Sean Penn’s Acceptance Speech

Worn down stairs reveal the path taken by so many great men and women before me. These black shoes from my days at Berkeley Law feel a little loose, but I checked the laces twice before walking up the white marble steps. My briefcase feels heavy, as if weighted with decades of hopes and dreams riding on my performance today. Who am I to bear such responsibility? It took me five minutes to brush my teeth this morning, and six times as long just to pick a suit. I’m no great man. I’m the man who would be more comfortable riding in the back of a rotting taxicab, just so long as it took me far from here. I’m the man now slumped against a column, too weak to carry this briefcase beyond the Supreme Court’s doors.

They made a mistake sending me here. I feel like a little boy, overwhelmed trying to figure out the world around him. My mind wanders to such a time and I remember my mother telling me stories from her childhood on our way to the Beach Boardwalk. I see her pointing out the car window. There’s not a single strand of gray hair on her head and the only wrinkles on her face are the ones at the sides of her eyes when she smiles at me. “You see that pole over there? That’s where your uncle used to climb up and switch back on the cable after they turned it off every couple of months!” Her chuckle was filled with nostalgia.

“Hey mom, wanna show me where you went to school?”

“We’ve been driving around for half an hour now! Don’t you want to see the Boardwalk?”

“Ah man! Why not?”

“Why don’t I tell you all about it instead?”

“Fine,” I drawled.

People always told me I was a silly kid, maybe they were right. Maybe they’re still right? Either way, my mind is lost in the past and I am not terribly concerned about the reporters and protestors crowding below me. I would consider watching and listening, but their signs and screams look and sound like blurred mumbling to me now.

I’m back in Santa Cruz. As she said she would, my mom tells me all about her classes and the different people she knew when she was young. As she recalls the events from her past, her voice gets drier and pursed lips rest where a smile once shined. We’ve been waiting for a spot in the parking lot for ten minutes now. It was to be expected though. It’s Saturday and the Boardwalk is appropriately busied with tourists.

It should have been obvious what was happening. The delay didn’t explain her scrunched face, her thin false smile or the red eyes. Something was wrong, but I was too ignorant to recognize that concentrated look people get when they’re trying not to burst into tears. My sights were focused on the happy people outside. All I really wanted was a corndog. I could probably go for one right now. I consider it, but there is no way I’d be able to keep it down.

My mind has given up on the corndog. I’m still in that car, waiting to get out and play at the Boardwalk. I can see the ticket booth from here. Its red and white striped awning shades the girls and boys as their parents read the similarly colorful wooden sign showing how many tickets each attraction costs. After the booth there are wooden planks, sand and an ocean that goes all the way to China. Before the booth there are some old train tracks, a sidewalk of cracked pavement and a giant parking lot. My mom shakes my shoulder to get my attention. “You see those tracks over there?”

“Yeah I see them. What are they for anyway?”

“Not anymore, but the trains used to go by carrying all sorts of food, products, people, whatever else needed to be moved I guess.”

I could see that she was sad. “What’s wrong mommy?”

“I have a story about those train tracks, from a long time ago.”

“I want to hear! Are you gonna tell me?”

“This isn’t a story like the other ones, Matthew. It’s a very sad story.”

She was right, but it wasn’t a sad story. It was the most terrible thing I had ever heard. Waiting to go to the boardwalk, my mom told me about a boy she knew when they were in high school. She told me that Nicky was different from the other kids, and that people would always bully him. When I asked why, she told me that it was because he was gay. I didn’t know that word.

“When a man is attracted to other men, that means he is gay.”

“Oh, okay.” I don’t really understand, but nod along anyways.

“It means that he was different from the other boys,” she explains. “And then one day, he was just gone. I didn’t see him at school or anywhere else. When I talked to his parents, they told me what happened.” I notice a tear on her cheek, but she focuses on finishing the story. “He came to the tracks early one morning and waited for a train to pass. Eventually one came, and when it did he jumped in front of it at the last second.” I look over to the tracks and try to picture a train hitting Nicky, but I couldn’t picture a train hitting anyone.

“He killed himself.”

“Just because he was different? Why would he do that?” I shout at her critically.

She tries to reason with me. “I don’t know what he was thinking. All I know is that every single day he would be reminded of how much people didn’t want him around. They reminded him with their words and they reminded with their fists.”

I started to understand Nicky’s story, and I felt as my understanding of how things worked was crushed and mangled. I remember losing all faith in the world around me. The red and white paint no longer felt inviting and the Boardwalk started to feel too crowded.

“People are cruel.” I said, as resolutely as a young boy could.

“Some people are cruel, honey. But you know what? A lot of people aren’t. In fact, some people are more like angels, sent here to fight back and protect those who cruel people try to hurt.”

“Well, what am I?”

“I think that’s up to you, son.”

Thirty years later, I have chosen. I stand up and lift my briefcase with ease. I am the man who is marching bravely through the doors. I am the man watching nine Supreme Court Justices nod as I speak. I am the man who can’t even hear the crowd’s taunts as I step outside. I am the man who fought back to protect the rights of people like Nicky. I am an angel.