Sorry I've Been Gone

I want to apologize for not writing in so long. Today I took the typewriter out of my closet for the first time since before Christmas Break just to look and see if anyone had said anything, or even if anything at all was there except a piece of glass screwed onto a Selectric.

I'll be honest with you: I was scared. After coming home and finding an inexplicable machine sitting on my bed, with instructions to use it as a diary that will be read by people I can't see, I was afraid.

The thing intimidated me, so I hid it away in the closet along with the camera and tried to forget about it as I enjoyed Christmas with my family, celebrated New Year's Eve with my friends, and went back to school on January 4th.

The truth is, a real part of me thought I was crazy. Here I was, ostensibly confiding my innermost thoughts to a group of magic-typewriter people who are supposedly from the future, and, to top it off, talk back to me. I thought for a while that I was just imagining everything and that maybe I had Schizophrenia or something, which would make sense since the letter I found with the typewriter told me not to ever reveal its existence to anyone I know.

Then, though, I thought about it. I prayed, and I reflected, and I knew in my heart that I hadn't been inventing anything in my mind. It was real. So, reasoning that God sometimes provides us with strange paths to follow, and that this can hardly be described as anything else, I have resolved to follow the guidelines I was given.

I guess I'm supposed to just write about what happens to me, so I'll start.

Christmas was really, really fun.

My father got me a new record player, which is probably the best gift ever and I know cost a lot of money. We had one a few years ago, but John and Lewis got into a fight in the living room one time and broke it. Wow, was Dad angry.

I've been listening to Beatles records over at Dan's house, but now I can actually have my own, which will be so cool!

For New Year's Eve I went over to Dan's house, where we hung out with Brandon and Roberta. Roberta is this pretty girl with pale skin, blue eyes, and the most ridiculous frizzy red hair that goes way down her back, almost to her waist. She's a Junior like us, while Brandon, who's new to our group, is a year younger. He's really cool, though.

He lives next door to Dan, and he just moved here from Richmond. He's pretty tall, and he has short brown hair and brown eyes and when he laughs he sounds a little bit like a chipmunk, because his voice is sort of high even though he looks older than fifteen.

I relly like him. He said that the strangest thing about moving here is the cold, since they don't really get winter all the way down in Richmond. I thought it was strange that there could be such major differences just inside of one state, but Virginia is pretty big.

Anyway, Dan's older brother Richie is home from college in New York, and he gave us a couple of beers if we promised not to tell that he let us have them. He's twenty and he's really awesome. He knows everything about everything involved with music, and his hair looks just like John Lennon's from the Beatles.

We went back into the woods and each of us had a beer, even Roberta, and we were pretty wobbly when we came back into the house just before midnight. We got lucky, because Dan's parents were at a party across town and they expected Richie to "watch" us, even though we're in 11th grade.

My father didn't know that only Richie would be there, otherwise he never would have let me go. He thinks I need a babysitter even though I'll be seventeen in May and practically a man.

We watched the ball drop in New York and welcomed in 1965. It seems so crazy to write that year down. In my head it's still 1962 and I'm fourteen years old, just starting high school. 1965 seems so unrealistic, like a date in the far future that we were never supposed to reach. Just think, five years from now it will be 1970 and I'll be twenty-one! That's actually a little scary.

My resolutions for this year are to do well in school, go to church more, pay more attention to politics (especially since that's what I want to study in college), become less shy about singing in front of other people, and stand up for myself better.

I get made fun of a lot.

Probably the only bad thing that happened over Christmas was at work. I work at the grocery store in town on weekends and when school isn't in, and there's this guy there named Tony who's always bothering me. He's big and a Senior at my school, and he always accuses me of being a homo.

A lot of people think that because I'm skinny and I like music and art and my hair is long. That's so stupid, though. Just because a person doesn't play football, or just because his interests are in more intellectual areas like reading and writing, doesn't mean that he's gay.

In the break room Tony kept ragging on me in front of everyone. I was really uncomfortable and the assistant manager could tell, but he didn't do anything.

"Tony, lay off," I finally said.

I didn't even say it that loud. I just felt like I had to do something; what kind of man takes being mocked without doing anything back?

He jumped up from the table and said, "What did you say, faggot?"

"I'm not a faggot," I replied, even though I really was scared.

He moved so fast that I didn't even see him. One minute I was standing there, and the next it was like the floor had fallen out from under me, because he'd gotten me in a headlock.

"Maybe the faggot needs a haircut," he said, and people were actually laughing.

Then he pulled me across the room by my ponytail, which they make me wear at work, and he said he was going to make me look like a boy and not a sissy girl. I thought he was really going to do it, and I was fighting to push him off of me but he was a lot bigger.

Finally, Joe, the assistant manager, got in the middle of it.

"Tony," he said. I couldn't see what he was doing, but his arm was going over me toward where Tony's shoulder was. All the blood had rushed to my head and my face was searing with the heat of the struggle and the humiliation. "If you knock that boy up, I have to fire you."

"So he should just get to walk around here looking like some Beatnik butt-humper?" Tony asked.

"I know," Joe said, looking at me like I was wrong. "But that's how it is."

Tony let me go and said, "You're lucky I don't hit girls."

Then he spit in my face.

I'd been trying really hard not to cry, but after that I couldn't help it, and the tears started leaking out of the corners of my eyes.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Aaron," Joe said. "Look, why don't you go home for the day before you cause any more incidents?"

I boiled with indignation.

That red-neck Neanderthal had insulted me, then resorted to physical violence against me when I dared to respond. Yet I was being treated as if I were the aggressor.

I lied to my mother and told her business was slow at the store, but it was a Saturday morning so I think she figured out I probably wasn't telling the truth. I haven't had any hours there since that happened, and I think I might try to find a different job for the summer.

Stuff like that really upsets me, but when it happens I try to be the bigger person and just walk away, knowing that God wants me to do what's right and will eventually guide me to prosperity and happiness.

So far school has been good. Brandon is in a few of my classes with Dan, which is nice, and we've been hanging out a lot.

Most of the people who bother me are Seniors, and I'm really happy that they'll be graduating this June; after they're gone, I think my life at Central High School will be really good.

By the way, I've noticed something about this typewriter: it has an inborne censoring device. Aaron is not actually my name, and Central High School isn't what my school is called, but every time I try to type either one in, the typewriter changes them. I've written my actual name over and over again: Aaron, Aaron, Aaron. Still, it always comes out Aaron.

Anyway, I'll be writing more about some of my New Year's resolutions later. I already fulfilled one of them by watching President Johnson's State of the Union Address on January 4th, the night after I started back at school. I also watched his inauguration on January 20th. He is such an inspiring man, and I'm excited about where our country can go under his leadership.

I guess you'll hear more from me soon.