This is Kallum

Tonia texted some of us this morning about nice little pins at the library.  A heart with the lgbtq progress flag inside of it, saying I love my library.  It resonated so strongly because of the pains that I've had around drag queen reading becoming polarized and a place for people to point their hate towards.

I called my library, the ymca at Remington, to see if they had any of these nice flag pins.  They said that they only had Indigenous ones.  I said "Oooweee... that sounds nice as well."

It's been a struggle of a day.  There is less and less money floating around with the oil patch hitting a slow down.  Less orders, less money, and suddenly everyone is on a budget and things need to be discussed and extra spending has to be deconstructed and criticized.

I am working hard to bring a new product forward and try to create new business for our company and during this hard brain work I get a little criticism from our machinist.  He lives to find mistakes of mine. And then after he points them out he likes to walk around the building telling the story to every person that he can find: "If I didn't find this, what a world we would be in.  Things would be wasted, parts would be bad.  Richard made a mistake, I saved the day!!!!"

I get so tired of this, but it is part of his personality.  It's a half hearted smile of a story to people around here.  It's been many instances of this.  The first person that he started to tell was Cornel, and it was just barely within ear shot of me.  I do not generally confront, but I'm also not in a place to let bullshit stand anymore.  The only thing holding me here is my initial investment and at some point that will no longer hold me either.

I yelled out in a loud voice "Jack, if you want to do the drawings, please be my guest!!!!".  He didn't come back, and walked away like he hadn't heard me.  But everyone else had heard me.  I got people coming to me to settle me and make sure that I wasn't steaming mad.

I left.  I drove out.  I wasn't sure what to do but I knew that I shouldn't sit there.  I started driving and pointed myself east.  As I was driving, I decided to drive to the Forest Lawn library because that is where the pin was that I wanted.  A nice 30 minute drive back and forth.  That'd be helpful.

The Forest Lawn branch

When I arrived I went up to the library.  I had never been at this branch before.  I walked in and found the indigenous table right away.  I continued further in looking for the queer table and as I walked up I saw pins.  Houray!!!!

And not houray.... only a few pins left, and they were not as much of a poke in the eye.  I wanted a bright standard flag that said 'ally' as it sat on my lapel.  I stared, and I read the titles of a few books.

I drove all the way there and there were only a few buttons. Orange, grey, and another one. Nothing so brash and flashy as pride-progress.

As I stood for a few minutes someone walked by.  This tall thing, with beautiful curls.  Gentle little twisting, bent arms, and delicate hands.  He said "Can I help?"  I replied "I wanted one of the pins with a flag on it."  He said,"Oh.  ... What you see is, unfortunately, what we have...."

I let the silence sit for a moment.  Not really certain what to say next.  But this guy.... this guy....

He said "It's what is there.  Do you want mine?" and began to unbutton his own button.  I immediately began to cry... I stopped talking and left.

This well of emotions started bubbling up and out of me.  Who do I want to be around.  What kind of people do I want in my life.  I fight and argue and defend decency around the people that I spend 8 hours a day with.  And then people that I don't know and don't spend time around....  well.... they just see my need, and they give.  "Oh, you need something?  you can have my thing."  No questions, no calculations about what they have vs. what I have.  

He just said "you know... and he reached up to his lapel.  You can have mine.".  I started to cry.  I started to well up, and I couldn't say anything but somehow I said "No... no... no..." and instead of continuing the conversation or somehow finishing with pleasantries, I just turned around and started walking for the door.  

I walked past the security guard.  I walked out the door, not sure what I was doing.  I started thinking about my mother, and where she put me, and I walked over to the baseball field.  I sat at that baseball field and let the sun lay on my body.

What exactly should I be doing here, I think that I like the North East better than I like the North West these days.  

At work, I'm surrounded by misogyny, always hearing about "woke" ruining the world.

I finally pulled the tears back up into my eyeballs.   I walked back towards the library.  I needed to know his name.  Before leaving, I needed to finish this story so that I could share it with my children.  I needed to tell this story to others because that is what I can provide in this world.  I can share that people like Kallum are all over the place looking to heal you.  

This isn't a story about queer.  It's not a story about pride.  It's a story about safe places, and safe people, and about how some people do treat each other.  I was getting beat up at work, and the safe places in this world were with people that know how to love.

I sat in the baseball field a bit longer, and then went back in to the library.  As I stared at the books and decided which books to take, along with the pin that I would be satisfied with, Kallum came back and said "We are making more pins as we speak. If you stay a while longer you can get one." 

So I looked at those books, and then I said "What is your name?"  He said "Kallum."  I said , "With an M?"  He said "Yes," and I said "You're going to be part of my story".  He said "ok. " 

I chose two books, one on teen queer and one on being a savvy ally. I felt guilty that the display was so good and I'd be wrecking how beautiful it was. There was also a more child friendly book with big font talking about "what trans is".  I didn't take three books, and decided to 'read' the ones that I was going to take to limit over grabbing.  After reading one of my books for a few minutes, I decided it was time to head back to work.   I went up to Kallum and said "I'm going to go".  He said "we are just starting to press them right now.  You can have the first one."  His co worker said, "Which one would you like?" and I pointed to the one that most looked like Tonia's.  She said, "You could have two" and then I said, "Well, then I'd like the one like Kallum's".  He said, "Well, then take mine and I can get another one of these later."  I said, "No, you're going to make me cry again.... Actually, yes.  I do want yours Kallum."  

As with many stories, sometimes there is no ending. No cliff hanger.  No problems solved, or protagonist defeating the antagonist.  Just back to work. But I am going to share my story about Kallum.  About how men cry.

Can you guess which pin was Kallum's?