Bring Your Own is a nomadic storytelling series that takes place in unconventional spaces within the community. Each month, eight storytellers have eight minutes to respond to a theme, bring your own heirs on all things New Orleans, and is a biweekly podcast on www.now.org. This story was told on July 28, 2016. It was told at the Homer Plessy Community School, and Bring Your Own was partnering with one of Air Media's local law-finding America projects, a project called Unprisoned by E.
Abrams. It's a podcast about mass incarceration in Louisiana, and you should check it out. This was the winning story of the evening, told by high school student Jewel Williams, who talks about getting asked out by someone she has a crush on, and then getting help from William Shakespeare on how to come out to her parents. Is this a story about my coming girlfriend, William Shakespeare, and me telling my parents?
Me and my friend, Timbilly, were great friends ever since she started high school. She was the openly gay freshman, and I was the secret pansexual sophomore. And we hung out a lot together. She was the one person that knew about my little secret.
It was this particular day where we were outside, we were in the park. My mom came to get me, and she went, Jewel, as soon as you get home, call me immediately. I was kind of scared because she tells me everything to my face. Even little small little things.
You should have the wait till tomorrow, and I'm going to tell you tomorrow. I'm like, so, as soon as I get home, my mom drives me off, and she's like, I'm going back to work, and I'm like, who cares? Don't care. I'm going in my room.
So I run into my room, and I'm pasting the room, scared. It brings three times, and then she picks up. I jump on the bed, and she's like, hello. I'm like, what's up?
How are you? I'm great. She's like, good. Did you eat?
I'm like, what? I'm like, why are you stalling? Just tell me. She's like, okay, okay, okay.
She's starting everything. She's like, you're a very great friend, and you're so lovely, you're a lovely girl, and I just was wondering if you would like to be my girlfriend. So I'm just sitting there in bed. I didn't want to see him wait until I gave it a little second.
So I was sitting there on the phone smiling. She asked me, I was just now so flattered. And then she goes, Jewel, are you there? I'm like, yeah.
She's like, what do you say? I'm like, sure, I would love to. So 10 seconds passed by, we celebrate together, and she drops the parent bomb on me. She goes, Jewel, I really like your parents and your parents really like me.
I think it'll be respectful if we tell your parents. I say, oh, I'll think about it. This was my plan. My plan was to continue to go, I'm gonna think about it every single time she acts about it, because I didn't want to tell her to know.
So I was going to continue to go, hey, Jewel, did you think about it yet? Oh, I didn't make a decision yet. I'm sorry. And I was in touch, she forgot.
That's what was my plan. So the next day in English class, it was a simple little book report, read a book, do a project on it, simple. I picked the book about William Shakespeare because of my love for William Shakespeare. I got to the section where William Shakespeare falls in love with this person named Henry.
I'm sitting to myself and reading the page and I'm like, I know girls ain't named Henry back in the day. It can't be. So it dawned on me that William Shakespeare was bisexual. I was like, so I was, I'm feeling excited, sitting in my chair, bouncing around, you know, not even reading anymore like the rest of the class.
I'm just happy. I got a connection to William Shakespeare. Yeah. I'm like, well, if I still love William Shakespeare and so many other people love William Shakespeare, why can't my parents still love me if I tell them about myself?
So that particular day, I said to him, I'm going to tell them as soon as I get home. So my mom gets home at about 8, 830 from work. She takes about 20, 30 minutes to take a shower, get in bed. They leave the door open until 930.
When 930 hits, they close the door and that means, we're sleeping, you should be too. Don't come in here. Don't even knock unless it's emergency. And if you actually knock in, it's not an emergency, you're going to get it.
I walk in there. I sit on the edge of the bed and I said, Mom, and then I got to tell you something. They cross the TV and they go, what's up? You know, Tim asked me out and I said, yes.
And I just wanted to tell you guys, I was ready to get up and leave. But I was like, I could not describe the face that they had, the jaw dropped, the eyes. When, what did this happen? My mom asked.
Like a few days ago, the speech started. We don't agree with this. We don't agree with that. You know we don't like this.
Didn't I tell you that you're not supposed to let her change the way you feel? And I'm just saying, I'm like, oh, yes, I understand. I want to wear the tears. I'm about to fly.
I'm like, because I want them to feel bad for me, first of all. And second of all, I want them to be like, oh, I thought I said, so we're going to change our opinions. That didn't happen, of course. And so they continue to go on and on and on about Tim and me and then Tim and then me.
Then 930 hit, told you about 930, time to go to sleep. They say, all right, Joyce, time to go to sleep. I plan on crying as soon as I walked out the door. But then she called me, she said, Joel, I said, what?
She said, first of all, don't answer me, but what? And I'm like, all right. Huh? Huh?
She goes, just because we don't agree with what you're doing doesn't mean we don't love you at all. If Tim makes you that happy, then go ahead and do it. I'm like, all right. All right.
I'm gonna do it. Honestly, walking out of everyone, I didn't feel older, but I definitely felt a lot more mature walking out of everyone, being able to accept their opinions that weren't the same as mine, but being able to still love them as much, even though they'd had different opinions than me.