 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
When I was in middle school my parents divorced and mom moved
us from
Pennsylvania to South Carolina. In Pennsylvania winged hair, athletic
shirts and sassy jeans with a big comb in the back pocket were big. In
South Carolina, it was preppy central, and popular kids wore oxford and
polo shirts, ribbons with little blue ducks or whales, awful add a bead
gold necklaces and Bermuda bags with changeable covers.
I didn't have 5 different pairs of pants to wear to school,
so sometimes
I'd repeat. One day in Mrs. Pamplin's English class I was wearing
slightly flared jeans that had a buckle on the rear waistband. My mom
got them cheap and they fit. I stood up to throw something away and
Chad, a popular skinny loudmouth shrimp with a buzz cut wearing a pink
Ralph Lauren polo shirt said "Hey you wore those jeans earlier this
week. What's the matter, don't you have enough pants to wear to school."
And screwing up whatever dignity I had, with my bad skin,
good grades,
half a family and horrid pants said "No, I have 2 pairs of these"
"You're kidding, those are the ugliest pants, why would
any one have
more than one pair of them? Look a them, they're weird" Kelly Duncan
and
all the other popular kids were looking at me and my pants.
"I have 2 pairs of them, up North, where I'm from, they're
popular" I
lied while crawling into my crappy Formica desk and wishing I could
disappear.
"Well down here they're not the look, they're just ugly
and I recognize
the spot on the knee so you don't have 2 pairs and you didn't even wash
them. Whats'a matter don't you even have a wash machine?" said Chad and
they all laughed at me. Loud and hard.
I was so screwed because if I never wore those pants again,
I'd have to
"repeat" something else even more. I knew I was marked. Chad and
his
pals paid attention to whatever I wore, just for sport. (Do you know the
Bo-Bo song has a second verse?) After lunch I never went outside,
instead I lurked in the library reading Vonnegut and looking up Anton
LeVey and surrealism in the reference books.
Their attacks and other events drove me headlong into New
Wave and punk
rock because I'd never be able to afford the right clothes to fit in
with them. The punk look was cheap, and I actually found some other kids into
it who were nice to me. Within a year in my black t shirt, checkered
vans and purple feather earrings I'd deride their preppie look with the
same venom they once regarded me. Yeah Chad, I was different, thanks for
rubbing it in.