Outsiders by John Swofford

Outsiders

It took me awhile, and no small degree of energy, to win

the spelling been when I was in the fifth grade, which was

the last grade of elementary school—then you were off to

middle school, where you became sexualized, and, to no

fault of your own—save being queer—you were bullied.

Perhaps, too, you were bullied for winning the spelling bee,

for winning everything that fifth grade had to offer,

actually, but your bully, in all likelihood, was held back a

grade and he had no real knowledge of your achievements.

I was in a predicament; if I fought back, then I’d get in

real trouble, and, if I fought back, I’d lose the fight. There

was really nothing that I could do but wait for the

Americans to people to police the situation. I don’t know

why I didn’t tell somebody that this guy—dressed in

black—was bullying me; I guess I figured nobody could do

anything, and, if I did say something, and my bully found

out about it, then things would get worse.

But back to my point—which is I won the spelling bee,

and that probably happened because I used to read science

magazines at the time. I was worried about adult stuff, like

saving the earth, and so on, like what matter and density is,

or spin, for example, which I later learned were difficult

topics for anybody, much less a fifth grader.

But I was eighteen not long after that, and I’d studied

most of what I could get my hands on, but, frankly, I found

Newton’s Principia almost impossible to read. I was forced

to give up on it, what was a real downer, because it felt like

I was giving up on me—and my desire to learn. So what did

I do? I read literature, these days, too, and, at eighteen,

which is when I started on beer and cigarettes, I hit the

road, traveling from Atlanta up through Tennessee and

Colorado and through Nevada and then down to LA and

then through the Joshua Tree and Texas, then Alabama, and,

finally, back to my home—which, having dropped out of

college, was back at me parents’ house, a place I never

should have left, given my general antipathy for people that

I’m not related, too—save those, of course, that I was

related too, and treated my like dirt because of my

sexuality.

The North Carolina mountains, on paper, looked like a

good home for me, but once I got a little older, and I

realized people weren’t taking me seriously even though I’d

gotten older, I realized it wasn’t. The people there may

consist of a load of English and Scottish DNA, like me, but

they all seemed to think that they were better than me—it

was as if they knew I was different (half-crazy and queer)

before I knew anything about it. I may be drawn to live

with my family, then, but, in actuality, I cared very little for

others, who, by this day and age, should’ve been different.

Anyhow—I spent a little time there, mostly painting and

drinking a beer every so often, and then, many years later, I

went there to get a head start on cleaning up a house that

nobody was doing anything about—and that left me afraid

that, if I ever got a job, I’d never be able to get the house

taken care of because I wouldn’t have time. Furthermore, I

didn’t want to be subjected to all the emotional weight

when I should’ve been giving my better parts to a family of

my own. It all seems kind of silly, now, because the house

did get taken care of (admittedly, with my help, even

though it may or may not have been appreciated) and I

never got a job. Even so, I felt that as long as the house

wasn’t being taken care of, I was burdened by it.

It’s nice to have land—we have good land, there, but we

also had two houses, and, while I wasn’t worried too much

about one of the houses—it was shared by several people,

nobody paid much attention to the other house (and the

mess that my grandmother made). The land, however

much it may be worth it, could never, however, be my home

because I didn’t like anybody there, and they didn’t like me.

I get away, sometimes, or, that is, I used to, but I ended up

downing a lot of vodka when I was working on the house

and absorbing all the information it had to offer—a lifetime

of a lifetime ago, in fact, and I wasn’t able to do it without

the help.

So what is the moral of this story? Don’t look up to

people because, if you do, you’re bound to be disappointed.

I don’t guess, however, that you can help that much when

you look up to somebody—it just kind of happens on its

own. So, I’ll just say that everybody should use caution,

since, no matter your relationship—and no matter how

much someone looked up to you—things like a disability

and queerness can turn everything back the other way. It’s

as if people pretend you don’t exist—they don’t even see

you, and, if they do, they’ll ignore you to the best of their

ability, unless, of course, there are those that don’t

recognize your true nature, and project themselves on to

your person, thinking that you must be as awesome as

them.

That’s pretty much the definition of a good old boy—he’s

someone that takes your happiness for granted. Everybody

is responsible for happiness, or the lack thereof, and so you

hate, honestly, to let people down—but, then again, there

are those that are wise, sometimes you learn from the

worst, and you must leave the mountains—your refuge in

the advent of nuclear war. Maybe things aren’t as cozy

somewhere else; it’s too expensive, elsewhere, to pay for a

fire every night, but the main thing is that, when you feel

like sharing something with somebody that lives in a

homophobic community, you better ask yourself if that

information is going to get you tarred and feathered, and

carried around on a rail, if not hung from a tree, and

suffocated to death—which would be worse than a broken

neck sustained by the gallows, a home, sadly, to outsiders.

bio:  John Swofford’s schizophrenia makes him, according to him, neurodivergent, and he identifies as queer—where queer would mean that his sexuality doesn’t fit any category. This identity influences his writing. He can be found on X/Twitter @johnmswofford, on Facebook and Instagram @johnmerrillswofford, and on his website: johnmerrillswofford.com