was clearing out the cupboards to find the once-a-year fancy plates off which we eat. When she removed the giant stack of plates I crawled into the cupboard and slammed the door behind me and shouted, "I'm not going!" My Mother opened the door and said quite sternly, "You're going," and shut the door, leaving me in the cramped darkness. I remember the feeling, laying on my back, that I just wanted to kick. I just wanted to kick and scream and keep kicking until the walls of the kitchen island were split apart and broken. Of course, I did none of this but instead kept a feeling of rage very alive within the pit of my stomach. Therefore, it was no surprise on the first visit to the therapist when the doctor asked quietly and softly, "Well Eric, why do you think your mother brought you here today?" and I responded dryly and smugly, "She's sitting right next to me. Why don't you ask her?"

The Special Ed classroom I went to twice a day was located in a separate building on the school campus. When school started it was easy to hide the fact that I wasn't in any mainstream classes, but by the time winter came around, I could not keep it a secret any longer, for I had to wear or carry a jacket which inevitably told the other students milling about the hallways that I was one of those kids who left the building each day to go to one of those classes. Everyday I had to walk along side James, notoriously known for his semi-retardation and who caused a stir amongst the students each time a teacher would reprimand him for having his hands in his pants. I remember walking past a group of students waiting outside their class when one of them got out of line and said, "Eric is going to class with James? Boy, he must really be stupid!" Once again I felt the rage build up. "I am not stupid," I said to myself as if I were saying it to that particular student, "I have a learning disability!" Regardless, I remember wanting to punch the bricks at the entrance of the separate building.

The days carried on. Winter became spring and the support from Mr. Cantalosi continued. I had made a plan to sit as still as possible, to take my Ritalin, to do well and by next year I would be back in classes with the normal kids. However, being on Ritalin, seeing a therapist and walking with James everyday had afforded me the perspective of being on the outside of the fence looking in. Before the weather called for shorts I was carrying a sense of confidence about being different, about not being just like everyone else, and I had Mr. Cantalosi, a teacher nobody else had. My confidence grew. I began to like going to a therapist and being able to talk out loud about anything and play games and get to answer questions, not based on math or reading but about emotions and feelings. Through Dr. Elfenbein I had learned that I wasn't taking "stupid pills" and that I wasn't "dumb," it's just that my brain functioned differently from others. Soon enough I was explaining to other students and friends what taking Ritalin actually meant, and I enjoyed teaching them about how every one's brain works differently and James no longer was an embarrassment for me to walk to class with everyday. In fact, he made me laugh and became my friend. I stuck up for him when the other kids made comments. He was under my watch now and that made me feel good.

By 6th grade I was back in mostly mainstream classes. I was out about seeing a therapist and all my friends knew I took Ritalin. In fact, a new friend Matt was also taking Ritalin and we shared our thoughts and feelings about being on medication quite regularly. I had a big group of friends and we became famous for playing handball every day during recess. We played against a giant brick wall next to the exit steps from the gymnasium doors. Everyday that we played handball, a girl named Marsha would sit silently on the steps and read her books.

Marsha was a brainiac- she was socially awkward, chewed her hair, wore pink 4th grade-esque jump suits while we all wore jeans and shirts from The Gap. She didn't curse, she didn't know about making out yet, she didn't have any friends and all she did was read. She was an outcast. Too smart for her own good and too geeky to be understood. I would notice her more regularly than I wanted to and I tried to avoid looking at her because I knew, at this point, what looking at her would cause me to do: feel. And I also knew, if I felt, then we would both wind up disappointed. But I couldn't help it and so the day came that I approached her and invited her to play handball. She stood in line behind me. Our hearts both racing at the same speed just waiting for the inevitable outcry from one of my friends. Then there it was, said by none other than Sherry herself. Go figure. "No, she cannot play with us!" "There's too many of us already," was Sherry's excuse but all three of us knew the real reason was simply that Marsha wasn't cool enough and we were no United Nation accepting open applications for friendship. Marsha, used to this treatment, simply walked out of line, found her spot on the steps and resumed reading her Beverly Cleary. I remember the feeling that surged through me at this point. I related to Marsha. I knew what it was like to be on the outside of the fence. It wasn't fair! She deserved a chance just like everyone else. I wanted to rip Sherry's head off and make her feel the pain that we felt. It's been more or less 15 years since that incident and I still cannot forget how Sherry acted that day and how Marsha just assumed her role.

This feeling would continue to aid me through my childhood and up into my adolescence. The feeling of pride-as-an-outsider. It was the feeling I had when I picked up Punk Rock to sooth the relentless pain of the stress-related canker sores I would break out in when I was reminded of my same-sex attraction I so desperately tried to avoid.

The feeling would return as I read Jack Kerouac and learned that life doesn't have to follow a cookie cutter mold and that everyday can be its own special adventure. That life doesn't have to be an experience from one day to the next, but rather, an expansive journey with no end in sight.

The feeling would return when I was forced to grab my balls, suck it up and enter the LGBT Center at my college student union. It was the feeling that would force me out into the world, to ride my bike to IBT's, Tucson's premier gay club with my fake ID in hand, and just "do it!" This is the same feeling that would thrust me out into the world, meet people, shake hands, listen in and appreciate different points of view. To understand hippies and mushrooms and raves and music and goths and queers and punks and artists and people afflicted with disease. It would be this same feeling, which I would use as armor, to never again allow myself to return to that angst-ridden angry teenager with the painful canker sores and the plea to be just like everyone else.

It would be the same feeling when I would learn first hand of the thousands and thousands of deaths caused by AIDS and our government's slow response because the only people it seemed to affect were those on the "outside of the fence."

I've spent my entire life on the outside of the fence looking in and I would not have it any other way. So it was this same feeling that boiled up last night as I spoke with a gay man who is undecided, yet leaning toward McCain/Palin as his choice, because "gay is just one aspect of me." This feeling made me speak fast and point my finger in his face and shout, "They think they can pray away our lives! They don't give a shit about us! They would put us in camps! Don't let them put us in camps!" My friends pleaded for me to calm down. But I didn't want to. I wanted to kick and scream just like that little boy hiding in the cupboard because it isn't fair that they don't recognize our lives and feel like they can pray us away. They would put us in camps, I don't care how "radical" that sounds. Things like that have happened before, history will tell you, and I'll fight for my life to prevent myself from ever being on the inside of any of those fences.