My mom seemed at home here too, relaxed for the first time since we’d left Texas. We stayed up talking late into many of that sticky summer’s nights. She taught me how to make her chicken casserole with the crushed potato chips on top. I made her the star of my home movies, shot on that camcorder I’d earned at J. C. Penney. And this proved to be the summer she would call me into her room, open the bottom drawer of her dresser, and introduce me to her sacred objects—including her golden book of boys. Together, we flipped through her favorites, and once I left the room, she got up the courage to rip up that impossibly cute picture of my father I’d just pointed out on her book’s final page.
Since moving to Virginia, Todd had begun driving my mom crazy with a brand-new bullheaded defiance. He refused to even answer when she called his name. With his boyish looks growing increasingly handsome, he reminded me more and more of that photo she had just torn up—of the father he had no memories of. And thanks in part to those good looks, soon there were more girls coming and going than my mom felt comfortable with. Sometimes he closed his bedroom door with them in there. Alone.
For one full week that summer, Todd and I woke up before sunrise to drive into D.C. with Jeff and our mom on their way in to work. As we neared the Washington Monument, Jeff would block traffic for a second so we could quickly leap out. Todd and I had decided we needed to see every exhibit in every Smithsonian museum on the National Mall in that one week. That’s no small order. But on one of our brief lunch breaks, somewhere between NASA space capsules and what was left of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I took an extra moment to put on my old paternal hat and tried confronting my younger brother about his fresh rebellions.
“Mom’s worked really hard to get us to where we are, you know? Where you are now. Maybe try being a little nicer to her? Or at least answer when she talks to you?”
Todd looked away from his food, but more specifically, from me. He was tough on the outside, but also the quickest to tears. I could tell my criticism had stung. But instead of an apology, he only let out a deep, chesty hum that landed in his gut: “Hmmmmph.”
I’d never heard such a sound out of my baby brother. It was a man’s sound, not a boy’s. I was a bit stunned by it. “What do you think, Todd-o?”
Once he felt safe from tears, he looked back at his food, then back in my direction, and said firmly: “I think I don’t wanna talk about it.”
And that was that. He wasn’t interested in my opinion anymore either.
That week we spent together in the Smithsonian’s treasure-filled rooms left us both in awe of our nation: its many cultures, its terrible and triumphant histories, its failures and grand achievements—but it also left me feeling rather proud of my little brother’s willfulness. I think I could see what my mom couldn’t yet. Todd wasn’t rebelling in self-destructive fashion like Marcus had, or trying to please everyone like I always did. Yes, Todd’s behavior may have been abnormal for our home, but he was only doing it because we’d made sure he knew his home was strong. He was a bright, easy-to-laughter, quick-to-tears, opinionated teenage boy, asserting himself in ways Marcus and I had never felt safe doing as we danced for survival in the quicksand of our youth. Turns out our mom had nothing to worry about—Todd was her masterpiece, a pain in the ass because miraculously he’d turned out healthy and “normal.”
Ryan checked in on the phone every now and then, and to my ear, his melancholy was fading. I was pleasantly surprised, if not a little envious, when he said he’d come out to his Pentecostal mother and she’d assured him that she loved him regardless. He told me that he missed me. I asked him to look out the window at the moon. He did. So did I. “How nice is it that we’re looking at the same thing right now?” I asked. It was my way of saying I missed him terribly—that I wished in more ways than one we could be in the same place.
Still, Ryan’s path wasn’t an option for me. Seeing my mother’s happiness taking root again—a loving husband, and back in the South she preferred—I knew I couldn’t start kicking over beehives, not in her military, half–Jack Mormon, half-Catholic home. The vacuum left by Marcus’s infrequent calls already threatened her sunny days, and I loved witnessing her blossoming contentment.
So that summer I made a conscious decision to go in the opposite direction, and just as my mother had taught me to do, I gave this new commitment my all. I signed up for lifeguarding classes and turned golden brown working at a pool with a few twisty water slides. And when a voluptuous, remarkably forward fellow lifeguard asked me if I’d like to get dinner with her and another couple, I took her up on the double date offer. She was kind and patient and had a Southern drawl and a smile to die for.
That weekend, I bought her a rose, which she held in her lap on our ride to a restaurant in D.C. I never told her this was my first-ever date. I simply tried my best to be a gentleman. I was nervous; in retrospect, it was incredibly sweet. Afterward came my first kiss. It was just as sweet but wetter. Then she let me know she had other designs, and revealed her breasts. I found them fascinating but far softer than I had anticipated or hoped. Then came sex. I didn’t tell her that I’d never done it. Thankfully, she knew what she was doing. I did my best to keep up. All of this in a handful of hours that ended on an old industrial carpet in a basement next to a poorly tuned TV screaming sports headlines on the late-night local news…all the while knowing full well that I was exceedingly gay but just as determined not to be.
Putting Mormon logic to the task, I convinced myself that if I had a child or ten, this potential family of my making would bring me more happiness than any passion or romance ever could. I’d witnessed this with my mom and brothers. Now I dreamed of having lots of little ones of my own. After all, I had long heard folks say that romance fades. So why waste time on it in the first place? I thought. And so using this logic time and time and time again, I tried my best to get this unsuspecting young woman pregnant. Condoms? Forget about it. Birth control? We never had the conversation. Go down there? No thank you. But no matter how hard I tried (and thanks to nineteen-year-old hormones, I actually could try hard), by summer’s end I was convinced that my sperm must be just as defective as I was.
There would be no baby. No future family.
That summer of heterosexual sex wasn’t all for naught, though. It made one thing abundantly clear: no amount of trying, no matter how beautiful, loving, or supportive the unsuspecting woman might be, would ever cure me of my “secret something.” There was no escape route from my difference. And unlike Tim, or most racial minorities, I hadn’t been born into a family that inherently understood my big difference. Like most LGBTQ people, I had been born to heterosexual parents who didn’t know to, or even how to, instill in me the steely sense of self-worth an LGBTQ minority needs to survive and defend his or her differences. Sadly, it’s all too often those very parents who prove to be their child’s first attackers when they do find out. In this particular way, and like most of my kind in those days, I knew I had been born behind enemy lines.
CHAPTER 13
Allemande Left
I
Allemande left: A square dance move in which corners face each other, take left hands or forearms, walk around each other to the left, let go, and return to their original position.
* * *
—
I got back on an airplane in late September, a few weeks before I was set to start at UCLA’s film school. As I looked out the window, we took to the air and headed west, over Virginia, over the rust belt and the Midwest, across the Rocky Mountains, and back to that Southern California style of America that still felt a bit too foreign, particularly now with no family for miles. A few weeks earlier, Ryan had enthusiastically agreed to spend two more years in L.A. and to pick me up at the airport—the former a big surprise and a huge relief, the latter a test of true friendship for any Angeleno.
When I saw Ryan again, I was gobsmacked. I hard
ly recognized him. He was now fit and trim. His mustache had vanished. His head was shaved too. There was even an aggressive, black tribal tattoo blazing down his forearm. In three short months, he had emerged from his chubby closet-cocoon as a butterfly. What the holy living hell did I help unleash? I thought. Ryan was no longer in SoCal for my dreams. This was a new Ryan, looking to fulfill his own ambitions in ways only a big city could provide in 1994.
We moved into an affordable apartment well south of the university, and Ryan got right to work. Over the summer, he had rediscovered the charm he’d once wielded at North High. His devilish grin was back and he was now using it to build a new circle of friends out of the brightest, wildest, and most attractive young men he could find—this time harvested from a vibrant, fast-growing gay ghetto just east of us called West Hollywood.
This wasn’t the West Hollywood of today. Gay tourists and bachelorette parties from around the world weren’t flying in to stuff Benjamins into go-go dancers’ G-strings, or spilling out onto wide, well-lit sidewalks at last call in hopes of finding “the one”—or the one for the night. Boystown, as it were, was on the same Santa Monica Boulevard it is today, but it was only reliably gay between Robertson and Palm. It was dimly lit, with narrow sidewalks. Most bars’ windows were covered to protect the identities of those inside, and patrons knew better than to walk back to their cars alone for fear of being bashed verbally or physically by the “straight” men out trolling “fags” for sport.
But for gay men at the time, Boystown was still a far safer place to be out than most any other neighborhood in Los Angeles, and it was certainly safer than most cities in the world, so bold college boys ventured to what we called “the strip,” traveling in packs for the security even this sanctuary still required. Some packs had older leaders who showed their boys the ropes and kept them safe in exchange for companionship (if not occasional physical delight). Other packs were more like Lord of the Flies, led by the wildest boys among them, often in search of drugs, sex, or both. It was a combo that far too often led to HIV, AIDS, and an early death. In 1994, any hope for effective HIV treatment was still years away.
For Ryan, being the leader of a pack came naturally, and in West Hollywood, he was more successful than ever. He quickly stole away all of the most handsome young men from other pack leaders, because unlike them, Ryan was a true and loyal caretaker. He didn’t offer his boys drugs or ask for sex in return for his protection. As he had with me, he genuinely loved taking care of those in need. And for better or for worse, home base for his operation was our little apartment between Sawtelle Boulevard and the 10 Freeway in West L.A.—wall-to-wall carpet, a new bed in Ryan’s room, and our old futon in the living room for me.
On big nights out—most Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays—Ryan’s boys flooded in. I would hide behind my homework and put on my best heterosexual impersonation when lured away. But I don’t think a single one of them bought my cover story that I’d installed a detailed collage of Leonardo DiCaprio on the wall because I considered him to be the greatest actor of our generation. No. They rightfully suspected that I wanted to grab Leo by his long bangs and kiss him hard. I know this because they continually shared exactly that theory with Ryan whenever I left the room.
When I had pushed Ryan to come out earlier that year, I had mostly just hoped he would stop eating himself into an early grave. I had never imagined that he would turn our own home into a gay extravaganza, or that so many of his new clique would be so impossibly attractive. Worse, I could see myself in all of their eyes, countless new ones every week: gay refugees from all over the country, and from every background, religion, color, shape, and size, many running to Los Angeles after suffering rejection from their families and hometowns, now seeking freedom and safety here.
As much as I tried to avoid eye contact, I increasingly caught them seeing themselves in my eyes too, and I soon understood that a clock was ticking. I either had to move out of this apartment and leave my best friend behind in order to avoid being outed, or do the unthinkable: come out willingly. This dilemma came to dominate my thoughts, to keep me from my schoolwork, and to distract me from the dream that had brought me this far. That tugging (and my new, equally un-LDS all-nighters with Dr Pepper) left me physically ill. In search of guidance, I did something some might find surprising: I got down on my knees beside my futon to pray.
“Dear Heavenly Father, I’m so lost right now. If you can still hear me…can you please help me see where I should go?”
When I first realized I was gay, at the age of six, my choices were clear: I had to hide, or suffer the shameful personal and familial consequences of exposure. So I hid. By twelve, I had considered suicide to quiet the pain of isolation and shame. At nineteen, I’d tried to replace love with a family by getting a young woman pregnant. All of this because I’d been told by my church, our state, the news, and our neighbors that gay people lived horrific lives of indignity, sickness, and death, followed by eternal loneliness in a burning hell. Yes, I still treasure Texas and the South, and yes, our church kept my family alive in so many generous ways, but both had long been tearing me to pieces from the inside out.
Now I was bearing witness as Ryan rose like a phoenix, seeing firsthand that his friends didn’t have horns hidden under their hair like our old Mormon prophet had suggested gay people did, and that they didn’t seem sick or sad like so many shrinks on daytime talk shows claimed gay people were. In fact, they seemed as happy as, if not happier than, most straight people I knew—thriving because they’d come out, not in spite of doing so. I now had dozens of real-life examples of gay people that didn’t match the terrible stories I’d heard and believed my entire life.
Still on my knees in prayer, I grew silent and listened, not for some actual voice like the prophets of our church had claimed to hear, but to my own heart. Because if there really was a God, I felt sure that He could speak to a far deeper place than my crinkled-up ears. And that night, I thought I felt some sort of God whisper to me, “I am love.” And so…I chose love.
Instead of running further, hiding deeper, losing myself in work, piling more lies on top of old ones, more shame on top of shame, or coming up with new ways to end my life, I started writing my story in the margins of my class notes, documenting every moment I’d known who I was but hadn’t been brave enough to accept it, and all of the anger I felt toward those who’d tried so hard to make me believe that I’d never love or be loved in return. Next, I transcribed or physically cut and pasted all those words into a seventeen-page “manifesto” and left it on our sad apartment’s bathroom sink. Then I picked up Ryan’s decidedly pink Oil of Olay moisturizing bath bar and scrawled on the mirror above it: “Read this. Do what you will with it. Carpe diem.”
I ran off to my modern poetry class at UCLA knowing full well that my most steadfast ally in this life would soon find my manifesto, and that my deepest, darkest secret would finally…be out.
EXCERPTS FROM “THE MANIFESTO”
MARCH 6, 1995
Dear Ryan, my dearest and most beloved friend in the whole entirety of this world. You are the one person on this earth who God has sent for me. You are a blessing, a gift of unknown proportion…Oh Lord, how are you supposed to start a thing like this?
God, I’m suddenly feeling as if this is the most selfish thing I have ever done. In fact, perhaps there is not a single person on the face of this green and blue planet who will prosper from all of this, least of all myself. Several times my mother has told me that the most selfish thing she has ever done in her life was to marry Jeffrey Scott Bisch. In her case, it turned out to be her entire life, her joy, her love, and her happiness. I fear with all my soul that from this singularly selfish act will come not so forgiving a fate.
[On a page of its own, two pieces of paper (dime rolls from a bank) were stapled facedown with a note above each: “Turn if you dare.” Under them “I am” and “gay” were
spelled out.]
[Top of the following page:] “I’m shaking violently now. Oh GOD, it is over isn’t it?
With this packet I have sealed something…and I fear it. I will lose everything because of it. Why has God cursed me? My mother and brothers will reject me. All I have ever wanted was a family. A little boy of my own. Oh God, how I have always wanted children! FUCK YOU! HOW CAN GOD DO THIS! BENEVOLENT MY ASS! All is lost. There is little reason to go on. I need you [Ryan], now more than ever. Please don’t tell anyone of this, but keep it; it is ours, and when I wish it, it will be the world’s, but not yet. I have “seized THIS day.” It is all I can do for now.
Yes, it was arguably a bit theatrical, but that’s how immense the stakes felt at that age, in that time. My budding drama-queen heart was beating hard and low in my chest on the ride home from UCLA that afternoon. I parked my car in its usual spot up a side street, took a deep breath, and started slowly walking home. As I turned the corner, I saw Ryan striding quickly toward me, head down, lost in thought. My heart sped up to a jackhammer flutter. When he looked up and saw me, relief rinsed his sullen expression. He didn’t pick up his pace. He was too cool for that. When he reached me, he simply said, “I was coming to look for you. I thought maybe you went to hurt yourself.”
Ryan’s worry was not overblown. We were living in darker days, when suicide was a far too common way out of all the fear and shame that was being heaped upon gay kids. Studies at the time suggested that three out of four gay teens considered suicide. I had been one of those three. Ryan knew those feelings too. And years earlier, one of Ryan’s high school friends had thrown a rope over the clothing rod in his bedroom closet, stepped up onto a chair, tied the rope around his neck, and, obeying the self-loathing that had been drilled into him, pushed the chair out from under his feet. His parents found his body hanging there hours later. They were as silent about his death as he had been about his troubles. No one ever named his reasons, but those of us with the ability to see ourselves in his eyes knew. Ryan had been this boy’s friend, and thanks to what I can now see was a rather overdramatic “manifesto,” he worried that a version of that tragic scenario might have been playing out with me. He had overslept that morning. He was panic-stricken when he finally read my words and had grabbed his car keys and rushed out the door. That’s when our paths crossed.
Mama's Boy Page 19
