Mee Street Chronicles-By: Frankie Lennon

The Party

The story is mainly about the narrator's personal acceptance with her own sexuality and how she deals with it at the party. She goes to a party with a couple of her friends and each of them is paired up with a boy including the narrator herself. Music is playing and every couple there is grinding against each other on the dance floor. This only makes her more uncomfortable and nervous because she doesn't want to have to do the same. She wants nothing to do with any boy and wants to leave the party, but she becomes paranoid that the others might figure out or question about her. She figures if she doesn't want anyone to figure out who she really is, then she has no choice but to stay at the party. All she wants is to be included with the group; even if it means hiding her true self and pretending to be somebody she's not. When the boy, Bobby, tries to begin conversation with her, she gives him attitude and, in every way, shows no interest. In results to that, he confronts her about the situation and feels that she's gay. That was the truth she was hiding from herself and the others. When the truth revealed itself to one person, she panicked that he might tell everyone else and all she could think of was how to forget about it, or better yet, deny it if anyone asked. She didn't want anyone to know. Also, she is even afraid to admit it to herself because of fear that she will be an outcast.

I enjoyed the way the narrator was very descriptive with every event. As I read, the story, I could imagine everything that was happening as if I was there watching the whole thing. In my opinion, the best part of the book was the passage, "One afternoon, after school, I saw him and Jeanie at her locker, and he was grinning at her, lovesick, like while he tucked her books under his arms; then as they walked out the door, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it. That's when I knew I was saved. No Anthony for me. Thank you lord!" This is one of the passages that really stuck to my head because I really felt her relief. She didn't't know how to avoid the harassment from Anthony, but when she saw that he was infatuated with Jeanie, she knew that she was off the hook. New vocabulary I got from the story was Bull Dagger which means a masculine identifying lesbian;usually African American. Another word was solidarity which means as of a group or class that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards.

When you first noticed something that was different with yourself and began to realize you didn't think about or like boys the same way your friends did, did you always know deep down you were into the same sex or did you think it was just a phase you'd get over eventually?