“That's great,” I said. “I hope that I can find someone like that someday.”
“You've got to find the right girl who'll try it out with you,” she said. “Most guys try to convince girls that they're too slow or weak to pull their weight, but if you give them a chance and try to be patient, they'll pick it up.”
“Do guys still give you crap when they find out you hike?”
“Yep. The other leaders in our troop didn't want me to come. Said the boys wouldn't have a good time if they had to stop and wait for me all the time. But during the practice hikes it was a different story.”
I always liked having women advisors in my crews; all of their stories about the Scouts involved some patronizing man who told them they couldn't make it. Most of the women took extra time for endurance training and arrived in better shape than the men, and never complained about the tasks, unlike some of their macho, whiny offspring. Our conversation took an inevitable turn to the discussion of James Dale and the Supreme Court case. The father said, “I think they picked the wrong person to fire; it seemed like he was a great Scout leader. I wish he was in our troop.”
During that evening's debriefing, the father gave an impassioned speech about how much he enjoyed hunting, but the morons at his hunting grounds always left their trash and garbage lying about, and years of such abuse had ruined the forest. I followed with another speech about no-trace camping ethics, trying to impart some respect for the wilderness, help them to understand that it all has a reason to exist and should not be needlessly squandered. The next day the boys used the spectral whiteness of the Aspen pines as a canvas for their creative mutilations with rocks and sticks, as though I wasn't there.
We did manage to form an unexpected bond. The boys hated going to the programming provided by camp counselors at various sub-camps, especially the song-and-dance campfire programs: “I hate this gayfagcampfire. What a plusgaysong.” Normally such descriptive statements are mild linguistic irritations, but I was no longer in the mood to tolerate them and had spent many hours contemplating how to criticize them without giving anything away. After one “queer” campfire program, I remarked, “You're right, if that campfire had a sexual preference, it would definitely be attracted to other campfires of the same gender.” The boys thought this was hilarious, and for the rest of my time with them they tried to goad me into more similar comments with the adolescent belief that a joke only gets funnier with repetition: “Look at that gaydeer! What do you say about gaydeer?”
I hate Mount Princeton. Whenever I look down, the ridge trail seems to be as far away as it did on the peak, with an interminable decline of rock whose color varies from gray to dark brown. It's nearly noon, or past—I can't tell because I don't have a watch, but it's close to the time when experienced backpackers know they should be beneath the tree line in case a storm comes. If there were trees, perhaps the sun wouldn't feel like it was stealing the last drops of water from my body, making it easier for the rocks to jar me out of my senses. I want to move faster, recklessly, but it is not working at all. “Pastor Dave, didn't God make me gay?”
“That's devil talk!” Neal says. “You are gay because society told you it was cool and you wanted to be different. When Pastor Dave doubts his sexuality, he always finds a parishioner whom God has endowed with the greatest gifts, and invites her to his room for a prayer session, which is awesome. You should do the same!”
My dread of being outed was largely irrational; there were two men in upper leadership who had been “roommates” for nearly twenty years, and one of the staff sashayed through base camp in his highriding uniform shorts and leather choker. I never heard of a widescale expulsion of gay leaders, and the head of Scouting himself noted in a letter that the Scouts would make no effort to discover sexual orientation. However, some of my co-workers began wearing snippets of rainbow ribbon as a silent protest.
Jack was wearing his ribbon when he met one of his crews of Mormons upon their return to base camp, which prompted the advisor to write a tirade in Jack's evaluation to the effect that gay issues were better left to parental instruction and guidance, and we should not attempt to promote our own political views on the job. Someone in upper leadership took this evaluation and posted it anonymously, stating that the ribbons were not part of our uniforms and should be removed, although others had similar adornments praising morally superior institutions, such as Texas. Several people quit, gay and straight; one guy had a gay friend who had taken care of him while he was recovering from cancer surgery, and felt that his continued employment was a betrayal.
Another left with some controversy. I had suspected that he was gay for a few weeks and cultivated a crush on him. After the ribbon policy was made public, I overheard a few instructors remarking that he had written a huge letter to the leadership and resigned. I thought that he had come out in his letter. That evening, he was sitting with Jack and a few of his other friends, so I walked over to sit with them, unsure what to say. He was hot, dork-glasses and backpacker legs, and I had never approached a guy before to vocalize my desires, being fresh from my high school closet. He stood up to leave, and I knew I had to do something, or else I'd spend the rest of the summer feeling that I had let every chance to be courageous pass me by. I walked after him and stopped him.
“Hey.” The feeling of dread hardened in my stomach, I was now forced to go through with it. “I know we've never really met or talked but I have a lot of respect for you because I'm in the same boat but I don't know if I want to leave and it's too bad I didn't meet you earlier becauseIthinkyou'rereallyhot. So, uhh.” I wasn't sure if I could stop speaking. There were no clouds, which meant a freezing night but a clear view of the array of constellations. I could see Ursa Major, otherwise known as the Big Dipper or the Big Bear. That did not help.
It was hard to see his face; the only light was coming from one of the offices several feet away, which glinted off his glasses as he squinted at me. I started rubbing my face in embarrassment, feeling stupid; I couldn't handle his eyes. There's the Scorpio constellation, nemesis of Sagittarius the Archer, who is hiding on the other side of the hemisphere.
He put his hands in his pockets and leaned back, looking confused. Finally he said, “Okay, thanks.” I smiled and said no problem and quickly backed away, to tell Jack what happened.
“That was pretty ballsy of you,” Jack said.
“Why?”
“What if he wasn't gay?”
“I thought he came out in that letter.”
“No, he didn't. His letter criticized the Scouts and said he couldn't work for them because of the policy, but he never told anyone he's gay.” Oh, shit.
I saw him again a few minutes later. “Sorry about before,” he said. “You kind of surprised me.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” I kept shifting around on my legs.
“It's okay. Thanks. It's too bad we didn't talk earlier, because you're pretty cute, too.”
“Oh.” I smiled. We looked at each other, crossing our arms, and I wondered if this was the moment when we would have our forbidden kiss, the moment of courageous subversion. “Well, have a good summer,” he said, and turned to leave. Then he stopped. “Don't give it up. Keep fighting.” But I did not care enough to fight. I wanted to have a good time and believe I was winning because my “oppressors” were paying me to hike. He walked away, and I wanted to follow, but I didn't. There was Cassiopeia, the stars in the shape of M or W—moron or wimp.
A man and his wife are approaching, so we give them space to pass, but he stops, huffing and puffing. “How old are you guys?” Early twenties. “Well, I'm sixty, and I've never done this before.” He seems to want us to affirm his inexperience, compliment him on his halfhearted bravado, but I am too exhausted to be impressed. His wife is also having a tough time breathing, but she keeps hiking while he leans into the rock, complaining. I imagine him dying from the exertion; this is the kind of thing that would concern me if I had been at camp and he had been one of th
e adults in my crew.
Now it only makes me think about people who speak of conquering the mountain, as though it cared if you live or die. The conflict is usually internal. I think about the times I had believed myself near death on hikes, whether it was valid or paranoid, and it seems that any death not related to hiking would seem rather mundane and unfair. The only noble death for me might be to break against the rocks and be devoured by scavengers until there is no trace of me left. The fantasies flit through my head, and I understand the meaning of dread, fear, and desire as one.
By the end of my summer at the camp, I began plotting various ways to come out. I had a romanticized notion that if I told everyone I was gay, someone might change something, somewhere, even though I knew such a self-inspired catharsis was impossible. It had become inconsequential; a week before, I had hiked in from the trail and saw Jack, who said, “Dude, last night Neal got so drunk, and he grabbed a guitar and started singing songs about the people we were hanging out with. Then he made up a song about you, and how you were a lonely fagscout in the wilderness. I hope you weren't planning on keeping this job.”
I threw my backpack in the tent. “Well, coming out is easier if other people do it for you, I guess.” I saw Neal a minute later and asked him to sing the song for me, but he had forgotten the words. “That was really cool of you,” I said, “after this whole summer, to go ahead and tell everyone for me.” I was burning from the hike; I wasn't sure if I was angry or not.
“It wasn't anyone important,” he said. “It was all our friends, who don't care.”
“Whatever,” I said, grabbing my shower supplies. “I was going to quit anyway.”
Still, I wanted to do something drastic and spectacular for my own amusement and closure. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints comprises a large portion of the adult leadership in the Scouts, and they have clearly stated that they will withdraw if the policy was reversed, so I took the Mormons to be an easy scapegoat. On the last day of my contract, someone from a neighboring tent came to mine with the Book of Mormon that one of his crews had provided, and asked if I wanted to help him burn it, so he, Neal, and I doused it with a bottle of white gas and set it aflame. I turned the pages with a stick to ensure that the whole book was well combusted. Some of the other staff passed by and stopped, including one of the few African-American employees of the camp, an attendee of Neal's sing-along.
“What are you guys doing?” he asked.
“Burning the Book of Mormon,” Neal said. “Does that bother you?”
“Hell no. In that book it says the people knew they were at paradise because everyone was white. They didn't even believe black people had souls until the NAACP sued them.”
“That's a good idea,” I said. “Maybe the Lambda Legal Defense could sue them.”
“Hey, at least you guys have souls.” He had a point. Most of the observers shrugged and kept walking. The fire was smaller than I had wanted, leaving wisps of ash all over the ground and a small burned spot. The rain came an hour later, and washed it all away. The world remained as I had found it.
I know several men have mailed their Eagle Scout badges back to the Scouts in a gesture of protest, but I held on to mine for one of the reasons that I used to justify continuing my employment— as a reminder that I am a product of the Scouts regardless of how they feel. Unfortunately, such gestures are meaningless when they remain unspoken, unacknowledged by anyone except myself. Perhaps if I had stayed with Scouting, moving up the ranks with discretion until I was in a position to effect real change—but what a sacrifice that would be. To be good, evasive, for the rest of my life, to alter some antiquated policy of a group that is quickly losing relevance? To fight, to be courageous, you need passion for your cause. I loved my time with the Boy Scouts, but I was no longer a boy.
I used to joke that I was not scared of heights, merely falling from them. The thought occurs to me when I finally half-slide my way to the ridge trail, almost two hours after leaving the peak. Jack and Neal sit waiting for me, only able to manage an acknowledging “Dude.” We're all out of water, due to poor planning, and have an hour and a half left to hike before we can make it back to the car. We hike quietly but faster, with more certainty, passing poor travelers who are only preparing to climb the summit.
After we put enough distance between ourselves and the descent, we pause to look back.
“Is that the trail we took?” Jack asks. The wash, discernible by its lighter white appearance and thin rock covering, stretches well into the valley.
“That would have sucked to fall down,” Neal says.
“What a plusgaymountain,” I say. I'm bitter. I never want to hike or feel that scared again. Then I notice the pine trees stretching beneath us, all the way down the slope, to the highway, which leads to the next peak, and I can see more peaks in the distance that I haven't summited. I'm tired but feeling good from the endorphins, the pleasure of success. The hatred has fled. I am a hapless lover of mountains, and I will continue on, until I find that eternal source of courage that makes every challenge a bore.
body isn't this
by Zara Iris
he checks to see if anyone's looking
before he hikes his pants up
and adjusts his breasts underneath the button-down shirt
and skirts around the topic of his first
cub-scout experience
in casual conversation
with strangers who
want to know.
he's immature and loud
louder
louder than he's ever been before, because
he feels he has a secret that he doesn't want to hide
but can't reveal for fear of
rejection and
male pride and
he's walking so quietly on the eggshells he refuses to move
because gender
is not something to change
or rename.
and it's true.
he knows this, but still he sways
and laughs effeminate, giggling, wondering
why he can't stop crying.
he was born a dick named jane,
and since birth he's been clawing his way out
toward the sun and
a son he can't believe himself to be.
he pulls seasons past with fingernails
scraping skin on the way to changing.
he's laying down his weapons
in order to become one and the same
and son, and boy, and you, sir, fall on deaf ears
because he's only hearing silence while
the unknowing weight of compacted words
bears down on his slim shoulders
and he's older than he remembers
when he looks in mirrors
and pictures a life less sordid
than what the photographs suggest.
the best years of his life are covered in cobwebs,
archived as evidence
of what he refuses to admit;
his past is buried as deep as his name,
(ashamed of the self-murder brought on by
[the dichotomy of gender)
which rendered him lifeless and cold.]
he's told he'll be fine if he just lets it go
but they don't know it like
he knows it and
he knows it's fluid and final,
still the reminder comes every time someone looks away
and he adjusts his breasts underneath the binding.
he's lying, but
he doesn't know which way is up and
can't figure out which truth to tell
and how he'll ever
pull himself
out
of the hole he's been digging
since his parents taught him how to continue living
as the girl they thought they created,
the girl he rejected
bound
and hated
a
nd cut and bruised and beat
and burned to learn her to leave him alone.
that will teach you, girl.
that will teach you to meddle in business that
isn't yours
and never will be.
that will teach
you,
girl who walked tall and broad down city streets
broken by the sight of her
tall flat frame that felt so right,
learning quickly that she wasn't hiding.
she is standing out,
out of place,
nonexistent
nevermind, she's gone …
he's a being all on his own
but she's towering over him
and his hands can't cover his breasts,
even when people aren't looking.
but he adjusts them anyway,
hoping that no one will see the girl beneath him,
hoping that no one will see her pretending
but not wanting to end the charade.
he's lost and afraid of
falling in between the binary,
but scared, knowing which side he's on.
and years of abuse from a father
he never wants to emulate
sends him straight back to the girl who
layed in bed
cold, alone and
raped, lonely
no example for the girl he
couldn't be if he tried,
shouldn't be if he wanted to.
he's not,
and he's not okay.
he overcompensates and laughs,
effeminate hands holding everything he holds dear,
learning how to embrace
what no one else knows he is:
he is
he
she
takes a hint when he takes a hit
from someone doubting his status
as a radical girly boy.
and her ears catching ma'am, and sweetheart and
she's gonna be a dancer when she grows up,
eating away at her.
she doesn't exist enough to care;
she is the he she never wanted to fuck,
unlucky girl to fall so far from the lines.
The Full Spectrum Page 20
