Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 22:37:36 -0500
From: Mark Logan <mlogan6969@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Reunion Show

The Reunion Show
By Mike Logan

If you're not 18 or older, blah, blah, blah; you shouldn't be here.

If you don't like these types of stories, blah, blah, blah; you shouldn't be
here.

I've written a couple of stories for nifty in the past, and this one is
also based in fact.  If you like it let me know.  Constructive criticisms
are welcome also at: mlogan6969@hotmail.com.

Let's get on with it.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

"Dr. Mr. Logan,

You are cordially invited to attend a special presentation to your 10 year
high school reunion..."

No shit.  I knew that this was coming around soon, especially since I know
that 1987 plus ten equals 1997.  Hey, my time in government school wasn't a
complete waste.  But what in the hell was this "special presentation"
nonsense?  Oh...ok, here we go.  "...have been selected with seven other of
your alumni to participate in a reality television program regarding the
lives and times of you and your fellow classmates.  If you choose to
decline this invitation..."

Now why would I do such a thing as that?  Why would I decline the chance to
spend five weeks, according to the invite, with some of the coolest people
I've ever known?  Well let me think about it.  Hmm, from eighth until the
middle of my tenth grade year I was shy and pretty dorky.  I had a few
friends, or at least I thought I did.  I mean people were friendly to me,
for the most part.  A couple of the jocks, one in particular, was just
fucking cruel for a while.  Of course I had no way to defend myself, being
5'11 weighing 115 pounds.  What was I going to do, stab him to death with
my skeleton?  Then about halfway through my sophomore year I saw how much
fun everyone else was having and decided, literally in one moment, to quit
the shy shit.  I became the "class clown."  Or more appropriately, the nerd
who thinks/wishes he's "one of them" but really is just a nerd being a
goofball.  But hey, at least I had more fun that way.
  I got to choose when people would laugh with (at) me.  And I supposedly
had more "friends."  Of course, I never really knew why people who seemed
to have had a great time around me in school would not invite me to
anything outside of it.  Never to the movies, the mall, just to hang out.
Talk about the tears of a clown.

In my junior year I discovered that what I really loved was an audience.
Oh baby!  I auditioned for "Grease" and actually requested that I play
Eugene.  Surprise!  I got the part.  I'd hitch up my drawers and walk
really goofy (bitches, this was before Erkle, let me tell you) and use this
really dorky voice.  It cracked everyone up in the cast, jocks included and
so I actually felt good about myself.  The audience loved it too, and I fed
off of that on opening night.  Dude, I was a giant ham and as a result got
some of the biggest applause during the curtain call.  Ding!  I loved being
a showman!  What a fucking drama queen I became.  Another good thing that
happened during that year was that my chief tormentor, Scott (did I mention
his name before?) went off to some other school.  That's ok.  By this time
I had become such a smart ass that nobody really picked on me anymore.  Go
figure.

The next year, my senior year, a classmate was killed in a car accident
within the first month of the year.  I realized then that I was wound up a
little too tight and really needed to become more laid back than I was
because hey, life, literally, could end before you knew it and we need to
live it up.  Right?  Right!  I started drinking then.  Not like, DRINKING,
but going out with friends and mixing whatever crap was in their folks'
liquor cabinets.  I loved to be buzzed, but kept it in moderation.  It was
also then that my former chief tormentor, Scott, returned to my school.
Goody gumdrops!  Well, I had a bit more confidence now.  Even though he
hadn't really bothered me since the 9th grade, the memories were still
there.  I just knew I'd stay away from him and things would be cool.  It's
funny because at one time I'd cringe if I saw him coming down the hall
towards me.  Not anymore.  Once I was a senior I'd just look past him;
sometimes I'd even nod his way.  Bee-yoch!

Anyhow, spring rolls around and the musical is announced: "L'il Abner."
Who the frig has heard of that?  I hadn't.  Of course I tried out and got
the part of Marryin' Sam.  Mahhhh Goodness!  The third lead, I had two
solos and two duets.  Plus I got a chance to really ham it up in this one.
By the time it was over people told me it should be called "Marryin' Sam"
instead of "L'il Abner!"  Crazy asses.  But I really did have a great time
and I got to make some really good friends that last quarter of my senior
year.  They were the "guys in the band" and they were just genuine, fun
guys to be with.

I must admit that I overdid it when it came to relationships.  I guess
because I went for so many years without having friends who initiated
contact with me that I was really immature in that department.  I started
to get jealous of some of the guys when they didn't invite me somewhere,
even though they did most of the time, but I thought I could deal with it.
During the graduation ceremonies I was an absolute basket case.  Being a
member of the school chorus my self and another classmate, a close girl
friend of mine, dedicated a song to the girl who was killed in the car
accident earlier in the year.  Oye vey!  I had to stare at a sign at the
back of the gym wall to concentrate so I wouldn't cry.  When I got back to
my seat I noticed that most of the guys in the band, whom I sat with, were
wiping tears from their eyes.  I'm telling you this for a reason, not
because I really enjoy typing.

Things were great!  I graduated, knew what I wanted to do in life, finally
had some friends that I felt had normal friendship feelings for me.  Then I
blew it.  One night I got really shit-faced and started doing the "how come
you don't always ask me out," namby-pamby, whiney girl bullshit thing.
That was the beginning of the end of a lot of those friendships.  As I said
before I wasn't mature enough to handle relationships.  Oh, and one of the
reasons that I lost a bunch of my friends was because on that night of
supreme drunkenness when the whisky muscle was real hard, I blubbered to a
guy that I thought was my best friend that I actually had feelings for him.
Sob, sob, sob.  Boy, how word spread.  Not in an annoying, gossipy way, but
really just amongst the guys.  I really think that they were the only ones
who really knew, because the revelation came out, so to speak, several
weeks after graduation.  Slowly but surely I was phased out of that group.
I don't think it was a great big surprise to anyone who found out.
Friggin' my favorite singer (at that time) was Barbra Streisand.  Surprise!
And while I wasn't exactly fem, I was really damn skinny, and I liked
musicals.  Perfect ingredients for a gay man.  LOL.

So now that you know some of my his-story (to hell with modern feminism)
let's review that list of "academic alumni" (please -- fellow classmates).
There's Deanna Fuller, reputed to have two abortions after her big-footed
jock of a boyfriend supposedly knocked her up.  Poor girl.  I guess she
never heard of the "pull out" method.  Dumbass.  Then Tracy Matheson,
annoying pain in the ass, she.  True to the roots, she was a blonde.
Here's Samantha Alvarez.  I don't really remember her.  Jessica Simpson --
no dummies, not that one.  Mike Logan, formerly a gay nerd, currently a gay
stud (yeah, right); Freddie Black, didn't really know him.  Then there's
Scott Dell, former tormentor...and finally Charlie Ross, reputed to have
had sex with the biology teacher.  Lucky her.

Wait...no fucking way.  Fuck, fuck, fuckingfuck!  Scott Dell?  Scott
Dell???
  Yep, it was him!  God Damnit!  Yeah, this ought to be really interesting.

I laughed, embarrassed, as all of the bad memories of him come flooding
back.  In seventh grade I had just moved to the area and he was in a class
of mine.  I didn't know him from Adam and all of a sudden when the
teacher's not looking he just slugs me in the back and says if I do
anything about I'm history.  Always did shit like that.  Threw my books,
busted my pencils, whatever.  In 9th grade gym class he ran across the room
and dove, feet first, to knock my own feet out from under me.  Shit like
that.  Just fucking tormented me.  And now I had to spend 5 fucking weeks
with him.  Fuck a duck!  Why me?

Give me strength, I prayed.  Yes, I'm a praying man.  A Christian at that.
What?  A gay Christian?  How can that be?  Well, I'm a Christian man who
happens to be gay.  What can I do.  It's not like I'm a member of NAMBLA or
the democrat party.  I'm a conservative guy but I don't believe that my
religious views should be pushed on to other people.  How fucking annoying
is that?!  So I prayed for strength and the next morning it dawned on me
that hey, it had been ten years and I had certainly changed quite a bit,
surely these other people (Scott included) could have too.  I decided that
it might be fun and interesting to see some of these people again.  I sent
the response back with the "will be attending" box checked...and kept my
fingers crossed.

Within a few weeks I received some paperwork in the mail, basically
contract crap.  We were to be herded into a really cool renovated warehouse
apartment on Ponce De Leon right near midtown Atlanta.  Fine with me.
Everyone knows that midtown is the stomping grounds for the gay man in
Atlanta.  I knew the apartments because I had driven by them many a time
going to any one of the gay bars downtown.  Not that I was a ho, mind you.
In fact I was still a virgin at that point...at least my back door was.  I
enjoyed going to bars and dancing with other guys but I wouldn't go home
with any of them.  I mean hell, I was just 27 but smart enough to know
about the whole AIDS thing.  Plus I was never really into the one-night
stand scene.  I had no stupid pick up lines, but had heard a few really bad
ones.  I just liked hanging with people, so I'd go to the Cove, or
wherever, with groups of friends.

I should say this though.  Other than the few guys in the band who found
out about me that night 10 years before the reunion, nobody in my personal
life knew about my being gay.  I guess I figured it was none of their
business.  My family didn't know, which was really silly because they
wouldn't have cared anyway.  This I've discovered painfully late and I
blame myself -- but more on this later.  I went to church so there were the
obvious friendships there, and people that I wouldn't tell.  But I've never
been the type of guy to let people into my private life.  It just ain't
their fucking business!

I guess I should tell you a bit more about me in 1997.  I had gone to a
small conservative (of course) college and majored in history; after I
graduated with my bachelor's I went to another small college, this one in
Tennessee, and got a Master's in it.  What can I say; I love history.  My
focus was American history and I was able to land a job at a private school
in the suburbs teaching, guess what...history!  At the time of the reunion
I had been teaching for four years and really loved my job -- my career.
But just like man can't live on bread alone, he can't live alone forever,
either.  I needed companionship.  I had a great time with my friends, but
none of them was husband material.  And I wanted a husband.  Not like
marriage ceremony type, but a life partner/lover/blah, blah, blah.

Back to the story...all eight of us would be living in a really kick ass
apartment, which I knew would have to be pretty big to sleep 8 for five
weeks.  We had to agree that if we left the building or the group to be on
our own that we had to inform one of the producers so that they could tail
us with a cameraman.  Whatever.  I guess this is what "The Real World" is
like, I told myself.  It could be fun, I told myself.  Hell, I guess I was
still a bit nervous meeting, or becoming re- acquainted with, my seven
other roomies.  I signed all of the paperwork and sent it back in; I was
actually starting to look forward to it -- nervousness aside.

What would Deanna, Tracy, Jessica, Samantha, Freddie, Charlie and Scott
think of me now?  Hell, fuck that.  What would I think of them?


Well, gay men, that's it for part one.  Tell me what you think.

mogan6969@hotmail.com