Straight

by Seth King

  “Easy for you to say, your friends are the most carefree people ever. Mine are…well, you know. And the thing with The Monster, I just don’t know …”

  He sets down his phone. “Oh. What happened to last night? Was that just the alcohol?”

  “Of course not. And please don’t even talk about alcohol right now,” I say as I abandon my coffee-making efforts. “And come on, let’s go out, I feel like death and I need a mimosa.”

  We get dressed and head to a fancy brunch place near my house. Twenty minutes later we’re settling into a table under a large skylight as an old man plays a grand piano in the corner. At first I feel sleepy and dull – until I look at my boyfriend. Ty’s tight black shirt makes his chest look downright edible, and his blue eyes are sparkling in the glow from the light above. How am I already ready to take him to bed again? I can’t stay mad at this kid even when I try…

  As I sit there I start envisioning a future with him that I’d never really let myself imagine before. It could all be so beautiful if we let it be, and soon I start dreaming big enough for the both of us. We could officially move into my parents’ townhouse together, and I could get a job at Live Nation if I don’t want to finish my architecture degree. Meanwhile Ty could open a little boutique graphic design firm after graduating, only taking on clients he selected himself. He could renovate the townhouse for me and make it artsy and beautiful, and I could turn one of the bedrooms into a walk-in closet for him. But what would happen after that? Would we have children? Would we work with LGBTQ charities, would we be involved in Savannah’s gala scene, would I become a crazy hippie liberal activist like him, would we even be accepted by the world? Or would we be “that gay couple” that our neighbors waved at from afar, plastic smiles in place, and then reached down and yanked their kids away whenever we got too close? I’d seen the attitude in my own neighborhood when a gay couple moved in a block away. The attitude was “they’re nice enough, but I wouldn’t have any of that nonsense under my roof or in my front yard.” What kind of life would we build together?

  Near us is a table of jock-ish dudes with numerous mimosa jugs spread about, and as we sit there I hear one of them shout “yassss,” a common gay term used by all Ty’s gay friends all the time.

  “Typical bro culture,” Ty sighs. “Stealing our words and giving us none of the credit.”

  I hear snickering, and something makes my stomach drop. I look over and I realize it’s my old friends – Shepard and all the other goons, probably on round one hundred of bottomless mimosas. Which means they weren’t saying “yas” in a serious way – they were trying to make fun of us.

  My spine stiffens. They lower their voices, and from the prickly feeling on the back of my neck I can sense they’re talking about us.

  “Yeah, it’s Morgan,” Shepard says, “and he’s with that fag. The one we saw him at the bars with. Is he the one from Snapchat, too?”

  Ty freezes. Anger sparks in his eyes, but I lean closer. “Hey. Stop. It’s fine. I don’t care what they say.”

  “I do, though.”

  I don’t know what to say. I hear a scraping chair, and I look over to see Shepard walking up to us, smiling crazily. Just the sight of this ignorant, entitled asshole makes me want to kick something. I can’t lie – it also makes me nervous. It makes me sweat. He is on top, and he stays on top by demoralizing the people under him. What could he possibly want?

  He stops at my table and burps, danger in his eyes. “Hey, Henry,” he says quietly but smugly. He really is like a parody of all the stereotypical traits that make people hate Southerners – it’s like he tries to be boorish and dumb. “Hen-fairy. How goes it?”

  My face burns. “Hi Shepard. Feeling okay, there?”

  “Feeling great. Listen, hey, how is my outfit? Do you have any fashion advice for me?”

  I freeze. Ty stares at me, waiting for a reaction. I set down my napkin and lean back, but I feel my face getting hot. “Well, Shep, why would I randomly care about your outfit?”

  We meet eyes. His expression gets meaner. “No reason. None at all.” He smirks even harder, then puts a hand on the table. “Hey, you guys wanna head to the gay club with me later? I heard their pool tables are the fanciest in town. Their bathrooms also get a lot of action, apparently.” I wince. He says the words “gay club” with an affected, effeminate drama, and it makes my fists clench involuntarily.

  I narrow my eyes at him, but I still have no idea what to say. I’ve never faced anything like this. A decade ago he could’ve walked up to us and called us faggots, and not too many people would’ve cared. But times are a bit different, and he knows he can’t be so brash. He knows it’s a new era, he knows he can’t just come out and be a gay-basher, so he’s dancing around the subject, poking and prodding and pushing our buttons instead of just coming out and saying it. And somehow it’s even worse that he’s doing it so passively.

  “Well,” I say. “I had no plans to hit up any gay bars, but since it sounds like you definitely do, I’ll follow you there. Drinks are on you, since you invited us, right?”

  He glares at me. “You know, nobody would care what you’re doing,” he says soon, “you just don’t have to hide it. You act like you don’t even know us anymore.”

  I swallow. “Well maybe I don’t want to know you anymore.”

  “Whatever,” he spits. “Same to you and your friend.”

  He hisses the word “friend,” loading it with innuendo.

  “What is this?” I suddenly ask, seeing red. “What is your problem with us? What is the real issue here? Why does any of this matter? Hasn’t the world seen enough of this shit lately?”

  Shep opens his mouth, then closes it. Just then the maître d appears, annoyed and impatient. “Hello, young men – do we have a problem here? Everything alright?”

  Shepard glances around the table, then shoots me another glare. “Nah, no problem,” he says as he finally turns away. “Just talking to a couple of fags.”

  I wince again and press my eyes closed for a moment. What he said wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that I let him say it, let him walk away, let him return to his friends and start giggling and whispering again.

  I pay the bill as quickly as I can, just wanting to get the hell out of there, then lead Ty out of the restaurant and into an alley. When I turn around, he’s shaking.

  “That was really triggering for me,” he says dumbly.

  “Oh, God, I wasn’t – I’m sorry. That was unfair to you.”

  He looks down at nothing.

  “You okay? …Really, what is it?”

  “Look,” he begins, “I need to tell you a story. Most of the kids liked me when I was growing up – actually, hell, I was one of the most popular kids in my grade. But one year this guy John Harvey moved over from another school, and he got a group of kids to go against me. One time I was on a hill before class, and I got kicked down it. I got kicked all the way down a fucking hill. And when I cried and showed my pain, they laughed even harder. And that fucking shit-stain of a human in the restaurant just brought me back to that moment. I saw it all. The kids were behind me, kicking, sending me down that hill, over the edge. He wanted fireworks, he wanted humiliation, he wanted to push us down that same hill. And you did nothing. You didn’t even try to defend me…”

  Unbidden, I turn and punch the wall. Luckily it’s already crumbling. Maybe everything here is crumbling. “Look, I said sorry!”

  “No, that’s not the problem.”

  “What the fuck is, then?”

  “You don’t get it. You’re clearly not ready. You don’t want this struggle. You don’t know this grief.”

  “Struggle?”

  His voice is coming out clear and fast now. “Yeah, Henry. Struggle. You don’t understand it yet. You don’t even know the struggle exists yet. A wealthy, heterosexual white person has no idea what my life is like. They don’t know what it’s like for millions of people to look at you like you’re ‘less than’ be
cause of what you are. The world will try to own you, push you down, and you won’t even get the right to have your own feelings about it. They will dismiss your pain and tell you to get over it. I mean, shit – sixty million people voted for a man whose platform indicates he doesn’t believe I deserve basic human rights, and do you know what they said the next day? ‘Get over it, stop being a sore loser, be positive and accept it, move on. Respect my right to discriminate against you because my God tells me you’re a sinner.’ Yeah, because Jesus totally had a gay witch-hunt in mind when He nailed himself to the cross for love, right? They try to call their tyranny ‘religious freedom,’ as if their privately held beliefs give them the right to control my fucking life and make me live by their rules. If you don’t believe in gay marriage, don’t marry a gay person, but don’t try to control everyone else because of something you personally think. And they won’t even let me mourn the fact that sixty million people stepped into a ballot box and sent me a message that I didn’t matter. They want me to sit down and shut up and accept my oppression with a smile on my face and let the world continue to be dominated by white heterosexual Christians in every last way. And you never understood this, either, because you were straight – so you didn’t have to think about it. You will never know what it’s like to be under attack until they come for you, until they put you in their sights, until they’re at your doorstep with their torches and their epithets. This is what you’re signing up for, Henry, and you can’t run away from it, like you just did. You can’t act like it has nothing to do with you. It’ll be your life now, if we end up together. And you’re still running. Well I’ve got news for you: the fight is here. It’s on your doorstep, Henry! What now?”

  I look away, trying not to cry, my throat tickly and my retinas burning. I swallow.

  “Say something!” he cackles. But I can’t.

  “Exactly what I thought,” he spits, kicking the ground. “It’s all a pile of shit, and guess what? The people who could be helping? They’re not. My own mom thinks she’s supportive, she thinks she’s progressive, and yet she voted for a man whose Vice President wanted to take my fucking humanity away. She voted for fucking electro shock therapy! She thinks she helps me by ‘accepting’ me, but she’s never fucking lifted a finger or gone to a demonstration or read a gay history book or done a single thing to help my community. She stands aside while we’re harassed and refused inclusion and shot in fucking nightclubs. And the sad thing is she’s the one who could be doing the most good, because all the religious zealots and bigots out there? God knows they won’t do a fucking thing. And so the ones on the frontlines are silent.”

  I am shaking now. When my eyes finally meet his, they are so soft it breaks my heart.

  “What do you want from me, Henry?”

  I swallow even harder. “Ty. Look. When I met you, I was living a different life. I am changing my whole world for you, maybe a little slowly, sure, but still – I’m changing. I’m different now. Even if I’m a coward.”

  His lips are a tight, straight line. “What you did wasn’t different, it was weak. Those were your friends, and you could’ve said something. And you know what? I was so wrong to encourage you to live your life as a gay person. You don’t want this struggle. You don’t want this shit.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, Henry, you don’t get it – it’s not all gay bars and dance parties and gossip sessions over brunch. That’s not half of it, actually. Part the world will hate you for no reason. People will stare at you and whisper about you and judge you. Not everyone, sure, but it’ll happen, and you can’t avoid it. Being gay changes everything, and you’re not ready.”

  “I am ready!”

  “Yeah, you sure proved that when you hid all those pictures with my friends from the Beyoncé concert.”

  I try to ignore it, but the look in his eyes is much more pained than I was expecting. This isn’t about any one incident. This is huge.

  “Whatever,” he says, clearly hiding a storm in his eyes. “Fucking whatever. I’m over this conversation. Let’s go home.”

  I follow him onto the street, but I know it’s not over. Not at all.

  ~

  On the way back, I take out my phone to snap some pictures of the Christmas decorations to distract myself. When I try to open my Facebook to check my notifications, though, I’m blocked. “That’s weird,” I say. “I can’t log into my Facebook.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s not working. It says I’m locked out.”

  “Weird. Maybe there’s a virus going around. Who knows.”

  “Yeah…maybe.”

  I try to shake it off, but something feels strange. Something besides my hangover headache and my anguish from Shepard, that is. Something else is making me queasy – but what?

  I notice something is wrong the second I step inside my house. Someone has been here. Or around here. I can just feel it.

  I stop into the foyer.

  “What?” Ty asks. “What is it?”

  “Did we lock the doors when we left? All of them?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  I grab my backpack off the front table, containing my hat and my books and other random crap. Something is just off – I feel it everywhere. That’s when I notice the glare and step back outside. I see a trail of sparkling broken glass on the sidewalk fanning into the bushes, and that’s when my stomach disappears. I follow the trail of shards back to my dad’s car, where the front passenger window has been broken out by a rock that is still sitting on the seat. (Savannah’s riverfront roads were originally made from old stones brought here on ships from around the world as ballast, and our roads and alleys are still littered with them.) With a silver Sharpie someone has also written the words “faggot ass bitch” on my door, and I don’t even have to analyze the handwriting to know it’s Shepard’s – we did a report together in high school. I would know his messy scrawl anywhere.

  “What the fuck?” Ty asks, rushing out and running up to the car. “What is this?”

  “There he is!” somebody says, and the next few seconds become a blackout for me, flashing by in a metallic, mercurial blur. The last thing I really remember is hearing a whistling sound, like something is flying at us, and then I feel my body shifting and I sense air moving around my ears. The next thing I am aware of, something is slamming against my backpack, which is somehow out in front of me. The rock falls to my feet and cracks, but another rock hits the rear window of my car. The window shatters, the sound like a pop followed by a tinkling chandelier. Then a third rock hits the siding of my house, breaking two of the boards. I hear cursing and running, and across the street four or five guys turn and disappear down the alley leading to the next square over.

  And that’s it. The moment is over, and I return to my brain.

  “Babe!” Ty says, pulling me close and feeling me up and down. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

  I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Henry, you just…you just basically saved me. They threw a pretty big rock at my head, and you pushed me away and held out your backpack, and I guess it hit your notebooks in your bag. Are your knuckles okay? You just saved me!”

  I look down at my backpack and my hands, which feel fine. “No I didn’t. I don’t remember any of that. I didn’t move. Did I?”

  He just stares at me. “Babe. I watched you do it. You pushed me and blocked the rock when they started throwing shit. It was going to hit me.”

  Something about this makes me angry. “No,” I say, glancing down at the sidewalk. “No, that’s wrong. And please…don’t call me babe right now. Not out here.”

  His lips part. “What?”

  I don’t respond.

  “Henry, this is a crime. We have to report this. What happened? Did you see their faces? Was it the guys from brunch? It had to be them, right?”

  “Report it?” I ask, my neck
starting to feel hot. “And…what, Ty? Have it all over the newspaper in the crime reports that I’ve been called a faggot?”

  His face hardens. “Oh. Okay. So…that’s what this is. Again.”

  I tilt my head. “Ty...”

  “Yes. Don’t tell me no. You’re scared. Still.”

  “No! I just don’t want to give them attention. They tried to hack me and embarrass me, but they couldn’t, so they did this instead.”

  “But…why would you use the word ‘embarrass?’” he asks. “People are ‘embarrassed’ by bad things, by getting arrested or lying or doing something dumb. Even if they did hack you, why would you ever be embarrassed of me?”

  I turn away a little. “Look. I – I don’t know how to explain this. This isn’t my doing. You know I never expected to meet you in September.”

  “But you did,” he says calmly, “and it happened, and you need to accept it. Or…maybe not? Either one. At this point I don’t even know what to make of this anymore.”

  “I have accepted it since the first moment. But some of the world doesn’t. What am I supposed to do with that?”

  He glances off at an oak. “Nothing, Henry. Nothing. You need to choose what you want with your life. Nobody can do that but you.”

  “Well I’ve decided,” I say as I stand taller, my stubbornness sinking in.

  “What?”

  I close my eyes, then open them. “I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much, and I’ve decided that for sure. I can’t do this. I’m so sorry.”

  His lips part. “You…mean that?”

  I nod. “For real. It’s been fun, but we’d be better off alone. This is all falling apart.”

  I watch his heart break in real time, right in front of me. It breaks mine, too. But I don’t know what else to do. This is getting dangerous. My windows are blown out and there is a rock in my car. I never expected it to get this far. I wasn’t expecting anything to get this far.

  He steps forward, but I inch away.

  “Really? Stop. Really?” he asks.

  “Really.”