Life and death in middle school

Fairly often, I've dismissed some of the bullying from my middle/high school days and the anti-gay crap I endured in college as, "What didn't kill me made me stronger." Which is, for the most part, true -- the experience builds a thick, hard shell, even if the inside can stay soft and vulnerable.

Larry King, though, didn't get stronger. He got shot in the head in a classroom.

With every news report since King's murder one year ago I've experienced the same visceral revulsion and sadness, because it drags up so many of the worst nightmares that many of us had as glbt kids trying to figure out what the hell we were in the world. Sometimes those nightmares come true.

This sequence from the LA Times story on the upcoming trial of King's shooter, Brandon McInereny, brings back a lot:

In her statement of facts, Fox contends that King and McInerney had an acrimonious relationship for months prior to the shooting. They sparred with "typical 8th grade, back-and-forth insults; some sexual, some not," she wrote.

Witnesses said King was usually not the aggressor. But after months of teasing by McInerney and other male students who called him "faggot," he had began to retort, according to prosecutors.

The day before the shooting, the two boys were bickering during seventh period. When King left, a student witness said that McInerney commented, "I'm going to shoot him."

Just after that class, another student heard King say "I love you" to McInerney as they passed in a hallway. The same student then heard McInerney say he was "going to get a gun and shoot" King, according to prosecutors.

There were more than a few right-wing nutjobs blathering that King brought his fate on himself by being aggressive about his sexuality and gender at a young age. But the escalation of behavior here and King's eventual fighting back ring true to me -- when you've been stripped of your dignity, your self-image, your status, every shield you had to protect yourself as a young kid going through a difficult period of figuring yourself out (much less figuring out everyone else), you're eventually going to reach for the last piece of protection  you have -- turning yourself into the weapon you need by becoming exactly what your tormentors hate about you.

You think I'm a faggot? I'll show you faggot.

If only King hadn't been left to fend for himself he might have had the chance to be even stronger.