A SAD STORY...

The day after “friend´s day”, four years ago, I received a phonecall...

Let´s go back to 1996, I was 16 years old and after my family had moved to a new neighbourhood, I had to start going to a new High School... I was again: “The New Guy”.
Untill that moment I had never experienced what to have real friends was, if you remember, I used to be a very lonely kid living in a cristal bubble and avoiding any contact with real people... what a freak weirdo!

I was a new guy and being sorrounded by people of my own age helped me change my “way of dealing with others” . At the age of 16, I decided to open that bubble and let others in...
For the first time in my life I had friends, I was going to parties and I was enjoying being “just like others”... everything was new and, lots of thinhgs were there to be discovered, I found myself being a “regular teenager” and it was awesome. (´Till that moment I was sort of a “scale model of an adult person”).

And I fell in love...
Of course! I needed a first time true love story to complete the equation, and it was there for me, I just had to rise my head in those huge HighSchool aisles to face him, Gabriel.

We had already been introduced by a friend we had in commom but, as he was known as a “very problematic” guy, I just stayed away from him...silly me.

One afternoon, he found me at my classroom getting the papers ready to do a few things for my mother at the Bank on my way home and he offered his help (though I didn´t need help on that, I accepted) We went to the Bank, did my thing, and stayed together afterwards untill it got very late and I had to head home.
The day after, he was waiting for me after my classes to join my long walk home... several hours later, I was getting my “first kiss” at the bus stop, before saying goodbye.

Gabriel had a girlfriend, a girl who was living near my house, and a lot of big NOOOOO!s but I was blind, and the only thing I could see were “stars on his eyes”.... and as “another schoolgirl (lol)” I followed them untill I crashed against a wall.

We were together for 8 months, by the first week, the girlfriend was history, by the second week, he introduced me to his group of friends (a very reduced group) as “my boyfriend Ian”... in the beginning they just laughed shaking their heads, they knew he was crazy and they thought this was just another joke, and that I was part of it. Gabriel was a clown and clowns are dangerouse when they know no limits...

I was not “out” (before then, only my parents knew I was gay – remember I had NO FRIENDS) just the thought of losing this new status as a “regular boy” made my closet bigger and bigger... So, keeping a secret relationship in front of everyone with the “crazy clown” Gabriel was, started to be a huge trouble by the second month...

During this period, a lot of things were happening in my family, another brother was soon to be born and due to health problems, the dangers of an abortion were too high for consideration..A huge storm was over my head then and I had no intentions to get things worse... but I was blind... and by the third month, things GOT WORSE.

No doubt, Gabriel was insane... and that “crazyness” I enjoyed since the moment I had met him was the same crazyness I adopted as a stupid kid who was “pretending” to be an adult... I got used to that insanity and, being so blind, I couldn´t see I was driving fast speed against a wall.

My partners at HSchool (the ones who cared) tried to warn me several times that I wasn´t the same guy I used to be... my home was a mess, my parents were now all worried and started to restrict that freedom I always had. (they were thinking I was into drugs or some kind of satanic group- lol). Rumours about my “Pervert relationship” with Gabriel were all over School and every day, thinhgs got worse and worse. But I didn´t care then, I was living in a “new bubble”, a world only made for two...

By the time we reached the eighth month, things were totally out of control and I decided to end that sickness, there was no fight, no argues, just a fine and memorable conversation when we agreed to break up.

I didn´t know then that I was destroying this crazy little man´s HUGE EGO, or whatever I did that night, and what I thought it was a big nightmare (to deal with my family, the rumors , etc) was nothing compared with the things to come...

I think it was the week after that, I went to school and I found that all the letters I had written to Gabriel during an eight months relationship were now in the hands of every single human being at school... secrets, projects, dreams, love promises, thoughts, needs... all detailed in papers that were being fotocopied and distributed between the students of the wonderful Dr. Etchegaray High School.

Yes, I could never understand why he did something like that, He outed ourselves in the most aggresive way he could find, some sort of revenge against me and my “stupid desition” of trying to live away from him.

Whatever going through his selfish little brain was pointless, the damages were already done, and the consequenses up to come.

I became the easy joke of the day, a victim of a mercyless group of stupid teenagers who were ready to join a homophobic army with only one purpuse: to destroy my sanity.

I found out I had no friends, no love, no bubble... There is no room for bubbles when reality is blowing up in your face, even my teachers were known about what was happening.

One morning, I was at school, crying in the bathroom, and I heard someone at the door. I dried my tears and felt someone was grabbing my shoulder. When I turned I saw Alejandro, a guy who shared with me a few classes, one of those guys americans would call “popular”.

Since the moment this whole mess had started, Alejandro never dared to say anything, I thought he was kinda dissapointed or hurted because I had not trusted him.

He said: “Ian, I just want to hear the truth from you”

I looked at him, stopped crying and tried to speak... he interrupted me: “if those letters are real, I just want you to know that I don´t give a fuck of what they say about what you are or who you love”... I couldn´t say a word, he was known of being the head of every gang and a natural born lider. I had always thought that he would have been the first to kick my face, just because of my homosexuality, but then, he was showing me how wrong I was... he said: “though I´ve known you for less than a year I can say you are not a piece of shit like most of this idiots are... “ he gave me a hug and stayed there for the rest of the half hour break so I could cry on his shoulder, then, when we heard the ring of the Maths class, he took my head between his hands and gave me a very short kiss on my lips “you see?” he said “I don´t care”. I was in shock, I couldn´t even move. He smiled and said “we gotta go, wash your face and cumb your hair, they all want to see you like this, don´t give them the chance...” and he left.

That morning, Alejandro tought me a lesson I will never forget.

How easy is to pre-judge, being so wrong about the ones who sorround us. Alejandro was not gay, he wasn´t even demostrative with his friends, he was just a nice guy who couldn´t stand all the shit he was witnessing every day, and decided to do something to ease my pain.

I never had the chance to talk about this with him, actually, I think I only told the story of this kiss once, to my friend María.

By the end of 1996 Alejandro´s family moved to downtown and he left school.

1997 started with a whole new group of Students who had never heard about the fag or her loveletters and the things got better (or less worse).

Gabriel was still on school but, problems with drugs and alcohol, plus his own personality disorders turned him into a complete stranger, someone I couldn´t even recognize.

And I was Ian, the fag, the homo, the friend of Dorothy, a whole new being, proud of myself, decided to do something with my life. Laughing with others, laughing about my own shit and determined to be the happiest HOMO on earth, no matter what other people could say about it..

The day after “friend´s day”, four years ago (July 21st 2002), I received a phonecall...

Alejandro, “a friend from High School” had been found dead in his bedroom, he hanged himself with his belt... there was no note left.


Whatever had happened to you, I will never know, but I´m sure no matter where you are now, you are smiling at me, and laughing about what we decided (without a word) it would be our “little secret”...

Thank you, Alejandro, thank you so much...


Ian- July 21st 2006