STORIES CAN HURT

I always tell people I joined the fight for drug policy reform when
my employer asked me to pee in a cup. While this was certainly a
major turning point in my life, I recently re-discovered my first
brush with our drug war during a class called "Telling Our Stories".

Due to massive disharmony in my dad's house, I moved in with my
mother and step-father in the middle of my freshman year of high
school. The transition of my home life went fairly smooth and was
certainly for the better, but moving from an Illinois middle class
school to an upper class Virginia school proved to be challenging.

Mount Vernon High School is located in Fairfax County, Virginia and
is one of the suburbs of Washington D.C. Many wealthy Senators and
Congressmen make the crowded commute from this location, since living
in downtown D.C. is not pleasant. Even though Mount Vernon is a
public school, from the first time I walked down the carpeted
hallways in search of the main office it was obvious that more money
poured into it.

Since this was an unplanned move, my transcripts had not arrived, and
my counselor was forced to try to figure out my new class schedule by
asking me questions. Everything seemed to match up fairly well
except for an Illinois history class. I was assigned to work in the
office to fill this blank, and off I went to try to find my way in my
new school.

Everyone's probably seen it in the movies or on TV -- the new kid
walks late into a classroom and all eyes turn toward her. She's
dressed differently from the "wrong" tennis shoes all the way to
"wrong" book bag she carries. But, until you have personally
experienced those curious stares, you just can not imagine the weight
that they carry. Sure, the teacher tries to be overly nice, but the
introduction she is making is barely heard as the new student
clumsily works her way to an open desk.

The rest of that day and week were a blur as I negotiated my way from
class to class and attempted to learn the ways of this new world. My
parents were very supportive and encouraged me in every way they
could. That first weekend they introduced me to neighbors with a
daughter my age who also attended Mount Vernon. Her name was Lisa and
she did her best to help me find my way.

It was during the second week that darkness began to surround me. I
started noticing cliques of people seemingly whispering and pointing
at me as I walked by. My mom had taken me shopping and I had tried to
upgrade my clothes to more accurately match "theirs." I even talked
her into buying me the best backpack available for my books. In band
I was doing fairly well playing french horn and had started, I
thought, to make some new friends.

It was in the restroom that I began to get a hint at what was going
on. I had just sat down when I heard the main door burst open,
"NARC! You Suck!" echoed throughout the tiled walls. I later found
out that the local paper had recently printed an article which
claimed undercover narcotic agents were to be planted in the school
system. This meant the timing of my transfer just could not have been worse.

Adding to my problems, my transcripts had still not arrived, and
another student office worker had spread this fact around far and
wide. Her name was Terri, and I still do not know why she had taken
an instant dislike to me. Perhaps she had an inferiority complex and
I became her latest mark.

But "marked" I was, and the next few weeks went from bad to worse.
People stopped talking every time I walked up, lunchtime was a total
nightmare, and I felt sure I'd never have another boyfriend. Terri
had gotten her buddies to help her make my life miserable. Riding
home on the school bus gave them their favorite place to taunt me.

My parents did their best to comfort me as I sat crying at our
kitchen table every afternoon. Lisa promised she would try to pass
counter-rumors since she knew the truth about me. But, as usual,
gossip was much more interesting than truth, and by the end of the
following week the story made me "the lead federal narc."

At this point Terri had decided she'd just take things into her own
flaming-red fingernailed hands and challenge me to a duel! During
math class a note was passed back to me which said, "Get off at my
bus stop and I'm gonna kick your ass!"

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out whether to call home
sick, purposely miss the bus or actually try to fight. I decided that
I didn't want to cause more hassles for my parents, and the first two
options would just delay the confrontation that seemed inevitable. I
didn't then, and still don't believe in violence, so I continued to
try to come up with a better solution.

The bus seemed fuller that day as we headed into the posh townhouse
subdivisions. Of course I knew which stop was Terri's and could feel
the tension and whispers mounting as it neared. The only "idea" I had
come up with was to ignore whatever happened and to continue to deny
their accusations.

As the bus door flew open, Terri and her friends stood up and stared at me.

"Come on, narc - time to face your jury," she sneered.

"I'm not a narc and I'm not gonna fight you," I replied and stared
out the window feeling, once again, all eyes upon me.

"Move it on out, I've a schedule to keep," shouted the bus driver. I
heard a few more taunts, "Narcs suck" and "We'll get you," as they
slowly shuffled off the bus.

The very next day my transcripts finally arrived, and it slowly
filtered throughout the hallways that I was, indeed, just another
gangly freshman with a "B" average and an interest in sports and music.

Within weeks I realized that Terri was not as popular as I had
originally thought and her group of friends was smaller than I had
imagined. As I continued to ignore her, I found there were plenty of
other kids I could hang with. There were many who had not believed
the rumors she started.

I will never forget the added stress and fear I felt due to Terri's
choosing to start those stories about me. I had never been a
"gossip" before that time and certainly avoided passing along juicy
tidbits thereafter. To this day, when I hear someone spouting off
about someone else, I try to interject an "Are you sure" or "How do
you know that" into the conversation.