wizened_cynic | You lost me at carrots (Reply)

We had a five-day weekend here. FIVE DAY WEEKEND. I gotta say, HK sure knows how to milk its holidays. (Gravesweeping festival what? Screw my ancestors; I ate pizza and then played Harvest Moon.) I did venture down the memory lane when I found my old MP3 player and major flashbacks to 2006. So technically I was sweeping the grave of dead music. Or something. Whatever. Also discovered amongst the ruins of my previous Canadian life: an A.J. kidfic written four years ago. It's not as bad as I remembered. In fact, it's probably better than the shit I write now, which is mostly FUCK FUCK FUCKERS WE'RE COUNTERCLAIMING FUCK SEE YOU IN FUCKING COURT MOTHERFUCKERS.

Brief recap: this is the original A.J. universe in which Alex had a baby when she was 16 and Lorelai is desperately in love with her but they are horrid bitches to each other and much angst ensues. Not my favorite universe, probably because Chad doesn't exist in it.

It all started because of Bianca.

If you asked A.J. what was wrong with Bianca and why A.J. didn't like her, she wouldn't be able to tell you. She didn't know what it was exactly about Bianca that she didn't like, but there had to be something, because it wasn't just A.J. who didn't like her, it was the whole class. The girls, anyway, and Brad. The boys couldn't care less.

There was nothing wrong with Bianca. Not if you just saw her passing by. She wasn't like Patty, who had stringy hair and epilepsy and went to special ed when the rest of the class had music. Nobody liked Patty, but nobody was mean to her, because she had a reason for being weird.

Bianca had clean clothes and washed her hair. She looked like everybody else. If you didn't know her, you'd think she was just like everybody in fourth grade, like A.J. and Louise and Madeline and even Francie. If you knew her, though, you wouldn't like her.

The problem with Bianca was, A.J. thought, that Bianca tried too hard. She was nice to everybody in that desperate way that screamed, "Please be my friend!" As a result, nobody wanted to be her friend, except for maybe Patty. When Bianca had her birthday at the end of September, she brought a cake to school and gave everybody a goodie bag stuffed with M & Ms and licorice whips. Her parents came and took pictures and everybody liked her for that afternoon, but once the weekend was over, everybody went back to hating her.

Bianca just didn't get it. She kept hanging around Francie and her friends during lunch, even though it was obvious Francie didn't like her. Francie didn't like anybody, but that made her the most popular girl in class, unlike Paris Gellar, who didn't like anybody, but wasn't popular at all, because everyone was scared of her. People were scared of Francie too --- and this included A.J. --- but at the same time, they wanted to be Francie's friend.

But not A.J. She didn't want to be Francie's friend, because Francie once called her a bastard. She just didn't want Francie to hate her, or she would end up having to be friends with Patty and Bianca, since Lane always went home for lunch and A.J. didn't have anybody else to play with.

That was the kind of stuff Francie did. Once a month she would choose someone in the class to pick on. When it was A.J.'s turn, Francie told everyone that A.J. was a bastard because her parents weren't married. It stung at first, but there were a lot of bastards at their school, so people got bored of teasing her about it after a few days. A.J. got it lucky; Francie decided Kendra Donaldson was fat and people didn't stop reminding her about it until Kendra cried and told the teacher and the teacher pulled all of the girls out of gym class and yelled at them until they promised to be nicer to each other.

Bianca wasn't fat. She wasn't a bastard either. She wasn't dumb enough for special ed, but everybody agreed that she was kind of slow, and she did strange things like run up to you and touch you in a friendly way.

A.J. was reading, and pretending to listen to Francie talk about the new bike her dad bought her when Bianca rushed up to them and asked if she could join them. Francie ignored her and said, instead, "Let's go somewhere else." Louise and Madeline began following her across the courtyard to wear little kids were playing hopscotch, and Francie called, "A.J.! You coming or not?"

A.J. had just gotten to a good part in Number the Stars and didn't want to move, but she didn't want to be stuck with Bianca either. She didn't hate Bianca. Most of the time, actually, A.J. felt sorry for Bianca, but if Francie suddenly decided that A.J. and Bianca were friends, she would make A.J.'s life miserable. Being lumped with Bianca was worse than being called a bastard, so A.J. got up and walked after Madeline.

Bianca ran up to Francie. "Can I come?" she asked, taking Francie's hand.

Francie flung her hand away, as if her hand was on fire. "Don't touch me," Francie snarled. "What are you, a lesbian?"

Nobody said anything. Louise looked at Madeline, who looked at A.J., who looked at back at the two of them. A.J. was sure that none of them exactly knew what a lesbian was, but they were all pretty sure that it was worse than being a bastard. Maybe even worse than being fat.

Bianca stood there, face frozen in that stupid clown smile she always had. She didn't know what a lesbian was either.

"Let's go," Francie commanded, glaring at Louise and Madeline and A.J.

When they got to the other side of the yard, Francie continued talking about her new bike, but only Louise was listening. Madeline went to play hopscotch with the little kids, earning an eyeroll from Francie, and A.J. went back to reading her book. The asphalt was hot and bit into her skin, and when she looked up, the bell was ringing and the teacher on duty was standing over her.

"That's a good book, isn't it?" Mrs. Yardley said. She was old and shaped like a pear, but she was the kind of person who, unlike Kendra Donaldson, wouldn't care if somebody called her fat.

Right then, A.J. wished she were Mrs. Yardley.

*

They were assigned to quiet desk work while the teacher took Carlos Hernandez to the nurse's office. Carlos Hernandez had the worst allergies known to man and his nose was always either stuffed, or running. Nobody made fun of him for it, because he was good at dodgeball and had a sense of humor. Five minutes ago, he'd decided that he would clear his stuffy nose by sticking a pencil up his nostril. He ended up giving himself a nosebleed.

He was in Paris Gellar's group, and Paris was not happy that he was getting blood all over her math worksheet. "Ms. Jeffries," she screamed, waving her hand frantically, "Carlos Hernandez just punctured his sinus!"

Paris liked to pretend she was a doctor.

A.J. finished her worksheet and was taking out Number the Stars from her desk when Madeline leaned over and asked Francie, "What's a lesbian?"

A.J. stopped reading and looked up. She wanted to hear the answer, but she didn't want to be the one asking the question, because Francie would make fun of her. And that was exactly what Francie did.

"You don't know what a lesbian is?" Francie said. "What are you, stupid?"

It was really nice to have Madeline around sometimes. She didn't mind that she was stupid.

"A lesbian," Francie explained, putting down her pencil, "is a girl who's gay. A girl who likes other girls."

At the mention of the word gay, everyone turned to look at Brad, who was gay. He had been gay since kindergarten, when he hogged the dress-up corner and sang showtunes while wearing a wig and high heels. Everybody was so used to Brad being gay that they didn't even bother making fun of him for it. They made fun of him for singing, because even though he was good at it, he would never shut up, and the boys would try to lock him into the cupboard under the sink.

"It's bad to be a lesbian?" Madeline asked, and Francie sighed her you're-so-stupid sigh.

"Of course it's bad," Francie said.

"Why? I like girls."

A.J. and Louise exchanged a look. Sometimes Madeline just didn't know when to stop.

"Not that way, stupid," said Francie. "A lesbian likes girls in the kissing way. And that is gross."

"Okay."

Madeline didn't look like she really understood, but A.J. did. She understood.

*

A.J. stayed at Lane's house after school. Mom paid Mrs. Kim to watch A.J. until she came home from work.

Mrs. Kim did not like Mom, because Mom had A.J. when she was sixteen. Mrs. Kim didn't like A.J. either, but she liked the money, which helped now that Mrs. Kim was on her own and Mr. Kim had gone back to Korea to find a new wife.

Mrs. Kim didn't really like anybody except Jesus.

Lane and A.J. did their homework at the antique store, moving from table to table when customers came in and looked at the furniture. Sometimes they swapped homework because it was more fun to do somebody else's assignment. Lane was in Mr. Cassidy's class and he was disorganized and slow. He was still on chapter four of the math book. Ms. Jeffries was finishing chapter five already.

"What happened at lunch today?" Lane asked.

"What happens everyday at lunch," A.J. told her. "Why do you always ask?"

"Because," Lane said, "I have to spend my lunch listening to my mother talk about how flax seed muffins are going to prevent me from getting colon cancer."

"What's a colon?"

"You don't want to know. So who'd Francie pick on this time?"

"Bianca. Francie called her a lesbian."

"What's a lesbian?"

A.J. was about to explain but Mrs. Kim's shadow was hovering over them. How Mrs. Kim's shadow was capable of looking angry, A.J. would never know. "Who's a lesbian?" she demanded, eyeing A.J. suspiciously. "Your teacher?"

"Nobody," A.J. replied.

"She looks like a lesbian."

A.J. had heard Ms. Jeffries talk about her boyfriends, but she decided not to say anything. Mrs. Kim wouldn't want to hear about Ms. Jeffries's three different boyfriends.

"Why you talk about lesbians?" Mrs. Kim asked.

Lane jumped to the rescue. "We learned that word in school today, Momma."

Mrs. Kim frowned. "American schools! Teach kids all the bad things! Listen, no more talk about lesbians, all right? Lesbians are a sin against God. They will burn in hell." Once Mrs. Kim made A.J. and Lane promise that they wouldn't talk about lesbians anymore, she was satisfied, and she went to talk to a customer.

"A lesbian is a girl who likes another girl," A.J. told Lane when she was sure that Mrs. Kim wasn't listening. "In the kissing way."

"You'll go to hell for that?" Lane seemed confused, and A.J. didn't blame her. According to Mrs. Kim, you could go to hell for a lot of things, like not coming straight home from school, watching American television, and even liking boys the kissing way.

A.J. shrugged. "I guess so. Your mom said."

The customer pointed to the table where A.J. and Lane were working, and Mrs. Kim shooed them out of the room.

*

"What happened in school today?" A.J.'s mother asked when she picked A.J. up from Lane's place. She traded her briefcase for A.J.'s backpack. A.J. liked carrying her mom's briefcase. It made her feel grownup, like a real lawyer.

"Carlos Hernandez shoved a pencil up his nose." Mom did not look impressed, so A.J. tried something else. "Francie was a jerk today."

"Francie is always a jerk."

The thing with A.J.'s mom was that any other mom would either tell A.J. not to call her friend a jerk, or tell A.J. to stop being friends with a jerk. But A.J.'s mom understood, sort of, why A.J. needed to keep on Francie's good side. Mom didn't like it, but she understood why it was necessary.

Some people liked to say, you shouldn't care about what other people think about you. That seemed like good advice, but A.J. wondered if anybody was actually able to do it. How could you not care about what other people think about you? How could you stand being made fun of by jerks like Francie? If you had an excuse like Patty or Bianca, then it might be okay, but A.J. was a normal kid and she didn't like being teased, so she had to think about what other people would think of her. It was like closing your eyes when you sneezed. You had no control over it.

"Francie called Bianca a lesbian," A.J. said as she took her mom's hand and they crossed the street.

A.J. could tell that her mother was irritated. "Tell Francie that it's extremely unbecoming of her to use 'gay' as a derogatory term," Mom said, her eyes cat-like with anger, flashing silver under the streetlight. "It insults her, and not the person she's insulting."

A.J. thought about this as they walked down into the subway station. "Mom," she said, "if it makes you look bad, then why do people keep doing it?"

"They're small-minded bigots, that's why. Don't ever let me catch you doing it, A.J., all right?" Mom's voice meant business, and A.J. was scared, because her mother usually never cared about what went on in school.

"Yeah," A.J. said, but what she really wanted to know was why it was so bad for a girl to like another girl in the kissing way. Why was it so bad for a boy to like a boy in the kissing way? Wasn't a boy kissing a girl just as gross as a girl kissing another girl? In fact, boys were even grosser. A.J. would much rather let another girl kiss her than a boy, unless it was Brad or her dad. Did that make A.J. a lesbian?

As the train pulled to their stop, A.J. said to her mother, "I don't want to kiss anybody. Ever."

"Good," said her mother. "Your father will be glad to hear that."

*

A.J. never told anybody this, but once she saw her mother kissing Lorelai.

She didn't think it was a big deal until now. She wasn't even sure if she really remembered it, or if she'd made it up after watching too many episodes of General Hospital, where there were no lesbians, but definitely a lot of kissing.

She was little when it happened, maybe just three or four, and it was a nice day. Summer. The water was out because Munch tried to jack the reading on the water meter with a screwdriver and he shut down the water for the whole building by accident. Lorelai had to shampoo A.J.'s hair out in the yard, rinsing it out with bottles of water that came from France. After she finished with A.J., Lorelai made Mom sit down on a plastic chair and tried to wash her hair, only at the end Lorelai turned on the garden hose and sprayed Mom all over with it, and they got into a huge water fight.

A.J. was preoccupied with the hose, trying to drown the dotted line of ants trotting along the concrete path. When she was done, she turned around to show Lorelai and Mom, only they weren't paying attention, because they were kissing.

For the longest time, A.J. didn't think much about it, because her mother and Lorelai were best friends, so who cared. In France, they kissed strangers on the cheek when they saw each other the first time.

But now that A.J. thought about it, she was pretty sure she remembered Mom and Lorelai kissing on the lips. For a long time too, long enough for all the ants to be washed away and the flowerbed to be flooded. Mrs. Petrovsky wasn't pleased when she came by the next morning.

It suddenly occurred, now, to A.J., that her mother might like Lorelai in the kissing way.

She remembered what Mrs. Kim said about lesbians going to hell, and she started to worry. She worried about her mother and Lorelai going to hell, and then she worried about herself going to hell, because now she was not only a bastard, she also had a mother who was a lesbian. A.J. would probably get front row seats in hell.

At least the three of them would be together, A.J. thought. Lorelai could probably find a way to make hell fun.

*

Nothing much happened in the next two weeks. Francie picked someone new as her torture target, and Bianca continued being friendly and getting shut down. More than once A.J. wanted to tell her to go away and stop making herself look so stupid. She wanted to tell Bianca she'd never get any friends if she kept acting like that, but A.J. was afraid that if she talked to Bianca, Bianca might latch on to her like a sucker on an octopus's tentacle, and A.J. had enough trouble dealing with being a bastard and having a lesbian for a mother as it is. She didn't need any more stress.

"I am stressed out," A.J. said as she started making a good copy of her book report. She'd finished Number the Stars and was starting A Cricket in Times Square. She gave her copy of Number the Stars to Munch, who read it and liked it, because he was Jewish, like Ellen in the story.

A.J. wondered if she could take Munch to school and have him talk to her class about being Jewish, but Munch would probably get carried away talking about how the government was tapping into everybody's phones and listening to their private conversations.

A.J.'s mother was going over opening statements for court and reading through A.J.'s book report at the same time. "Why are you stressed out?"

"Being in fourth grade is very exhausting," A.J. said.

"I'm sorry to hear," Mom said, sounding more bored than sorry.

"I don't like my friends anymore," A.J. told her. "Except Lane. I hate everybody else. Well, I hate Francie. I don't want to be friends with her anymore."

"Is she calling you a bastard again?" Mom had said that if Francie ever called A.J. another bad name, she would sue Francie. A.J. knew her mother meant well, but suing Francie would only attract more attention, and everybody would end up on Francie's side, because Francie was Francie, and A.J. was not.

A.J. wondered how she could phrase it so that her mother wouldn't be offended. "Francie doesn't like lesbians."

Francie hated lesbians, actually. She would probably persecute them like the German soldiers persecuted the Jews in Number the Stars, if she weren't too busy painting her nails and taking riding lessons.

"Listen to me, A.J." Mom pulled her chair over and looked squarely into A.J.'s eyes. "People like Francie are manipulative, mean-spirited sociopaths who won't ever get anywhere in life. Nobody likes them. They only have power over you because you're afraid of them, and you shouldn't have to be.. It doesn't matter whether or not Francie likes lesbians, or hates lesbians, or is a lesbian. What matters is that you have to understand, as long as you're scared of her, she'll always have control over you."

"But it's so hard!" A.J. cried. "I don't even want Francie to like me. I just want her not to hate me. I just want her to leave me alone."

"I'm not telling you to make enemies. Don't provoke Francie on purpose, but don't be scared to defend yourself when she picks a fight with you. You know what she's like, A.J., and you can decide for yourself whether or not to listen to her, to take what she says to heart. If you're smart, and I believe you are, you'll know better than to take anything she says seriously."

Mom took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if this whole conversation was tiring her out. "Now hurry up and finish your report. 'Definitely' is spelled with two i's, by the way."

A.J. wanted to ask, right at that moment, whether or not her mom loved Lorelai the kissing way, the way A.J.'s dad loved her almost-stepmother, Olivia.

But A.J. wasn't brave like her mom. She was a chicken, and she liked to run away. She was like Lorelai in that respect. So instead, she asked, "Do you miss Lorelai?"

"Yes. I do," Mom said after a long pause. "I'm sure she misses you too, A.J."

"I know she misses me. Do you think she misses you?"

"I think she does." A.J.'s mother smiled, but the smile was unsure. A.J. opened her mouth to say something else, but Mom said, "Homework. Now."

"Mom," A.J. whined, "just one question: why is it bad to be gay?"

"It isn't," her mother said matter-of-factly, the way a person might say "yes" when someone asked if two plus two equals four. "There is nothing wrong with being gay. People have simply been conditioned by societal norms to believe being gay is sinful or unnatural. Some people don't understand. They can't accept others being different."

A.J. thought it was sad, that people couldn't accept others being different, that gay people would definitely (two i's) get persecuted and made fun of, and people would always think bad things about them.

"You know what I think is the saddest thing about being gay?" A.J. said.

"What?" Mom asked. She seemed genuinely interested, which meant she was done with preparing opening statements and was ready to win her case.

"You can't kiss whoever you want, when you want," A.J. said. "I think that is sad. What if you were a girl and you wanted to kiss another girl but you couldn't because people would see and beat you up for it?"

"That is sad," agreed A.J.'s mother.

"I wish everybody was like Lorelai. She wouldn't care what anybody thinks." A.J. looked up at her mother. "She would kiss whoever she felt like kissing."

*

Bianca came up to Francie again during lunch time. She was still smiling that clown smile, even when Francie gave her a look of death and announced that she was going to the other side of the playround, where there were no stupid people.

Chester the Cricket had just stopped singing, and A.J. barely heard Francie when she said, "A.J., you coming?"

What she meant was: "A.J., you are coming with me NOW."

Francie was not her friend, A.J. decided. Francie was not her anybody, and Francie did not have any power to make her do anything.

So A.J. told her, "I'm reading. Maybe I'll catch up with you later."

Francie rolled her eyes so far back she could probably see her brain. "Fine," she spat. "Nerd."

Madeline and Louise followed her across the yard. A.J. watched them go.

"Hi," Bianca said. She sat down beside A.J. "What are you reading?"

"Can we not talk?" A.J. asked. She knew Francie was watching, waiting for A.J. and Bianca to get friendly so that she could spread rumors about them. A.J. tried not to care about what Francie did, but she couldn't do it, not right now. She would have to keep working on it.

Bianca said, "I'm not a lesbian."

"I don't care." A.J. went back to reading her book and Bianca just sat there, not saying a word, kicking up pieces of gravel until she got bored and walked away.

A.J. didn't hear the bell ring, and only knew to go inside when she saw Mrs. Yardley, standing over her and smiling.