Am I Blue? blogpost by Alexa Maldonado

I read the short story “Am I Blue?” by Bruce Coville.  In it, 16 year old Vince, find himself getting constantly bullied by Butch. Butch is constantly pushing and hitting Vince, along with calling him gay.  One day, after being harassed, yet again, Vince finds himself face to face with Melvin, a guy who claims to be Vince’s fairy godfather.  Vince and Melvin talk about being bullied.  They also talk about being gay in which Vince says “’Does that mean I’m gay’  I didn’t mention that I had been trying to figure that out the same thing myself for about a year now.”  I think this quote really confirms that Vince isn’t completely sure of who he is. 

Melvin grants Vince “gaydar” which is an ability used to spot all gay people.  Vince is also allowed 2 wishes.  His first wish is to allow the rest of the country to see using gaydar.  This lasts for 24 hours.  Vince’s 2^nd wish is to turn Butch blue.  Lucky for Vince, he gets to redo his last wish because butch was already blue.

I think that the result to this short story is really important.  I know this because if butch was already blue than this shows a possibility of why Butch bullied people.  He might have bullied people because he wasn’t really sure of himself, similar to Vince.

Another reason Butch could’ve bullied people was because of his insecurities.  Maybe Butch thought that if he didn’t bully people, others might find out about the true Butch and start bullying him. 

Either way, butch’s bullying of other people was very wrong and mean.  Also, Butch could’ve done the bullying to protect himself.