Hypocritica Ch 01

Roughly fifteen years ago I was eighteen years of age. Had I remained in the public school district that I had started school in, I would have graduated at the end of May 2006. It wasn't an academically tough school, but I did well. If I hadn't been a star athlete, I probably would have legitimately earned a 3.5 or 3.67 GPA. I was a star athlete, so they comp'd me those last 0.33 or 0.5 points.

I was good at sports. In fact so good- and that's relative too. I was a giant catfish in a tiny pond- that the most pretegious local private college prep school decided to give me a 'diversity scholarship.' It was legit, I'd once ridden in a Jeep Cherokee, and they were made in Toledo back then, so Native American I was. By a strange coincidence this school had openings for somebody who could dribble, run fast, steal bases, and block penalty shots.

Of course the prep school decided that the public school system classes I had taken weren't very good. I got put in a bunch of remedial classes which I could literally sleep through, or forget to attend, and still pass. This necessitated stretching my graduation date out another year. So, there I was looking at starting a redundant senior year. A year which by another strange coincidence caused synchronization between my academic career and my athletic career.

Since private schools weren't allowed to recruit public school athletes unless they gave them athletic scholarships, I had to sit out what would have been my junior year in public high school. But I still got to work out and train with the varsity squad, even if it meant skipping class. This made most of the girls on the varsity team eighteen and nineteen year old, first or second year seniors- which possibly in some small way correlated somehow with the prep school's astounding athletic record.

I say that I grew up in the suburban town of Hypocritica, a fairly white bread and vanilla part of the American landscape. Hypocritica is full of nice polite people who live in nice houses with nice green lawns who go to church on Sunday and profess to follow the teachings of a book they never read, and above all else they spare no effort to prevent their children from doing the sort of "wicked and perverted" things that they did when they were the same age.

June 2006

Andy had graduated at the end of May, and I sat with his aunt and uncle- the people who had raised him- to watch him get his degree. Andy was twenty- not quite two full years older than me- but if you listened to my parents he was like forty-five and a masher on some sort of 'offenders registry' somewhere. I'm not really sure if they had anything against Andy personally, they probably would have been total jackasses to anybody I brought home to meet them.

I say that my maiden name was Blaque- as in all the pots calling the kettle blaque (black). I don't think anything in my life has made me as happy as getting rid of that name and taking Andy's. The Blaques fit perfectly in the social fabric of Hypocritica.

I had actually invited my parents to go to Andy's graduation, or at least to the dinner that his aunt and uncle gave him after his graduation. But my parents figured that, in addition to being too old- "you know it just really isn't appropriate for a college graduate to go out with somebody who still in high school," mom told me- he wasn't good enough for me because it was only a two year community college Bachelor of Science degree: "not even a real college degree," my dad said.

It was amazing how they could disagree on all of the facts of a situation but then agree on the resolution to the so-called problem. But that was kind of like the "incest ball" that my school threw. Oh, I think they called it a 'Purity Ball,' but it was just a creepy, voyeuristic, daddy and daughter incest thing where girls symbolically married their fathers and agreed not to have sex with anybody ever without their daddy's approval and permission.

For real voyeuristic incest thrills some of the daddies and some of the daughters even told their own naughty little sex stories disguised as "sinful confessions." a few people looked at me strangely because several times during the ball I just began to giggle and laugh. There were all of these Hypocrites (residents of Hypocritica) standing around telling everybody else in vivid, graphic detail precisely and exactly what they shouldn't be doing. And they all knew what not to do because they'd already done it.

I really don't get it because my parents grew up in the "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" 1960s and 70s. To hear grandma and grandpa tell the story, mom was far wilder than I ever dreamt of being. I've never dropped acid, gotten a tattoo, lived in a van, or tried to hitchhike to California only to be arrested three counties over a week later for shoplifting. But then again I also don't boink my doctor or the guy who comes to clean the swimming pool twice a week.

I went to Andy's graduation ceremony and dinner anyway. And was grounded for two weeks for doing so without permission. One week into that suspension I was supposed to start a summer job so I called the guy up and told him that I couldn't come in "because I was grounded." Mom blew a gasket- "That's a damned lie," she said. "I never told you that you couldn't go to work. I told you that I wasn't going to drive you and that you weren't going to drive my car."

It sort of explains the no-win situation I was in. I had two weeks added to the time I was grounded for the crime of "lying" to my 'almost boss'...

The little hairs on the back of my neck go up every time either one of my parents accuses me of lying. They must mistake me for a mirror. I remember the check my father took from the insurance company when the storm threw shingles and plywood from our neighbor's house onto the sailboat that he hadn't taken out on the lake since I was born- "it will never sail again," he said. Or how he spent a week building my brother's 'best-in-show' award winning Boy Scout Pinewood Derby car.

To his credit he only has one extra-marital affair going- with a co-worker that he has an on-again-off-again relationship with. My mother, the one who keeps talking to me about how important church is, or family is, or fidelity- that's a laugh- is... She has had affairs in reverse order with the pool guy, one of my brother's teachers, her ex-boss, a very physical therapist, and a doctor. I'm sure there were more before I was aware that it wasn't a coincidence that we drove past five ballet schools for my ballet lessons to go to the studio next door to my doctor's office.

So I was grounded for two weeks, and two more weeks. Then another two weeks was added on for calling my 'almost boss' back and explaining the situation more accurately- "I'm sorry, I'm eighteen and my parents are punishing me for going to my twenty-year old boyfriend's community college graduation. They won't let me get a car because that might bring attention to my scholarship. We signed some papers that said we were poor.

"Mom told me that I could take the city bus. But the whole point of my having the job would be to have some spending money to spend with my friends. But, since now I'm grounded for two thirds of the summer and forbidden to see my friends or my boyfriend I don't really have much need for spending money. So, thank you kindly for the opportunity you offered me, but I won't be coming in."

I was working the end of my punishment period well into the fall, perhaps to Thanksgiving, when coach called- I'll admit that I had the notion that she would be doing such a thing since we had several summer practice sessions planned- she and my mother, and then she and my father, had a couple of conversations about how much money they might want to pay back on account of my scholarship if I didn't show up for these sessions.

I was magically ungrounded the night before the first one.

It really shouldn't be surprising to anybody who reads this that the thought of running away- just getting away from everything was very high at the top of my fantasy list. I spent many evenings with Andy talking about where we would go, and what we would do. We had sent out feelers in applications- using Andy's address of course- trying to find some sort of a summer job somewhere. We'd heard about places like Wisconsin Dells where they hired a lot of young people for the summer, but our schedules conflicted and nothing panned out.

We had dreams about going to Montana and working on a dude ranch or going to Taos and working at the ski resort there. Maybe going to the Bahamas and teaching scuba diving- although they might want you to know how to scuba dive before you teach other people how to do so. They were looking for people to count penguins in the Cook Islands (near New Zealand), and to teach English as a second language in Bethel Alaska, but our applications for those jobs weren't returned.

Because I was on four athletic teams at the prep school, I was able to spend a lot of time away from home. Able to spend a lot of evenings with Andy: in spite of my parents' attempt to keep us apart. That was a life-saver because three weeks into the summer, Lindsay got booted from all the varsity squads because her mother violated the state's eligibility standards for student athletes. Lindsay got into three screaming matches- with her coach, her advisor and her mom- and then a friend drove her to the station. She got on a Greyhound bus and left town.

Lindsay was probably the first person I ever loved romantically. We were both eighteen, on the same teams, and either number one or number two on those teams. We were both 'diversity scholarship' athletes. She used to joke that her ethnic group was 'white trash' and from the outside that description kind of fit the bill. She was the oldest of a group of half-siblings being raised by their mother- who got a lot of free perks because of Lindsey's talents on the field.

We had hit it off as friends immediately, both of us starting at a new school at the same time, both of us dismayed at the fact that others around us couldn't see how important what we were doing was to us. Our romance didn't start right away, and it didn't last very long, but it was very sweet when we were alone together. The problem was that we were never allowed to be alone together. The rest of the world kept interjecting itself into our relationship. A relationship which Lindsay didn't want to acknowledge existed.

For almost six months after that there had been all these times that Andy and I had been talking- talking about the two of us going somewhere and doing something else. Basically us just running away and being together and starting out our lives together- and it all just seemed like a pipe dream, somebody else's fantasy. But as I looked at what was happening to Lindsay- getting kicked off teams that meant everything to her- more than being true to herself- for something stupid but not maleicious that her mom did. I realized that my place wasn't there.

The school had already gotten a year out of me and they stood to get another year out of me. Then maybe I'd get money to go on to college, or maybe not. Maybe there'd be a women's soccer or basketball league when I graduated and maybe not. Maybe I'd be good enough, but maybe not. Maybe they'd pay something decent for a decent player and maybe not. I wasn't foolish enough to think about something crazy like the Olympics. There just wasn't that much of a future in women's athletics. That was something that I'd known but didn't want to face.

I was really pissed off at Lindsay because she wouldn't be adult enough to admit that she had a relationship with me, but I still cared about her. I guess I still loved her, I just didn't see a future. I really hated seeing what was happening to her, how her life was being torn apart by forces that she had absolutely no control over. Her mom was trying to get a couple bucks to make ends meet and she didn't consider licensing her likeness to be wrong. What Lindsay did just wasn't important enough for her mom to safeguard- that was the real tragedy.

That made me think. Because my relationship with Andy wasn't important enough to my parents that they would safeguard it. I was supposed to be running around a soccer field keeping in pime physical shape while holding myself out of the fray for 'Mr. Right', the CEO of General Electric, Microsoft, or General Motors- who at 60 decided to dump his 40 year old wife and trade for a 20 year old one- and decided to look in Hypocritica.

The fact that we hadn't found anything suitable in terms of employment during the spring for the summer wasn't keeping us from looking in the present for something in the fall or winter. We had both gathered up all of the documents that we figured we'd need and stored them in an accordion file at Andy's house. I started carrying one item over there every time I went so that nobody would suspect what we were up to.

My parents had found out that I had a six week long romance with Lindsay six months after it ended, and they "were deeply disappointed" in me. Apparently I am going to hell. They found out after they told me to stop seeing Andy, who I had been with for nearly that entire six months. I'm not sure what good it does to call me a "tramp" or a "slut," does that damn me to 'double hell.' Dad didn't think my question on the subject was worth answering.

What in the hell is the matter? Was I switched at birth, or am I just a persistent reminder of what they once were, but no longer are. They sit around and watch a twisted version of sexuality on television nightly. Unfulfilling, angry, backstabbing, duplicitous sex. But they don't want me to have soft sweet sex with Lindsay, and they don't want me to have supportive and empowering sex with Andy. They don't want me to have sex with anybody, ever, unless my daddy says it's okay, and he wants to sell me to the highest bidder.

And the school... The school... I was so proud to be a member of the team and wear my public school's colors. Then I was perhaps even prouder to be a member of the team and wear the prep school's uniform. Just like Lindsay was. But now I just look back and see everything that I gave up to get on these teams. They haven't screwed me over, yet. But I see how they treat the people who gave up as much as I gave up.

Lindsay was off the team, out of the program, and in the process of getting kicked out of the school when she boarded the bus that night. She didn't see any point in sticking around to fight. They were calling her names for things that other people did and calling her names for things that she did that had nothing to do with her performance on the field. Once she was no longer useful to them they discarded her. I have no reason to believe they won't do the same with me.

So when Andy suggested just running away- together- I had only one condition, that before we left, we take his aunt and uncle and my best friend Violet and go down to City Hall so that when I run away with him I don't have to be Barb Blaque, so that I never, ever, have to be Barb Blaque again. After we get married I'll follow him over the edge of the Earth. Because that's what faithful wives do, at least that's what they told me in church, school and at home.