It was twilight and I was alone in the lower portion of the school playground. Darkness was fast descending but the faint outlines of trees and the stairs to the upper playground and brick wall by the alley were clearly visible. I walked with trepidation up the wide steps to the upper playground were softball games I was excluded from would give the other boys great joy during the daylight. I whispered to myself, Careful… they’ll see.

But the playground was deserted except for the oaks that towered over it. I made my way to the wall and looked up over it into the alley to see what was happening, and it too was deserted except for a lonely black car. Yet the essence of all the children playing and people passing who long since made their ways home were felt as clearly as if they were still their. As the blue light melted into blackness I moved to the center of the playground and spun around feeling the freeness and openess of it all. I grasped my open shirt collar and whispered to myself Should I? Do you think I should? Will they see? I ripped off my shirt and now I was no longer a boy, but a man free and carefree. I raised my arms in victory and spun round and round.

How interesting to dream of a place that was hell for me 20 years ago. I still see it but the playground surrounding the school is now a parking lot. The massive trees whose leaves I would watch blowing in the breeze and daydream about from the upper story classrooms are long gone, as are the brick wall and steps. The segregated playground of a Catholic school in 1980 was not a fun place for an overweight gay boy just beginning to realize he no longer fits in. He can’t go into the girls playground because well, he isn’t a girl, and yet the boys don’t embrace him in theirs — where it’s all rough-housing and team sports — because he is the “odd boy.” Cast aside — more accurately, ignored — I took up residence by the brick wall overlooking the alley.

I would look on as the boys pulled off their ties and shirts to organize themselves into softball games. One of the boys once approached me, raising my hopes that maybe he’s coming over to ask me to be on his team? Instead, and to my horror, he showed me a picture of a naked woman as he then ran back to his teammates laughing. Let down and not sure what just happened, I decided to climb up and hang over the wall. Perhaps something more interesting could be happening outside the proverbial convent walls — something that could rescue me from this. I looked up and down, but it was deserted.

Still continuing to look at nothing in particular, I would imagine what could be happening or what may have happened in the past. People walking their dogs…. cars driving by… friends walking and talking together. Anything would be better than turning around and watching them all yelling, laughing and having fun. Soon someone came along. It was a college kid who was smoking. As he passed I realized he was smoking pot and he offered me a drag. Terrified, I shook my head NO and quickly turned back around to face the softball game only to find I had been joined by two other boys, also odd outcasts. The three of us would spend future recesses playing make believe games for all we had was fantasy to get us through the reality that we were not accepted because we were different.