Reaching Out

Chapter 6: Outed, but Not Alone

By Grant Bentley

About two minutes after the principal left, the door opened and he walked in with a dozen students right behind him, eight boys and four girls. Obviously Jason and John knew them, since they all greeted each other.

“Okay,” Mr. Thiessen said. “I think we all need to hear this.”

One of the boys stepped forward and explained that he and a couple of others had seen what happened to John. They knew who had done it. They told us it had been Randy Johnson and Trevor Paulson, two members of both the rugby and wrestling teams. Mr. Thiessen wrote their names down and said he would deal with them later.

Then one of the girls stepped forward and stood in front of Jason and John. “We’ve heard all the gossip this morning and we want you guys to know something,” she said. “Those two guys are the minority. You’ll find that most of the kids here will be okay with you. They don’t care one way or the other and will treat you just the same as anybody else. There will be some who may not want to be your friends, but they’ll leave you alone. We also want you to know you are not alone.” She smiled and looked at the other kids that had come in with her, then turned back to Jason and John and said, “We are all ‘family’ here.”

I think that if the boys’ jaws could have dropped any lower, they would have hit the floor. “You’re kidding,” Jason said.

“Nope,” she said, “and there are more of us. We’re just the ones who weren’t afraid to skip class and come up here.” She looked at Mr. Thiessen and gave him a little smile, which he returned.

John finally found his tongue and said, “We’ve known most of you guys since junior high.”

“Well, we never really hid who we were, but we didn’t advertise it, either,” one of the boys replied.

“But we are going to after today,” another said. “We’ve decided that we want to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance. We’ve been talking about it for a while, but after what happened today, we want to get started on it now.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Mr. Thiessen told them. “Can all of you meet me back here at noon? We can talk more about it then.”

They all thanked him and agreed to be in his office at noon, nodded to the rest of us and started to leave.

“Make sure you get a late slip from my secretary,” Mr Thiessen told them, “or you’re just going to end up right back here in ten minutes for being late, anyway.”

“I thought you boys needed to hear that,” he said, smiling.

“Thanks,” they both replied.

“That just made my job easier,” he said. “Now I don’t have to go through a complicated investigation trying to find out who was responsible.”

“What’s going to happen now?” I asked.

“As soon as we are finished here,” he replied, “their parents will be called in and they will be expelled. I have made it clear that this is a zero-tolerance school with respect to bullying and violence. Up until now I haven’t had to prove it, but today I will.”

“I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you are supporting the boys,” I said, “and that you are willing to help organize a Gay-Straight Alliance. Not many school administrators would be willing to do that.”

He chuckled and said, “Not many school administrators have an out and proud fourteen-year-old son, either.”

“I still think it’s commendable,” I told him.

“I agree,” Ian said as he stood and reached out to shake Mr. Thiessen’s hand. “I think we have John’s situation sorted out, so, if it’s okay, I would like to take him home and get him cleaned up.”

John immediately said, “Dad, no, please. I want to stay and be in on the meeting at noon. I can go to the nurse to get cleaned up.”

“Are you sure?” Ian asked.

“Yes,” John replied firmly.

“Okay then, I’ll see you at home later,” Ian responded. He gave John and Jason a quick hug each and sent a little wave to me, then he left.

“You can take John to the nurse’s office if you want,” Mr. Thiessen said to Jason. “Chris and I can sort out the changes to your information. You don’t need to be here.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. Then he turned to John and said, “Come on, let’s go.” As he was leaving, he looked at me, smiled and said, “Thanks, see you after school.”

Once the boys were gone, Mr. Thiessen turned to me and said, “I got a call from Jason’s stepfather last night. He’s quite a piece of work, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is,” I replied.

Apparently he had phoned Mr. Thiessen to warn him about the two faggots he had in his school. He had expected Thiessen would be duly horrified and have them expelled. Thiessen had thanked him for the information, but said he had no intention of expelling them. First of all, it would have been highly illegal to expel them on the grounds of their sexual orientation, and second, he had no problem with them being gay. Jason’s stepfather got very abusive after he heard that, then hung up.

“It appears I wasn’t the only person he phoned,” Mr. Thiessen said.

“No, I think he phoned everyone he knew who had kids going to this school,” I said. I then explained the events of the weekend to him. He was horrified when I told him that I had found Jason nearly frozen to death.

“After all the years I’ve been teaching, you would think I’d seen it all,” he said, “but some parents never cease to amaze me–unfortunately, not in a good way.”

We talked a bit more about Jason’s situation. I told him that the police had been involved, including the Chief of Police. I explained that Jason would be living with me for the rest of his time at high school and gave him our address and phone number. He was very happy to hear that Jason was in a happy and stable environment. He had been aware that his home life had not been the best after his mother remarried, but, as he said, Jason hadn’t seemed to be abused or in danger, so there was little the school could have done. He was also very pleased to know that the boys had both Ian’s and my full support. I left the office feeling confident that the boys were safe and appeared to have found ‘family’ and new friends within the school.

It seemed that I was right, as a very excited group of ten kids came bounding into the condo soon after school got out. Apparently their meeting at noon had gone very well and they were going to be organizing a GSA. I was introduced to Pete, Ross, Cary, Scott, Evan, Chrissie, JoAnne and Theo. Along with Jason and John, they were part of the organizing committee for the new GSA. There were nine others, but between practices and jobs, only eight could be here besides John and Jason. Jason asked if it was okay for them to have their first meeting here. Since they were already here, I couldn’t imagine saying no, so I gave them permission. I got a quick hug for it before they disappeared into Jason’s room. Yes, my quiet, lonely life had definitely changed.

I knocked on Jason’s door and asked if anyone wanted a drink or snack. They all declined the snack, but everyone definitely wanted a drink. Jason and John ‘took their orders’ and raided the fridge. They also grabbed a couple of large bags of chips on their way out of the kitchen, ‘just in case’. An hour later, I had a knock on the door to my study. ”Come in,” I said, expecting Jason, but it was all ten of them and their excitement level hadn’t dropped much.

They had a list of ideas about organizing the GSA and another list of ideas for recruiting members. They asked me if I would look at the lists and give my opinion. I was very impressed. They had checked out several websites including GLSEN1 and LYRIC2 and had contacted both for information. Jason asked if they could use my printer to print some of the information they had, in particular the GLSEN Jump-Start Guide. They were thrilled that they already had some of the first things mentioned: school administration support, a staff advisor and nineteen students who couldn’t wait to get things going. They also had at least eighteen other students who weren’t able to be on the organizing committee, but they were guaranteed members as soon as the GSA officially started meeting.

It had been decided that they would be meeting in Mr. Thiessen’s conference room at the school once a week to get started. However, they didn’t feel that once a week was enough. They also wanted to meet at students’ homes once a week as well, at least for the first few weeks, or until they had everything organized and the GSA was official. The first week was Jason’s turn, next week was John’s and the week after was Cary’s. After that, they would play it by ear if they needed more meetings.

It was great to see them so excited. They were sure they could get more than a hundred members. They had already been talking to both gay and straight friends at the school and had received a lot of support. John mentioned that five members of the football team and three members of the basketball team were among their prospective members. That got a laugh from Scott and Evan as Scott was a wide receiver on the football team and Evan was assistant captain of the basketball team. I learned later that Scott and Evan were a couple and had been since their freshman year.

It was quickly approaching dinnertime, and everyone had to leave for their homes. Jason saw everyone to the door to say goodbye. He and John stayed back after everyone left. A simple ‘see ya tomorrow’ wasn’t quite good enough for them. Ten minutes later, John was out the door and on his way home.

I had put a chicken in the oven earlier and had the potatoes and peas on the stove boiling away. I was starting the salad when I felt a pair of arms wrap around me from behind. I turned and got a little kiss on the cheek. “Let me do that for you,” Jason said as he took the knife from my hand. “Sit down and relax.” I grabbed my ever-present coffee and sat down at the table.

“So, I take it that, after a rather shaky start, you had a good day,” I said.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” he replied. “The whole day has been totally weird. On the way to the nurse’s office, we ran into Pete and Ross in the hall. They’re on the rugby team with Randy and Trevor. They were coming directly at us, so we figured we were in for some more abuse for sure. Just as they got about three feet from us, they stopped and both of them glanced up and down the hall. We thought this was it, so we stepped apart a bit and braced for a fight. Pete looked at us and gave us this really evil-looking grin. I clenched my fists, ready to go, when he leaned over and kissed Ross–and not on the cheek. They both grinned at us and Pete said, ‘Catch ya later,’ and they walked off. We were like, ‘Whoa, what just happened there?’ but we continued on to the nurse’s office.

“After the nurse was finished cleaning John’s lip and checking out his eye, she announced he was going to have quite a shiner for a while. She said she hoped whoever did it had been caught. We assured her they had and she said, ‘Good. I hate bullies. They made my son’s life hell in junior high.’ Her eyes filled with tears and she quickly turned to try to cover it up so we wouldn’t see.

“I asked her if she was okay, and she said, ‘I will be in a minute. It just brought back some memories, but that was a long time ago. I’m fine. Now you two have missed enough time. Back to class with you,’ she said, smiling as she patted John on the back.”

“Did you find out what upset her?” I asked.

Jason nodded. “After the meeting with Mr. Thiessen, I mentioned it to him. He told me that her son had been bullied in junior high school and had committed suicide when he was thirteen. He had never told anyone about being bullied, not even her. That had been twenty years ago, but it had totally devastated her. Even now, he said, she’s still not over it and probably never will be.

“Then he said, ‘If I lost Terry, I could never get over it, either.’ He had a faraway look in his eyes when he said it and it made me wonder if he had come close to losing him.”

“That could very well be,” I said.

“Anyway,” Jason said, “The meeting was awesome. There were nineteen of us there, and seven of them were actually straight. Three of them were brothers or sisters of gay kids and the other four just wanted to support us. It was so cool. Even Pete and Ross were there.”

“Now that is cool,” I said. “Not too many jocks are willing to come out, let alone join in as organizers of a GSA.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Scott and Evan were there too, so we have four jocks already. Oh, and a couple of cheerleaders, too,” he laughed.

“Well, you guys have done a lot in a really short time if what you showed me tonight is any indication. And it looks like you are going to have a lot of support,” I said. “I am so proud of all of you. You are going to make life so much easier for a lot of kids who are questioning and scared.”

“I hope so,” he replied. “It was so hard for John and I. I know it’s stupid, but we felt like we were the only ones, you know. I couldn’t believe it when those guys came into the office today. I mean, we’ve known some of them for years and had no idea they were gay.”

“You’re definitely not alone now,” I laughed.

“Yeah, we were scared all the time and sneaking around so no one would find out,” he laughed. “Now we’re out and find there was nothing to be scared of–at least, not here. I know it’s not the same in all schools, but here it’s great. Mr. Thiessen is the best.”

As he was talking, he had finished the salad and taken the chicken out of the oven. I got up and drained the potatoes and peas. While I mashed the potatoes, Jason carved the chicken and we were ready to eat. We set everything on the table and sat down. As we were dishing up, Jason stopped, looked across the table at me and smiled.

“What?” I asked.

His smile turned into a grin and he replied, “I’m still expecting to wake up and find this is just a dream. No one could be this happy in real life.”

I smiled back and was just about to tell him he wasn’t the only happy one when the phone rang. Jason answered it.

“Hi, John,” he began, but he stopped short as John’s frantic voice came from the phone.

Copyright © 2008 by Grant Bentley.
All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 7