The Joy of Tears
There is a Cabaret, and there is a Master of Ceremonies, in a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany, and it is the end of the world, I am there. I am a camera, like Cliff, an impartial outsider. I sit to the side seeing all, but unseen. They are my world, but I don’t exist in theirs.
Fraulein Schneider asks Cliff and Sally, again and again, “What would you do?”
Suddenly I am no longer invisible, Schneider sees me, and looks deep into my eyes, pulling me into her world, begging me to validate her. Suddenly, impartiality is not an option; I am a camera no longer. I am human, and my emotions overtake me. Just as suddenly, she is no longer Fraulein Schneider, I am no longer in Berlin. She is Lisa, my friend, and we are in Seattle.
The floodgates of my eyes, held tight for so long, are let loose. They bring me back to this world. I become an audience member, and then it hits me. This happened. These people were so scared that they would deny love. The air conditioner is now making ice.
Now I rejoice. The floodgates have opened! The feel of salty tears on my face reintroduces my emotions to my brain. No longer is my brain the sole source of reality, my heart has awakened.
The salty floods continue, taking with them the years of resentments and repressed emotions. Gone is the dictatorship of the rational brain. A new age has begun, an age of cooperation and compromise between the rational arguments of the brain, and the passionate instincts of the heart.
Thank you Chris, you gave me the opportunity to realize this moment. Lisa, you are a goddess of theatre, bringing connection with the people both on and off the stage. You bring home to me the reality of that time. I love you all and treasure this moment.
A Mother’s Concern
They think I’m crazy. Just because I don’t want my son to have to read a book which uses the “N” word more than 200 times, the Los Angeles School Board thinks I’m off my rocker.
About a month ago, my son started school again, and brought home all the requisite syllabi I had to sign. Now usually I just skim them and sign, but as I was scanning the English syllabus, a title on the reading list caught my eye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Now, when I was in school, I read Huck Finn, this was barely post-Civil Rights Act, by the way, and while the teacher rambled on about “true, American literature” and the power of satire, all I could think about was how many times I had read the “N” word the night before.
Now, 35 years later, they’re trying to tell me that my son has to go through the same thing? Not if I have anything to say about it!
I don’t care if it’s not the point of the novel. I don’t care if it’s a symptom of the time period. I don’t care if it is actually a part of the author’s point. The word is still relevant, and harmful, and I don’t want my son being forced to read it.
The worst thing is that Martin doesn’t see any problem with reading it. His teacher has brainwashed him into actually believing all that rubbish about the educational and historical value of the book trumping its racism. So not only do I have to face these arguments at the school board meetings, I have nightly arguments with my own son because he can’t understand that words never lose their power to hurt!
Dates with Phillip
Ever since I can remember, my mom’s best friend Mim has been my Auntie Mim, and her son Phillip has been like an older brother to me. One of my best memories of mischief from my childhood involves him.
I am asleep in Phillip’s room. He wakes me up, cautioning me to be quiet. Usually, I’m a total goody two shoes, but out of loyalty and awe for him, a boy four years my senior, I get up and follow him to the kitchen.
Silently, he mounts the counter, and grabs a jar with dates in it. He gets down and we retire to the living room, not quite hiding behind the end of the couch. Even more satisfying than the sweet, sticky dates is the feeling of being accepted. He actually chose to bring me out with him for this midnight snack.
We fall asleep where we are when our snack is done.
We wake in the morning to his mom looking for the dates. Unable to lie, at age 4, I tell al, losing his trust. Knowing I did the right thing is little solace for the loss of my status as partner-in-crime. As I age, I learn to keep my mouth shut, re-earning his trust, and once more we become co-conspirators, united against the tyranny of parents.
Once, we get up early to watch cartoons, having been expressly forbid to do so. I don’t have TV that works, so this is a special treat for me. Not only am I breaking rules, I’m doing something unusual for me, watching actual TV programs.
Many a Christmas, we get up insanely early, long before we are allowed to wake up our parents, and peek through our stockings, breaking the ultimate parental law of “show everyone what you got!”Now, he’s 22 and I’m 18. We’ve outgrown the age of parental tyranny, and resistance to said tyranny. Now, we get along better than ever with each other and our parents. One of my proudest moments in the last few months was when he asked my advice on some music he was doing on the computer.
A Hand of Desire
It was not an outhouse upon the imagination. It was reality. Here, in a miniscule triangular room, a group of 20 queer teens had congregated to discuss the shit in our lives, and all of it was real.
The biggest reason we had to create this group to talk about our lives is that no one who hadn’t seen or experienced homophobia first hand would believe us if we told them of the oppression we are subjected to on a daily basis.
Who would want to believe that a mother would throw her son out of the house, simply because she couldn’t deal with her own prejudices? Who would even want to think about someone being beaten because a police officer believes they are homosexual. That’s our law enforcement; they’re supposed to be on the side of the people. But these things do happen, and so we come together once a month to commiserate, and validate each other experiences.
On this particular Saturday, I had volunteered to be the first one to dive off this cliff of uncertainty, and bare my soul to these people.
“Yesterday, I went to see Brokeback Mountain in the theater, I loved the movie, but something really scary happened there. I went alone, cause my parents won’t be bothered to support me in any way. (They know I’m gay, and say they don’t mind, but really they do have a problem with it.) So I’m on my own, and I go sit close to the front, cause my eyes aren’t too good, and I wanted to see well.
Right before the movie starts, a guy who is pretty obviously gay sits down next to me. At the time, I think nothing of it. Twenty minutes into the movie, I go to put my arm on the armrest, but realize he is taking up the whole thing. I have three options, one, I ask him to move his arm, two, I put my arm there, and hope he is willing to share at least, or three, I abandon the idea.
Not wanting to disturb people around me by talking, I choose the second option. As my arm descends, his shifts over, allowing me some room, but staying on the armrest. Five minutes later, I feel his hand touch the back of mine and start traveling up my arm. I’m creeped out, but have no wish to make a commotion, so I try to ignore it.
The farther up my arm his hand comes, the harder it is to ignore. When it reaches my shoulder, it seems to slow down, but slowly turns, and begins the journey down my chest, and over my stomach to my crotch. His hand reaches my crotch at the moment the first sex scene begins. I’m totally petrified now, my thought running wild as to what I would do if he goes any further. My cock’s reaction to the hot, steamy sex on the screen just complicates the matter.
To my surprise, his hand remains immobile for the rest of the movie. As the credits begin to roll, his hand retracts back into its shell, like a turtle that’s been shocked. I immediately bolt out of the theater. Actually, I didn’t really bolt, I tried to move at a normal pace, trying to keep up the appearance of being ok.”
The group expresses sympathy for me, telling me I’m safe, and thanking me for sharing, but I’m not done.
“It scared me, cause I’ve really tried to ignore the stereotype of gay men as pedophiles, but here it was being reinforced. But the thing that really scares me is that, as much as I hated him, I was sort of disappointed he didn’t try anything more. Is that normal?”
The realization of what I’ve just said hits me, and I begin to cry. The tears keep coming, and I want to be alone, need to be alone. I excuse myself to the hall, but my best friend follows me out.
“It’s perfectly normal,” he says. He pulls me into a bear hug, leaving it at that. We stay there for who knows how long, my tears showering his shoulder, causing him pull me closer. Finally, the tidal wave ebbs, and he lets go. Not ready to face the people I have just made the biggest confession of my young life to, I thank him, turn around and walk right out the door, heading for the park, to spend some time with nature.
Opening the Closet
Do you have any idea what it’s like to lust after someone in your own locker room? No, of course not, ‘cause chances are good, (9 in 10,) that you are straight, and chances are excellent that you don’t have a coed locker room. Well, lusting is exactly what I was doing the day my closet blew up like Hiroshima when they dropped the A-bomb. I was a total closet-case at the time, and good at it. Moderate athletic skills were a big part of that, so I didn’t get teased for being a sissy or anything like that. On this particular day, however, I let my guard down too much and my world changed forever.
So, we’ve just finished P.E. for the day, and are changing. Kevin, the object of my adoration since 7th grade, takes off his shirt and I spring to attention in one to many ways.
Usually, I’m very stealthy in sneaking looks at guys with their shirts off so as not to alarm them, but today I totally space, looking up quickly and obviously. When I first look up his shirt is sliding over his face, but the curtain goes up, revealing my awestruck eyes to him. He notices and sizes me up from my face to my gym shorts.
“What ya looking at, creep?”
“Uh, nothing…” My sense of reality comes speeding back and I look away, trying with all my might to barricade myself in the closet door.
“Yeah, right,” then under his breath, “faggot.”
My mind does an about face, and I make a split second decision to blow up the barricade.
“So what if I am?” The shockwave of the obliterated closet reverberates in my head.
“What did you say?”
“So what if I am?”
“Oh…” He seems dazed; this thought never even entered his consciousness. “I don’t want no faggot staring at me.”
“How about this. You don’t call me faggot, and I won’t stare at you.”
I storm out without changing, angry at the world’s ignorance, but mainly at my own, thinking I could keep my secret and have my eye candy too.
Resigned to, and a bit relieved by, my new status as an out gay boy, I start preparing to tell my best friend and my parents and then I realize what I’ve just set in motion.
“Oh shit, what’s mom gonna say?”
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