Am I Blue?

        In the short story “Am I blue?” by Bruce Coville, the main character, Vince, is struggling with acceptance. Sometimes it is hard to accept something about yourself when it is not considered normal in our society. 

In the beginning, Vince is being bullied by Butch Carrigan about being gay. “You little fruit,’ he snarled.” Vince is having a hard time coping with this because he cannot understand how he could be gay. It doesn’t seem “right.” 

In the middle, Vince encounters his fairy godfather, Melvin. Melvin is gay and expresses that it is common to go through a state of bewilderment. Melvin helps Vince assimilate that he may be gay. Vince realizes that it is possible and recognizes that he was just confused. “Does that mean I’m gay?’ I didn’t mention that I had been trying to figure out the same thing myself for about a year now.”

In the end, Melvin gives Vince gaydar. With this, he is able to see all the gay people in the world whether they are hiding it or not. Every person with least bit of it became a different shade of blue depending on how gay they were. It showed Vince that he was not alone. “I opened my eyes and gasped. About a third of the people in the cafe-including the guy Melvin had winked at-were blue...” Even Butch Carrigan, Vince’s bully, was “blue as a summer sky.” 

Figuring out who you are is a challenge. Being able to accept who you are is even harder. In the beginning Vince is not only having trouble being accepted. He is also having trouble accepting himself. By the end, he has seen a whole new side to sexuality. Melvin opened his eyes to the truth and it turned out that he was not abnormal at all. Vince changed tremendously, “When I meet the girl of my dreams. Or prince charming. Whichever.”