Silent Dignity is Cool

A story of unintended second chances, by Stuart.

Everyone needs a fresh start after middle school. I needed one bad.

I arrived in sixth grade with my giant plastic glasses, small body in hand-me-down clothes, and complete inability to control my limbs during any sort of athletic activity like throwing a ball or walking. 

When the time came for high school, I hoped to write a new chapter well before word about me got around. I thankfully had a very small eighth grade class that would get lost in the masses of the much larger student body.

I decided first to change my name. Everyone knew me as Stewie. Or Chicken Stu. Or Stooby Dooby Doo. So, I would introduce myself as Stuart, a proper adult name for someone who hoped to be an adult one day, or at least reach puberty.

My mom also thought I needed to spruce up my image. She took me to her hairdresser to transform my boy’s-regular-part-on-the-left-with-black-Ace-comb hairdo to something that evoked Back to the Future Michael J. Fox, the height of fashion in 1985. 

It was September 1990. The 90s didn’t yet know they were the 90s, but knew enough to know they weren’t the 80s. 

This new haircut required mousse and a hairdryer, and I never woke up early enough to do it right. So, on the first day of high school, I just wet my hair, added a lot of mousse, and tussled it to look a bit rakish. And to make a good impression I upgraded my outfit by adding suspenders I found in JCPenney. I thought they were jazzy.

“You can’t go to school like that,” my sister Jane warned me before we left. But ain’t nothing gonna break-a my stride. The world would see the new me.

Fifteen minutes later I stood at the bus stop grasping the straps of my backpack, doing the thousand-yard stare while ignoring my former middle school classmates as they tried to speak through spasms of gut-busting hoots. 

“Your hair … it’s so … puffy! Ha ha!!” I could only close my eyes and sigh.

I left the house feeling like Back to the Future Michael J. Fox, but upon catching my reflection on a parked car, I realized I resembled Wonder Years Fred Savage tossed in the dryer with too much fabric softener. 

I saw chuckles in the back of the bus. Double-takes in class. And in hallways people looked away to whisper.

I introduced myself as Stuart to the people who would listen, but nothing could undo the damage. For the next year my new look stared back at me from my student ID picture, which coincidentally became my photo in the yearbook. 

I needed all the help I could get.

If I wanted to be cool and to have friends, I needed to listen to Jane.

“Here, wear this today,” Jane said on our way to school one day, handing me a black ribbon to put around my left arm. I was a struggling freshman, she was a confident sophomore, and this was a no-brainer.

I went about my day as usual and saw no one other than Jane wearing any arm bands, though I did notice more sideways glances than usual, unrelated to my hair (which I had since cut) or my suspenders (which I had declared to be ahead of their time). My teachers avoided eye contact, which seemed enough reason to wear that arm band every day. 

After a few hours, I thought I might be missing something.

In English class, Teresa – who would later become a great friend, but in freshman year saw me as a reputational liability – narrowed her eyes at the arm band.

“Pretty gutsy wearing that thing.”

“Jane told me to wear it,” I replied. “Wait, what?”

She held her breath and blinked a few times. “You don’t know what it means.”

“No. Does it mean something?”

That’s how I found out I was protesting the war. 

It was January, 1991 and just the night before, the United States led an international coalition into Kuwait to push out Saddam Hussein’s invading army. I remember feeling a little scared as we ate dinner and watched Peter Jennings report live on the evening news, but it never crossed my mind to protest. I only ever thought about how to beat the Legend of Zelda or wallowed in self-pity over why girls didn’t like me. But Jane told me to wear a black arm band, so I did.

A few years later, Seamus Quinn, arguably one of the most popular guys in school, surprised me. “I remember that day you came to school silently protesting the Gulf War,” he said. “You just made your statement and bore it with calm dignity. I thought it was really cool.” 

Apparently dignified, silent protest is a good cover for simple, blind trust. But the appearance of holding a silent protest with calm dignity gave me some street cred at a time when I desperately needed it. 

My life proves you don’t need to be cool to look cool. Just don’t try to sound cool because that’s a dead giveaway you’re not. 

Calm, silent dignity is cool. And if you can’t have calm, silent dignity, then just shut up and listen to your sister.

This is a work of fiction based on actual events.

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