Spring 2006

Theme: Day of Silence

Gay Authors

Dan couldn’t quite figure out what was going on with his best friend Gabe. Gabe had arrived at the bus stop a little later than usual wearing the normal combat boots, baggy jeans, ratty jean jacket with patches all over it, and a semi-faded black t-shirt that had ‘Shout It Out’ emblazed across his chest in bright pink lettering. But that wasn’t the thing that was unusual; it was the mittens. The late April weather had been a little unpredictable lately, but the past few days had been in the lower seventies.

The bus had not arrived yet, so Dan took a moment to ask Gabe about the shirt. He assumed it referred to a band. Gabe had many band shirts that no one at their high school had heard of before, but then again, Gabe had been places that no one in their high school had been before. Gabe just smiled and held up his mittened hands.

“What the hell kind of response is that?” Dan signed as the bus pulled up. Gabe shook his head and got on the bus, passing Dan who was obviously saving him a seat, and sat beside Patricia Goldman. No one sat beside Patricia Goldman.

“Get up, perv,” she yelled at him. Gabe smiled and held up his mittens.

“You know he can’t hear you, Patricia,” Dan told her.

“He can damn well better understand this then,” she said, giving Gabe a shove. Gabe fell into the aisle and the kids on the bus laughed. Gabe laughed too, in his own way, then got up and sat down beside her again. By this time the bus driver had stopped the bus and told the kids to settle down, glaring at Patricia in the process.

Peter, another of Dan and Gabe’s friends, got on at the next stop, saw that the seat next to Dan was open and took it. “What’s up with Deaf Boy?”

“Why do you call him that?”

“He can’t hear me, besides, he don’t care; he knows he’s deaf.”

“How would you like it if people called you Blond Boy or something?”

“So? People are weird.” Peter shrugged, “What’s up with him today?”

“He won’t say.”

“Well duh.” Peter rolled his eyes.

“I mean, he’s wearing mittens and hasn’t even said hello. I wonder if he’s mad at me or something?” Dan looked back over at his best friend.

“Did you do anything to make him mad?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“Then don’t sweat it, you know how he gets sometimes. Remember when he thought he could listen to our music if he got it loud enough?”

Dan laughed. They had not only blown the house fuse, but the block transformer as well to get enough amps for Gabe to enjoy one rock song. Since then, he was an avid concert goer. He claimed he could feel the vibrations and enjoy the music that way. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, maybe he’s doing something on sensory deprivation for school; it would be like him to choose a topic that he’s already familiar with and go at it from another angle.”

“Yeah I guess. He’s just acting strange, is all.”

Once the bus arrived at school, the students debarked and Dan lost Gabe in the crush. He wasn’t too worried, though. He would see him at lunch; they always ate together.

It wasn’t until halfway through first block that Dan noticed that there was something strange going on at school. His teacher had called roll, but some of the kids only raised their hands instead of saying the usual ‘present’. This caused some of the other kids to snicker. The teacher didn’t say anything or act like anything was unusual. Besides, they were the weird kids anyway, so it didn’t really matter if the cool kids snickered at them.

Four groups were to give their presentations today. The first two were typical, which meant they were pretty boring. The third presentation caught his attention. Only one of the four people in the group spoke, although it was obvious that they had all done equal parts of the work. Dan mentally reviewed the directions again; he could have sworn that part of the requirement was speaking, not just standing in front of the class.

Then the fourth group stepped up to do theirs. No one spoke. Instead, there was a presentation on a computer screen that was projected on the whiteboard. Why couldn’t his group have thought about doing something like this? Dan wondered. He was sure that group would get a good grade. In fact, he was so engrossed in their project that he seemed to have forgotten that they didn’t speak at all.

The halls between classes were always loud, yet today; they seemed eerily subdued. Dan hurried to his next class, which was all the way on the other side of the building and up a floor. He barely made it in time for the bell and was still organizing himself when a sheet of paper was placed on his desk. Pop-quiz. Dan groaned. A whole block of silence as everyone worked to write out long answers to nearly twenty questions on the American Civil Rights Movement. It was the last one that caught his attention though. Dan had no answer. It was, “How have you involved yourself in defending the civil rights of yourself or others?” He didn’t think it was a fair question. He didn’t want to seem self-centered and put ‘I haven’t', but it was true. He could lie and make himself seem like something he wasn’t, but that wasn’t him either. Dan sighed. He told the truth and mercifully, the bell rang.

Dan hurried to his locker and emptied his arms of his morning books. Lunchtime — forty-five minutes to sit and chat with his friends without any one asking him tough questions. A few minutes later, he was standing in line. There was the usual pushing and shoving going on, and the usual obnoxious behavior by certain groups, but then he noticed that there was also a lot of silence. Whole tables where kids weren’t saying a thing. They were looking at each other, and smiling, but not talking. It was weird. He got his food and headed over to the empty table where he usually sat with Gabe. Peter had a different lunch.

He didn’t have to wait long before he spotted Gabe walking across the room with another boy that Dan didn’t know. The other boy was dressed very differently from his radical friend in khaki cargo shorts, dark green button-up shirt, and name-brand sneakers. In fact, they looked quite mismatched, with Gabe’s long black hair clubbed back contrasting smartly against the other boy’s close cropped blond locks. Dan had gotten so used to the dark smudges of black eyeliner around Gabe’s green eyes that he didn’t even notice them anymore; they were just another part of his very unusual friend. However, there was something about the way the other boy’s blue eyes were looking at Gabe that made him take notice. That, and the fact that they had sat down and still hadn’t said a word.

The silence at his table was frustrating. It made no sense. Gabe had the mittens off and still he refused to talk. Finally, Dan put his fork down and cleared his throat. “What the hell is going on?” he asked as he signed the words, even though he spoke them clearly enough that Gabe could easily read his lips. Gabe looked at the friend he had failed to introduce who smiled reassuringly, then pointed to his shirt and grinned.

“‘Shout It Out’? I don’t get it.” Dan scowled, as the other two boys seemed to fall into a fit of silent giggles. Then the other boy pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and slid it across the table. Gabe smiled calmly as Dan picked it up and read it. “So, you’re being silent for gay rights?”

The blond boy nodded but Gabe shook his head and pointed to his ears.

“I don’t get it.” Dan said.

Gabe shrugged, cleared up his lunch tray, and stood up. His friend, whom Dan still didn’t know, followed. Dan sat, frustrated as he watched the two of them toss their trash, and then he hurried to follow after them. “Wait…”

The boy got Gabe’s attention and they both turned around and looked at him expectantly. “I don’t know what to do.” He signed to Gabe. Gabe smiled and walked over to his friend, and held out his mittens. Dan took the mittens with a smile and placed them on his hands and together they walked out into the hallway. He still didn’t quite understand about the silence, but he did understand about the teasing that Gabe went through and he didn’t like it. If being silent for a day would help stop it and help out other kids too, then he could do it. He would do it, even if he did get a late start. He smiled over at Gabe, and Gabe smiled back. Yes, his best friend was weird, but that is what he liked the best about him.