Brokeback Living

Most mornings I walk just over a mile around my Albuquerque neighborhood. I see lots of people along the way—walking or running, just like me, sometimes with their dog(s) on a leash, sometimes engaged in conversation, or like this morning, sitting in front of their houses talking on their cell phone. As I passed the woman on her phone who was speaking loud enough that I caught a little of what she was saying, she was telling the person on the other end of this wireless conversation, “no more, never again”—or something like that. My ears perked up because I had said the same words just last night. We say things like that with great emphasis, most times I think trying to convince ourselves that whatever we’re talking about has taken us to our limits, tested us to the max—the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Such conversations are fairly typical, be they neighbors talking from sidewalk to front yard, people on the wireless holding forth from a garden chair on their front lawn, or people multi-tasking to make the most of their morning—walking the dog while catching up with family or a friend. We are a moving picture on the world stage, sharing our stories with any and all within earshot.

So I had to think about what provoked the woman declaring from her lawn chair that she was at her limit. Someone had pissed her off—maybe a trying husband, maybe an ungrateful child, married and living his or her life wherever, maybe someone in church. The possibilities are just about endless. We try one another’s patience every day. We back ourselves into corners—or we back others into corners. Fight or flight becomes our choice, or so it seems.

I’m wondering, am I the bullied, or am I the bully. Bullies are consistently in the news recently, mostly relating to the growing up experience many of us have because we are different, vulnerable. “School Bullying is Epidemic and Turning Dangerous” reads a headline from ABC News (October 16 2010). Anyone who is paying attention knows what such stories are about. Many of the victims are gay youth, but many are not. The victims might be little introverts, or children who struggle with weight, or children who are overly protected by their parents. All that is required to become the subject of someone else’s bullying is some kind of vulnerability. And many adults are bullied in just about any way we can imagine—abusive personal relationships—be they intimate in nature or just friends— “horrible bosses” (such as in the currently popular comic film), neighbors, landlords, church politics, any kind of politics in the local, state, national and world theaters. Bullying is alive and well, and many or most of us experience it.

Not to be a victim or begin to see myself as victim is on my mind. And let me not be on the other side of that equation. Of course, I wonder what was on the mind of the woman whose conversation I walked by earlier this morning because it mirrors something I’m thinking about. Lately I’ve been reading novels by a currently popular female southern writer of what some might call “chick books”. It matters not to me that I am a male. The characters are interesting, portrayed as only a woman can see them, and the stories, which are set in the first half of the 20th century, are peculiarly southern. Broken homes, poverty, “man’s inhumanity to man”, are some of the themes. The characters struggle with their conditions, their choices, and their lives. And in the true spirit of the triumph of the human spirit, the value of life and human dignity is affirmed. And people die. So the story goes. There’s little black and white here—mostly gray.

I was bullied as a child because I was a “mama’s boy”. Clearly, those were the words used by one of the assholes who badgered me when I was in school. I know his name, and I can see his face. I tried to hide—not to call attention to myself. Anyone who has been bullied knows what we do to escape the cruelty of those who seem to have more power than we have. But I grew up. I was bullied by an alcoholic boss for many years. I’m still working on forgiveness for him.

Because I am a pleaser, and sometimes I don’t give myself much credit—in spite of how others might see me from time to time—I have allowed one person or another to play off of my fears and insecurities. We do that. Alpha, alpha male/female, alpha. Alpha Omega. Lately, I’ve been the subject of some bullying—at least as far as I see it. However it comes—in a book, on the news, walking through the neighborhood, I welcome the reminder that I do have some say in this. Sometimes I can walk away, and when I can’t walk away, I can take a stand. I’m a big boy now, Louis, making my way. And so it is. Namaste.

Brokeback Living—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 18, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis