Our Dance

 
We danced. It was simple and uncomplicated. I put my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. Antony was playing. We were in love.

We still are.

Moving to San Francisco on New Year's Eve

 
Thanks to sitting in the wrong seat and the flirting of two straight me to my right, I got free drink on my flight from Denver. It was the eve of 1998, and I was moving to San Francisco. I was very tipsy in the air and drunk by the time we landed. Somehow, I managed to grab my bags, hop on a Super Shuttle, and find my way to my ex-boyfriend's apartment.

No one was home as they were all out partying. I entered the apartment thanks to a key left discretely behind and set down my bags. A few minutes later gun shots were fired outside the window. The alcohol mixed with the anxiety of being in a new place, and I knew I wasn't leaving the apartment that night. A quick telephone call from my ex confirmed I wasn't joining them. They were in the Haight. I was in the Outer Mission, and I had no clue how to get there. So I settled in and laid down on his bed.

I awoke early that morning when he came home. He was high and drunk. He popped two ecstasy before entering the apartment. I got up to chat and flirt. We talked briefly. He welcomed me to San Francisco. I went back to bed. He jerked off in the kitchen thinking he was quiet, but the noise of the porn was loud and distracting.

When I awoke the later that morning, I was violently sick -- the kind of sick you catch on planes. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. My ex was pissed. I was ruining his day and his high.

He moved me from his bed to a futon mattress in the hallway. All I got was that mattress. I had to use my backed bag as my pillow and my winter coat as my blanket. I was shaking from my fever unable to get warm.

"Uh...where can I grab something to eat?" I asked.

Dismissively, "There's a grocery store across the street," he replied.

I stumbled there dizzy, sickness swirling in my head. I picked up some oranges and saltines that eventually found their way to the toilet. I almost passed out in the middle of the store.

I returned to the apartment, and he had taken off. I laid back down on the futon and passed out. A few hours later, I awoke crying and terrified. I was so ill I was hallucinating all the horrible possibilities of gun shots and missing people.

His roommate followed me around the apartment sanitizing everything I touched -- the phone I used to call home, the toilet, the glass from which I drank water.

"Sorry," she said. "You look like shit. I'm sorry he isn't helping you. Is there anything I can do?"

"No," I replied. "I just need to sleep and get out of here."

I was there only a day or two more. A call I placed to my parents resulted in my grandparents driving up from their home in Sun City West, Arizona. They picked me up, and we drove to the place I was moving to in a couple of days, a group home for severely emotionally disturbed youth ages five to thirteen that I was going to intern at.

We were greet by a woman wrapped in a bath towel, another intern who wasn't expecting us. She was sweet and told us where to find a hotel and the hospital. We left.

The doctor said I had bronchitis and the stomach flu.

I slept for two days in the hotel room my grandparents got for us.

That was my first week in San Francisco, and, thanks to family, I survived.

The Apology

 
He pulled me in to his office.

"Jason," he started, "you can't volunteer here or be a part of this church any more because you're gay. It isn't the message we want to send the youth."

"But I've been raised in this church. I went to school here. I teach Sunday School."

"I'm sorry. You can't do that any more. That's all I have to say."

Years later, he emailed an apology.

I still don't visit that church.

Smear the Queer

 
Smear the Queer was a popular game in middle school. It was simply played with a mob and a ball. Someone threw the ball in the air. If it landed in front of you, you had to pick it up and throw it. When you had the ball in your hands, you were the queer and the mob's job was to smear you.

I hated the game.

One wintry recess, everyone was playing. I had and have horrible hand-eye coordination. The ball landed in front of me. I picked it up and threw it hard. It landed directly in front of me again. As I bent down to pick it up, a sharp, hard kick connected with my tailbone. I fell to the ground reeling in pain, crying.

I ended up in the nurse's office waiting for my parents, hunched over and unable to sit. They picked me up and took me to the doctor. The doctor's diagnosis was a fractured tailbone.

I never played Smear the Queer again. I didn't need to. That damn brown doughnut cushion I had to carry with me everywhere I went was a very visible reminder that I was the queer.

The Coming Out Note

 

She was my best friend my senior year of high school and my prom date. She was new having moved from her mom's in South Dakota to her dad and step mom's in Minnetonka. We did almost everything together: church youth group, hanging out after school, babysitting her sister. We had lots of fun.
 
The night my parents found out I was gay I was supposed to get together with her. We hadn't seen each other since all of the bull shit in the seminary, nd I was eager to regale her with tales, especially the one about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I needed to hear that everything was okay.

My mother called me upstairs. I was getting ready trying on a variety of sweaters and pants trying to find the most stylish combination. 

"What now," I thought but said, "Be right up!" I rushed upstairs.

It came out of the blue. "We know," they said, and left it at that waiting for me to admit it.

"Know what?" I replied fidgeting, thinking "I'm not getting out of the house tonight."

"I found the note," my mom said.

"What note?" My hands twisted behind my back.

"The note."

"Oh shit," I thought as tears formed in the corners of their eyes. "Something's about to happen."

"We know you're gay." I can't remember which one said it.

I was quiet. "I am not going to be able to go out," was the only thought in my head.

There were a few more exchanges. Something like: "We still love you." "We will need to talk to the priest." "We don't totally understand this."

It ended with "We know you have plans tonight. Go out and have fun."

I went over to her house. We didn't talk about the seminary.

Faggot on the Bus

 

My parents were going out of town or something, and we were all shipped off to different friends of the family for the night. I got to go to his house. He was a huge geek, and I was excited to spend the night. He had a Commodore 64. He and I had gone to school together and were friends since Kindergarten. We were now in the sixth grade.

My mini vacation started agter school. I had to take the bus home with him. It was a different bus than the one I normally took home. I knew how to handle that bus. This one I did not.  

I jumped on the bus and energetically took a seat next to him. "I can't wait til we get to your house. This is going to be fun!"

He looked at me and said, "Find another seat. I don't want you sitting next to me. And I don't want you spending the night."

I moved to an empty seat ready to cry but holding it in fearing I would be teased if a tear dripped down my cheek. The other kids overheard our exchange, and that tear wasn't needed for the teasing to commence.

Suddenly, the bus broke out into "Jason and xxx sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First come love. Then, comes marriage. Then comes..."

"There is no way I'd kiss Jason," he erupted. "He's a faggot!"

Everyone started yelling "Jason is a faggot. Jason is a faggot," in that sing songy tone of childish taunting.

I moved to the front of the bus trying to escape their jeers. They just got louder. The bus driver drove.

"Jason is a faggot," continued until I got off the bus with him some 30 minutes later. We walked silently up the driveway.

"Look. I don't mind you staying over. I just didn't want you sitting next to me on the bus. I don't need any more teasing than you do," he said as we entered the house.

I was on the verge of tears. Anger bottled up. All I wanted was the night to be over and to be home in the chaos I knew. I wanted to scream and punch and fight.

Instead, I said, 'It's okay. We can still have fun. You wanna play a game?" I followed him inside.

In moments of anger or teasing or harassment, I am sometimes still that little boy that ignores his feelings and justifies, "It's okay." Especially with friends, colleagues, and peers.