Conformed Rebel My name is Shawn. I'm cool and I'm smart.
My name used to be Chauncey but I changed my named to Shawn because unconventional names just aren't cool, ya know?
I know that I'm cool because I'm popular. All the guys want to be my friend and all the girls want me.
I don't know why this is. Maybe it's because I have a big penis, maybe it's because I make a lot of jokes concerning flatulence. I don't think that penis size has anything to do with your character, and fart-humor I find to be utterly asinine, but I partake in these social exploits because otherwise I would get teased.
I'm smart too. I have to hide it though; if I want to be cool I can't be getting good grades. So I purposely get answers wrong on the tests, I never participate in class unless it is to make fun of the teacher (which is what cool people do), and when we get essay assignments I purposely deprave my essay of its best ideas and dilute the remaining ideas.
So I don't get good grades, but I am one cool motherfucker.
Every day in the morning I wake up. I get to school late. It's uncool to get to school early; everybody will think you actually want to be in school. Plus, if I get into school early then I am obligated to talk to all the people who want to be my friend and flirt with all the girls who want to be my girlfriend. I do not enjoy doing this.
So I always get into school just as homeroom gets out. I live across the street from school, so I sit right outside my door until 8:23 so that I will arrive in my homeroom exactly at 8:25.
Then I have my first two periods, in which I try not to look like I'm paying attention to what the teacher is saying. Sometimes we begin to discuss some very interesting stuff, and I have to slap myself because I find myself staring on attentively. That simply can not be… cool people don't pay attention in class.
Then we have a free period of 20 minutes in which we can go to the cafeteria and get a snack if we so choose. I am often hungry by this time because I have an unusually fast metabolism, but I am never able to leave the hallway in which all the cool people gather.
I am obligated to participate in the social scene for 20 minutes. First, all the popular people do their daily making fun of the Brazen Loser in our grade, whose name is Daed.
Our daily torturing of the less-cool people now over, I proceed make stupid, mindless jokes to appease the guys while I flirt with the girls.
I try not to flirt too much. I flirt enough that it seem to all the guys that I am making a move because I want to get some ass, but I don't flirt too much because then the girl might think that I'm actually interested in her and, god forbid, ask me out or something.
Then I will be obligated to say yes.
And having a girlfriend is an opportunity that many of the less fortunate, less popular guys I know (those who have small penises and don't fart loudly) would kill for. But they aren't gay.
Yes, that's right, I am gay. And I've done a truly amazing job of covering it up. I hear people talk; I am perhaps the only guy in our grade who has at no time had his sexuality suspected.
So every once in a while a girl asks me out because she gets the wrong idea from all my flirtation, so I have to say yes and then eventually we have to have sex… maybe even a number of times. And it's horrible, having sex with all these girls; I simply do not enjoy sex with women. But, obviously, I have to. All the cool people have had sex, and the less-cool people say they have, and the more honest of the not so cool people at least vehemently wish they have…
Well I do all the time and I wish for none of it. But having sex is a super cool thing to do. It's especially cool if you dump the girl right afterwards. Well, that is, the guys will think you're a fucking god, but the girls will call you an asshole behind your back and maybe have an unfavorable opinion of you for a few days.
So I have to gauge my support. If the guys aren't liking me so much, then dumping a girl right after sex is a very strategic move. And not only do I get idolized by all the guys for doing so, but it also means no more sex! Of course, I can't hold my own pleasure as a concern. Coolness is much more important than pleasure. If I wasn't cool they might make fun of me. I would much rather be idolized than made fun of.
And sure, all their doting on me is downright annoying. But it is necessary.
Then, after that free period, we have two more classes, and then we have lunch. At lunch, all the guys sit separately from the girls. Us guys eat the most flatulent food we can find and try to squeeze out a few, because farting is even cooler than having sex to guys. The girls find it disgusting, but since they aren't around who gives a damn?
Then we have more classes, and then we do sports.
I am on all the important teams for cool people to be on… soccer, basketball, and baseball. I suppose you could get away with doing wrestling instead of basketball, but even though I prefer individual sports like wrestling to team sports like basketball I don't want to take any chances.
So I be sure to keep my athletic abilities up. If I screw up in practice or, god forbid, in a game, then even the coolest person in the grade can receive some wrath. If, however, I play well in a game, then it brings me much favor. If I lead the team to victory in a game, then the next day at least one girl or another is sure to ask me out but I have so much favor that I can actually turn her down without worrying about having my sexuality suspected. Sports can really save you sometimes, when you don't think you can't stand any more sex…
Then school is over. All the cool people hang out after school. I am obligated to go along.
Not only do people immediately surround me after school expecting me to come along with them, but the place they expect me to come along with them to is my own house.
My house is the choice hangout of all the cool people, because my parents are never home and my house is right across the street from school.
So people come over to my house. We all partake in the social scene in my house.
There is lots of beer because both of my parents are alcoholics. So everybody gets drunk.
I am obligated to make out with all the girls who get drunk and come on to me. Occasionally, if my favor has been dwindling and a lot of people are watching, it is always beneficial to grab her ass or fondle her breasts or put my hands down her pants.
And the girl always submits. Every single one of them wants to fuck me and I can't stand it sometimes. But I know in my heart that it is for the better. Being oversexed definitely makes you cool.
All the not-so-cool people leave early because they actually do their homework. All the really cool people stay; occasionally one of the girls who got drunker than usual will linger around for a long time and then I'll have to have sex with her. But normally, everybody leaves my house by seven o'clock.
Then I play video games.
Besides flatulence and penis size, video games is something else us popular guys talk about. It is beneficial to play video games; beating a video game or at least getting to a far stage in it is really cool.
But not only is it beneficial; it is fun. Video games are my world within a world. I don't enjoy my world, or my life for that matter. I live like I do to avoid even worse torture. My real world sucks, so I need to immerse myself in my fake world to keep going on.
I especially like to play this one game. It's called Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Pretty cool game, but the thing that I like most about it is the music.
There's a song by the Dead Kennedys on it. I did some internet research on them once; they are an old political punk band who formed in '78 and broke up in '86.
The tune is cool. It's more raw; more real, more biting than anything those teenybopper pussies who I have to like in order to be cool ever came up with.
The song is called "Police Truck". The lyrics go:
Tonight's the night that we got the truck
We're goin' downtown, gonna beat up drunks
Your turn to drive, I'll bring the beer
It's late late shift no one to fear

And ride, ride how we ride

Got a black uniform and a silver badge
Playin' cops for real, playin' cops for pay

Let's ride, lowride

Pull down your dress here's a kick in the ass
Let's beat you blue 'til you shit in your pants
Don't move, child, got a big black stick
There's six of us, babe, so suck on my dick

And ride, ride how we ride

Let's ride, lowride

The Left newspapers may whine a bit
But the guys at the station, they don't give a shit
Dispatch calls "are you doin' something wicked?"
No, siree, Jack, we're just givin' tickets

As we ride, ride how we ride
Ride, low ride
(Dead Kennedys, "Police Truck"; Give me Convenience Or Give Me Death)

Anyway, you might think I’m crazy, but that song means a great deal to me. The lyrics have actual meaning; they are bitchy satirical and they discuss police abuse of power. How I would love to buy a Dead Kennedys CD, but it is forbidden.
None of the cool people listen to the Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys have never made any music videos or been on MTV. And even though they appear in a cool video game, they have been declared "faggoty" by my society.
There is that one kid in our grade, Daed. He listens to the Dead Kennedys. Wear their band shirt into school every few weeks. He isn't cool; he's never mentioned his penis in public, he doesn't talk about flatulence, and he acts very sardonic towards us cool people. He makes fun of us a lot. I don't understand that kid; all the cool people hate him, but yet he refuses to conform to our standards. He's made fun of and tortured, but he's still preaching his individualism bullshit.
Sometimes I think about what it would be like to hang out with Daed instead of all the cool people. If he likes the Dead Kennedys, maybe I could enjoy myself with him. Maybe we could talk about "Police Truck". We could talk about police brutality. We could talk about politics. I can't talk about politics with the cool people. They wouldn't understand what I’m talking about. Plus, if they thought I was interested in politics I would lose a lot of favor. Politics are one of the most uncool things there is. All the cool people think they're boring.
If I hung out with Daed instead then I would be free to buy Dead Kennedys CDs.
And, hell, they make fun of him every day. They tell him how gay he is. He tells them that sexual orientation has no meaning. Then they call him a faggot, and he bitches without relent about the despicable nature of that word and the senseless bigotry thereof. Never does he deny the accused homosexuality.
Maybe Daed is gay. Maybe if I hung out with him I could finally have some sex that I actually enjoyed!
But, shit. They make fun of Daed every day. We make fun of Daed every day. I am one of them. I am a cool person. Everybody loves me, nobody ever teases me, and I should be grateful. I'm sure Daed is much more disillusioned with life than I am.
Speaking of Daed, in class today he read an essay he had written. It was about teen suicide. I pretended not to pay attention for the first part, but it was so interesting that I couldn't help myself. I took in every word he said. Not even the disparaging whisperings and inappropriate giggling could ruin my concentration. All the cool people do that when he reads his essays so as not to be suspected of actually liking anything connected to Daed. But what do they know? His essay was fucking brilliant.
He talked about how it was society that caused teen suicide, not music as so many right-wingers claim.
He included an excerpt from an article by Ross Berlin in an underground magazine called Prophet. It was about an 18 year old boy who killed himself.
The excerpt goes:
"…was more than a normal kid, though. He lived up, not without effort, to a leadership ideal that adults and kids alike could respect—combatively intelligent, effortlessly social, and cocksure because he could be. He was what you wanted to see in yourself each time you faced the mirror, wanted to be for both your parents and your own happiness. That's unless, of course, you wanted to be, or were resigned to being, one of those pierced-nose, loose-talking, purple-haired "freaks" who doesn't play any sports or bother with schoolwork, let alone know how to buy a six-pack of Buds. Besides, they hang out with ugly girls, if any, right?…
…That's not entirely fair, of course, but we should keep in mind the obsession with conformity as we continue to demonize a counterculture based largely upon superficial gestures… People were offended that he had killed himself; if that was what they had so long aspired to be, what, they had to ask, were they doing with themselves?"
Shit.
Thinking about this article again… ah, shit, man. I've been living like this for too long. Since living like Daed will just be worse… shit, I'm just gonna kill myself. It's a great idea, though, isn't it? I won't have to live this fake, miserable life anymore… and I'll offend all those stupid, mindless, annoying people I hang out with too. I'd never realized a suicide could be offensive.
Well, anyway I figured I might as well tell Daed that I was gonna kill myself. I know why the kid in the article killed himself. I am that kid. I figured I might shed some light on the subject for Daed… give him something to write about.
Now, at first this was gonna be my suicide note. But it's turned out a bit differently than I expected. And I really feel obligated to show this to Daed.
This is my last obligation. I will show this to Daed, and then I will kill myself. And I will be rid of all the fucking social obligations that have made me miserable forever!
* * * *
Well, it was supposed to be my suicide note. But things went differently.
In school today, I told everybody that I felt sick today so that I wouldn't be obligated to make stupid jokes, or flirt, or, worst of all, make fun of Daed.
I just sat in the corner of a homeroom. I picked my brain for things that I maybe possibly enjoyed about my life that I might say goodbye to, but found none. There was nothing I enjoyed about my life. That sealed my determination to kill myself.
And after school I told them I had to go straight home and that they couldn't come because I was so sick. But really I followed Daed home from school. When he had entered his house, I knocked on the door.
He opened up. The sun gleamed off of his deep purple hair and his golden nose-piercing.
I said hi. He seemed quite surprised.
"Well, hi. Um… would you like to come in?"
I was surprised he was inviting me in after all my years of inflicting torture on him as was my duty as being cool.
So I came in. He took me to his room, and I handed him my suicide note. I asked him to read it, and told him I'd be going now.
He put on a CD and told me to feel free to stay.
I wouldn't have… but I heard the vocalist of the CD and realized that it was the Dead Kennedys. So I decided to stay. I wanted to hear the good music I had been missing.
I listened to the song intently and gleefully. I loved it. It would be a wonderful last memory, I thought to myself.
When Daed finished with my suicide note, he stared at me, utterly mystified.
He said, "I had thought you were one of them. Shit, it was like you were their leader. But I saw you paying attention to my essay today… I thought maybe… Shit, dude, you sure did fake all that normality pretty damn well."
"Thanks, I guess."
"Oh faking normality isn't a good thing, don't get me wrong. But this means that at least you aren't normal underneath. You realize how fake that social scene you took part in is. That's pretty commendable; everybody either takes part in it without questioning it or wishes they could take part in it. Now, I'm flattered that you want me to write about your suicide… but come on, man, the world can't afford to lose a rebel like you!"
"Shit… I should've known you'd be saying this," I responded. "I'm not a rebel. I should be loving my popularity… I just have a different sense of humor and… I don't enjoy being oversexed…"
"Because you're gay," he finished. I had forgotten I had put the gay thing in my suicide note. I had even mentioned wanting to have sex with Daed… what an idiot I am!
"Well dude," Daed continued, "I just read what you wrote. Anybody who can scrutinize popularity like you did is a rebel. I know my shit when it comes to rebelliousness, so don't doubt it. And there is no way I'm letting one of us commit suicide when there is so few of us."
"But, didn't you understand what I said in the note? I hate this whole popular thing… but if I wasn't popular they would make fun of me!"
"They make fun of me."
"Yeah. I don't want that to happen to me. It would just be worse."
"Heh… in that article from Prophet Magazine… the purple-haired 'freaks', they aren't depressed. They aren't unlucky. They are damn happy with their situation, man. They don't strive to be like the typical popular all-American prototype. They don't strive to be like who everybody thinks you are. They strive to be nobody but who they are. And the reason that you are so unhappy is because you haven't been being yourself. You have been denying yourself of your individuality and hiding yourself from the world… doing the world a great misdeed by doing so, I might add…"
"I know, I know, but that's better than being made fun of!"
"No it isn't, dude! Let me finish what I'm saying, man. Y'all make fun of me every morning. Do you think I care?"
"Of course you do!"
"No I don't. Probably hard to believe for you, especially since you've been the one making fun of me for all these years. But what you say to me means nothing to me. You insult me about things that I am proud of!. You make fun of me because I am interested in political and social issues. I'm proud of the fact that I am interested in the happenings of the world. You call me gay… now, I don't have a sexual orientation. I mean, who is anybody to declare themselves straight? What if a member of the same sex comes along who could very well be their life partner? If they declared themselves straight they'd have their mind so set against homosexuality that they would never enjoy that opportunity. Same thing goes for declaring yourself gay. You're eliminating half of your options, you know what I'm saying?"
"Well, I know for a fact that I don't enjoy sex with women."
"Well, look at the stupid, prissy, normal, conformed bitches you've been fucking! I don't blame you, man!"
Then I began to cry. I cried because I realized that I had wasted away all of my life up until now because I was afraid of being made fun of. I had lived in misery because of this fear.
And even more, I cried because I knew now that I was going to try to make the transition from normal to a "freak". And I was afraid. I was afraid because I was going to defy society, and I would get a lot of shit for it. I knew I would have to be strong. Strength was something I never needed before, because conforming is not being strong; it is being weak. It is giving in to the oppressive society that we are all a part of.
Daed put his arm around me to comfort me. Then I wiped my tears, and we both turned our heads, and we kissed.
My previous life of denying myself of myself was now over.