by Ross Anthony
Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, we arrived at our destination.
Two-thirds of the bus emptied out with us.
The clinic was positioned in a cleaner side of the city. The streets were neat, and the buildings were architecturally more sound and pleasing to the eye. As is the case with economic differences between the location of New Westminster and my home, it’s amazing how much can change within a few blocks, not to mention a couple of miles.
We were hopeful upon checking in at the clinic, as we were greeted with nothing but kindness. This was refreshing and much needed after dealing with the people we experienced on our journey to get there.
I knew she was scared, but my mother held herself well. Together, we navigated through the sterile white maze that was the hospital and to the elevator up to the third floor.
We sat together in the waiting room and chatted about how my first couple of days at school had gone. I told her of the man who saved me and the embarrassment that ensued.
She simply laughed. “You sure know how to make an impression,” she joked.
I laughed too, realizing that sometimes, I take myself too seriously.
“So, is this boy cute?” she inquired.
“Yeah,” I blushed before being interrupted.
“Gayle Barkley,” announced the male nurse.
“Yes,” she declared as she endearingly slapped her hand down on my knee and pushed herself upward.
“I’ll wait here,” I said.
She handed him some paperwork and they disappeared behind the door.
I sat alone with my thoughts.
The waiting room had a heaviness looming overhead. The sound of coughing and sniffling noses from those crying in pain filled the space between the squeaking shoes of nurses and doctors bustling through their packed schedules.
Across the waiting room from me was a young girl, around the age of four. She had her dark hair braided into pigtails, and seated next to her was a man, who I assumed was her father. They shared the same rounded nose and beautifully full lips. The coarse texture of their hair and dark complexions matched almost exactly, as well.
She wriggled in her seat and the man kept patting her lap to settle her anxiousness.
“Calm down, baby girl,” he said in a soothing, deep voice.
“Where’s mommy,?” she asked.
“She’ll be right back,” he assured.
I could feel his fear and heartbreak from across the room, but he did his best to hold himself together for the little girl.
Everyone in the waiting room was at the mercy of the same thing: cancer.
She reminded me of a brief childhood friend. Her name was Mya, and she lived next door to us. She would come over and play when she and her family first moved in. I remember Go Fish was our favorite card game to play. She was very good at playing games, and at winning. When we were seven, Mya once tricked me into kissing her. She puckered her lips and told me to taste her lip balm because it tasted like an orange creamsicle. She knew that was a favorite treat of mine, and that I wouldn’t be able to resist.
That was my first and only kiss shared with a girl.
After some time, however, the visits grew less and less frequent. Screaming and crashing reverberated through my bedroom walls from her apartment. It increased to the point where it was happening round the clock, and I was losing sleep.
While I was coming home from school one day, there was an ambulance and several police cars sitting around the entryway to the apartment. My mom led us up the stairwell, and as we approached our door, I saw that Mya’s was open and taped off with black and yellow crime scene investigation tape. Peeking in past the tape, I saw several officers with cameras, pens, and notebooks in hand. On the floor I noticed a black bag and a man wearing a coat that said coroner on it.
I don’t know the actual details of that day or who was zipped up in that bag, but I know that I never saw Mya again. We were both ten.
Childhood is supposed to be innocent, but Mya was never gifted that luxury. I could only imagine what would possibly be in store for the little girl sitting across from me.
The world knows no innocence, nor does it care.
Eventually, the little girl’s mother came out into the waiting room from the same door my mom entered. As she went to join her family, she forced a smile.
Watching them leave, I could see that the little girl’s mother, like the others waiting, was hurting.
I couldn’t imagine a life without my mom. I wished for nothing but good health to the girl and her family.
After about an hour and a half of sitting and watching people go behind the door and not come out, my mother eventually came through.
The clinic’s lights did an extraordinary job of lighting up chemo’s side effects on her face.
Her once golden blonde hair had grown dull and was thinning. I could tell from the dark circles around her eyes that she was just plain exhausted, and her once rosy cheeks were pale and dry.
My heart sank. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before.
She approached me, and I shot up from my seat with a smile to hide my shock.
“What? My hair look bad?” She saw right through me.
“Not at all,” I smiled.
“What did I tell you about lying?” she teased motheringly.
“Lying is illegal,” I answered with a roll of my eyes. “I’m not eight.”
“Ah, you’re a sweet boy,” she chuckled as we left the waiting room. “Well, they see a real small bit of progress. The tumor isn’t quite where it needs to be, but they said a few more treatments should speed up the shrinkage.”
“Well that’s good. Very promising.”
“Yes, yes it is,” she said with a sigh of relief. “So enough cancer talk. You mentioned something about a trip to Greece for one of your classes?”
I perked up and let myself back down. “Yeah, but I can’t go.”
“Why not? You’ve always wanted to go.”
“I know, but there’s so much going on right now. I can’t leave you in a time like this, and there’s no money.”
“Mīlo,” she said, “I’ll be fine. I’ve got help from Barb, and money is irrelevant.”
“Money is actually very relevant in this case, and Barbara from the diner? Really?”
“Listen, be nice. First of all,” she started as we waited for the elevator, “you can’t take your dollars with you when you go, but you can take your memories, so you need to make all the best ones you can while you’re able. Life won’t always grant you a tomorrow.”
“I’ll think about it.” But there was nothing to think about. I wasn’t going to go, and I didn’t want to keep going on about it.
“Don’t worry about me,” she persisted. “Go! We’ll start the passport stuff tomorrow. End of discussion. ”
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. A distinct scent drowned out the sterile air and brought warmth to the chilled facility. Exiting the elevator between my mom and I was Nicolas. He wore a black polo top and khaki pants finished with a pair of black leather shoes, his face partially hidden by a box he was carrying. His arms rippled through the tightness of his short sleeves. Whatever was in the box was heavy.
“Excu- Mĭlo!” he exclaimed as he set the box on the floor.
“Hey,” I said, trying to hold back my enthusiasm, but my blushing face gave me away.
He looked over at my mom. “Who is this beautiful lady you’re with?” He reached for her hand and began to bow to kiss it.
She was very entertained.
“Careful, I may still be a bit radioactive,” she joked.
“That doesn’t bother me.” He smooched her hand and stood back up, gracing us with a wink. I noticed she too blushed at his immaculate posture.
“I’m Gayle, Mĭlo’s mom,” she said, copying him.
“Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Barkley.”
I was surprised he remembered our last name.
“Gayle
, please,” she insisted.
“Well, I gotta make this delivery,” he said, picking up the box. His arms once again flexed with the weight, revealing a masculinity reminiscent of Hercules. “I’ll see you in class.”
“Will I though?” I inquired with immediate regret. I worried that maybe I had crossed a line or said too much, which proved I cared, but I also kind of wanted him to know.
He turned back to me and smiled. “Gayle, make sure you hold his hand extra tight out there, a lot of traffic right about now,” he chuckled as he proceeded around the corner.
She laughed as we stepped into the vacant elevator.
“So, Mĭlo,” she teased as I pushed the first floor button, “is he the boy we talked about?”
I grinned silently.
“He is quite the enchanting fella,” she added.
“I suppose.”
“You suppose? Did you see the way he lit up when he saw you?”
“I didn’t,” I replied truthfully. “I was distracted by him seemingly working.” Maybe that’s why I hadn’t seen him in class.
“Was is that or something else?” She insinuated, leaning into me as she squeezed my arm.
“Eh, it’s whatever.” I pushed the button for the lobby.
She looked at me through the corner of her eye and gave a crooked smirk. “You need to start living for you and start paying attention to all the life that’s happening outside of your little bubble,” she said matter-of-fact.
She was right.
Three
Flamboyant was the term so often used to stereotypically acknowledge a man’s homosexuality. It was a word used when discretion was required, as speaking publicly about it was considered to be taboo.
While I have effeminate qualities, mostly being my hairless, slender body type, I don’t have the outgoing, energetic personality one must have to be the embodiment of the word. By that, I mean I’m not one to be prancing around singing show tunes at the top of my lungs.
Above all, I lacked style and confidence, which was something Nicolas so effortlessly boasted. It was one of the many reasons I was drawn to him, but I couldn’t seem to figure him out.
I thought about what my mom had said about the way he looked at me that day at the hospital. Did he look at everyone like that? Was he interested in me that way? If he was, was he fully conscious of it?
For me, I had come to the realization of who I was in middle school. I had an infatuation with my English teacher.
He wasn’t the average teacher. He was a tall, beautiful man with blushing cheek bones. His salt and pepper hair was always perfectly parted along the side and wisped over in a tantalizing fashion. Through the rolled sleeves of his button up shirts, you could see every curve of his carved arms, teasing what hid underneath the rest of his tops. His slacks were the highlight of his physique, for reasons I need not explain. To add to his sophistication of being a teacher, he wore square frames that perfectly complimented his jawline. When he’d smile, all the girls in class would swoon while I quietly sat in awe.
I knew then that I wasn’t what society had deemed as normal, and it was disheartening not having a place to fit into. Up to that point in my life, the world hadn’t shown me that boys pining for other boys was widely accepted. Though girls seemed to be another story, one that seemed less stigmatic.
“Mom, other than Cindy from the diner, I always see guys and girls together in the halls and whatnot. But I don’t see myself with a girl. Is there something wrong with me?” I asked one day as we sat at the table in our dining room.
“Oh sweet, sweet boy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Love is love is love,” she said. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you can’t have that.”
There was a message hidden in her inflection.
“People are going to be mean, aren’t they?” I asked, knowing the answer.
She hesitated with her response, and I could see her mothering gears turning. She was debating how much truth she wanted to share.
“Yes. Some might be, but regardless, I expect you to stay true to who you are, because you are so special and so loved.”
The revelation of my sexuality didn’t appear to faze her in the slightest. She almost seemed relieved. Perhaps because this was a promise that I’d not do to a girl what my father had done to her.
Since that discovery of self, I wished that I could be more outgoing, not for my lack of confidence, but because being alone was something I knew well. Too well.
I needed to branch out from the diner, my mother, and my solitude... basically everything I’d known.
In an attempt to do so, I decided that I would make time for one of the clubs I had seen my first day at Westminster. It was still the first week of the semester, and I managed to find one that welcomed me with open arms.
The Color Wheel was a group of homosexual men and women. They were surprisingly more political than I had imagined. Despite being a mixed bag of ideals ranging from liberal to conservative, they all agreed in opposition of President Cash and Vice President Stetson. Both of whom, according to the group, were political tyrants.
They further went on to comparing them to the likes of Adolf Hitler, which as the world knows, was the man who spearheaded the Holocaust, a genocide in which Nazi Germany systematically executed nearly two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. While the intention was the extermination of Jewish people, several other groups including people like those who made up the Color Wheel were also targeted. Overall, over 15 million deaths were tolled.
Because of this piece of history and others like it, I was not very political. If history was going to repeat itself, I’d be safe in my ignorance.
Despite my lack of political cares, I managed to make a friend. Surprisingly quickly, too, given my history of introversion.
Peter was short and baby faced. He perfectly fit the meaning of flamboyance. His golden hair curled in a childlike fashion, and when he walked, he did so with an attentive pep and strut.
He was very much everything I wasn’t, which was what I was looking for: a friend to pull me out of my comfort zone.
When we would get together, we would often go to the beach, something I very rarely did before knowing him. The ocean pier used to be something I took for granted because it was always just there.
I grew to enjoy it though, the sun and the crashing of the waves. The sound of thrills escaping those who attempted to conquer the might of Poseidon brought about a newfound appreciation for the sand and the water.
It brought upon a desire to experience more life.
It was a Saturday afternoon. I threw a towel onto the sand and took off my t-shirt, revealing my slender, white torso. It was apparent I rarely, if ever, saw the sun. Peter followed suit, only he was thicker than I and gently kissed by the sun. His tight blue shorts screamed with brightness while mine just whispered with a dull grayness.
We both slipped off our flip flops. He laid on his stomach, staring into the screen of his palm-sized cell phone, swiping his finger left and right. I was on my back, staring at the blue sky through my sunglasses.
Looking over at me, he asked, “Hm, what do you think of this one?” He hovered his phone’s screen over my face, showing an image of a man. He had wispy brown hair and dimples pinning his crooked smile. “We just matched.”
“He looks nice, not my type though,” I replied. I looked over to my left. “But what about that guy?” I suggested, pointing at a man running through the sand in an effort to hint back to the “now” of reality.
“Mm, but is he on our team?”
“You could ask,” I said.
“Whoa, that’s risky business,” Peter exclaimed. “At least here I know for sure,” he explained as he turned back to his screen. “Wait…” he said, looking over at me, “how are you going to tell me to just approach a stranger, when you aren’t even going to do that?”
“Good point,” I laughed. I was surprised, as it had only been about a month or so and he ha
d picked up on so much about me. “So how exactly does that all work, anyway?”
“Simple. You just swipe through pictures of guys who are nearby, and if you both match, you hook up.”
“Hook up? Do you go out or anything?” I asked.
“Maybe, but usually you just get some D and move on to the next,” he said, referring to sex.
I was surprised that this was something that people did.
“Oh,” I replied.
“You should try it.”
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t have time for dating. Between the diner, school, and my mom’s treatments, you know…”
“Excuses, excuses,” he said, swiping on his screen. He did so with such intensity and thoughtlessness, I could hear his finger thudding on the glass. “Such a virgin.”
I ignored his comment, as that wasn’t the case. I had a moment in high school with a boy named Justin. He had tousled blonde hair and was a big tough guy from the wrestling team. We sat next to each other in geometry class. One day, he passed me a note telling me of his curiosity and cravings for a man. He took me out a couple times and eventually I allowed him inside me.
The experience wasn’t necessarily the most pleasant. He was aggressive, pushy, and overwhelmingly secretive. He never wanted to do anything a couple did because he didn’t want the wrestling team knowing who he really was.
Needless to say, it didn’t work out, mainly because I was a traditionalist and wanted to be swooned and courted.
“Don’t you want to have a consistent relationship?” I asked.
“Actually, I have a few consistent relationships,” he grinned.
“You know what I mean.”
“Well, I’m trying out a few guys, you know. It starts off with the sex thing, you know, a couple regular hookups, and then it kind of goes from there.”
“Huh. I see,” I said, but I couldn’t understand it. There had to be more beyond this explanation, something deeper somewhere with someone. Perhaps someone like Nicolas.
