In the Shadow of Fundamentalism

chapter 3, parts 8, 9 and 10

Love Hopes for All Things

How simply first love is won!

This woman, named Melissa McKay, won my heart with one simple act of mercy… or perhaps pity.

One morning before school my brother and I began to quarrel. He was a senior in the high school, and under the same types of pressure I felt in that closed and oppressive space. As I readied myself for classes, he ordered me to make him a lunch.

I chafed at the wording of it, but it was nothing less than a command from him, as if I were a servant. Rather than succumb to servitude, I spun on my heel and pitched the half-shelled hard-boiled egg in my hand at his face.

The throw went erratically wide, but his eyes lit from within with a rage I’ve seen in few other humans. He was on me in an instant, smashing his fists with a relentlessness designed to literally beat me into submission. He was walking away by the time my tired father walked into the room, but the damage was done. My eye was ringed with a beautiful knuckle printed purple bruise.

I avoided classes for days, moping at home in the realization that my black eye was a badge of my incompetence as a man. I was unable to defend myself, mastered easily by my own flesh and blood. I wore evidence of my weakness for the world to see.

Finally my parents told me I had to return to classes on that Monday. My dread was overcome by a more potent realization: Monday was the day of class pictures.

Dressed up but wishing to crawl into a hole and die, I shuffled into classes with the faintest of hopes no one would notice. Of course my friends noticed, demanded the story, and offered their sympathies, but nothing could lessen my inner pain.

This girl, who I then knew so little about, evidenced a very womanly compassion for my pain. She drew me aside in the hallway and opened the smallest purse I had seen a woman carry. Drawing out an array of tiny vials of makeup, she began to apply cold alien substances to my face, and converse with me in a distracted way that seemed free of prejudice.

I truly believe I saw in her eyes the kind of woman Melissa McKay could and would one day grow to be. She was strong, confident, and compassionate – a fit companion for any man who wanted peace in his home. I was lost in her eyes, grateful and determined to win her admiration.

With every high comes the unavoidable low. It is the way of balance, the way of life. All birth must foretell a death, riches fade, and beauty must eventually fade into the very Earth whence it came.
My newfound dreams of companionship were destined to be dashed in a way I could neither foresee nor avoid. My love-inspired vulnerability was destined to lower my defenses to pain.

I remember the day like it was yesterday; shuffling my books and papers for another average day in Christian high school. My friends were bristling this Monday with the adventures of the weekend.

Because my family lived so far off the beaten path, and my transportation options were limited, I often missed the little spontaneous adventures teenagers engage in. Unless the event was planned far in advance and cleared with my parents, I was destined to sit home and find out the details later.

Details were exactly what I could see in their eyes.

Spike seemed to hesitate, to bite his tongue on this news. Something about his look included a new emotion: pity. Steve and Dave firmly believed I should share the news, if for no other reason than my own entertainment.

They eventually overflowed with enthusiasm and told me a tale of a late night visit to an overlook in our city. This giant hill was known to people our age as a sort of make-out location. Sitting on one of the swings or benches overlooking the sleepy little city, one could feel free, isolated, and amorous without inhibition.

Spike finally explained that, as our group of friends approached those swings, they saw familiar faces that made them freeze with curiosity. Seated on the edge of our world and oblivious to the intruding gaze of my friends, my hope – my new interest – Melissa was in the arms of none other than Adam Schrader.

I swallowed the news like molten lead. It hit the bottom of my stomach and churned there, eating a whole in my fragile plan to gradually woo this woman with my subtle qualities and romantic nature. How could I compete? While I hesitated out of fear of rejection another had sailed in and won the day.

Furthermore, the object of her pseudo-public affection was a boy from my brother’s grade, someone three years older from a more prosperous family. He was well-liked in the church, well known and respected. He was tall, thin, he owned expensive clothes which fit, lived in a nicer home, and he possessed something I feared I could never have: confidence.

Love Never Fails

And so began my first heartbreak. Had I known the awful truth that dozens would follow, many more painful than the first, I might have thrown myself from a tall building on the spot. Instead I bore my disappointment with the silent set of my jaw.

I learned instantly that shy flowering love was no comparison with money, looks, and popularity. I learned that women don’t actually believe the drivel they promote about loving men for their hearts, but choose their mates by instincts every bit as powerful as men’s lust for the curve of the female breast.

While these realizations are a part of the human experience, they were compounded with the realization that there was literally no one else available. Every fish in my sea was literally taken from me by a rough hand, and I felt desolate in the wake of that realization.

I lived in the shadow of my misery, writing angry poetry in the evenings and cursing my lonely fate in the still silence of night. I withdrew from many social events knowing that I would see him looking at her, and her looking at him. Their hidden love would cause me to bleed within and ache for wanting something so simple.

I began to hate him. I hated the boy for being born. I hated him for being born better. I hated him for being everything I couldn’t be, and for laughing easily while I was in pain.

I memorized the Richard III speech from Shakespeare, dripping conviction with every word when I recited it for my friends. I was, as poor Richard stated, deformed and unfinished. And like Richard, I wanted to prove myself a competent warrior and a villain while this child of favor enjoyed the gifts handed to him on a silver platter.

I began to write short stories where I was a hero, brandishing my blade in the face of my tall and awkward enemy. He would draw, and our short exchange of blades would prove that my determination was more powerful than his privilege. I was not so naïve as to write that she loved me afterwards, but since that was already lost I craved some form of justice. In my mind, a world where the sympathetic underdog had no chance with the girl of his dreams was more of a prison.

Love Endures All Things

My epiphany came from the words of Spike’s older brother. He was driving us somewhere, and asked who we were planning on spending our evening with. In the course of conversation, he noticed my obvious distaste when Adam’s name was casually mentioned.

Although Spike tried to change the subject to avoid some sort of confrontation, his brother Aaron persisted and eventually drew a confession of why I so hated poor Adam.

“That’s ‘angst,’” Aaron said evenly, “have you ever heard that word before?”

I would never have admitted if I hadn’t.

“Well,” he continued, “in German the word ‘angst’ means ‘petty anger.’ Being angry at Adam is beneath you.”

“Yeah but he’s stuck up,” I was defending a shrinking patch of moral high ground.

“No he’s not. Don’t get me wrong, Adam is a bit goofy, and he’s not like you guys,” Aaron gestured casually at Spike and I, “but deep down he’s not a bad guy. He’s just normal.”

As I climbed out of the car, Aaron left me with some of the best advice I ever had as a teenager, “You should let go of this angst.”

And he was very right.

posted by NY Monk @ 10:37 PM