Essays: June 2006 Archives

It’s late - past 10:00 pm. I came home from school at 4:30 in the afternoon with just enough time to grab a sandwich and head out the door. Mom asked me, with the worry she always seemed to have in her eyes, “Are you off to philharmonic practice?” I said, “Yes Mom, I don’t have much time. Practice starts in an hour.” I gave her a hug, told her that I loved her, grabbed my violin, and headed out the door.

I got into my car, went by my music teachers’ house to pick her up, and we drove to Boise, Idaho for a practice session in the Boise Philharmonic. We shared a ride to Boise three times a week and on Saturday - a 30 mile ride. It was good for me. I was sixteen years old and one of the very few students accepted into a rather rigorous program the Boise Philharmonic was offering called the “Young Outstanding Student’s Award”. It was only given to a few high school students. You had to go through three auditions, and prove that you could technically play well, and be able to do the program and keep your grades up in school. In return, I got paid a bit and my gas money was paid for.

In those days, I was a powerhouse of energy. I don’t know where I got it from. I would get up early, put in a full day at school, come home and practice, then go off to the Philharmonic for a four hour practice three to four times a week - on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and sometimes Saturday. When I got home, I would do my homework. On Monday nights, I played in the College of Idaho Community Orchestra where my musical mentor and teacher, Walter Cerveny, was the conductor.

The goal in all of this was to mold me into the world of performance and give me as much exposure as possible to all kinds of different music. It was a wonderful program. I was a good kid. I was never in trouble, until later when I would drink to hide a lot of emotional pain. On this schedule, there was little time for trouble.

I got home from practice, and parked my car in the garage. I got out of the car and opened my trunk door to get my violin out. I got it out and closed the truck. It made a slight noise, and I heard something move in the other car - the family car, which was also in the garage.

I slowly walked over to the car and looked into the back window. There my Mom was lying in the back seat, visibly shivering from the cold with a thin blanket covering her nightgown. I opened the door and ask numbly as if I didn’t want to hear the answer, “Mom, why are you sleeping in the back of the car?”

She said, “It’s my fault. He got mad at something I said. Don’t get mad. Just get your things and go to bed. Be quiet not to wake him.” I said, “ok Mom. Go back to sleep.” I closed the door to the car.

I went over to my car, and quietly put my violin back into the trunk and closed the trunk door. I went over to this box that had some of my brothers’ things in it. He was in the Navy and we were storing things in it. I pulled out a baseball bat. My heart got calm. My adrenaline was high. I - was - strong. Something else was driving me. I felt my jaw and muscles tighten with determination, as though I was going into battle - the kind of battle where only one would be left standing. I was made of steel.

I started methodically walking to the door that lead into the house. Mom, without me hearing her, had gotten out of the car. She gets between me and the door and says to me, “What are you going to do? You can’t go in there like this. Please go to bed!” I said, “I will, but first I want him to tell me why my mother is shivering in the back of a fucking car when his sorry ass is lying in a nice warm bed! And then, I’m going to put the bastard in a hospital bed.”

She pleaded with me, “You can’t go in there. He’ll kill you.” I held up the bat and said, “I - DON’T - THINK - SO!” She looked at me and said, “I love you! Please don’t do this!”

My eyes opened and I said in a whisper, “I love you too.” My heart was beating fast. It was quiet in the room. I could hear Kent breathing. My cat was asleep on the foot of my bed. I am back from then and from that place. I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, closed the door, and I cry.

Then, I come to this computer and typed this, but does this matter?

I hate that son of a bitch. I’m glad he’s dead. When my brother asked me ten years ago if I’d come back to Emmett for his funeral, I answered, “I’ll come back to piss on his grave. Is that good enough?”

How can this live on in me? How can he have a hold of me in this quiet peaceful place I am in? I haven’t thought about him in years, until now.

I hate him. I hate him.

IN THE LATEST “X-Men” movie, the humans discover a “cure” for the mutant “X gene,” and the mutants find themselves at war among themselves over whether to take the bait.

The analogy to homosexuality isn’t lost on us gay viewers, since we’ve all probably thought about whether we’d take “the cure,” if there ever were such a thing. Of course the politically correct answer for any well-adjusted, self-respecting homo is that our sexual orientation isn’t an illness to be “cured,” anymore than heterosexuality would be.

That’s certainly what our X-Men heroes would have us believe. The reality, on the other hand, is much messier.

Who among us hasn’t explained our lives to a straight friend or family member by arguing we didn’t choose to be gay. “After all,” we say, “who would choose a life of disapproval and rejection from society?”

So if we wouldn’t have chosen to be gay at the outset, why would we choose to remain gay if the “cure” were at hand? (source)

I read this interesting article by Chris Crane on the Washington Blade. It reflects much of my feelings and concerns about all the research going on today to find the gene (or gene sequence) that makes someone gay. Interesting from a research point of view, I suppose, but of course I know where it would go if they actually did accomplish their task. I’m told by people who are geneticists by profession that it would be practically impossible to isolate all the variables into any kind of formula that could be applied. So, I guess I will breath easier on this.

But, the question is, if they did develop a “cure” for being gay - something that would turn me into a straight heterosexual man (as if that is the “ideal” thing to be), would I do it?

When I was a 14 year old boy, praying to God to make me “normal”, I would have obviously taken such a cure. Then came the beatings, the gay bashings of high school years, earning my way into the time honored societal tradition of placing me into the “fucking queer” category, and all the other stuff that you learn in high school.

Then of course, the 1980’s when AIDS took most of my friends. More of us than not, who are gay, knows what that was like. And today, more straights than not knows someone who has AIDS or who has died of AIDS. But for me, it’s a toss up of what was more difficult for me -- losing my friends to AIDS, or having to face a society that basically said, “LET THEM DIE”, “I DON’T WANT MY TAX DOLLARS SPENT FOR PREVENTING AIDS FOR QUEERS”, and others. Yes, I remember those being said vividly. But wait, I am an American. We were dying. I thought that is what we do - we help each other. What a lesson that was to learn. From all of this, I learned these things...

1) You are what you are. Get used to it.
2) People hate you. If you can survive, do it, and get used to it.
3) If you get sick, people will let you die for being queer. Get used to it.
4) If your friends get sick, you take care of them because no one else will. Get used to it.
5) American idealism of helping others is SHIT. Get used to it.
6) You are gay. Others are gay. Form a community and find support from them. They are your friends. They are the only people you can count on. Get used to it.
7) Society hates you and if they can’t cure you with drugs, intimidation, terror, and death, we have to adapt to being hated, and SURVIVE. Get used to it.
8) Never forget your friends who have passed, most who had only you at their side when they died because their family disowned them. They are your family.
9) WATER is thicker than BLOOD!!!

I’ve gotten used to it.

In fact, I’m so used to it, that I wouldn’t begin to know what it’s like to be fully accepted as a gay man. I wouldn’t know what it feels like to be able to hold Kent’s hand in public and have people say “hello” to us warmly -- they usually look the other way in disgust, or call us “faggots”, and go on their merry self-righteous way. And no, I'm not bitching about it - I got used to it. I wouldn’t begin to know how to be a straight man. Kent and I would separate (I guess) because we would be straight, but what the hell would I do with a woman? I guess I would have to learn, but I guess that’s what The Joy Of Sex is for, right?

But beyond all of that, I wouldn’t choose to be straight, because being gay has shown me some remarkable people who are the bravest and most loving people in the world. It has shown me that as gay people, we have each other, even though we don’t always agree. It has shown me the true meaning of “family”. And, my hope is, that as time goes on, it will be perfectly ok for us to be gay, have our relationships recognized, and not have to worry about judgment.

For me, I think that is too late. I’m used to the hard realities of adversity. Hopefully, future generations of gay people (if they don’t “cure” them), will grow up in a world that loves them FOR WHAT THEY ARE, not in spite of what they are.

“Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from human haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.” - William Shakespeare, As You Like it, Act II