Play The Field.

Before you are introduced into the harsh jungle of true school, you are enrolled into “kindergarten,” or “garden of children,” if you translate from German to English. When I was younger, I didn’t understand how our classroom was a ’garden.’ However, as I’ve gotten older, I have realized just how literal that word is.

Kindergarten is when you start getting nurtured for the real world. You start to learn valuable skills, like reading and writing, and not so valuable skills, like building block towers and napping in the middle of the day.

I mostly learned the latter, considering I’d known how to read since I was three and a half years old. However, I did learn something teachers, principals and all those higher ups don‘t expect a five year old to learn,

I learned that appearances really don’t matter; just because someone looks happy doesn’t mean they are happy.

The person who taught me that lesson was none other than Frank Iero.

His parents must have registered him before they moved; when I walked into the classroom Monday morning, he was sitting on the bench in front of our cubbies, once again sucking his thumb. He was wearing the same clothes from the previous day, which I found odd; my mother always got upset when I wore the same socks two days in a row.

“Hi Frank,” I said, putting my backpack in my cubby-hole and sitting down on the bench to take off my shoes.

“Hi Mikey,” he murmured, not bothering to take his thumb out of his mouth. I shoved my shoes beside my backpack and stood back up.

“Did your mom talk to Ms. Kresin?” I asked him, noticing that he seemed rather reluctant to get up. He shook his head, making his already messy hair even worse.

“She just left me here… and I’m scared of our teacher.” I had to strain to hear him talk; he was like a timid mouse. Other children were coming in now and I could practically feel the nervousness coming off of him.

“Here, we’ll go talk to Ms. Kresin together, alright?” I gently helped him up and walked with him around the cubbies to the main area. Our teacher was facing away from us, looking through a pile of books while muttering to herself. A lot of the adults I knew said that she was ’off her rocker,’ but I didn’t find her that strange.

“Ms. K?” I asked quietly, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Frank was trembling slightly. She jolted upright and spun around. I could feel Frank shrink closer to me and his small hand closed around my wrist.

When I said that I didn’t find Ms. Kresin strange, I meant that I didn’t find her behavior strange. Her appearance however was a completely different topic. In some ways, she kind of reminded me of a witch from a fairytale. She had light brown frizzy hair, which puffed out in every direction, and she always insisted on wearing atrocious red lipstick, which clashed with her tanned complexion.

“Oh, you must be Frankie!” she exclaimed, crouching and laying one hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Your mom said that you’d be here today. Is Mikey your friend?” He nodded and grabbed my hand instead of my wrist, squeezing tightly.

“He’s a little shy,” I said, squeezing his hand back, the way Gerard always did when I was scared of something. “He doesn’t talk very much either.” She gave us both a reassuring smile and stood back up.

“Well Mikey, you were pretty shy when you first started school as well. Will you show Frank around the classroom while I get everything set up?”

“Yes Ms. K.” She went back to rummaging through her books while I led Frank over to my favorite section of the classroom; the miniature library. I pulled Frank down onto one of the beanbag chairs and grabbed a book off the bottom shelf; this one was by Robert Munsch.

“Want to read with me?” I asked, wriggling myself lower into the beanbag. Frank scooted closer to me but shook his head.

“I can’t read,” he mumbled. “My mommy and daddy say they don’t have time to read me books.”

“Do you want me to read you to then?” His entire face lit up and he nodded vigorously.

“Would you, please? Not even my grandma reads to me.” I smiled and opened the book, flipping to the very first page.

**************************************************

Frank listened carefully as I read to him, occasionally stumbling over a word or so that I didn’t recognize. After I finished one book, I started on the next, ignoring that class had already started. Ms. Kresin usually didn’t care if I read instead of doing the work; I was already ready to advance to first grade, but my mom had said that it would give me a better “childhood experience,” if I went at the same pace as the other children.

Quite honestly, it bored me. I wanted a challenge, and being stuck around those just learning their basic alphabet frustrated me to no end.

“Mikey?” After five books, Frank had let his head drop down onto my shoulder, and I’d thought he’d fallen asleep at first. “How’d you get so smart?” he asked, looking up at me with his beautiful eyes.

“My brother started teaching me when I was really young. He wanted me to have an ’edge’ on the rest of the kids when I came to school,” I explained.

“I wish I was as smart as you,” he sighed, sitting up straight and playing a thread on his sweater. “You sound as smart as my daddy.”

“Frank, Mikey!” Ms. Kresin called from the other side of the classroom, where the rest of the students were sitting on the floor in a semicircle around her. “Come over and do show and tell with us!” I sighed and got up.

“Come on Frank,” I said, wriggling out of the chair and standing up. He slowly got up and as we walked over to the circle, he grabbed my hand again.

“She scares me,” he whispered when I looked at him questioningly. “She looks like my aunt.” I couldn’t help but giggle as we sat just outside the circle. One of my friends from soccer, Quinn, was currently talking about one of his father’s guitars and holding a miniature model of one in his lap.

“My daddy said that he’s going to give me a guitar when I get older,” Frank said quietly. “He said I could have any color I wanted.”

“Frank, was there something you wanted to ask Quinn?” Ms. Kresin asked, apparently having heard Frank and I talking. Frank shook his head quickly, looking down at the floor. Ms. Kresin continued to look at us for a moment, her gaze lingering on our still linked hands. Before she motioned for Quinn to continue talking, I could see her eyes flicker briefly with an emotion I couldn’t identify at the time.

I could only explain it by saying it looked like she thought Frank and I holding hands was wrong. It couldn't be though; Susan and Kate, two of the girls in my class who were best friends, were always holding hands, and Ms. Kresin only smiled at them. What was so different about Frank and I?

Although I was too young to even ponder about what the word gay meant, I’d had my first encounter with a homophobe, in the form of my kindergarten teacher.

****************************************************

After school, my Mom and I walked Frank home, as his mother still hadn’t arrived to pick him up after half an hour. By the time we got into our own house, we were almost late to my last soccer “game” of the year.

“Mommy, isn’t Frankie so pretty?” I gushed, sitting on the breakfast nook and swinging my legs back and forth while she frantically ran through the house looking for my cleats. “I think that when I grow up, I’m going to marry him instead of some silly girl.”

“That’s nice dear,” she said, grabbing me an apple from the counter. “Now c’mon, we’ve got to get going, right now.”

“Okay.” I slid off the counter and took the apple from her hand, wishing my brother goodbye while chewing away.

As soon as we got out into the car and pulled out of the driveway, we could faintly hear two people screaming at each other somewhere nearby. My mother rolled down her window, and the words became far more clear.

“Don’t you dare say that around him! He’s too young-”

“Well at least I look after my son instead of buggering off to buy booze!”

“Fuck off!” My mom quickly rolled up the window after that and gave me an apologetic smile.

“Silly neighbors,” she said, laughing uneasily and ruffling my hair quickly before turning off our street, leaving the arguing couple behind us.

It never occurred to me until many years later that the fighting had been coming from Frank’s house.