From the Front of the Effing Bus

Status: Quo Minus

by F. Theresa Gillard

Author’s Note: This column is being re-run due to popular demand.

BOSTON Massachusetts—(Weekly Hubris)—2/27/12—Recently, an extreme level of coldness settled into my essence. It has nothing to do with the endless snow that we’ve been getting. The frigid catalyst? I was referred to (by whom, it doesn’t matter) as having “a lack of vision.” I had to fight to hold the “F” back. But then, the “assessment” affected me in several glacial ways. My first response was to prove my apparent “lack of vision” with an extra additive. Shall we call it a “lack of control?”

Now, if you’ve been following along with me, you, My Trusty Reader, you know well that I’m committed to my own self-therapeutic regime, and my mantra is: “Thou shalt not kick every idiot’s ass.”

I learned early on, growing up in South Carolina, that it really didn’t matter what I did. What mattered was how I was perceived. Hard to win like that. Really hard. I learned early on that I would have to fight—figuratively and, many times, literally.

Figuratively, I fought through my writing. I cannot even tell you how many “Letters to the Editor” I wrote throughout my high school years. There was always some racist idiotic jerk spouting off gibberish that I just had to speak to. Inevitably, I received a letter from a person claiming to be a member of the KKK, with a promise of a nice cross burning in our front yard if I didn’t stop with those letters to the editor. Of course, my response was to write even more letters.

Literally, my days were filled with all sorts of fighting. More often than not, I’d have to save my brother from some bully. I never received even the slightest thanks for this. He was my older brother. I dubbed him Professor Egghead: the self-proclaimed knower of all things. Even with all his knowledge, he never knew when he was about to be clobbered.

My first day of school began ever righteously. I was so excited. So thrilled finally to be going to school, not to mention being able to ride the school bus. I promptly sat in the front seat, right behind the driver. My house was the first pick-up. All was going quite well until we reached our next-to-last stop. I’ll never forget this kid’s name. Never. He’s coming up the bus steps; he sees me and says, “I thought niggers were supposed to sit in the back of the bus!”

My little bubble burst. I wasn’t sure what a “nigger” was, but it had to be bad, because the bus driver turned beet-red and the kid laughed his way all the way to the back. The rest of the ride was quiet. It seemed the other kids knew, too.

When I got home, I asked my Mom, “What is a nigger?” Her reaction was not any better. She stopped cooking and we sat down. She questioned me and I told her about the proclamation of that morning. She explained to me that the word was an ignorant attempt to cause hurt and pain. Mom told me that I was to never allow anyone to call me that ever again. This was beyond monumental. My mother had never given me carte blanche.

Next day, I sat in the very same seat. We made it around to pick the kid up. Once again, he starts with his proclamation, “I said that nigg. . . ” That’s all he got out before I jumped on him and beat him back down the bus steps.

He was crying. Naturally. The bus driver was in shock, as were the other kids (except, course, my brother). I had already sat back down, straightened my little dress and pony tails, as though nothing had ever happened. The bus driver finally came to and asked the kid, “Are you getting on the bus or not?”

The kid crawled up the steps, looking at me as though I was the craziest damn person he’d ever encountered.

Believe it or not, that kid was not a bad kid. His environment had shaped him. We became fast friends, but he slipped up sometimes. Every now and then, I had to give him a bit of a reminder. I always apologized afterwards. He admitted that he was trying hard simply to avoid all words that started with an “n.”

Yet, my mother still dressed me in pretty dresses (and pony-tail hair-do’s). Sometimes, I’d wander off into the wooded area near the school playground. As I stalked many a grasshopper, butterfly or imagined villain, the woods would have their way with me: every day, I’d return home looking like the Tomboy that I was.

In high school, I fit into no cliques, but maneuvered comfortably amidst them. In college, I was a gung-ho journalist. Now, I’m that just-insulted employee who just doesn’t fit in.

I don’t fit. I’m never going to fit. And there are so genres of no-fits for me. Those jeans from just last year, my cat’s world, my abode, and any 9 to 5 gig.

It’s not like I haven’t tried like bloody hell.

I diet and exercise consistently. I try to glance at my cat every now and then, as he’s mewing through his usual tirade. I see hundreds (no exaggeration here) of apartments and houses, before making what ultimately turns out to be the wrong choice. I naturally excel in meeting the posted job requirements. It’s the underlying requirements, the un-voiced ones, that get me every time. Had I even a grain of willingness to smudge my nose with the slightest bit of brown, my career trajectory would have sailed through any roof. There must be millions of us out there. Just trying to hang on without losing our integrity and sanity.

My life has taken many interesting turns. Some of which I had no choice but to follow. Most created by my tendency to suddenly veer off that un-chosen path. Every now and then, my resolve is shaken and I allow others’ opinions to seep into my psyche.

Is there an answer? A probable solution? My answer, my solution? To hell with fitting in. And, while I’m at it, to hell with long-thought-out-inconclusive gibberish that has no factual basis. What it has is a purely selfish-emotive-coward-riding agenda. Simply put, I’m not with that.

My stance has caused much spasmodic muttering in my immediate vicinity. Hasn’t won me many friends and hardly any acquaintances. Nevertheless, I don’t consider this to be a loss. The friends I have are few, priceless and irreplaceable.

Getting forced out is my way in.

My path rings true to Robert Frost’s resonating “The Road Not Taken”: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—/I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.”