Gleek

According to Webster’s, the term “gleek” is defined as: To scoff or jest…. I understand the term to define what happens when you’re speaking to someone and a squirt of saliva escapes from your mouth. Not a British card game played with 44 cards…

When I was five, I’d often hole up in my room and read the dictionary to find words to use in conversations with my adult friends. Just as often, I wouldn’t know what the words meant but used them nonetheless to appear more mature. I couldn’t wait to be a grown up, talk about grown up stuff and do all the things that grown-ups do.

In grammar school I got skipped from fourth to fifth grade and placed in an advanced reading course and asked to say, spell and then define words like lugubrious and exorbitant. The principal would discretely take myself, Annette Chan (it was ALWAYS Annette Chan) and a few others out of class twice a week (like someone in your family had died) then usher us into a dark room we’d never known existed. School groomed me early on to think I was special and that special was good.

I had one real friend at the Frank C. Havens School in Piedmont, California. It was the early 80’s and my mother, Patricia, had just eloped with my stepfather, Mark and moved us from the flat but interesting Lake Merritt area in Oakland to the fabulous 312 Scenic Avenue, in the hills of Piedmont, with its labyrinthine roads and spectacular views of the Bay Area. I was used to shedding schools and the friends I’d made there but Piedmont was a rarefied world and I had a lot to learn about the social strata. I mean, I’d never worn two polo shirts at a time before. I needed someone to show me the ropes and that someone was Jon.

Jon and I hung out at his place after school exhausted from tether-ball and “extreme” foursquare. Sarcasm and confusion brought us together and made us feel better about being weird outcasts at school.

We’d power through our homework, drink Dr Pepper, see how far we could gleek or pop a loogie, trash all the jocks at school, smoke “roaches” scored from his sister’s weed stash and then listen to Beethoven’s Fifth from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack with which we were both utterly obsessed. Jon would let me borrow his terrycloth shirts and in exchange I’d do his chores. We were close and when we were together felt less awkward and safe, a feeling I’d chase after forever.

Jon and me talked about girls and lied about what we’d done with them. Sometimes we simulated the sex we hadn’t had with pillows or pretended we were girls, cupped our chests (like we had boobs) and moaned in our underwear. It was all quite innocent and normal but having sex with someone- anyone- was our goal since we were certain everyone else had and they were popular. Our school would be hosting its annual end-of-the-year talent show soon and we were both determined to win it by doing The Hustle and enter sixth grade as winners.

We made our outfits and practiced for days fantasizing about how popular we’d be once we won, how everyone would would worship us and how we’d be fighting off hot babes with sticks. I don’t even remember what the grand prize was for winning or if there even was one. I wanted to win but really I just wanted to be alone with Jon and wasn’t entirely sure why. I didn’t think it was weird to have a crush on a boy. He was cute and made me laugh and when I thought crazy shit and told him he said, “Ohmigod, me too”.

Surprisingly, we lost the talent show to these rich kids whose dad was friends with the rock promoter, Bill Graham. They scored authentic costumes, wigs, makeup and a fully functional band setup (although they lipsynched to a cassette) for their raucous performance of Kiss’ “Love Gun”. Dry ice, lights, minor pyrotechnics, groupies- the whole bit. Tight, professional, glam and theatrical they literally blew everyone in the auditorium’s mind. It was the first of many times that year that me and everyone else used the word “rad” to describe it when, in retrospect “gay” would have been more accurate. After that summer Jon and me were now, historically, “losers” and stopped hanging out. Ironically we lost because we weren’t being ourselves but who we wanted to be: macho, but sensitive John Travolta in a pristine white three- piece suit and boots.

In sixth grade at Piedmont Middle School (PMS) my homeroom teacher was Mr. Bartley who looked like Gene Hackman. He had a hairy chest and wore garish polyester shirts with big lapels and tight Sansabelt slacks. Mr. Bartley would sit on the front of his desk with his meaty hands close to his business and anyone who didn’t do their homework had to stay after class and write an essay on why they hadn’t. It was always the dumb jocks who got detention…

In detention, Mr. B would clasp the tips of his fingers together and squeeze his hands, in a pulsating pyramid while he stared at you, grinning slyly. Occasionally he’d say something like, “I expected more from you,________” or “You know,_________this could all have been avoided if you shared more in class”. In the bottom drawer of his desk Mr. B kept a large wooden paddle with holes which he’d use to discipline the rebels when they were “bad”. I never saw him spank anyone but there were stories and no one wanted to be alone with him.

I thought Mr Bartley liked me because I used words like ‘intrinsic’ and listened to him intently when he spoke. I’d stay after class to ask him pointless questions about assignments and he’d scoff and squeeze my leg close to my crotch and tell me “secrets” (like how there was no Mrs. Bartley even though he wore a gold wedding band).Ultimately I ”connected the dots”, found a creepy new friend and now credit him with giving me the courage to be myself and take risks. I had a new crush!

I was popular at PMS because I was cheeky, Black and lived above Highland Avenue in the hills, all of which gave me inalienable status. Slam books were big and everyone different or poor was picked on secretly (but on record) by the wealthy and perfect.

You’d sign in with your initials or a symbol (stars, smiley faces, an exclamation point, a number, a dick, etc.) then answered the veiled queries of the insecure like: Who is the cutest boy/prettiest girl in school, the biggest dyke/homo, ”parkie” (loser, drug addict, spaz), who you most wanted to screw and so on which you then secretly passed all over school. By eighth grade we’d discovered Atari, underage drinking, trigonometry and ”third base” but in the sixth grade you had all the time in the world to care about what everyone thought of you. To have a slam book passed to you was considered an honor. Not filling it out was social hara kiri.

From reading the slam book I deduced that the right girls (Ceceleigh and Kristi) thought I was cute and that they all unanimously thought that me and transfer student Ranelle Dunham would make a nice couple. She already had a bit of a mustache…if only she wore a white, three -piece suit.

The slam book also led to a conversation with my new girl friends Cece and Kris about how I should “totally” run for Commissioner of Publicity since (in jest) we’d sort of come up with student body president-elect Warren Heffelfinger’s campaign slogan, “Vote for The Finger. HEFFELFINGER!” So I ran and me & The Finger won.
By a landslide.