I wonder if he's the same way. I'm sure he was into it. I'm sure he might be gay as well. But he didn't seem to want to remember or recall it. It made me wonder if it was just his mind being impaired with alcohol, being receptive to whatever happened, and perhaps wanting to get his rocks off by any means necessary.
He returns with two drinks, and I finish off the one I currently have in several gulps. “One more after this, and no more,” I say. “I don't want you to be drunk when you do this talking. I don't want anything to... go wrong because you're too drunk.”
Jackson grimaces, but nods. Clearly, he wanted to stuff his stomach with as many drinks as possible, until he stopped functioning. No. Not doing that around me.
“Okay. Starting from the beginning.” Jackson slurped at his beer, a rather morose expression upon his face. “Not like there's much to go on about. I have... parents that I want to approve of me. Friends as well. I come from a small town, yunno? One where everyone's super religious and stuff. Women are women and men are men, and God forbid you find yourself in-between that at any point.”
Right. “Your parents are religious nut jobs?”
He winces. “Not... nut jobs. Just very keen to pass on the love of the lord and all that. Making sure you attend Sunday services, making sure you don't blaspheme. Having some strong opinions about transgenders, black people and gays. They think all black people are criminals and whatever, and that they look like monkeys. And you're going straight to Hell if you're gay or transgender. Doesn't matter if your precious lord made you that way – off to the fiery pits with you.” His lips twist in a sardonic smile. There's no warmth in his expression. Despite myself, I lean in to listen, trying to picture what it might be like for him, growing up in that. Probably full of love in some respects, and very cruel in others. A wonderful family to be in if you fit in. A horrible one if you happen to be the kinds of things they don't want you to be.
I didn't have such difficulties growing up with mine, simply because they were accepting, and made sure that if I had any questions, I felt free to ask them. It's easier to say whatever is needed when your family make sure that you won't be punished for the truth, no matter what it is. I probably could even murder someone and they'd do their best to cover up for me. Not that I would murder someone, of course. I'm not that fucked up.
“You get what I'm trying to say, right? I have this family. So that means... I can't be gay. I can't be abnormal, or I'm basically going to be exiled from my own family.”
“It's not much of a family,” I say quietly, “if they would refuse to accept you for who you are.”
“That's the thing. They don't see being gay as something that can't be helped. They think it's a choice, that it can be beaten out of you or have electroshock therapy. I had an uncle, he's dead now. He confessed he was afraid he might be gay, and they sent him to the asylum and he went through electroshock therapy to cure it. Never was the same after that. It addled his mind. Made him peculiar and mute for the most part.”
I can't even grasp the concept that someone would consider using electroshock therapy to cure gayness. “How does that even work? Why would people think you can shock it out of someone?”
“It was classed as a mental illness. There's a huge stigma with it. Along with the whole AIDS thing, you know. Bad to be a gay person.”
I snort. “That's ridiculous.”
His expression darkens. “That's the type my parents are. They'd believe a good shocking can cure someone. Maybe it's hard for you to grasp the fact that they can hate so much. You can scoff about it, or whatever. Doesn't stop them from being who they are. And it's not fun.”
I glance down at the pockmarked table for a moment. Part of me still wants to laugh at such absurdity, but I also know that people in the past were treated abysmally, all the minorities. Some people will have grown up still clinging onto those values, still isolated. And, well, if you live in a small town, it's probably hard to imagine where else you can go, if that's all the life you've known. Still, he didn't have to behave so much like a bastard. Especially to please parents like that. Sniffing my second batch of dark beer, I sip it.
“Going to school wasn't great, either. We had one student who was, you know, gay. Everyone knew it, and he got relentlessly bullied. At that point I'd already started to suspect that I might be like him as well, though I didn't quite let that... register. It was more of a fear, a fear that I could be in the same position as that boy. I hated myself for it. And it was easy to channel that hate onto the boy. To... hide myself.”
“That's a cowardly thing to do.” I don't mince the words. Whatever his excuses, it doesn't change the fact that he threw someone else under the bus to preserve his secret for a fake family.
“I know! But I didn't know what else I could do at the time, don't you see? I didn't think I could handle losing my family and my friends. And I barely wanted to accept the fact that I might be the thing they didn't want. Because despite it all, I did want my mother and father to love me, my brother to think I was cool, and to fit in with my friends and be that tough guy.”
I try. I really try to picture it how's he's weaving the scenario, but I can't quite ditch that bile in my throat. I keep thinking – what if I'd been that boy in his school? Instead of having a loving family and friends who were cool with it – consequence of growing up in a city, I guess – how would I have coped in a small school like that? How would people treat me? Would they throw wads of paper at me in the classrooms, trip me over in the corridor, graffiti my locker and harass me in the changing room? Then there's a coward like Jackson, so terrified of considering the fact he might be gay, sneering at me, maybe kicking me while I lie on the ground.
All because he thinks he has no other choice.
I'm insanely lucky to have grown up in the family I did.
Can I understand him? Perhaps. If this is all true, and he isn't just spinning it to bullshit me into believing him. Though I don't see why he would bother to put all that effort in, if he wasn't actually genuine.
“So...” My voice comes out a cracked whisper, quieter than I expected. “What happened when you met me? Please explain to me why.”
His finger taps on the table for a moment. His eyes are distant, seeing something else. Another time, perhaps. Maybe even the night we should have had together. I wonder now if he ever revisited that evening. If it filled him with shame or secret pleasure. Or if he did everything in his power to blot it out, and make it cease to exist. Part of me hopes that he thought about it like I did, and wondered if we had missed a wonderful opportunity. And part of me wants to know how he slept at night, knowing he had put me in hospital, knowing that he had succeeded in hurting me, more than anyone else had ever succeeded in their lives.
Not exactly a badge of honor to have that claim, but it's true. I've been unable to get that incident out of my head, though I've tried. It's hard to think of his rationale behind it when all I can remember is the devastation I felt, and the pain all over my body that stayed for over a week, not healing – and my permanently wonky nose.
“What I did to you was wrong,” he replies, though it looks as if it takes him a lot of effort to admit these words. At this point in time, the bar has emptied, so it's just four people left, and the other two are playing billiards. “I just... reacted badly. I was out with my friends, and when I saw you in that bar, I was struck by just how damn handsome you were. I started panicking really badly when I noticed that, because I just couldn't keep my eyes off you for long, without wondering what you were like, without trying to see you from all angles. Then, when you went to play in the bowling alley, I took the chance to speak to you. Pass it off as friendly competition. And you warned me straight off the bat that you were gay, so if I had any issues with it, I should back off now.”
Yes, I remember that. Mostly, I focus on the drinking and talks we had afterwards, but we started off with our bowling competition. Which I won, of course, because I can pitch a mean ten pin strike. “I like
d the game. You were less of an asshole like that.”
“Yeah, well. It was a good excuse to talk to you. And yeah... I'd been suppressing these feelings for so long, you know. Focusing on working out, doing all those different fighting styles, just to provide myself with distractions, and to make myself manlier in the eyes of my friends and family. I was prepping to turn pro with boxing, since my coach believed I had the talent and zeal to make it to the top of the game. And when I met you, I knew I should have walked away the second you confessed your sexuality. Yet, I couldn't. I needed to know. I needed to understand what it was like. How you could act so carefree and not like the entire world wanted to hunt you down. How your parents took it.”
I remember him being especially eager to know how my parents reacted, and the dark cloud that seemed to hover over his head when I told him that they were fine. Like he expected my life of being gay to be nothing short of eternal oppression and agony. Not so. Generally, I find you can get through life quite easy when you don't flaunt yourself around. It's not like I go to parades wearing a latex thong and a horsehead and start fucking someone randomly in the street. No, that shit serves to alienate you further, because it's weird. I just don't mention it. I don't want to see straight couples groping and spluttering about their sex lives in public, so why should I do the same?
It's actually one of the things that annoys me the most about the gay community. I think the image they imprinted is almost designed to antagonize. Even though I know that's not the intention – I would find it massively offensive if say, an army dude came up to me waving his gun and going, “Look, I'm from the army! I served in the army! I killed people! Look at me!”
No. And some of the more flamboyant gay people are unfortunately ones who do this.
Thankfully I'm not one of those. You couldn't just look at me and realize who I am from what I dress as and act like. The only way you'd find out is if I told you to your face.
“I was so fucking jealous when I found out that you had it easy. Part of me admired you as well, and I wanted to just go running off and tell my parents, you know. I also knew that the second I did that, well. Bye-bye. Despite knowing all these things, I kind of told myself – if I get really drunk, I won't be responsible for my actions, will I? If people questioned me at the time, I could just cite that I was so drunk that I couldn't remember anything that happened. It was the perfect plan to me at the time. If the worst came to worst, I could even say you took unfair advantage of me when I was drunk, if people found out most of the details, if people started asking questions. Even then, I was preparing to throw you under the bus. It's not nice. I know it's not. But I don't pretend to be a nice person, either.”
I simply scowl at him. If he thinks this will win me over, it's not really working. I drain my beer so that it's near empty, just two or more swallows left. A light fuzz begins to whir in my brain, and I know I better be careful, since I've been downing it too fast.
“You know,” I say, “I don't exist purely to be someone's test subject. I don't exist solely for you to jerk off and then have the blamed placed on me. I have a life, I have feelings. That's not what you do to something you respect. It's what you do when you see me as a dog, some creature that can be kicked to the curb. Fuck that.”
Again, that crimson shame ripples across his face. He's barely touched his drink, other than when he needs to occupy his hands and his wandering brain, which likely is thinking of different ways to escape the situation.
“I know,” he whispers. “It was wrong, but I didn't care. That... desire to feel what I've wanted to feel overrode everything, along with the deep fear I had of being exiled. When I went for you, I just assumed you'd be up for it. And I was surprised and embarrassed when you weren't. Humiliated. I lay awake in bed that night, after the kiss, partly reflecting on it, and how... right it felt. And partially thinking that this was for the best. You rejected me, stopping me go past the point of no return. I was able to drench cold water on my feverish excitement, and tell myself that I'm obviously not gay. I started blaming you, trying to push all responsibility from myself, trying to pretend that I didn't put myself into that situation in the first place.
“And, finally, when we met up again, and it was in front of my friends, I was shitting bricks, thinking that you might tell them what we did together. And make my friends think I was gay, because they all knew you were. I started distancing you. Doing anything I could to make sure that you didn't feel in any way close to me, or want to approach me, touch me on the arm or something in front of my buddies.” Jackson gives a little shudder. “And then... then I hurt you. I was so mad at myself, and then mad at you for making me feel this way... that I lost it. And you didn't deserve it. Even my friends were shocked at my ferocity, you know, and they were the ones constantly bashing gays. God. I couldn't see you there. I felt sick to my stomach. And I just left.”
“And you didn't even think about coming in to say sorry, leaving a card, nothing. All I saw from my end was that you hurt me. You mocked me. You ground me into dirt. And for the first time, I truly hated someone.” I push my drink away. I no longer want to sip it, because it tastes like ashes in my mouth. I don't want to keep talking to him, really, but I'm also glad the truth is coming out. I'm glad that I won't have to spend the rest of my life guessing his motivations behind what he's done to me. In a way, I'm grateful for that, though my heart aches a little. How fucked up he is. If only he didn't feel such a need to please his parents, to hide himself. If only he had told me this earlier, had simply been honest to me. I would have understood. I would have stayed quiet. He didn't need to react as he did.
“I felt like I needed to keep up the image, after that. I'd gone so far, you know, that I just spent the rest of my time running. Becoming this hateful bastard, which my coach actually said to keep doing, because it gained me a lot of publicity. Even negative publicity still makes people pay attention, still makes them look at you and spend their energy attacking and defending. And I sort of thought I didn't deserve to be happy, really. Like I could never admit what I was, and I had to push away anyone I showed an interest in, or showed an interest in me. It just became like that. Sometimes it would be okay, really. But mostly, it was shit.”
He continues looking at me with that imploring glint to his eyes, his hands even held out to me, palms facing upwards, like he's begging me to accept his words, to listen to him. I have to spend a moment or so trying to collect my thoughts together. To get over my own irritation, my own sense of betrayal, to try and understand where he's coming from.
I guess it does make sense in a way. I guess I can almost understand him. The issue is, I don't want to understand him. I don't want him to be able to justify the fact that he was a dick towards me and so many other people, just because he is incapable of dealing with the truth. Though I suppose I can see where he's coming from, I don't think it excuses the behaviour. You should know better than to behave like that with someone.
“Maybe I get why you felt like you needed to act like how you did. But I can't forgive it, because you still had a choice. No matter how much you tell yourself you didn't. You didn't have to hurt me. You didn't have to be ashamed. You didn't have to spend the next four years alienating everyone. And you certainly didn't need to let yourself get involved in the bullying of that kid at your school. You made excuses to keep lying to yourself, and you paid the price for it. And I suspect that as long as you keep acting the way you do, you'll continue to pay the price. You won't be happy.”
He nods, though it clearly upsets him to hear this response. I suppose it's the equivalent of kicking him whilst he is down. “I know. I'm only just starting to realize that. Now that I've been away from my parents, and no longer need to rely on them to support me. I think it was fear more than anything else. Not understanding I did have choices.”
Fair enough. “I respect that you're now being open about it,” I tell him grudgingly. I glance over to the barkeep, who is polishing a cleaned glass to perfectio
n. He appears slightly apathetic and bored, sometimes twitching his needle point mustache, maybe because he has an itch in his nose that he can't yet reach. I turn back to Jackson, a little uncomfortable that he's let down the guard, and I can see what's behind that mask. “It's brave of you to admit so, but let me get this straight. Are you in fact now telling me you're gay?”
He pauses, taking deep, panicked breaths. His knuckles whiten, before he finally nods. He deflates as he does so. “Yes. I am. And I'm sorry for what I did to you before.”
I nod. It's good. The hardest part is to say it out loud, to admit it so it's not a formless suggestion in his head. Sometimes it's like a magical reveal, I think. Often, people will keep running and running until they're forced to face the one thing they don't. Unfortunately, the same seems to be with me. I have to face something I don't want, either. Which seems to be based on the fact that I think a deep part of me actually likes him. That... the reason why I was so hurt was because a part of me had wanted to maybe meet up with him again later, and start things in earnest. I enjoyed the talk we had. All of the before is like a perfect bubble in my mind, perhaps tinted with a shade of pink, like the first blush of love. Everything after that, from his cruel words to his beatdown on me, is black ink on my memories, leaving a horrible, sticky sensation to my thoughts. Leaving my heart twisted in knots, with the constant sense of betrayal burning my affection to cinders.
To Love A Hitman Page 16
