The next year I am in junior high and all grown
up and everyone that year is gay and stupid
faggot and in junior high almost all of our
teachers are men and we have different subjects
in different classrooms and the homeroom
teacher for 7B is Mr. McFagan but we call him
Mr. McFaggot.

One day I'm waiting for the city bus to take me
to the school and I'm at the transfer point near
the woods and a bus comes by the other side
and the art teacher gets out B  Mr. Vogel, the
one who goes to Swish Chalet with Mr. McFaggot.

He motions me to get on the bus.

I pretend I don't see him.

He gets the driver to wait. ATracey? Are you
coming to school? Hop on!@ Oh-go-away, Mr.
Gay-Art-Teacher-who-will-probably-abduct-
me! But there are dozens of people on the bus
waiting for me to make up my mind, so I cross
over and get on the bus with him. He tells me
it's a special express bus and much faster than
waiting there and asks me how am I liking
school.

I stare at him hard because I know all about
him, how he bakes cookies in the pottery kiln
and how he took Richard Blake and lots of
other boys into the little back art supply room
after school or during art detention and made
Richard kiss him. And I know how he's in love
with Mr. McFaggot and they deserve each
other and thank god I'm not in 7B. But I'm not
abducted and it's the right bus after all, and I
wonder if  Mr. Vogel could tell, all the way from
across the street, from a bus, that I'm a lesbian.