By Isaiah Castellon
¨You can't run forever, you'll have to come back to school on monday¨, was being yelled as I ran falling over the rocks on the mountain fading from their view.
It's 2016, during autumn in Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm in 7th grade just starting a new school, Mike O'Callaghan Middle School. My first weeks were amazing, I loved it and I had already made so many friends. I also made ¨enemies¨ only because of expressing who I am being a bisexual male. My school was located on the side of Sunrise Mountain so every morning I walked to school taking the mountain route since it was faster and I could take my sweet time listening to my playlist consisting of Twenty One Pilots.
As I get to school there is this public park right next door to the school and it's in my path to school, so my friends and I started to hang out there before school. We would play our usual games composed of Extreme tag, Parkour, and Hide and seek. Once we had heard the bell for the first period of the day, we grasped our backpacks and ran towards the back exit of the park that led us to the back entrance of school, where the busses dropped off the kids. By that time I had made friends with most of the teachers so they knew about my little friend group and us coming through the back so they had the door open, waiting for us. If I do recall her name was Ms.Belt, she wasn't exactly a teacher more just like a hall monitor, when she saw us nothing was said.
We begin to go our separate ways to our classes….. It then begins.
Immediately as I'm heading to Mr.Goldberg’s History class, of the students start surrounding, begging to call me names, begging with “faggot” & “stupid gay kid” then this one kid starts abruptly suggests the idea of calling me “gaysaiah”. I, myself as a lonely kid not knowing what to do, tried to walk away but then, they blocked my path. I began to think of the scenarios where I could escape because I was terrified, but then a teacher came to my rescue, Mr.Barney, The only LGBTQ+ teacher, after telling the other kids off and scaring them with reports he came to my aid, took me to class but not before introducing me to his LGBTQ+ club/group. I kindly took the offer and walked into the classroom. No doubt word had gotten out because everyone's eyes were on me and specifically me. I took my seat and let the day go by.
By the end of the week it was too calm, I felt the storm a brewin.
Friday, the only day full of tests in school. Once the day is over I say to myself “Take your time getting home, relax at the park listening to music, it’ll be fine”, boy oh boy was I wrong. I'm swinging at the park one earbud in on a partly cloudy Friday evening, no one in sight except a few people walking their dogs, and some snake devouring a bird whole. I see it's about an hour till dusk and think it's time to head home. As I am walking along the mountainside jamming to one of my favorite songs at the time, I hear in the distance “Hey fag!” I instantly feel an urge to run but don’t for some odd reason, there were 3 kids I had recognized from school as they sped up and reached me. They had slowly begun to talk to me telling me they were sorry and didn't want to hurt me, and within that instant I was imprinted with one of their fists and I began to run.
¨You can't run forever, you'll have to come back to school on monday¨, was being yelled as I ran falling over the rocks on the mountain fading from their view. As I’m running I feel a slight trickle of blood. In shock, I somehow ran faster to my home. Once I got there, I was glad no one was home. I took a shower and cleaned myself of the dirt and blood. I go to my bed and start thinking, “do I deserve this” “Is this how my life will be” thoughts flooding my head of whether to be or not to be.
My trouble with depression at the time was minor and as I thought more about my coming out, the little angel popped on to my shoulder, “why be worried about who you are, You shouldn’t live in fear of others”, that was kept into my head and later that weekend with all my allowance, I bought myself things that let me express myself so much, that on that Monday I was terrified about, never came. I had worn my colors and they were too bright for them to ever bother me again.
In the story “New Kid on The Block” the author is conveying the message that whatever the sort of person you are and identify as it’s okay to be that and not let anyone hurt or change your stance. The way the story starts with the quote,¨You can't run forever, you'll have to come back to school on monday¨ to bring in the reader's attention and give them a taste of what was in the middle so that it would peak interest, as a reader I found that very enhancing in a way. In the beginning the story is brought to a setting and a certain time.
The author chose a very vivid choice of words so that he could get his point across, including certain slurs as “faggot”. The overall tone I get from the story is a kind of moving nostalgic depressing.
The author's story was really tough, it was something that nobody wishes not to go through to. A phrase that I like from his story was "I had worn my colors and they were too bright for them to ever bother me again." This piece made think of how brave the author was when he was going through that situation.
--Jaqueline Barrera