Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster (6 page)

She began to say, “How’s the—”

That was it. Before I could stop myself, I abruptly turned to her and loudly pronounced to the entire room, “Amy, I’d like to give you a helpful hint. On behalf of the entire school, I really think you should at least
try
to think of something else to say, because people are starting to wonder if maybe you’re kind of dumb.”

What I really said might have been somewhat lamer, but in my memory, that’s what I said. After a weighty moment of stunned silence, I heard a twitter. Then a snort. Then full-out laughter, which has always been my favorite sound in the whole wide world. It filled me with such joy because, for once, it wasn’t directed
at
me, it was
because
of me. Even Amy’s cohorts snickered until she glared at them. I wish I could say I was never teased again. I was still made fun of, but much, much less often. And Amy never spoke to me again.

Finally, graduation came. A perfect procession of tiny girls all in white dresses, followed by slightly taller boys in their smart blue blazers and ties. But right there, dead center, was a giant Freak. But for once I didn’t care. People could stare all they wanted, because never again would I have to sit through a plodding, endless mass right before lunchtime as my stomach made embarrassingly loud noises (the cafeteria was helpfully located directly
beneath
the church). Never again would I have to be taught English by a nun who knew less about books than I did. Never again would I want to die of shame as the loudspeaker screamed,
“Miss Johnston, please report to your special education class,”
to the entire school. And never, ever, again would I have to see Amy Grable. Apparently, she was sent to an all-girls Catholic high school, where I’m sure she continued mastering the fine art of torturing the special and unique.

About thirteen years ago, on a break from filming
3rd Rock from the Sun
in LA, I came back to Milwaukee for Christmas break. It was snowing like crazy, and out of boredom Julie and I decided to go to the local mall. Suddenly, I heard a scream so high-pitched and loud that I almost dropped my Orange Julius.

“Oh. My. Gaaaad!”

We quickly turned around and saw an overweight woman with pockmarked skin and dirty-blond hair, pointing at me, her mouth open. Even from fifteen feet away I could see she lived by the bold but erroneous credo “The more makeup you have on your face, the less people will look at your ass.”

From the extreme volume of her voice and the feverishly excited look in her eyes, I assumed she must be a
huge
fan of
3rd Rock
, and I promptly put on my “gracious and charming” face. That’s when Julie, who has an encyclopedic memory of almost everyone who’s ever lived in our area, urgently whispered, “Wait, Kristen!”

“What?” I said, smile planted on, as the woman hustled toward us.

“That’s Amy O’Connor, she used to be Amy Grable.”

“Wha. . .?”

Holy crap.
I stopped in my tracks. “Used to be” was a shocking understatement. This hideously over-made-up horror show bore zero resemblance to the gorgeous girl I had always secretly held up as the Ideal of Beauty.

She hugged me. For a long time. A
very, very
long time. I looked at my sister for help, but she was hysterically laughing behind a fake bush. My eyes watered as the overwhelming stench of Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds singed my nostril hairs. Thankfully, Amy finally released me, and she giddily introduced me to her two sullen boys.

There was an awkward pause. I glared at the plastic bush.
Julie, you are fucking dead in two minutes.
All of a sudden, Amy did something I shall never, ever forget as long as I live. She fished around in her enormous purse and took out a pen and a receipt.
Oh, no, please not my number,
I thought as she held them out to me. But then, as if she were terrified of being rude (oh, dollface, I’m afraid that ship has sailed), she asked me for my autograph.

I was silent for a moment.

“Sure, why not?” I replied magnanimously, while inside I was screaming,
Haha, hahaha, you ugly cow! I win! I win! Ding, dong, the queen is dead!
Then I wrote:

Oh, come on—I’m kidding! I would never do that, mostly due to the woman standing right in front of me. Because of her, I have an intimate understanding of how utterly devastating words can be. Besides, my mama raised me better than that. So instead, I wrote:

She lumbered happily away. Sensing I was going into shock, Julie sat me down on a cement bench outside the Gap.
I just can’t believe it.

“I’m getting a fake tattoo, want one?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I just can’t believe it.”

“What, how fat she is?”

“No. Well, yes. But mostly I can’t believe that for the very first time in, like, twenty
years
, I’m so grateful I’m not her.”

Julie laughed. “Well,
duh
!” and walked over to the tattoo stand.

But Julie had been pretty, petite, kind, and popular. Therefore, one would think I would have despised her or at the very least been eaten alive with jealousy. However, even though Julie may have looked like an angel, she’d also been blessed with the dirtiest mouth of anyone I’ve ever met in my life. And the fact that she thought I was the funniest human alive didn’t hurt, either. Regardless, despite how cool Julie was, there was no possible way I could explain how I felt to a girl who had once been crowned homecoming queen.

As I sat there on that cement bench, next to a plastic fern, it struck me that maybe I
had
triumphed, after all. Not because of dumb stuff like looks or fame or success. Or even lack of body odor. Maybe I had triumphed because instead of crushing me, this person had unwittingly forced me to become someone
interesting.
A person who knows that the greatest curse in life is when it’s handed to you on a silver platter. Someone who knows it’s so much better to have to
fight
for what you want. Someone who understands that the more people tell you you’re going to fail, the more you’re driven to prove them wrong. And at the end of the day,
funny and interesting
will always kick
pretty and perfect
’s ass.

I mean, think about it—if there weren’t people like
her
to torture people like
me
, would people like me even
exist
?

Now, I wish what I’d written was this:

I think
once you’ve been different, you remain overly sensitive to being labeled for the rest of your life. After all, isn’t
label
just a fancy word for
name-calling
? I’ve always found it kind of weird that even though I was incessantly bullied about it throughout childhood and am still reminded of it constantly to this day, my height never occurs to me until someone says something. Which is daily. I’ll be innocently walking my dog, Pinky, and some dashing gent will walk by me and feel the need to say, “Damn, you one
BIG
girl!” and only then will I think,
Oh, that’s right. I’m not normal. I’m one BIG girl.
The only other time it occurs to me is when I’m talking to another tall person, but even then it’s only because I’m thinking,
Well, isn’t that nice, my neck doesn’t hurt!
And then, as she walks away, I think smugly,
Damn, she is one BIG girl.

We like to assume we outgrow labels when we become grown-ups. But for most of us, it’s just not true. “The Goth” has become “The Soccer Mom.” “The Nerd” has blossomed into “The Rich Guy Married to a Playboy Bunny.” “The Bad Boy” is now “A Registered Sex Offender.” And “The Football Hero” throws it all away to become “A Fat Drunk.” I do it, too. It’s human nature, I guess. It’s easier for us to put a label on someone; for some weird reason it makes us feel better about ourselves. As if putting others in a definable little box gives us power over them and keeps us from having to admit that we’re miserable in our own skin. Just like in high school, labels are always said with a hint of derision and judgment. “She’s just an
artist
”; “He’s
really gay
”; “There goes that
hick
”; or “Damn, that is one
BIG
girl
.
”

I can’t remember my first drink. All I know about alcohol was that, like the perfect pair of Levi’s, it felt as if it had been there my whole life. I loved drinking, being drunk, and all drunk people. Suddenly, my voice
wasn’t
the loudest in the room, and my terrible habit of blurting out comments without editing them first was now “the funniest thing ever!”

Once I got to high school in the early eighties, I worked very hard to make sure I was no longer the Jolly Green
anything.
I was now the Party Animal/Drama Nerd! I know, I know, they don’t usually go together. But I think I made it work beautifully. For example, when I played Smitty in
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
, I always had a loud, drunken cheering section. Since then, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for a tipsy audience.

Things had definitely improved since grade school, but physically I was still a disaster. I was never the girl boys liked. I became the girl boys talked to
about
the girl they liked. I can’t imagine why. After all, what’s hotter than an enormous, sexless loudmouth with a bad perm who can outdrink the entire football team? Blind fools.