The First Word
In the beginning there was the word. So says an oft quoted and much abused text. “The word was God,” asserts the writer. I tend to agree.
Words are that powerful. Words call into existence everything we create and believe. There was a description of a submarine in a novel long before there were submarines under the sea. A Hollywood script writer invented the cell phone when he put a wireless communicator in Captain Kirk’s hand. And July 4th celebrates not a battle but words that, once set down and signed, invented a nation.
Words have the power to create.
When I was young, I heard over and over that “queer” was a bad thing; that being a “fag” was the worst thing you could be. Only somewhat belatedly did I learn what a “fag” was; what “queers” got up to. I filed this information away along with other oft repeated enjoinders.
Words create bigotry and hatred.
With such received wisdom, I never went in the water after eating — though I never got stomach cramps in the water or elsewhere and I’ve never known anyone who has. I did not run indoors. I was mindful of my permanent record. I refrained from touching anything electrical with wet hands. The faces I pulled were always brief so that my expression never got stuck and my eyes remained uncrossed. I lived in mortal fear of the many ways of putting my eye out and behaved accordingly.
Words create fear.
Mine was a blameless and successful life until Roy Slade transferred from exotic Alaska into my ninth grade class at Keenan High School. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I knew in an instant that, for all my best efforts, I was the worst thing that a boy could be. Death was clearly the only reasonable solution. I couldn’t tell anyone. Dead, I reasoned, no one would know how bad I was.
Words can also destroy.
I stopped eating. I was only what? 12? 13? It was the only thing I could think of. Our house was only two stories tall so jumping, I’d only really risk a sprain or at worst a broken wing. The school was no taller. I couldn’t drive. There was nothing stronger than aspirin in the medicine cabinets and that hardly seemed fatal. So, I locked myself in my room, drank only Coca-Cola — it had never occurred to me that was food — listened to Carly Simon’s No Secrets and The Carpenters Greatest Hits, cried and waited to die.
I didn’t.
In my Coca-Cola induced stupor, I realized that there was nothing wrong with me. Despite popular wisdom and the suggestions of most every bully I’d ever met, being a fag wasn’t the worst thing you can be. In fact, I thought, I was actually a pretty great guy. I could only imagine that there had been a mistake of some sort; that people had gotten the wrong idea about me. My path was clear. I would use what talents I had to try to get out the word that there was nothing wrong with being a fag, that it was in fact a terrific thing so long as there were Roy Slades in the world.
Word also have the power to inspire.
Leave a Reply