wig boy

does anyone remember tony
a quiet boy, little overweight
he had breasts like a girl
when i wasn't too busy feeling lonely
i'd stare over her shoulder...

i've always had a weird attraction or compassion or something towards social outcasts.
in middle school and high school, it was jason d. he had a genetic condition leaving him completely bald. he'd wear this hideous wig and gigantic glasses, the kind that get darker in sunlight and bright light. he was constantly made fun of. thus, he constantly tried harder to be a clown.
i know the feeling.
the geek gravitation towards being the funny guy. if you can't be pretty or athletic, your lot in life is left with being smart and funny or otherwise noticed or being nothing.

at one point, some kids pulled his wig off as a joke. i remember the scene like it was last week. there they were, hanging out near the little grassy knoll by the english classrooms and the library and the pizza hut cart during lunch, tossing jason's wig around over his head, taunting him. most passers by must have been laughing along with them, but secretly thinking "those kids are fucking assholes," or "i can't believe this," or "why would someone find humor in this poor kid's misery?"

instead, i thought, "he's cute without that hideous wig."

i wanted to tell him that. i wanted to tell him not to try so hard. i wanted to tell him he'd make it okay just being himself. i can't really say what it was that stopped me, but i'm sure it was a combination of being afraid he'd take it the wrong way and think i had a crush on him or being afraid someone else would overhear and take it the wrong way and think i had a crush on him.
and somewhere in there must have been the fear of hypocrisy.
as a scrawny 15 year old with maybe two true unconditional friends in the whole school and still only a few handfuls of fake friends, i was the poster child for trying too hard. i was the poster child for not being myself.

so of course, i said nothing. a few years later we sat next to each other at graduation (both being D names), and i smiled and responded politely to his comments and jokes. we signed each other's yearbooks. i didn't know what he was doing after graduation. i really cared, too, but of course, i didn't ask. i wanted him to go away to college and reinvent himself as a bald guy. with nothing coming between the world and his reality.

several months ago, i got an email from him, having somehow tracked me down. he used the salutation "Hiya, Julia."

i didn't write back. i didn't fucking write back.

i hated every day of high school
it's funny, i guess you did too
it's funny how i never knew
there i was sitting right behind you