Middle School Rumors

There’s a rumor floating among some of the Breakthrough students that I’m going out with one of the other teachers—no other teacher than Trung. And of course, it’s not really a rumor because they used to have undeniable confirmation (before I deleted an old Myspace comment from Trung that I had overlooked). I had hoped that this other extremely blatantly gay teacher would be the red herring that would draw away attention from the suspicions about me, suspicions which only barely began to develop toward the end of last summer. But no, middle school students are relentless as well as, as I’ve said earlier, smart.

So the secret’s out.

It has come up in pretty interesting ways the last week and a half or so, and fortunately, they all know that it’s not something to brag about out loud to their parents or the directors. But all those who know have dropped hints to Trung and me that they know.

Trung recounted to me how in his summerbook elective class, they had some guess speaker who thought that it would be a relevant activity to have the students generate drama for a person. The students all chose me, and the speaker asked, “What are some bad things we can say about Brian?”

Trung said they didn’t have answers for that question. (I didn’t know whether to be relieved or not surprised at all.)

Then the speaker asked, “Does Brian have a girlfriend?”

And a few of the summerbook girls, the more sassy ones, one who is my current student and one who was my student last summer, turned to Trung, locked eyes, and asked nudgingly, “I don’t know! Ask Trung! Trung, DOES he? DOES he?”

The speaker, totally oblivious, just as he probably is to middle school life today, moved on.

I don’t know how Trung deals with these situations, but when students bring it up to me, I like to acknowledge with a few nudges or winks, and it becomes our little inside joke.

As much as I hate coming out, and as much as I try to keep it a secret, I just can’t seem to avoid the truth anymore. But as much I still hate the truth, the truth is also relieving, I guess.

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“A Return to Normalcy” (Excerpted)
Written on June 13th, 2009, featuring guest writer Trung (in italics).

On my last Wednesday [of my entire first year in college], I tried to milk as many good moments as possible out of the day.

During a quick dinner with Khoa and dancer Kevin, dancer Kevin found out I was gay. Whoops, how did it take that long?

BECAUSE DINO REFUSES TO CALL ME HIS BOYFRIEND OR HOLD MY HAND IN PUBLIC :’( He wants to attract girls.

I admit, I don’t like saying, “I’m jee-aay-why.” But it’s not a big secret; it’s just that I would prefer that people find out it any other kind of way that doesn’t require me to personally utter the words. It’s not that hard to find out. It takes like two clicks on my facebook. Kevin just isn’t very good with facebook.

Also, Brian’s ashamed because I’m fat.

During my first week at school, none of my hallmates really knew until Trung visited that weekend and introduced himself as my boyfriend. They all suck at facebook too.

See? I had to introduce MYSELF. Because Brian is ashamed.

Anyway, Kevin asked me because he saw Trung holding my arm the previous weekend. The conversation that ensued was fun.

[[Here’s a more thorough explanation of that dinner. When I got my food and sat down next to Kevin and Khoa, Kevin turned to me, and making weird dancer hand/arm motions for every syllable he uttered, he turned a perfect ninety degrees toward me (an angle as right as his tuts) and demanded, “BRIAN! I. Need. To. Know. SOMETHING! ARE. YOU. GAY?”

[[Secrets out. I laughed a little bit, and after collecting myself, I mocked surprise and asked with wide eyes, “YOU DIDN’T KNOW?”

[[“NO I DIDN’T!” And from there, we joked about it a little bit more and then went on to chat about other things.]]

It was all about Kallusive and other superficial things.

Later that night, after a Mike Song dance class, I had one last Pho run with my Kevin, Alfonso, and non-black John. During dinner, the cat completely got out of the bag. I had never told any of my dancer friends. Alfonso already kinda knew though (and I knew that he kinda knew), but he never bothered to say anything about it.

[[John and I are from the same part of San Jose, but we met just this year in college (and something like this is always funny to me because I like to think oh how many times I might’ve passed by him while walking around Oakridge Mall the last four or five years). I had close connections from his school, black John and Mexican Peter, Leland High School, and those close connections led me to knowing other people at Leland.

[[Non-black John, who is straight—we think—and completely oblivious to my gayness, asked if I knew a certain guy from Leland, and I did. We started talking about how he was hot and looked good in any style he tried to pull off.

[[While John and I were totally absorbed in our admiration, Kevin and Alfonso were off to the side snickering. And either Kevin or Alfonso made a joke: “Honestly, I wouldn’t be able to tell which one of you guys was the gay one and which one wasn’t.” (It went something like that.)

[[I laughed. John laughed, but not as hard, probably because he fully didn’t get the joke. For the next few minutes, Kevin, Alfonso, and I all joked about my gayness while John sat there confused as hell. I felt like he wanted a few times to jump in and ask, “WAIT BRIAN ARE YOU GAY?” but that question was probably answered several times as he sat there in shock and listened to the conversation.

[[When John finally felt ready to talk, he didn’t bother asking for confirmation. He just jumped straight to the questions that everybody asks when they find out that a person is a homo, such as, “How did you first know?” “Do your parents know?” “You know I’m absolutely cool with it, right?” etc.]]

John was fascinated. Very fascinated.

TOO FASCINATED, IF YOU ASK ME. A little too much like those guys that Brian works out with who say “DAMN BRIAN” and grab his pecs and arms.
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I hate admitting it, but when my gayness comes into play, I usually have some of the more memorable moments in my life.