The Rejoicing Hen – 5

[OCTOBER 5, 1990 – Friday, 6:00 pm] 

Peter

            I hadn’t felt like eating when dinner time came around, so I decided to stay home.  I gave Sherri a call and told her I was skipping the dining hall tonight, then wandered around the apartment trying to decide what to do.  I found my way into the kitchen anyway.  Thought maybe I’d make some soup, had got so far as taking out a pot and opening a can.  But instead of eating, I found myself drawn to the phone. Took the paper from my pocket, picked up the receiver, set it back down.  Over and over, until I couldn’t anymore, shoved the paper back in my pocket, and started pacing from room to room. 

I had a private apartment; it was one of the perks enjoyed by seniors at Waldron College.  So I used all the space I had as I paced, my long legs quickly covering the carpeted floor, from bedroom to sitting room and kitchen and dining area and past the bathroom and back to the bedroom.  Around and around, unable to sit or rest as my mind raced in circles.

            I thought of the small piece of paper, folded in my pocket.  I’d read and reread what Derek had written there: name, address, phone number.  And that’s where I’d gotten stuck, where time had started to loop. 

            I’d picked up the phone eleven times.  Eleven times I held the receiver to my ear.  Eleven times I started to dial the number from the paper.  Eleven times I stopped and hung up the phone again.

            Why can’t I just call him? I want to.  I really, really want to, but I can’t.  What’s stopping me? 

            I fell on the old gray couch, out of breath from pacing.  Sprawled there and glanced at the phone on the coffee table.  It stared at me accusingly. What’s wrong with you? It’s just a phone call, I could hear it say.

            I had to get a grip on myself; had to calm down and think this through.  The phone was right–it was just one call, just a simple conversation with someone who could turn out to be a new friend. 

            But the golden leaf was there on the table next to the phone.  I’d taken it so carefully from Derek’s hand, taken it as if it were a precious treasure. 

            And that’s where I got stuck: the offering of the leaf.  Not just one guy returning a lost thing to another guy.  No.  I’d felt something totally different, totally new.  And that was the thing that stopped me making the call–had sent me to all this frantic pacing.  That was the thing that was stopping me now–the whisper of a promise, the tingle of desire. 

            It had hit me so suddenly that I couldn’t get past it—just sat there on my lumpy old couch turning it over and over in my mind.  Desire.  That was the only thing I could call it.  I’d felt it before, but I’d learned to shut it down and push it aside.

            Desire for another man was wrong.  That’s what I’d been taught, told, had drummed into me since I could remember.  So I’d tried to focus those feelings on women. But I’d never been able to make dating work.  I went on lots of dates set up by friends and I’d gone out with the daughters of my mother’s friends, but I’d never felt anything toward those girls, those women. I’d been inept, too, a klutz who spilled my drink on her lap, a callous cad who said something casually insulting, and the woman left in a huff.  Other times I tried to be cool and reserved but came across as too distant to make a connection and never got a second date. 

            I’d never wanted a second date.        

            I’d never found a woman I desired romantically at all, on a date or anywhere.  No matter how much I tried, the only desire I felt was for other men.

And now that desire had me feeling jittery and anxious and excited and terrified.  The possibility that this beautiful, handsome young man named Derek could be interested in me romantically made my heart race. 

I was attracted to Derek; and this time I didn’t want to shut it down.

            The thought stole my breath and slanted the floor beneath my feet.  My hands were shaking and there wasn’t enough air in the room. 

I’d grown up in an upper middle-class family in Wayne, Nebraska, the only child of Ken and Susan Miller, and I’d been raised on a steady diet of strict Bible fundamentalism and small-town values: Church on Sunday, school on Monday, chores and riding my bicycle and Little League and Fourth of July Fireworks after a town-wide barbeque. 

Looking back, I could see the clichés falling in line one after another.  My days had been filled with activities and expectations: of course, I would play baseball, of course I was captain of the high school math team, of course I won medals for debate club competitions, of course I attended all the right church functions.  There was just this understanding that I would do these things; my parents lived their lives by following the rules and filling their safe, narrowly defined roles.  Of course, their only son Peter would do the same. 

            I would go to College, get a degree in finance, business, or economics, meet an appropriately attractive woman, graduate, marry, go to work, and raise a family of appropriately rule-following children.  I’d followed the rules without ever questioning them.  It had just not occurred to me that I had a choice.  The way I lived my life was just the way things were.

            The sudden appearance of handsome, dark-skinned Derek had thrown all that into chaos.  Derek’s offer of a golden leaf had caused an earthquake to shudder through the life my parents had carefully planned for me.  The ground where I stood had turned to quicksand.

I needed to reconsider every decision and every choice I’d ever made. 

But did I make any decisions or choices for myself at all?  

All I could remember was doing what my parents told me to do.  I’d followed their plan in everything—school, church, life.  I’d just done what they told me to, never questioned.

            But why not? Why hadn’t I questioned the rules, or the path of expectations laid out for me?  Had I ever once stopped to think about what I wanted for myself?

I couldn’t remember a single conversation with my parents that included one of them asking what I wanted.

            I thought back to my teens, how I’d spent so much time in activities, keeping busy and pushing so hard—as my parents insisted–that I’d fallen asleep at night exhausted.  Did they sense something in me, something they didn’t want to accept? Perhaps they’d kept me frantically busy so I wouldn’t have time or energy to realize something that they refused to admit.  Their only son couldn’t be gay.  It was a terrible, terrible sin, an afront to God and everything they believed in. 

            An image arose clearly in my mind–the one time I’d found a porn magazine left on a bench in the school locker room.  I’d been about sixteen. No one else had been around, so I’d looked inside.  The magazine featured couples, men, and women, in various sexual poses.  Another, more vague memory surfaced: I remembered admiring the handsome men, and not so much noticing the women.  Admiring the men…

            I stopped pacing so suddenly I banged my shins against the coffee table.  I sat down again on the couch, rubbed the painful spots on both legs.  I felt a strange sense of empowering calm come over me.  It was time to admit the truth.

I am attracted to men. 

That was why I’d never found the right woman; for me, there couldn’t be one.  With my parents and everyone in my life so adamantly opposed, I hadn’t been able to consider my same-sex attraction.  My parents hadn’t given me that option.  They’d taken me to church, enrolled me in activities, and scheduled my days to the minute, all while reinforcing the rules, reinforcing one man, one woman.  There just weren’t any other options.  The same sex attraction I’d always felt was wrong; it was a sin, a brokenness in me that I pushed aside, just as I’d been taught to do.

            But meeting Derek had brought the truth out to the front, and I didn’t want to push it aside any longer.  I was gay.

I tried saying it out loud to see how it felt: “Gay, gay, gay, gay.”  I paused, took a breath, said it again, “I am gay.”

I looked around my apartment, noticed that I was still breathing, and the world had not ended. 

OK, so I’m gay. 

Did admitting the truth really change anything? I had a sudden image of telling my parents.  How would they react?  To have a son who was gay would be the ultimate insult, the worst possible reflection on who they were—Bible-Belt believers who followed the rules as laid out by their preacher.  What would they do?  I shook myself, got up, and resumed pacing. 

But do I even have to tell them? Do I have to tell anybody?

            As I paced from sitting room to bedroom, I deliberately reversed my direction.

I don’t have to tell anyone.

I could just go on keeping this hidden like I’d always done; just ignore the feelings that seeing Derek’s beautiful face had stirred in me.  I didn’t have to act on those feelings.  I could just go on with the life my parents had laid out for me.  I didn’t even have to do any of the work.  I knew my parents could find an appropriate woman for me to marry.  I knew I could fulfill my marital responsibilities, get my wife pregnant, produce a child, and…what then?

I could live a loveless life of rules and responsibilities, feeling perhaps a sort of fondness for my wife, never having passion or romance.  I could choose to never explore these emotions deep inside me, churning my thoughts, and setting my mind and body racing.

            I stopped short of walking into the hallway wall. 

Standing there, facing the wall, I forced myself to look deep inside at the fear and longing I was feeling.  The fear was real: I could lose my parents, the only family I had, and lose everything they’d planned for me.  Any chance at that life would be gone.

            But the longing I felt was huge and true as well, something I’d never felt before.  I was suddenly an adolescent teenager again. 

            Gay. Homosexual. Fairy. Faggot…I let the words hang in front of me for a moment, imagined them written on the hallway wall. These were words I’d heard used in contempt my whole life, at school, at home, in church, everywhere.

            I turned away from the words, turned back to the sitting room and stopped by the coffee table.  I reached into my pocket, pulled out the small slip of paper.

I glanced again at the note with Derek’s info on it, stared at it, then let it fall to the table.  It dropped gently to land next to the golden leaf, the leaf Derek had given me, handed to me with his warm brown-skinned hand.  A sudden wave of longing swept through me.  My hand reached again for the phone, picked up the receiver, and I stopped. 

When I put aside my head, moved only with my heart, I’d reached out to Derek. 

Without thinking. 

I’d lived my entire life doing what I was told, following my parents’ wishes, doing what they wanted. I’d pushed aside my desires for so long, I’d taken to doing it automatically.

But what about what I wanted, after all?

What do I want?

I sat down abruptly, told my mind to shut up, told myself that what mattered was how I felt.  I looked inside, concentrated on my feelings.  My heart told me it was true; I desired Derek, wanted to call him, see his handsome face again, get to know him. 

I want Derek, and I don’t care what label anyone puts on me.

            Every way I looked at it, what I was really feeling was excitement.  I wanted to explore my new feelings, and the only way to do that was to make the phone call I’d been putting off.

            I sat at the edge of the sofa, straightened my back, took a deep breath, and grabbed the phone receiver firmly in my right hand.  With my left I dialed the number from the paper.

            It was answered after only one ring.  “Hey, this is Derek,” said the deep, soft voice I remembered so clearly from our brief meeting in the dining hall.

            I nearly choked, but managed a short, “Hey Derek, this is Peter.”

            “Peter, I’m so glad you called.  How’re you doing?” Derek’s reply was easy and smooth, and my heart thumped faster in my chest.

            “I’m good, and I was wondering if you were free right now, and want to come over for dinner, maybe hang out a while?” I managed to get the words out before my throat closed.

            There was a short pause on the other end of the line, and I couldn’t breathe.

            “I have an early class tomorrow, so I couldn’t stay too long, but yeah, that would be good.  Just give me fifteen minutes to change and I’ll be right over! You need me to bring anything?”

            “No, that’s OK; I was just going to stick a couple pizzas in the oven, unless you want something else?”

            “Pizza will be great,” Derek replied.  “See you in fifteen.”

            We said good-bye and I hung up the phone.  Then I leaped to my feet, threw both hands in the air, and shouted in relief.  I hurried to the kitchen to preheat the oven and check the freezer.

Do I even have any frozen pizza?