Hatred and Drowning: the Sane Criminal Introduction- Glynis
As soon as I walked in to the kitchen, my mother seemed to be extremely disturbed by me. Shouldn�t she be used to my delinquent tendencies by now, I wondered. She acted like this was the very first time I was caught smoking in the bathroom at school. The school should know what to do better with students, in my opinion. They should at least suspend me once, or even pass me up into high school, so I could be with Jesse. Jesse was my best friend, but he desperately needed some help. The school should just stop repeating me in eighth grade; I�m obviously not motivated and I hate everyone, especially since Jesse�s not there. All those people I�ve had to deal with for the past couple of years were part of, or looked up to, the people that tortured and mocked Jesse. Their reason? He was androgynous, more feminine than masculine. More feminine than I was, in fact, but righteously, I could say I was androgynous too. However, I gravitated towards the masculine side. If I wanted an excuse for my behavior, I could say that my heinous classmates drove me into antisocial solitude, but my mother wouldn�t believe that. �My mouth is way too big for them to do that� was her usual reason, as if I supposedly could fend them off. Her other reason, the one that made me cringe, was that I wasn�t Jesse. Whenever she said that, or anything belittling about Jesse, I became enraged like a vicious monster. Honest, I didn�t want to plan to be that way, but she didn�t have to degrade Jesse, either. She hated him, the same reason why most people hated him, always referring to him as �that faggot friend of yours.� Made me shudder in disgust, since Jesse wasn�t a homosexual as far as I knew, and even if he were, I wouldn�t care the least. Although he didn�t say much, because he was shy from his effeminate voice, I thought that he was a wonderful person, the �little brother� I never really had. Little, however, was no way to describe him in any way, standing at six-foot-three. His gloomy personality belittled that aspect, especially because everyone pushed him around. Constantly, especially when he was still in junior high, I had to protect him. Someone was always out to get him, or beat him up for no reason. Therefore, whenever my mother taunted Jesse behind his back, I took his defense, for even if he was here, he couldn�t defend himself.
In junior high, I met Jesse. Everyone in sight was messing around with him, and he was defenseless against them. Inside, I felt sorry for him, more so after food was thrown at him at lunch and then, he was beaten up. Later, I befriended him, realizing that he was amazing below the shadow of a profile he kept. From the start, both of us were the antithesis of each other. Even now, he�s and introverted honor student in tenth grade, and, at the antipodes, I�m still stuck in eighth for my third year. Ever since I had met him, I stood up for him, watching out for bullies and tormentors. Winter always seemed to be the worst, since Jesse always seemed to get clobbered with snowballs, lying on the ground, crying, and his makeup running. However, once we went to a public pool in the city, and someone we knew pushed him into the pool there. The poor boy, nearly six feet, was incapable of swimming a stroke. Everyone on the side seemed to be laughing at him. To make the scenario worse, Jesse had a terrible stutter and lisp at the time, about two years ago thus when the lifeguards asked him some questions, he was so shocked that he could barely speak, only cried, nonsensically babbling.
Now that Jesse�s in high school, I can�t protect him, which is the only aspect I regret about not getting passed up into high school. Sometimes when I see him, he�ll have a black eye or a swollen lip from a one-sided fight against him. The taunts and mocking became worse for him in high school, since he dyed his hair purple and wore a black trench coat everyday. Personally, I believed that no one had the right to hurt Jesse, for he was only being himself, but perhaps the reason why he was so vulnerable.
Actually, that was one of the reasons why I skipped my detention today. From the window of the classroom where I sat, I could see Jesse crossing across the Lot, a vacant parking lot from a demolished building where all of the elitist people gathered. Some of them were following him, before they started throwing the snowballs. Of course, on instinct, I had to take action, or else he would�ve been in worse shape than the adjacent building. To me, but maybe not to anyone else, that was more important than sitting in detention. Someone in the room probably told on me, but that was worth less than seeing Jesse cornered and tortured in front of my eyes. But, that was only my opinion, not my mother�s. Obviously, she wanted me to stay in school today from her level of thinking what was ethical or expected.
�Why do you do things like this?� she yelled at me when I stepped through the front door. Her hands, planted in bulbous fists on her ample hips; the look upon her face was filled with scorn and shame for me.
In fact, I didn�t even want to be here; Jesse took me home since my mother told him to earlier. He may be book smart, but as far as �common sense,� he virtually had none, always appeasing everyone. This house where my family and I lived depressed me. The inside of our house had this dingy, dirty feel to it, lingering in the air and on the furniture. The furniture was in the same shape as furniture seen at a garage sale a decade ago. That feel, combined with the cramped feeling of a row home, made me depressed, yet nefariously irked me at the same time. Living so close to five people made me nearly insane. Someone was always in the way, or taking up a wanted space. Privacy wasn�t a word uttered in this house, unless you were going outside for a long walk.
�I dunno,� was my nonchalant retort towards my mother. �Why does the school have to be so persnickety about my behavior?�
�Smoking and cutting a detention aren�t being per- whatever you call it. Most girls don�t do that. Heck, your brothers don�t even do that.�
�Biased, sexist remark,� I mumbled under my breath. Why was this ideal image of a woman that I was supposed to become enforced upon me? How come in her eyes and in everyone else�s I had to look pretty, wear dresses, and act with proper etiquette to be heard around here or respected any place else? The phrase �Be yourself and others will like you� is so clich� it�s a joke, without meaning anymore. I could laugh at whoever said that saying in words to that effect. No matter how masculine I act, I will always be female, right down to the genetics. But an explanation of the XX and XY chromosomes would just baffle and anger my mother even more. My mother, I could tell, didn�t like the way I operated my life, acting rebellious towards everything, including her.
My mother contorted her face with annoyance, leaning her body up against one of the crumbling plywood counters of the kitchen. �Perhaps you don�t understand the concept of �right� and �wrong.�� She shook her head with abhorrence. �If I had the money, I�d send you to a shrink- or even better yet, a reform school run by shrinks- there you go. Maybe you�ll learn the difference between right and wrong. Then, maybe you�ll get some sense kicked in to you.�
�Okay,� I said with repartee, �If you had the money, you�d do lots of things, and blow it all, so we�d end up here again. But, we don�t have any, so it looks like we�re stuck here as denizens in this dilapidated dwelling.�
She rolled her eyes at me. �You wanna know what I told Jesse today?�
�No,� I interrupted.
�Well, you�ll hear it anyway. I told him that all of the good kids are turning into punks and all of the punks are turning into the next criminals.�
I interrupted her with another rebuttal: �So you�re saying that I used to be a �good kid�?�
�You really are ignorant, aren�t you?� she sneered. �You�re the one turning into a criminal, you fool!� she exclaimed, shaking her pudgy fingers in my face. The red nails of her finger tips were like blood draining out of her with every word of anger expelled from her mouth.
�Today�s the day sane criminals come to play!� I retorted in a singing voice.
She shook her head in annoyance again. �I swear, even that purple-haired faggot friend of yours is politer and has more common sense than you!�
Inside of me, all of my nerves seemed to detonate like rockets shooting into the sky, exploding into fireworks at that moment. She barely even knew Jesse; to her, he was just a name with purple hair attached. �You don�t even know Jesse!� I vexed at her. �Just like every other ignoramus, you judge him by appearance! Man, and you think I�m a fool. Never, call him a fag to my face again! He�s no fag; you know nothing about him!� Then, I swiftly turned, walking right out of the kitchen, into the dingy, dim-lit dining room. �Heck, you don�t even know who I really am!� I yelled, intensely glaring into her eyes, throwing my hands up into the air, mimicking her.
In the living room sat my brothers, both scared in their skins from my heinous yelling. The television was on, but they barely seemed to be watching it. Behind me, I could hear my corpulent mother lumbering into the living room. �Don�t even think of following me to reconcile to lecture me!� I yelled, my veins in my head throbbing with every word. �I wanna be left alone! Do you hear me? I wanna be left alone!� Then, I scuttled up the steps, but my mother stayed in the doorframe between the kitchen and the living room, not making a move to trail me, her belligerent offspring.
Clamorously, I ran upstairs in to my room, the one I shared with my older brother, Mike. No one was inside when I slammed the door behind me, collapsing onto my bed, feeling softer than it ever had before. Then, unlike most incidents in my life, I emotionally broke down at an apex, and cried. I do cry, my nerves aren�t apathetic, but not often, like most girls, who are seen at the �emotional sex� in my interpretations. The posturing, that constant burial of feelings, that �masculine thing� most boys do to seem strong. Often, I managed to keep strong in public, but at home, I was like an exposed, live wire, electrocuting anything crossing my path with vehement emotions. Right now, all I wanted to do was cry, washing every bad-tasting, stomach-churning, soul-demolishing emotion out of my body.
My room wasn�t exactly a safe haven, either. Someone, at any time, on his own will could barge in here. My privacy was basically nonexistent then, exposing even the smallest detail. Mike could come in, after all, this was his room, too, and see me in this pathetic state. In our room, there was that same dirty, incongruous feeling as in the rest of the house. Our twin beds were parallel, facing a window, with a minute space to walk in between. The door was on one wall, closest to my bed, while the other wall, there was a closet with a small shelf beside it. This room was barely enough for one person to live, let alone two needy teenagers. Coincidentally, Mike and I were always fighting over the most minor things, such as the radio station to turn to or where one put his shoes on which side of whose bed at which time of day or night. Constantly, he bickered with me because I hung out with Jesse. Mike was in high school, but he was supposed to graduate two years before. Like everyone, he thought Jesse was a loser, continuously asking me, �Why do you hang out with that queer? He�s too smart and you�ve got more common sense than him.� That didn�t faze me much since everyone at that school thought that way. Getting into high school only to protect Jesse would probably be my only motivation to pass eighth grade. If I did my work and came to class once in a while, I might pass, but there was nothing else to motivate me down that path.
The floorboards outside of my room were silent. Maybe no one was out there, ready to emerge into my room. With that in mind, I lay prone on my bed, crying harder. The tears streamed in salty drops down my face, falling off of my chin. I clutched my blanket, trying to suppress the sound of my sadness. My heart, still pulsating, felt like it was bleeding, trying to let some of the allotted pain away. The pain was still there, and my heart still ached with its stone weights pulling it down into the pool to drown. Why did things have to be the way they are? I asked myself in confusion. Why did I have to be so �bad,� cause all of this trouble? How come the school was always at my back? And, why with everything I did, was my mother displeased with me? Why couldn�t she expect this delinquent existence out of me? Perhaps I wasn�t completely sane, that I couldn�t help but do heinous things. My behavior was predictable enough, but there was no point in turning back now. Here I was in my shoes, but I was the only one walking in them with this style. No one could see where I had come from, or where I was going, although I was headed on a straight path in to oblivion. How oblivious was everyone? Couldn�t they see I was going to be this way, this criminal figure? Why were they trying to turn me around, making me �good� when I didn�t even know why I had these tendencies?
Silently, I kept crying harder and harder. Eventually, I cried myself to sleep. There I was, walking down a street with Jesse, the sun blazing in the sky. The sidewalk, stretching before us, seemed to be smoking with the unbearable heat. Jesse wasn�t wearing his trench coat, I noticed; instead, he was wearing some old clothes, torn, barely fitting him. His voice was soft-spoken like it usually was, but he had a lisp, a very strong one. The sounds of his words were so unarticulated, they blended, from sentences, into a single, multi-syllable word. �Gwinith, where�th the pool?� he asked inaudibly. He acted shy because of the sound of his voice, I could tell.
I didn�t know where we were going, but I guessed that we were going to the public pool. �Down the street,� I replied. �It�s the public pool. We�ve been there before, doncha remember?� Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jesse nod, his lean emaciated figure towering over me as we walked, like a giant shadow.
Around me, everything seemed blurry, besides for the road and Jesse. There was someone�s yard beside us, but the green of the grass blocked the whiteness of the distant house. Jesse was talking, but I couldn�t understand him; his lisp and stutter were never this bad. Where was the pool? I kept wondering. It should be straight ahead, I kept wondering. Strangely, though, I�ve never walked down this smoldering road in my whole life. How should I know where the pool was if I didn�t even know where we were headed on this road? However, the pool seemed off in this distance at the end of the road. Oddly, I hadn�t seen it there before, but now I could see it. It was surrounded by a stone wall, which stood barely three feet high. Inside the boundary of the wall, people swam, or walked around the periphery in their bathing suits. Faintly, I could hear the splashing of water as if I was on the edge of the pool, but wasn�t. Jesse kept on talking in his impeding lisp, and I kept on nodding, pretending that I knew what he was saying.
Then, in a split-second time, we were standing by the wall near the entrance of the pool. Jesse was trying to tie his bating suit, so it wouldn�t fall off. Down his chin, the purple lipstick he wore, melted, dripping on to the ground with the heat. His lips, in the shadows, looked as if he was bleeding purple blood.
�Gwinith, c-c-can yuh-you huh-huh...huh-� he hung his head in shame. �Help muh-me?� he asked demurely.
Why weren�t the string tying, and why was his stutter worse than ever? He was fine yesterday, I could remember; I could understand him then. How come he was so skinny? I wondered, staring at Jesse�s chest and gaunt middle. He was like a skeleton, standing her in front of me. The words out of his mouth sounded like �I�m sorry,� but sounded like, �I�m th-th-thorry.� He hung his head again. The bathing suit wasn�t tying and the sweat kept pouring down my back. It stuck my shirt to my back, gathering around the hairs of my neck. On my forehead, it was like a think plaster around my hair that I couldn�t wipe off; it kept on coming back again. I gave up; the bathing suit wasn�t tying and meanwhile, I was becoming impatient with the heat. Instantly as a solution, I took off my belt, putting it around Jesse�s middle, and now the bathing suit stayed.
On the side, right by the wall, I was taking off my shoes. I never noticed that I was dressed from the neck-down in black. Maybe that was the reason why I was sweating. Jesse was walking towards the edge of the pool. He can�t swim; both of us knew that. Hopefully, he�ll wait for me before he goes in; I don�t want him to drown. Suddenly, off in the distance, there is a splash. The water, like a geyser, flies up on to the concrete pavement surrounding the pool. Then, laughter follows. The laughter sounds familiar, as if I could recognize it from a distant memory. The voices sounded familiar, but the laces on my shoes aren�t coming undone. As hard as I try, the laces are staying in their tightly wound knots. The laughter keeps becoming louder, so loud that it resonates in my ears. I can�t hear myself think anymore, and why aren�t my shoes coming undone?
Faintly, like I�m a million miles away, I can hear someone call �Gwinith! Gwinith!� The words sound choked, like a hand was around a throat, suppressing any sound. There was coughs and gurgling of water amongst the splashing with laughter, but it�s not loud. Then I realize who is trying to call me name- Jesse! Where has he been? I wonder, and maybe he can help me with my shoes. Unwittingly, I look up from my shoes, and there�s Jesse, his arms flailing about as he�s hopelessly trying to swim in the pool. Around him are assorted familiar peers from the past holding their bellies, laughing to their heart�s content. Only if they knew what Jesse was feeling inside at the moment, I thought.
Forgetting about my shoes, I run towards the edge of the pool. The heat is now unbearable, and with the laughter in the background, I can�t think. My blue hair keeps falling in my face, preventing me from seeing Jesse. The edge of the pool repels me, and I fly backwards, hitting the wall behind me silently. The sky above me, once a pristine blue, now bursts into uncontrollable flames. Yellows, reds, and oranges litter the formerly clear sky. Jesse�s garbled cries nor the laughter can be heard anymore.
Now, I feel like I am falling through the wall. A lifeguard helps Jesse out of the pool, but Jesse clings to him like a frightened child. The heat has become too much for me to tolerate. My arms and lips seem to be melting away, one drop at a time, like wax. The laughter can be heard now, but only faintly. Jesse is crying, babbling on in his incomprehensible speech. The sky becomes closer to my head, as the pool grows small. Jesse�s going to be so upset that I�m not there, but I can�t help that any more. Something is pulling me upward into this inflamed sky. Airplanes, once soaring, fall like black chunks of coal. The white clouds, believed to hold angels, are now puffs of smoke, smelling like old cigarettes. There were more colors now, even if I am in the sky, than before. They all seem to be laughing at me - the yellows and greens the hardest. The purple seemed the most withdrawn, but that was only to deceive me. It kissed me, then slapped me around hard. Too moody, needed to vent, was its lame excuse. Red took the form of dead birds lying on a scorched pavement. The feathers were wilted, while the skeletons were black. Yellow and green kept laughing until I felt like I was going to go insane. Someone pushed me, probably that moody purple. Slowly, I fell down a dark, black pit. The blackness closed over me until I could see no more. Timidly, I opened my eyes, I didn�t want to see that awful pit, and I was back in my room again, my heart pounding, breathing in gasps heavily.
No one was in my room yet, and everything else was quiet. My clothes were drenched with sweat, and I trembled violently. The room was hot, but not as hot as in my �dream.� Releasing the blanket from my clutch, I walked over to the window, opening it wide. Outside, the snow was piled high on all of the rooftops, like vanilla cakes with too much icing. The faint blaring of a police siren could be heard off in the distance. Perhaps, my mother called the police on me or else, the insane asylum. A shiver went up my spine, making the sweat-covered hairs stand on end. Taking a couple of cautious steps back from the window, I landed on my bed. Then, I started to cry again, like a baby or a little girl whom just lost something they dearly loved. Why did I have to be this way? I asking myself over and over, shaking my head, but coming up with no legitimate answer.
The door creaked open, and in stepped my brother, Mike. My heart skipped a beat with the fear that he might see my crying in this state. �Are you crying?� he asked in an unsympathetic tone.
�No,� I replied sharply, �and it�s none of your business, anyway.�
�I live and sleep in this room, don�t I?� I nodded sourly. �Well, then, this is my business.�
Suddenly, I vehemently exploded at him, jumping off the bed, grasping his shoulders with my fists. �It damn well ain�t your business!� I screamed. �You don�t even know what�s going on, nor do you care. You�re laughing at me �cause I�m crying; I don�t care what you say, it�s all lies! It�s an oddity to see me cry? Well guess what, boys cry, too!� I rebuked, roughly shoving him away from me, on to the floor. �I�ve seen plenty of boys, even older than you, cry. Hell, I�ve even seen you cry. Don�t ever ask me that again! If I�m crying, then you know I�m crying, so don�t act all ignorant about it and ask!�
Mike stood up from the floor. He was almost as tall as Jesse, but he had more weight and muscle. Still, though, he was afraid of me, especially when I exploded in situations like this one. �Jesus,� he gasped. �You don�t hafta get all angry at me for asking.�
�You don�t have to mock me,� I vexed at him.
�I�m not mocking you, Glynis,� he said in an irked voice. �I was just wondering why you were crying, that's all.�
�That�s all?� I exclaimed, throwing my hands up into the air. �I�m not stupid. Look beyond the lines; there�s something more than one implies.�
�Glynis, calm down. Mom�s upset an-..�
I severed his sentence. �Of course she�s upset! When she�s dealing with me, she�s always upset. Why wouldn�t she be? Hell, I always do something wrong.�
Mike exploded at me, his face flushing to a shade of red. �Maybe if you had more sense, and if you cared for people besides for that faggot then��
Everything in the room seemed to burst into flames in front of my eyes, just as in my vision, as I lunged for Mike. My hands, full of rage, clutched his shirt, as he fell to the ground. �You asshole!� I screamed, slapping him across the face. �Never, ever say anything about Jesse again! He can�t defend himself. You absolutely know nothing about him!� Repeatedly, I spurned and pummeled Mike across his face with my balled fists. Mike said nothing; he merely stared up at me with hate in his eyes. I couldn�t stop; he had no right to say that about Jesse. Jesse never talked about anyone, or called anyone a �faggot.� The way that word, �faggot,� sounded was like a bitter poison residing in my mouth; I couldn�t say it, without feeling guilty and sick after. Whenever Mike called Jesse a faggot, he seemed to be spitting that sour poison right back at my face. Now he had to eat his poison, for he shouldn�t have spit it out in the first place. �No one can, and no one will!� I kept on yelling at him, but he didn�t make any move to stop me.
�You�re absolutely insane,� he said contemptuously through clenched teeth at me, looking up at me with his apathetic eyes. �You�re truly, absolutely insane.�
After he uttered those few words, I suddenly stopped my rant. Placidly, I stood up, backing away from Mike. Mike stood, too, still glaring at me with those eyes, more piercing and venomous than Jesse�s at the moment. Silently, we both backed away from each other in the room. The silence passed between us had an eerie sensation, like it wasn�t suppose to be there. Then, Mike backed up against the door, leaving the room. The door was closed, and now I was alone in this cold, dark room that didn�t feel like mine anymore. Those words Mike said, �You�re absolutely insane,� echoed in my ears, like a monotonous drum beat played over and over again at the same frequency. Morosely, I sat on the floor, leaning up against the wall with my head in my trembling hands, crying harder than before. Those words kept repeating over and over in my head, unstoppable. They haunted me more than that reoccurring dream of Jesse nearly drowning, echoing over and over in a continuous pattern. �You�re absolutely insane,� they said. �You�re absolutely insane, Glynis. Insane, insane, insane. You�re truly insane.�