"Am I Blue" Bruce Coville

 Am I Blue? 

 Bruce Coville

           I recently read the short story Am I Blue by Bruce Coville. This book is about the struggles of Vince, an adolescent boy who is bullied in school because his peers assume that he is homosexual, although Vince is still really unsure himself whether he is or isn’t. In the very beginning, Vince encounters Melvin, who is his fairy godfather. Throughout the story, with the aid of Melvin, Vince gains courage and acceptance of himself and others.  

            In the beginning of the story, Vince is embarrassed to be with Melvin because of how ‘openly’ expressive he is of his homosexuality. He says and I quote, “How much trouble is it going to give me to be seen with this guy? With Butch and his crowd already calling me “faggot” and “fruit”, walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation.” Here, Vince is only worried about how other people’s reactions. He fears what others might do if they think that he is gay. This is causing Vince to judge Melvin and not be accepting of the person Melvin is. Vince also says to Melvin “Do you have to walk like that?” Vince wasn’t accepting of the way Melvin walked because thought it was different and out-of –the norm. By being bullied, I think that Vince has been trained into thinking that gay is wrong.  Vince also feels that he is unsafe in confiding in anybody about his identity problems. Vince is still not aware of whether he is gay or not, but he is too afraid to confess this to anybody. In the story he says, “That thought had crossed my mind more that once as I was trying to figure myself out over the last year- and not only with regard to dating. I would have been happy just to have someone I felt safe talking to about this. “  This shows that Vince is conflicted, and mostly afraid to express himself to anybody.  The bullying that Vince must bare with causes him to be intolerant of Melvin’s personality in the beginning.

            Despite Vince’s bigotry, later on, Melvin helps Vince gain confidence and courage by showing him that there is a world full of people with all different types of sexuality. In the text, Melvin says, “If gay people hadn’t been forced to hide for so long, if we could just openly identify ourselves, there would be plenty of people you knew that you could ask advice. Everybody knows gay people, they just think they don’t.”  He also says “Listen, honey, the world is crawling with faggots. But most of them are hiding because they’re afraid they’ll treated the way you did about an hour ago.”  He is trying to show Vince that people are only kept in the closet because of their fear of what others might do. To further enforce this message, Melvin gives Vince a ‘gaydar’ for a day. This gaydar turns gays different shades of blue depending on the intensity of their homosexuality. Vince is surprised that many of the people around him that he sees everyday blue to some extent. Vince gains valor through this because he realizes that if he were to be gay, he wouldn’t be alone. He learns to accept his surrounding and realizes that too many people have concealed who they truly were and stuck to the conformity of society.

            By the end of the story, Vince is an entirely altered person. He uses one of the three wishes that Melvin offered him and asks that Melvin turns every gay person blue in the whole country as if everybody from coast to coast had a “gaydar”. Vince also wishes that Melvin turn Butch Carrigan (the boy who bullied him in school because he thought he was gay) blue, but it turns out that Butch was already “blue as a summer sky”, so the wish was useless. Vince gains the courage and strength to do these things because he didn’t want anybody to have to keep their true identity hidden because of what other people think like he did.  Vince says “And my third wish, I’ve decided to save it for when I really need it- maybe when I meet to the girl of my dreams. Or Prince Charming. Whichever.”  This shows that Vince has come to accept that he may or may not be gay, and he no longer has a problem with it. He is no longer secret about it and is accepting to the idea at this point.

            With Melvin’s assistance, Vince went from keeping his true identity in the closet and not accepting the person he might be, to embracing it. Vince is an inspiring character because of the incredible change he underwent. His experience taught me a valuable lesson; that nobody should have to conceal who they are because of what other people think, and that everyone should be tolerant of others.