Gay had old man pants, and I hated him for that. I hated Gay for a lot of reasons, but he’s the first person I ever hated specifically for his pants. He wore the same pants every day, these awful, tan and brown, plaid, polyester pants that looked like they smelled: vaguely of the retirement home. The smell of decay, despair, and loneliness is always disturbing, but it’s especially unsettling when it emanates from a 10 year-old’s pants. There was something wrong with Gay, and his pants weren’t telling the whole story, but they were a clue.
But the real reason I hated Gay is that he should’ve been on my side! He had an unfortunate name, like me; he was an object of ridicule, like me. Gay was about 10 at the time. But as a younger boy, he had suffered minor, and for the most part, temporary complications from what was called, “a slightly botched circumcision.” Yeah. Now, however, as a 10 year-old, he suffered from the major and permanent complication ... that everyone knew about it. Here’s what happened: when he was in hospital, he had these comically enormous bandages, because he was circumcised late, he was five, so they had to make this big, under-the-leg-around-the-waist, truss-like mountain of bandages that would resist any amount of five year-old fidgeting. And of course the hospital staff thought this was hysterical -- and then he was half Egyptian, so jokes like, “King Tut! Ramses!” were rampant. That’s the sensitivity of healthcare professionals, to fuck up your circumcision and then mock you for it.
They thought it was hilarious, so hilarious they couldn’t help but tell his parents about it; who, instead of suing their asses, thought, “Oh no, that is very funny,” and they couldn’t resist telling (in strictest confidence of course) the parents of the other children, who in turn couldn’t resist telling (in strictest confidence of course) all the other children with the final result that everyone knew what was going on with Gay, at least according to his or her own understanding of what exactly a slightly botched circumcision is -- and there was a wide range, there were four year-olds in the cast, and 15 year-olds -- you knew something was going on in the pantsal region, but there was also this delicious aura of mystery about it that made it great fodder for mockery. I’m 40 and I will never know what a slightly botched circumcision is because I refuse to have it described to me … the point is Gay had a tough time as a kid.
And I guess the one continuing issue, physically, was some sort of skin flap? And it gave his mother the opportunity, in the guise of caring for him, to bring rehearsal to a crashing halt every time Gay came out of the bathroom -- just stop everything, pull her glasses down on her nose and say, “Gay! Gay! Have you cleaned yourself properly?”
Gay should have been on my team! He had a family member socially sabotaging him every day of his life, he should at least have had compassion for me. But Gay was living proof that suffering does not ennoble us. He was either a bully or a brat depending on who was around and guess which one he was with me?