Not Naked But Worse

I’ve been standing at the comic book rack while my parents are shopping, as per our custom.  My brother comes up to me to tell me that they are making their way to the check out. 

Now the moment of truth: I can only buy one of these comics, but which one? I give the rack a few turns….this one, I think….better double check.  I turn the rack a few more times….nope, nothing.  That’s the one. Turn…turn….I should have come back around by now. I keep spinning the rack faster and faster as my frustration goes.  

“Where did it go? It was just here a second ago.”

As I turn the rack some more, I suddenly realise that none of the comics have reappeared.  Every turn produces totally new comics, as if the rack were….growing sides as I turn. 

Now my mom comes up to me.  “We’re ready to go now.” she says in that inflected way she uses when she’s been firm, a sort of accent grav on the last syllables of the sentence.

I turn the rack faster and faster, my panic rising as the pressure mounts.  This can’t be! The rack appears to be….infinite! I turn the rack back the other direction, hoping to back track.  My mom stands over my shoulder, just visible  out of the corner of my eye.

The store announces that is closing soon. The lights start to go off, first the very back row, then slowly, one beat at a time, the darkness encroaches. 

I spin the rack faster and faster, the books just keep appearing.  I start to flip through the baskets on the rack, thinking maybe the comic I want is hidden behind something else, but it’s like a needle in a haystack.  As the darkness closes in and my mother increases her glare, my despair and panic rise to a fever pitch. Like Naiper’s hand in the Batman’s glove, my precious comic has slipped from my grasp into oblivion. 

I wake with a start and a gasp of air.  Angela stirs beside me. 

“What’s wrong?” she mumbles.

“Nothing.” I reply, willing my heart to slow down. “Just one of those crazy anxiety dreams.”

“Like when you show up to work naked?” she asks. 

“Yeah” I reply into the darkness, “Only this one is much, much worse.”        

My People

 

 

I have seen them

When there’s nowhere left to turn

Roaming the night like vampires

Peddling their flesh on street corners

For food

Or a place to rest.

 

Cold steel eyes reach out to me

Through the darkness

Penetrate my soul

Watch me

As I turn my head

In passing.

 

I have seen them

At the point of death too

Bloody scarecrows on a wooden cross

Pistol-whipped

Crucified

And left for dead

All in the name of love

 

Their soft prophetic voices

Call forth the Charge

From cold lonely deserts in Wyoming

Come, take up the cross,

And follow me

Falling on deaf ears.

 

I have seen them

They are my people

Stiff-necked and righteous in their judgement seat

Pointing fingers of condemnation

Accuse me of this crime

I am forced to commit.

 

Yes, I have seen them

The guilt of my sin

Gnaws at my flesh like a cancer

Devours everything

But silence.

 

Robert

 

Every Picture Tells a Story-Part 2

I Walk the Lines

  

  

It’s a vague memory at best.  Cyd and I are sitting on the living room floor of our childhood home, coloring pages out of an old coloring book, while Mom is stretched out on the couch beside us.  I imagine that she was totally exhausted—what with doing the housework, counseling church members over the phone, and taking care of two rambunctious boys—or else she was deathly ill, because it wasn’t like Mom simply to lie around the house for no reason; there just wasn’t enough time in one day for such frivolity.  However, in the time that it took her to plop down on the couch, she defused the situation, by turning what could have been a mother’s worst nightmare into a game:  a coloring contest.

As Cyd and I submitted our final entries, I knew in my heart of hearts that my picture was the best, making me the winner of our contest.  But what I didn’t realize at the time is that moms tend to see things differently than little boys.

 

 “Hmmm…let me see,” Mom mumbled, as she carefully inspected both pictures.  “They’re both really good.  I’d have to say…that it’s a tie.  I guess you boys will just have to color another picture to break the tie.” 

“What? Cyd doesn’t even stay inside the lines,” I protested, “and he colors everything black.”

 “I like black.”  

Mom just smiled and gave Cyd a loving pat on the head.  “I know you do, Honey.”  If ever I wanted to slap some cute off a little kid’s face, it was at that very moment.  

“Now, now!” Mom warned, sensing that I was about to go postal.  “Cyd is just younger than you, and he likes to do things his own way.  And what he does is not any better or any worse than what you do; it’s just different—that’s all.” 

This particular memory probably would have been lost to time had Mom’s observations not been so prophetic.  As Cyd and I grew into young adulthood, I sat on the sidelines (or so it seemed at the time), struggling against my tendencies to “do things the way they’re supposed to be done” and “not to make any waves,” while Cyd embraced his penchant for coloring outside the lines.  I also watched as Cyd’s annoying black crayon—the one that almost caused me to suffer a nervous breakdown as a child—became black fingernail polish, a black trench coat, and eventually a Goth wife. 

And there was a time—a not so pretty time, in fact—when I was almost insane with jealousy.  Oh, I still loved Cyd and we were the best of friends, but it didn’t change the fact that I longed to be more like him:  spontaneous, creative, and groundbreaking.  But no matter how far I would go in my attempts to break free from my self-imposed fetters, I would always end up right back where I started—inside the lines. 

It wasn’t until I went to college, at the age of 32, that I discovered my own penchant for creativity.  Luckily, I encountered several English professors who recognized that I had a flair for storytelling, and they not only encouraged me to take my first creative writing class but to major in English as well.  And they patiently waited as once again I struggled with my demons.  Of course, it took me a while to discover my own unique voice as a writer (and I am certainly still discovering that voice today) but once I did, it was as though the fetters that had held me captive for so many years just fell away.  Only then was I was able to embrace my own true nature, instead of struggling against it, and for the first time in my life I was able to appreciate my tendency to stay inside the lines.

 

However, looking back over the defining moments of my life, I can’t help but wonder how much sooner I might have reached this conclusion had Mom simply rephrased what she said to me all those years ago:

 “Now, now!” She might have said.  “You’re just the older brother, and you like to do things your own way.  And what you do is not any better or any worse than what Cyd does; it’s just different—that’s all.” 

It’s undoubtedly a minor distinction to ponder, but I can’t help myself.    It’s in my nature to be petty.

 I walk the lines.

Robert

More than Meets the Eye

 

“I was glad when he died.”

Scott regarded me with confusion and a little dismay.

“Everyone….everyone just adored him. They thought he was some hero but he wasn’t.  He was a mockery of ordinary people. He only reminded us that we weren’t as fast as him, or as strong, or as brave.  Especially those of us who had to struggle everyday. Those of us who were always last in gym, never head of the class, those with only quiet victories to celebrate, victories nobody ever acknowldeged. Why should we heap all this adoration on somone like him.”

My voice was growing louder, my body tensing at the memories.  I caught myself on the edge of a massive tirade and just barely pulled myself back from a pit of boiling anger. 

“I was glad when he died. I cheered.”

Scott nodded slowly, his brow deeply knotted as he tried to take all this in.

“You’re talking about….Optimus Prime.” 

“Yes.” I replied emphatically.

There was another pause.

“And this was-”

“1986″ I finished for him.  “August 8, 1986.”

Scott raised his beer halfway to his mouth and, not sure what to do, brought it back down again.

“That’s twenty years ago…today.” he said in stunned revelation.

“Yes.” I was no longer looking at him but staring into the distance, lost in reverie. I lifted my own beer to my lips and held in close for dramatic effect.

“Every year I have a drink to commemerate.”

Scott drank when I did, but seemed even more confused than ever.”He…He came back, you know. He’s not really dead.”

I regarded him with my best sly look.

“That’s why we drink twice.”

Something Special for the Kids

The church was dark except for the lights above the pulpit.  The church was empty except for the teens, who were all sitting in the front row.  This was a special event just for us after the regular revival service.  It was a Thursday. I don’t know what the adults were doing, milling about in the parking lot talking I guess. That’s what they usually did after church.  The church was lacking any fellowship space (It was also lacking indoor plumping).  

Ron came in from the back where he and my dad had been talking quietly between them.  Ron was the visiting evangelist and this Special Teen Service (or was it an event?) was his idea. 

“Where is everybody?” he said. He moved to the window and looked outside.

My dad entered next, uttering some similar phrase “Where is everybody” or “Where did everybody go.” 

“I don’t know” said Ron in his best “I may be a preacher but I’m sure as shit no actor” voice.  “I haven’t seen my wife all day and I know she comes to this church so I thought maybe she would be here.”

“Yeah,” my dad came back in an even less emotive voice than Ron’s “My wife’s always trying to get me to come here but I never do.  She was suppossed to stop at her mother’s house today but I haven’t seen her. I stopped by her Mother’s house and there’s nobody there. I thought maybe they were here. I’m worried.”

“I don’t know what’s going on, man.” Ron replied, working his voice into ham fisted melodrama (which was something he could do very well).  “Look over here.”

He took my dad over to the window “Look at the graveyard next door” (there was, in fact, no graveyard next door). “All the graves have opened up! What could have caused that?”

“I don’t know” my dad replied, obviously reaching the end of the hastily improvised script. 

“What are going to do?” Ron pleaded.

“Heaven help us.” my dad stammered out.

 After a pregnant pause Ron stopped the performance and addressed the teens.  I know it doesn’t sound like much, and it wasn’t, and maybe I don’t remember all the dialouge, but I found the little play very scary.  Maybe the characters didn’t know that the Rapture had just taken place (or maybe they did, I don’t remember) but I knew all to well.  As I grew older, the threat of being separated from my family would grow stronger, not to mention the sociopolitical spectre of the Tribulation, but this was enough for my ten year old heart.  A dark church, too scared and lonely men, open graves, the sheer scale of it all, just put a human face on the dire future predicitons I had been fed all of my conscious life.

Ron, of course, gave us the spiel about Salvation. He talked about not being too young to find God, and he added that we didn’t have to go to school tomorrow and be any different, we didn’t have to carry a bible to school, which was helpful because actually that was a big sticking point for me.  Then he made the job even easier.

“I think we should have everybody come to the altar and pray.” he looked over at my dad “Maybe that will be a little easier for them.”

I was, actually, relieved to hear this.  I was under Conviction already, as I had been in the past, and I knew too well what to do about it.  Conviction, in this sense, is probably a less known term than Rapture and Tribulation.  In this sense, Conviction was the knowledge that you were a sinner and that you were going to hell and needed forgiveness.  It was God “moving on your heart”, pleading with you, and was characterised by a pounding heart, trembling hands and knees, cold sweaty palms, a dry mouth, and for me, an overwhelming sense of weight upon my shoulders. This wasn’t the first nor the last time I would feel conviction, but like all the times before and after, I could never seem to pick my feet up and go to the altar.  It was as if I was rooted to the spot, despite the feeling that some force was actually pulling at me, trying to get me to move. I was glad that the altar was coming to me this time. I HATED this feeling and wanted it to stop (and there are millions of people every day who suffer from these same symptoms and they too seek relief, only they take antidepressants or antianxiety medication). 

While at the altar I did as I was told I should do.  I confessed to being a sinner, a wretched soul stained with the blackness of sin, and asked that I be made a better person.  I wept and allowed myself to open up to the feelings of guilt and shame and despair within my young heart and invited the blood of Jesus to come into to me so that I wouldn’t suffer anymore. 

I guess it worked. I stood up from the altar with a smile on my face.  I seemed to feel better about what I’d done.  And Ron was right.  My life didn’t have to change dramatically as a result. In fact, it didn’t change much at all.  I still had that same feeling inside, that odd feeling of dread that I couldn’t quite name. I still had the same thoughts I’d been having the day before. I still had these yearnings that I didn’t know what to do with. 

And my dad didn’t seem to treat me any differently. 

I guess that’s why I went through this all again and again over the next ten years.

  

Out Here On This Limb

         

I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for someone like my dad to realize that his son is a queer, only to later realize that both of his sons are queer.  But such has been my father’s lot in life.  Not that life with him has been a bed of roses, mind you.  Hell, I can’t even mow my own yard without hearing his incessant criticisms playing over and over again in my head: 

“You’re mowing in straight lines, Son, when you should be mowing in circles.  Circles are always more efficient.  Didn’t I teach you anything?” 

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking:  “Those two boys on that blog just go on and on about their father like he was evil incarnate.”  Well?  Just kidding—Dad is not evil incarnate; however, according to most shrinks, he is a psychosis waiting to happen.  After all, he’s a Leo, which means that it has always been either his way or the highway.  And surprisingly, his favorite saying is not a passage of scripture, but a Bill Cosby quote:  “Son, I brought you into this world and I can take you out. Don’t think I won’t, either!  And I can make another one just like you.”  He’s only kidding when he says that, though.  At least I hope he’s kidding. 

At the risk of sounding all “Shirley Maclaine,” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe we all play some role in choosing the people that accompany us through life, and that those people are meant to help us overcome some obstacle.  For instance, being the hardcore traditionalist and control freak that he is, Dad probably needed to have two gay sons in order to learn how to open his mind a bit and to roll with the punches.  Likewise, Cyd and I needed to have someone like Dad in our lives.  Otherwise, what would we have to write about? 

Seriously, as Cyd likes to point out (the freaking optimist), we were actually lucky to have someone like our dad as a role model.  I mean the man was practically excommunicated by his entire family and most of his friends when he decided to pursue the ministry.  I’m sure there were plenty of times when it would have been much simpler just to chuck his convictions and to get on with his life, but Dad persevered.  And as much as I hate to admit it, I have to admire the man for that. 

Just don’t tell Dad that I said so. 

                              

Just Think of Me as Linda Blair, Only Prettier

The conversation went something like this: 

Freak:  “When did you first realize that you were gay?” 

Me:  “mmm…. Well, I guess I’ve sort of always known.  I mean, there was certainly a time when I didn’t understand what the word ‘gay’ meant, but even then I sensed that I was somehow different.” 

Freak:  “It’s sad that you think that, but it’s probably just your demons talking.” 

Me:  “Excuse me?” 

Freak:  “Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, doesn’t tolerate homosexuality, and He certainly doesn’t create little children to be perverts, so you must be possessed by demons.  Probably because you masturbate too much.” 

Me:  “LOL…Define what you mean by ‘too much’.” 

Freak:  “Your souls eternal damnation is no laughing matter, I assure you.  I’m going to pray for you now.  Precious Jesus, please….” 

Ignore Button  (click)

 In case you were wondering, this is the part where those spooky little zombie kids drag me into a cornfield and crucify my gay ass on a beanpole.  Not that a little brazen intimidation from some Jesus freak makes me feel that I need to justify my orientation, especially not to some prophet wannabe who has nothing better to do with his time than to cruise gay chat rooms on Yahoo.  However, I think my little gay head will just spin in circles and spew green bile if I don’t say this: 

Mr. Children-of-the-Corn Dude, I now offer into evidence Exhibits A-J, which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that…. I’m right and you’re wrong. 

Case dismissed (bangs gavel, places right hand on hip, and gives three snaps and a circle). 

Next!

Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers and Me

 

 

Is it just me or is there a certain buzz of excitement in the air these days?  Yep, you guessed it:  I’m referring to the fact that W’s reign of terror is almost over, and that the Clintons might once again grace The White House.  For those of you who don’t know this already, I have what some people might call “a huge freak’n crush” on a certain Slick Willie from Arkansas.  Sure, go ahead and laugh.  I’m used to it.  But you know as well as I do that there is nothing sexier than a cigar-smoking southern boy in a power suit.

 

Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to attach the following note to this post, in hopes that President Clinton—that is to say, the former President Clinton—might actually read it.  So, if by some twist of fate you find yourself reading this post and you or one of your friends rub shoulders with the likes of the Clintons, I would greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter.

  

Dear Mr. President-First Lady, Sir:

 

In lieu of your wife’s recent bid for the presidential nomination, it has come to my attention that a new White House Intern position may become available.  And although I realize that I am not your “type,” I remain hopeful that your appointment as America’s first male First Lady might instigate other positive changes as well.

 

Regrettably, my typing skills are not stellar and I don’t currently own a black dress; however, I feel there are still lots of things that I can do:  swing by the McDonald’s drive thru on my way to work; hold your cigar (cough, cough); and help you “file important documents” in The Oval Office whenever President Clinton is out of town.

 

If by some act of God you do receive this note—stranger things have happened—I would appreciate a prompt reply, as I feel obligated to give my current employers at least a two weeks’ notice.  And for Christ’s sake, keep it in your pants until the election is over.  The last thing poor Hillary needs is another scandal.

 

Respectfully,

 

Your biggest gay fan, Robert

 

P.S. Linda Tripp is a big fat whore!

Truth or Consequences

“Hey man, River City Wrestling, is that freestyle?”

It took me a second to realize he was talking to me. I suddenly remembered I was wearing the t-shirt, one of my favorites.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

I had bought the shirt over a year ago at a thrift store. I don’t know what River City Wrestling is, or was, I just feel in love with the image; two lean, muscled young men, clad in wrestling singlets, wrapped around each other, backs arched in suplex.

“I bought it because I think it’s homoerotic.”

But I didn’t say that. I thought about it. It was the truth, and why not tell him the truth? Why not blow his mind a little? I’ve always been into shock value. Before I discovered art sabotage, poetic terrorism, or punk rock, I was the kid in my high school with the outlandish modes of dress, which included hot pink shoes. I was the kid singing at the top of his lungs in the line at the amusement park. I was making my own clothes with magic markers and fabric paint. When I did discover punk rock, I was dying my hair green, piercing all the places on my face I dared pierce. I jumped on a table during meetings to make a point. I wrote poetry with liberal use of the word fuck, cunt, and cock. When I came out, I wore shirts with two men butt fucking, I wore make up to class, I wore a dress to the march on Washington in 1993. I changed my name to Jayne that same year.

“I bought it because it’s ironic.”

I could have said that, though I’m not sure this guy knew what “ironic” meant (in all fairness, I’m not sure that anybody does, myself included). But I didn’t even say that. What was I afraid of? That the guy would start a fight with me right there on the tram to our workstation? That he and his buddies would wait for me in the parking lot after work? Hey, it could happen, but what are the odds? He might not even know what homoerotic meant, he might not know how to react. It might confuse him that I, a tall broad bear type, was talking about homo anything. He might not even think I was queer. Would that make me happy? Was that what I wanted?

“I just think it’s cool.”

I think that’s what I finally said. I don’t recall if I even gave him any explanation. I once got into an argument with my dad on Christmas Eve about homosexuality and the Bible. I used to go malls with the Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Alliance at U of L and hold hands with a man. My fucking name is fucking Jayne for fucking fucks sake.

The rest of the ride seemed very, very quiet.