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  “Well, I just painted how I felt”.

  The rest of the class sniggered and giggled under their breathes and I could hear some of the more popular boys in the back of the class say;

  “Weirdo! Trust Jay to be different”.

  But I knew they acted in this way, not because they thought I was a nerd, but because they were jealous. The fact that I was bad at maths but good at art made the other kids consider me not a nerd but just different, like they were undecided, they couldn’t classify me as everyone belonged to a social group. You were either popular or not.

  In terms of how I looked the other kids thought I was a weirdo as I also wore gel in my hair which the other kids found sissy-like. It felt as though I had some sort of pathogenic disease called ‘weird’. They used to look at me like I was some sort of freak I was also called a teacher’s pet sometimes as all the teachers liked me.

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  Lunchtimes during this year I absolutely dreaded. I was, for the entire first year, was alone, every day, sitting in the main courtyard of the school with my head bowed down in a book. I was not really reading it, I was just pretending as I was too scared to look at anyone. All the other kids were playing kickball or football around me, and generally having fun with their group of friends. I had no friends. Sometimes they were so mean that I would have one of the kids deliberately throw a football at my head. All they wanted to do was mess my hair up then say;

  “Oh look, his hair is all messed up, what a poof!”

  I ignored it, I had to. I was too scared to fight back or even speak a word but I knew I would get my chance someday. I just was not sure how I would do it.

  There were times that I was so sick of the loneliness that I would spend an entire lunchtime locked in a toilet cubicle so no one would find me. It became my social habitus. I would even sit on the floor of the toilet cubicle and eat my lunch in there waiting for the end of the lunch time bell to go off. Some days I just cried and cried. I was ashamed to me a loner. I spent hours dwelling why nobody likes me. My expectations of high school became the complete opposite and it killed me to be seen like this. So I was hiding from the other kids and hiding from myself.

  I never told my mum or anyone else about what I was going through during the first year as I was so ashamed of it. I was ashamed to just be Jamie Ford. I knew I was different. But I knew I wanted to be somebody. I wanted to find some purpose in life as I had determination and I think that’s what kept me sane.

  I decided to take the school bus to school every day. I remember that on the first day I arrived on campus and I walked up the steps into the meeting room where we all had to assemble and some idiot, I think he was in year nine or ten, tripped me over and I fell. All my books spilled out onto the floor. I was completely embarrassed. The idiot laughed and walked off. That was the first real bully event and the last.

  After that first bully incident, I was never really bullied again, I was just a loner. But then we reached year eight, this started to change. The other students were kind of unsure about me until we did physical education class which we didn’t start until year 8. I blitzed it. The other kids had a look of shock on their faces when I had the fastest sprint time in athletics.

  We also had Karate and Judo classes and I nearly always won the practice fights we had. Then suddenly the more popular boys in my class started to ask me to play basketball with them at lunchtime. I felt instant relief and acceptance. But it took courage to prove that I am worthwhile and not a waste of space. Nobody ever has out done the jock type of guys, but I did. They were intimated but gave me a look of pride and finally I had the guts to stand up to their arena. They admired me for that and it made me feel more confident that they started to feel more comfortable with me. So I started to make friends but most of all, finally, someone wants to be friends with me.

  I always excelled at sports and the students always looked up to me to with some sort of admiration. When we played ‘kickball’ and the captains had to choose team members, I was always one of the first to be chosen. NOW, I started to feel like one of the ‘cool’ kids again. But there was a catch.

  During the year I always got top marks in all my subjects which kind of made the other students a bit undecided if I was part of the ‘cool’ group or not, so in order to be cool I started to get a bit cheeky in class. I was only naughty to maintain my cool status and regardless of the fact I got good grades, my disruptive behaviour dismissed the idea of being a nerd. Even though I felt like one. So you could say I was part of the ‘cool’ group and part of the ‘nerd’ group by this stage. I was caught between both. But I was happy with that.

  Bob continued to treat me with mainly verbal abuse. Then one day Bob and mum decided to buy a caravan and attached holiday home at Lake Eppalock, near Bendigo, Victoria, so we could go water skiing on weekends. Bob by this stage tended to be a bit nicer to me and our weekends as a family were quite enjoyable. I started to feel a lot more at ease and the relationship between Bob and I started to flourish. I think we stared to get an understanding of each other and he really wanted to treat me like his son. I wanted that also. I also got very good at water-skiing, started to do slalom and tricks and all and was getting very good at it. I was told by some of the guys I met at the resort as friends that I should go professional. It sounded good, as I was very good as water-skiing but I had other aspirations. When we reached year nine, they offered us for the first time a subject that I took to like a rocket. It was media studies. I got so involved in it that both teachers and students looked up to be with inspiration. I had some sort of artistic eye for film production, like some sort of natural talent, as they teachers said. It was not long that I decided that I wanted to be a cinematographer or film director. Doing media studies at school grew my passion for cinema and film genre and my media teacher suggested I pursue it as a career as I had a natural eye for film critique.

  ………………………………………….

  By the time I got to year nine I was getting so good at water-skiing that I was encouraged to enter in competitions held during the summer months at our ski resort. I never actually had the guts to pursue a competition due to my shyness. But that never bothered me as my real passion was film and cinema. When we reached year nine at high school we then got the opportunity to start choosing elective subjects in order to create our own major course of study. This was to encourage the students to start thinking about career paths. So naturally I chose the arts stream consisting of media studies, creative arts, social sciences, and so on. It was an exciting time for us as we were then considered as part of the seniors of the school.

  So the element of ‘coolness’ was at it’s peak. Even as a ‘nerd’, the kids of year seven and eight saw you still as kind of ‘cool’. During in year nine, we had the opportunity to make student films in media studies class and it was apparent that I had a passion for this and the students nominated me to be the writer and director of the films we made as I had a knack for it due to my innovative ideas and as I had done a lot of research into cinematography and genre my skills were way above the average year 9 student. Soon we started up a small group of kids exclusively dedicated making student films around campus. It soon got a reputation for being some type of elite group of students making films with a lot of recognition. The other kids admired us for it and we were soon labelled as a ‘cool’ type of group. But being in year nine and part of one of the ‘cool’ groups, were became totally untouchable, almost celebrity status of the school. But I had a problem. One word- ‘jocks’.

  ……………………………………….

  During year nine, a new ‘cool’ group was emerging and being labelled which were a group of kids that were apparently good at sports but were as thick as two planks, and were also considered sexy by the girls. The jocks were also the bullies of the school. They intentionally went out of their way to bully the year seven and eight’s and also the nerds. However they never went
near the film crew. It was kind of eerie. They never even looked at us; almost like we were invisible. As for the girls, there was one type of cool group for the girls; the drama class. We didn’t have a cheerleading group, quite simply there were girls that hung around with the jocks or the film crew, that’s it. But the majority of the most popular girls were in the drama class group, which was a group of girls that did theatre and dancing. The drama group was the equivalent to the American cliché of a cheerleading group. The thing too is that I always wanted to take up Drama as a subject in Years nine, ten and eleven but it was seen a ‘sissy’ subject for a boy to join the class. So there were never any boys in the Drama classes, ever. The ironic part about the Drama class girls too is that the girls that went out with the jocks used to chase after us, the film crew guys, behind the jocks’ backs. It was kind of like the girls were a bit embarrassed to be attracted to the ‘arty’ sort of guys but they couldn’t help themselves anyway, so they tried to ‘come on’ to us behind closed doors. The jocks never knew about the girls’ adultery. Or did they? I had a feeling they did know, or at least a few of them knew, but never said or did anything about it. The issue was that because we, the film crew, were also considered cool, the jocks were actually scared of us. They were scared of us because we had a status of being somewhat fashionable so they found it intimidating. But we were also scared of them even though I wanted to be a jock. That’s why they never interacted with us. We kept out of their way, and they kept out of ours.

  Now I mentioned before that the creation of the new ‘jocks’ group was a problem. It was a problem because as I was also good at sport, in fact I was the only film crew member that was good at sport. The jocks quite often would ask me to join their group.

  “Come on!...” they used to say to me.

  “Join us, hang around with us....you don’t wanna be hangin’ with arty guys ....it’s borin’” they used to say.

  Almost on a daily basis, but never in front of the other film crew members. My response each time was;

  “Nope!.......I prefer to make films.....I don’t wanna be a jock.....I don’t need to!”.

  The reality was that I really wanted to be a jock, I wanted that kind of popularity but I was too still too shy. But the jocks were persistent with me and never gave in, always asking me to join their group. It was only because I was good at sport, especially athletics which was the core sport of the school. So in fact, they only wanted to use me. I made the impression that I was not interested in being a jock, but deep down inside I wanted so bad to be a jock. I wanted the fact to be worshipped by the jocks girls. It was almost god like. This was something that was missed with the film crew. Although we had no problem with getting girls, it was never really public. The jocks were also considered better looking too and I wanted so desperately to gain that attention.

  There was never a day that went by that I wanted to be a jock. I used to pretend that they were invisible, it was reciprocal with the jocks. At lunchtimes we, the film crew, had exclusive access to the schools film studios. That was one of the perks of being part of the cool film crew. Only we had the privilege. Almost always, if we were making a film on the school grounds we always attracted an audience. They watched with awe, and I was in charge, the director, I had control and power. If one of the kids saw us walking down the corridor carrying video cameras, tripods, sound booms and stuff they would say “here they come” and move right out of our way and look at us as we walked past like we were school royalty, we were the cool arty kids, no one messed with us. They all understood the significance of our art and how that reflected the schools image. So we were admired. So we made a lot of short films, mainly music videos which were in fact quite cool for its time. I look back on them now and say yes, they definitely look like student films. But hey, we were only fifteen years old or so. It was pretty good stuff for that age. That’s why we won awards. But sometimes I used to sneak out of the film studio and go to the sports field which was located outside the school grounds but next door. I used to watch the jocks played football. It was called VFL at that time, but it was Australian Rules football. They never saw me though as I hid behind a tree. I used to sit behind a tree and watch the jocks kick hustled around the field with their tops off, sweating. I used to think, maybe I can join in? But never did, I just sat there for about half an hour or longer watching them mess around with the ball, aiming to kick goals. It looked so masculine, but beautiful. I even hung around when they stopped for a bite of lunch at half time tucking into what Aussie men eat. Meat pies and sausage rolls. It was a sign of Aussie masculinity I saw when they were munching on ‘manly’ food like meat pies and sausage rolls. Meat pies and sausage rolls were not just food, but are a down to earth sign of an Aussie male. I was attracted to the hegemonic feel of being a male. The fact that I was attracted to Aussie masculinity and not attracted to any ‘girly’ or continental side of men made me even more confused about my own sexuality.

  I would watch an international soccer match and get no sexual emotion but I would watch an Aussie Rules match and get aroused. But I started to get horrible thoughts in my head. I found myself thinking of awful things which were quite disturbing and definitely taboo. My heart began to pouch, I could feel the sweat develop above my top lip as I watched the jocks wrestle with each other. I was no longer watching them play football. I was watching the bodies. Watching innocent boys rubbing each other’s sweating adolescent bodies with intensity. I found it had to breathe yet I had a massive urge to just reach out and touch one of them. I wanted to be jock so bad, it hurt. But I knew I now could never be. I was having too many dirty thoughts about them.

  Almost every second day or so I would sneak out of the film studio at lunchtime and secretly watch the jocks play football. I would sit behind the same old gum tree and watch with admiration. I would also have the same dirty thoughts about them. Thinking about what it would feel like to have those athletic sweating bodies rub up and down against you. I tried to imagine it and got so aroused that it became overwhelming. The thoughts became dirtier and dirtier each day. I knew that those thoughts were not normal but it just felt so right. Each time I looked at those athletic bodies, a rush of adrenaline would power through my body, almost paralysing me with complete and utter ecstasy. But I could never share this with anyone, it was too abnormal. I knew I had to stop these thoughts somehow. So I took action.

  Well into the ninth year I deliberately went out of my way to start chasing after girls to give the impression I was normal, or heterosexual to be exact. I didn’t even really know what the true word ‘gay’ meant and thought that my attraction to men was some sort of illness and that I would get over it. I used to try and visualise images of girls’ ‘rude’ bits to try and overcome my abnormality of preferring men but it never worked. Well the truth is also, is that in the past I had girls ask me out but I’d make up an excuse to say no. Now I spent a lot of time with girls. For some reason the other guys in the film crew followed my actions too. In class the girls would pass silly little love letter to us and then we would meet at the back of the oval after school to ‘get on’ with each other. The oval was the notorious place where guys and girls would meet to ‘get on’ with each other. In those days, ‘get on’ simply meant to kiss each other. It was a very adolescent thing to do thinking about it now. But that’s how it was.

  I guess during this time I was trying to hide my secret. Those dirty thoughts; the thoughts about the jocks. But it was not so much about wanting to be a jock now. It was more about the physical aspect. As each day went by I kept thinking about the images of the sweating bodies. I just couldn’t help it. But I liked it. I never shared these thoughts with anyone at all as I kept feeling so guilty about thinking like this. I did not understand if it was at all possible to be sexually attracted to men. In fact I never even knew what the concept was called. So I just thought it was unusual and kept inside. I knew what the term ‘poofter’ or ‘pansy’ meant, even the word ‘faggot’, but I never really
understood what it actually meant. I just thought those terms were just superficial words to describe a man that acts or dresses like a girl. I could never imagine that it was actually possible to be ‘gay’ in society. But I also thought that it was not impossible, so I started to do research.

  One weekend I went to my friends’ house named Michael. He was actually part of the film crew but his parents decided to put him in another private school for some unknown reason. We were still friends but only saw him about a few times a month, mainly on a Saturday or Sunday. One day we were playing records in Michaels’ bedroom. Vinyl records were still big during those days. But out the blue Michael brought out a pornographic magazine from under his bed.

  ‘‘Get a load of this!” he said with a bang of excitement.

  I was apprehensive but I looked at it. I was shocked.

  “It’s a porno mag” he said.

  As I flicked through the pages of men and women in the imaginable sexual acts, I said out of the blue

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”.

  Michael surprisingly seemed enthusiastic about it. Not shocked at all. Without hesitation he unzipped his pants, pulled down his underwear and flopped out the biggest penis I had ever saw. Well, it was the only one I saw at that age but I knew it was big. Bigger than normal. “It’s pretty big, isn’t it?” he said with great pride.

  I was stunned but I wanted to touch, so I did. I then proceeded to pull my pants down and took out my penis and Michael without any hesitation put this hand on it. I felt so good buy boy, was it so wrong! We heard Michael’s dad coming down the hall so we immediately zipped our pants back up so quickly it was at the speed of lightening. Then his dad suddenly opened Michaels bedroom door and said;

  “How you boys goin’? Jamie, you staying for dinner?” Michael’s dad said with a friendly voice.

  Both Michael and I looked so guilty but Michael’s dad never suspected anything. “Uhhh...no.....I think I will be going home now” I stuttered.