This is the story of a boy, who didn't want the story.

(I wrote this earlier today, in the hopes of attracting folks to my writing, which in turn would lead them to buying my books.  Decided for those folks who actually have visited this page to check it out. Oh, did I mention that I write books?  LOL  Anywho, if you give a rat's ass about that, you can get them here).

Everyone looked at the boy as he stood there, tears streaming down his face, the entire auditorium laughing at him.  Sometimes kids can be so cruel, not knowing that what they may think is funny is like 1,000 punches to the person that they are ridiculing.

It all started a few months prior, a 16-year-old boy who didn’t have the proper haircut or proper clothes to be “cool” having a massive crush on this ebony picture of beauty that, besides an occasional bone thrown his way had no interest in his affections.

The boy didn’t have any confidence, it being crushed by his father and his peers whenever he showed any signs of weakness.  He didn’t get to play catch with his dad, because his dad was out in the world doing what he had to do…and what he shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.  He had a couple of friends here and there who “got” who he was, but most days at lunch he sat alone, a pariah of sorts, imaginary leprosy keeping all the other kids at bay.

But the one thing he looked forward to was the girl.  She had the deep brown eyes, the dark skin like his that seemed like there wasn’t a bit of imperfection on it.  She was a year ahead of him, and what he perceived as “womanhood” seemed to ooze out of her each time she took a step with her delicious figure. 

There was a slang at the time amongst inner-city kids to describe a handsome man or a beautiful woman. 

Fine.

That is what she was; an absolutely fine piece of burgeoning womanhood that all he wanted to do is make her at least acknowledge that he was a male.  Not in a sexual way mind you, despite the raging hormones that he still didn’t quite know how to control.  At the time, long before life had made him wary of giving his entire being to another, all he wanted was that butterfly-like feeling in his heart that he had read about in the books that he used to read.  That joy received from a simple smile from the girl he desired, knowing that he was the one that brought it on. 

He wanted to know young love; not the complicated kind that adults tend to make it out to be.  No, he wanted the simple, holding hands, a gentle kiss, watch a movie and laugh and having his arms around her sort of young love.

He tried to get to know her, and while she was not necessarily cruel to him at first, his feelings for her blinded him to the fact that she was not interested.  At that age, pretty girls don’t get down with the “average” guys.  While time, fashion, and technology change, social status never does.  The pretty girls want the handsome, strong, popular boys.  Someone as beautiful as she was wouldn’t dare get down with this big-headed, lacking confidence sort of boy who didn’t want to play football because he didn’t do pain very well. 

So the boy continued to try to gain the affections of the girl, and his persistence began to become an irritant to her.  She tried to continue to be kind to him, even though in the back of her mind she wished that he would just get the hint and leave her be. 

Then came that day, where an assembly took place at school in the morning, and the majority of the students were gathered in the auditorium.  The boy, who after weeks of getting up the nerve, decided to simply “go for it” (as his mother always told him when it came to going for what he wanted in life) and walked over to the girl, who was sitting in front of her best male friend (a male who had no problem telling folks what he thought, defending his friend to the end) and asked her to go to a movie with him.

The girl, sighing heavily, began to turn away from the boy, knowing that she had to simply come out and tell the boy, despite being a nice person, that he had to stop this fruitless pursuit and leave her alone.

However, her friend, who she had confided in about the situation, decided to step in and do the heavily lifting for her.

“Man,” he said, “don’t you get the hint?  She doesn’t want you!  You are a stalker.  Go away and leave her alone.  Why would she want a loser like you?”

There was a commercial back in the 1980’s that once said, “Words hit like a fist.”  As if he took a shot to the gut, the boy, who looked at the girl’s friend with a mix of hurt and anger in his eyes, then turned his gaze towards this woman who he thought was his dream come true.

The girl, who turned her head away, tried to control herself…from laughing at her friend’s comments.

The boy, who was a very emotional sort of fellow, felt tears well up in his eyes, and after looking at the girl for one more moment, quickly got up and walked towards the front of the auditorium.

His mind a jumbled mess, he actually meant to storm out of the auditorium, but he knew he would get in trouble if he did.  So he walked towards the front, tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks, trying to catch his breath as he almost began to hyperventilate. 

Soon the sounds of his crying was overheard by the kids in front of the auditorium, and since seeing signs of weakness for some reason was like watching a comedian perform on stage, the kids began to laugh at him.

Heartily.

They pointed at the boy, since they knew of him and had enjoyed picking on him before.  The laughter began to grow, and the boy, who despite the loud laughter didn’t hear it, just stood there, his tears unable to be cut off like a busted water pipe. His attention was fully on the girl who just laughed at his attempt to share his heart, chatting with her friend with a look of relief on her face.  She was so uninterested in him she didn’t even bother to participate in his ridicule.

So the boy stood there, his broken heart a Shakespearean comedy for the world to see, the curtain refusing to fall on this dark cloud of a play.

This is the human race.