The question is rhetorical, but if I wasn’t trying to shut up, I’d answer it: You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.
After a moment, Tiny says, “Straight girls think he’s cute, that’s all I’m saying.” And then I realize the full extent of the insanity. Tiny Cooper has brought me to a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting to hook me up with a girl.
Which is of course idiotic in the kind of profound and multivalent way that only an English teacher could fully elucidate. At least Tiny finally shuts up, whereupon I begin staring at my watch and wondering whether this is what happens at a GSA meeting—maybe the three of us just sit here for an hour in silence with Tiny Cooper periodically rendering the room toxically uncomfortable with his un-subtle comments, and then at the end we go into a huddle and shout GO GAY! or something. But then Gary and Nick come in with some guys I vaguely recognize, a girl with a tomboy cut wearing a gigantic Rancid T-shirt that extends nearly to her knees, and this English teacher, Mr. Fortson, who has never taught me in English, which perhaps accounts for why he smiles at me.
“Mr. Grayson,” says Mr. Fortson. “Nice to have you here. Enjoyed your letter to the editor a few weeks back.”
“Biggest mistake of my life,” I tell him.
“Why’s that?”
Tiny Cooper jumps in then. “It’s a long story involving shutting up and not caring.” I just nod. “Oh my God, Grayson,” Tiny stage-whispers. “Did I tell you what Nick said to me?” I’m thinking nick nick nick, who the hell is nick? And then I glance over at Nick, who is not sitting next to Gary, which is Clue A. He is also burying his head in his arms, which is Clue B. Tiny says, “He said he can see himself with me. Those words. I can see myself with you. Isn’t that just the most fantastic thing you’ve ever heard?” From Tiny’s inflection, I can’t tell whether the thing is fantastically hilarious or fantastically wonderful, so I just shrug.
Nick sighs, his head against the desk, mumbles, “Tiny, not now.” Gary runs his fingers through his hair and sighs. “Bad for the team, all your polyamory.”
Mr. Fortson calls the meeting to order with a gavel. A real gavel. Poor bastard. I imagine that back in college or whatever, he did not imagine that gavel use would be part of his teaching career.
“Okay, so we’ve got eight people today. That’s great, guys. I believe the first order of business is Tiny’s musical, Tiny Dancer. We need to decide whether to ask the administration to fund this play, or if we’d like to focus on different things. Education, awareness, etc.”
Tiny sits up and announces, “Tiny Dancer is all about education and awareness.”
“Yeah,” says Gary sarcastically. “Making sure everyone is aware of and educated about Tiny Cooper.”
The two guys sitting with Gary snicker, and before I can think it through I say, “Hey, don’t be a jerk, Gary,” because I can’t help but defend Tiny.
Jane says, “Look, are people going to make fun of it? Absuh-freakin’-lutely. But it’s honest. It’s funny, and it’s accurate, and it’s not full of crap. It shows g*y people as whole and complicated—not just like ‘oh my God I have to tell my daddy that I like boys and wah-wah it’s so hard.’ ”
Gary rolls his eyes and exhales through pursed lips like he’s smoking. “Right. You know how hard it is,” he says to Jane, “since you’re—oh, wait. Right. You’re not g*y.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Jane responds. I glance over at Jane, who’s giving Gary a look as Mr. Fortson starts talking about how you can’t have Alliances within the Alliance or else there’s no overarching Alliance. I’m wondering how many times he can possibly use the word alliance in one sentence when Tiny Cooper cuts Mr. Fortson off by saying, “Hey, wait, Jane, you’re straight?”
And she nods without really looking up and then mumbles, “I mean, I think so, anyway.”
“You should date Grayson,” Tiny says. “He thinks you’re super cute.”
If I were to stand on a scale fully dressed, sopping wet, holding ten-pound dumbbells in each hand and balancing a stack of hardcover books on my head, I’d weigh about 180 pounds, which is approximately equal to the weight of Tiny Cooper’s left tricep. But in this moment, I could beat the holy living shit out of Tiny Cooper. And I would, I swear to God, except I’m too busy trying to disappear.
I’m sitting here thinking, God, I swear I will take a vow of silence and move to a monastery and worship you for all my days if you just this once provide me with an invisibility cloak, come on come on, please please invisibility cloak now now now. It’s very possible that Jane is thinking the same thing, but I have no idea, because she’s not talking either, and I can’t look at her on account of how I’m blinded by embarrassment.
The meeting lasts thirty more minutes, during which time I do not speak or move or in any way respond to stimuli. I gather that Nick gets Gary and Tiny to sort of make up, and the alliance agrees to seek money for both Tiny Dancer and a series of flyers aimed at education. There’s some more talking, but I don’t hear Jane’s voice again.
And then it’s over, and out of my peripheral vision I see everyone leaving, but I stay put. In the past half hour, I’ve collected a mental list of approximately 412 ways I might kill Tiny Cooper, and I’m not going to leave until I’ve settled on just the right one. I finally decide I’m going to just stab him a thousand times with a ballpoint pen. Jailhouse-style. I stand up ramrod straight and walk outside. Tiny Cooper’s leaning against a row of lockers, waiting for me.
“Listen, Grayson,” he says, and I walk up to him, and grab a fistful of his Polo, and I’m up on my tiptoes, and my eyes are about at his Adam’s apple, and I say, “Of all the miserable things you’ve ever done, you cocksucker.”
Tiny laughs, which only makes me madder, and he says, “You can’t call me a cocksucker, Grayson, because A. It’s not an insult, and B. You know I’m not one. Yet. Tragically.”
I let go of his shirt. There’s no physically intimidating Tiny. “Well, whatever,” I say. “Shitbag. Dumbass. Vagina lover.”
“Now that’s an insult,” he says, “But listen, dude. She likes you. When she walked out just now she came up to me and she was like, ‘Did you really mean that or were you just joking?’ and I was like, ‘Why do you ask?’ and she was like, ‘Well, he’s nice is all,’ and then I told her I wasn’t kidding, and then she smiled all goofy.”