The Curse and Sixth Grade

Can a Single Tampon Change the Course of Your Life?
I have some sexual play with a girl in sixth grade whose boyfriend, Ben, appeals to me. We almost get to penetrative sex but she is having her period. I try to pull that white little string out of her, not knowing what it is, but she stops me with a giggle. Maybe my life goes a different way in the version of these events where she doesn't have her period, where we have sex all day long, where she gets pregnant and we are married at thirteen. But I doubt it. I am with her because at this age I feel sexual about everything and everyone, but mainly because I have something to prove, since sixth grade is the one school year in my life of out and out torture.

Everyone teases me and calls me faggot. I wear short-shorts and a lot of jewelry that I successfully shoplift. My main tormentor is a rich boy named Christy, and the worst part of it for me is that I found him incredibly attractive. It is no small pleasure to learn while in high school that he becomes known as the Queen of Austin High.

But I have a wonderful teacher for home room my sixth grade year named Kathy Street. One day she takes me out into the hall because my mother has been called to talk about the teasing situation with her and with the principal, and also because I have been caught reading a Jackie Collins book at school, material some teacher or other (not Miss Street) considers to be pornography.

Mom eagerly defends my right to read and to be whatever I want. Two faces. She angrily tells me I should get a sex change if I want to be a girl when she catches me in her stuff, but she soulfully defends same-sex love and cultural differences most of the time, often telling the story of how she sees a movie called "The Fox" which has a lesbian theme, and when the audience starts laughing during a love scene, standing up in the theater, angrily telling everyone to stop laughing, that the love scene is beautiful, and they are all bigots and idiots.

On the way back to the classroom from the principal's office Miss Street says to me that she wants me to know that there is nothing wrong with people being gay. I assure her that I agree, even though I am not gay myself. I don't know why I lie to her. Luckily the school system Austin has at that time houses us all in massive sixth grade centers before packing us off to seventh grade in various junior highs all over town. So junior high is a new start for me, I transform into someone else, someone more aggressive if still a bit girly, and everything is all right after that. I get a bit of teasing here and there, but everyone except the most macho jocks do, especially the speech and drama people, and once I become a high achiever I find that achievement is respected in Texas above all else. If you are good at underwater basket weaving there is an organized system of district, region, area, and state competition. Football may rule the roost but all trophies are prized beyond reason by administrators and teachers, an attitude that seems to trickle down to even the most delinquent of juveniles.

By high school I no longer spend any time with students who aren't high achievers at something or other. Some of them may be into drugs and sex, but to a person they are intelligent and motivated. Like me. So all of us can get away with absolutely anything.