Missed Connections

by Brian Francis

  “Why are you so upset? Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  I didn’t believe her. I didn’t trust my mom. Not at that time in my life. If I was a puzzle, a Rubik’s Cube, then it was her job to figure me out. Not just that, but it was her right to know who I really was. As her child, I was her property. She lorded over me. But the more she pried, the more I saw the wheels turning in her head, the more I resolved to never let her in and give her that satisfaction. I was convinced that she was out to expose me. How did I know she wasn’t going through my room when I was at school? How did I know what she was up to when I wasn’t there to watch her, when I wasn’t there to guard my private domain? She could walk into my bedroom at any time and there was nothing I could do to stop her.

  These are familiar battles between parents and children. It’s the secrets and intimate knowledge that each holds about the other that leads to fear and frustration and a particular kind of claustrophobia.

  What made things worse during that trip to Saskatchewan was that I had an accident in my underpants at my grandmother’s house. I didn’t have the gall to throw something behind her dresser (I’m sure it would have been the last time we got an invitation out west if I had), but my soiled underwear was discovered one day, maybe half-hidden in a closet somewhere. I don’t remember.

  But what I do remember is my grandmother washing out the underwear. She told me not to worry, that it was fine, while I stood there, mortified that my secret was now out in the open. I don’t recall speaking to my mom after this, and I don’t know what this did or didn’t confirm for her about the mystery of my missing underwear. But eyebrows were certainly raised. The cloud of suspicion I was already under grew heavier.

  I was convinced that my soiled underwear had ruined our trip. I could only imagine the conversations taking place among my relatives once our car pulled out of the driveway. What would my grandmother think of me? Worst of all, I’d done the very thing I feared more than anything else—I’d made my dad look bad. Why couldn’t I be a normal son?

  The most embarrassing thing was how old I was at the time. I wasn’t a toddler learning to potty train. I didn’t have a bowel condition that caused me to lose control of my bodily functions. I was a nine-year-old who refused to shit. Of all the things I could do, of all the habits I could pick up, this was what I’d settled on?

  “It was our form of rebellion,” one of my sisters told me years later. “It’s because Mom was always after us about our bowel movements. Did we go? Had we gone? When had we gone?”

  My sister says she remembers sitting on the edge of the stairs as a child, rocking back and forth, holding in her own rebellion. When she told me this, I didn’t feel quite so weird, although it didn’t make me feel any better either. It didn’t explain things. If it was a matter of rebelling against my mom, why not take up something that didn’t cause so much cramping or lead to so many missing pairs of underwear? Why not take up swearing? Soaping windows? Gathering up dead birds and conducting burials in the backyard? The things normal kids do. Not willingly constipating yourself. Not doubling over in agony as a way of—what? Proving that my bowel movements were none of my mom’s business?

  Who was really the loser here?

  * * *

  —

  After we cleared out my uncle’s house (which involved my sister and me, a team of professional cleaners, and a hazardous- waste crew in haz-mat suits), we moved him into a home for the aged. No doubt the transition was hard for him, especially since his hoarding would have been the result of some form of anxiety, but there was no choice. He couldn’t return to the life he had known. And he was starting to show signs of dementia. The place he moved to was nice enough. He had his own room, a shared bathroom.

  I had naively thought the hoarding might stop in his new surroundings, but it didn’t. A friend would pick him up every week and drop him off at Walmart for a few hours, giving my uncle plenty of time to restock all that we had thrown out. It was a gradual rebuilding of his empire, one baseball hat and one bottle of family-sized Listerine at a time. But it wasn’t long before we got a call from the home to say there were concerns about his safety and the safety of the staff who needed to enter his room. We did another purge and asked my uncle’s friend to not take him to Walmart anymore, but that didn’t stop my uncle. He’d go to the Shoppers Drug Mart down the street and load as much as he could into the basket of his walker. I understood then that his compulsion to buy things, which I always assumed was more about social interaction, was beyond his control. It was only when he was found in the middle of the street on his way back from Shoppers one night that we realized he needed to be in secured surroundings. So we moved him to a new residence, this time with a locked ward he couldn’t escape.

  As before, he had his own room, but it was sparse. Sterile, even. How unsettled he must have felt in the silence of that barren space. And for someone who had guarded his secret world so fiercely, now he was exposed, unable to stop anyone from waltzing right into his room, whether he wanted the company or not.

  I brought him some things from his previous residence: a few baseball hats, some photos, jackets, harmonicas that I had saved from the purge of his house, knowing that he used to play them when he was young and in a band. To me, it felt like giving him a piece of his identity back, a rebuilding of that familiar landscape.

  His hoarding didn’t stop, though. When visiting him one time, I noticed the basket of his walker was slowly filling with various items: a clock radio, newspapers that he must have taken from the common area, along with the baseball hats and harmonicas. I contemplated the contents of that wire basket, his meagre possessions, and realized with a discomforting clarity how we were more similar than I cared to admit. My uncle and I felt safest behind our closed doors, our only company the secrets we struggled to keep hidden from the rest of the world.

  * * *

  —

  You’re probably wondering how my sad shit story came to an end, Reg. Which it did, obviously. I’m still alive, after all. I didn’t explode. What happened was this: One day, my mom discovered the pile of soiled underwear behind my dresser. This would have been sometime after we returned from our trip out west. Maybe the incident at my grandmother’s house had made her more determined to solve the puzzle of her son. She could have started her investigation the day we returned, for all I know. No doubt the discovery vindicated her. It made her conversation with the relative excusable. She had been right all along.

  You can hide for a while. You can keep the waves at bay, but eventually, whatever you’re trying to keep inside will find its way out. That’s what I’d come to understand in my late teens and early twenties, when I tried to keep something more profound in its pleasure but far more terrifying in its implications from escaping my control.

  As punishment, my mom made me wash out every single pair of that crusted underwear in the toilet. She stood over me, hands on her hips, while I scraped the underwear clean with my bare hands. I don’t remember what she said to me. I’m sure she asked questions. I’m sure she didn’t understand. I’m sure my actions were incomprehensible to her, something to discuss with one of her friends later, in private, when I had no way of overhearing what she would say.

  My shits were under probation after that. I had to call one of my parents into the bathroom to prove that I had gone.

  I don’t imagine this was the highlight of their day.

  This went on for a little while. Until I could be trusted. Until all my underwear was accounted for and folded in neat triangles in my dresser drawer. Until I understood that I could not stop my body from doing something if its will was stronger than mine, no matter how tightly I squeezed, no matter how monstrous it would be, or how much pain it would cause when it was finally released.

  When I could no longer “hold my own,” Reg.

  Perhaps we can discuss this over wine. I’m partial to red
.

  Sincerely,

  Dear “University Student”

  Hi. My name is Sam. I saw your ad in the paper. I was interested so here’s my reply! Well I guess I should tell you about myself. I’m 18 years old. I turn 19 on December 16. That means I’m a Sagittarius. I “hope” that’s a good sign for you. So what I look like: I’m 5′9″, 140 pounds, medium build, light brown hair and hazel eyes. I’m told I’m a good dresser, too. I also model part-time. In terms of my hobbies: modelling, hiking, going to the movies, music and quiet times with that special “someone.”

  I have two brothers and one sister and we all get along great. I like Top 40 music, mainly soft music. But not country! I’m looking for a relationship and a friendship. I was in a relationship for a year but we broke up. He was old plus an asshole. I’d like someone to spend time with, share good times with and who knows what might “happen” after that? I’ve included photos. They’re not my best ones, but they should give you an idea on what I look like. Sorry for the messy handwriting. I’m nervous!

  Well I don’t know what else to say but I hope you’ll write back so we can meet and get to know one another. Please write me back with a phone number and photo of you, if you can. I very much hope to hear from you.

  Sam

  Dear Sam,

  Based on the photos you included with your letter, I think it’s safe to assume your modelling career never took flight. I’m sorry if that comes across as harsh. You sounded like a nice guy. You said you had good relationships with your siblings and that you didn’t like country music. All pluses as far as I’m concerned.

  But those photos, Sam. The one of you on the lawn chair.

  I know you were young, and far be it from me to be the asshole stomping on the supermodel dreams of an eighteen-year-old. But there’s a fine line between dreams and delusions, one that comes into sharper focus the older we get. At some point, we need to confront our true selves head-on and see who we really are. It’s not easy, believe me. And, in some ways, I wonder which takes more courage: to see and accept your life with all of its limitations, or to continue to stock up on dreams.

  Like many queer people, I grew up confused. What made me even more confused was that I grew up in the seventies, a perplexing time for most. It was the decade of pet rocks, mood rings, rainbow toe socks, and tube tops. Nothing in my pocket of the world—in Sarnia, a blue-collar sports town of around fifty thousand back then, where there was no visible diversity and little room to be different—told me being gay was an option, that it was possible. The gay men I saw on television—not that they were ever openly gay—were reduced to caricatures: Campy men with quick quips who occupied squares on game shows or hosted their own fitness programs. Entertainers like Liberace and Elton John who were so completely over the top it was impossible to believe there was a real person beneath all those ruffles and rhinestones. Then there were TV sitcoms like Three’s Company, where Jack’s supposed sexuality was a running gag, signified by a limp wrist and a wink. The audience would roar with laughter, but I always felt on the edge of the joke, never quite understanding, but knowing there was something hilarious about what Mr. Roper knew about Jack. In short, I was aware there were “different” men in the world, but they were always punchlines. Inside jokes. And when they weren’t there for comedic relief, when they were talking about equal rights on Donahue and asking to be taken seriously, they were immediately dismissed.

  * * *

  —

  One spring day, when I was around ten, my dad and I were flying a kite at a nearby schoolyard. The kite was a black-and-white triangle meant to resemble a bat, but what I remember most were the kite’s eyes: orange circles with red, fiery streaks. No matter how high the kite soared above me, those penetrating eyes never broke their stare from where I stood on the ground.

  “I think we should have the talk,” I announced to my dad. “About sex.”

  Wasn’t I a ballsy kid? I don’t know what prompted me to say this. Other students at school may have said their parents had already had the sex talk with them. Or maybe it was a joke to me. Or a dare, telling my dad what he should do. Pushing my boundaries, the way kids do around that age.

  “Well,” my dad said, slowly. “I s’pose.”

  We brought the kite down, folded it up, and walked back to the house. There was a small broom closet in the kitchen that held an assortment of items, including Sears catalogues, United Church congregation photo directories, wrapping paper, and the Better Homes and Gardens Family Medical Guide. It was a large book with a burgundy spine, and, in the days before you could Google the symptoms of your impending death, these sorts of authoritative books served as a catch-all, meant to diagnose and treat everything from toothaches to anal fissures. There were pastel line drawings throughout, pink-and-turquoise renderings of dissected torsos, side views of penises and scrotums, and drawings of babies being pulled from the womb by what looked to me like giant tongs. The book was a source of both humour and horror to me, and it was this book my dad grabbed before we went into my bedroom and shut the door to have our discussion about the birds and the bees.

  I remember the two of us sitting on my mustard- coloured shag carpet, our backs against my bed with its superhero- themed coverlet, and the blue acrylic knit slippers my dad was wearing.

  I don’t recall much of what my dad said to me that day, but one sentence stood out. “There are homosexuals in the world,” he said. “And they do perverted things, like lick and suck one another.”

  Did I know I was a homosexual at ten years old? Likely not. But I would have had some understanding of my difference, and a sense of recognition at the words my dad said. The same recognition I felt when I saw those flamboyant men on TV or when Mr. Roper rolled his eyes to the camera.

  The inside joke.

  I don’t want to paint an unfair picture of my dad. I realize how his words make him sound today, but he was a product of his time and very few people were in support of Team Gay in those days. Truth be told, my dad was actually pretty liberal. He’d been raised during the Depression in Saskatchewan by his mother after his father abandoned the family, and I think he had a deep respect for women as a result of his upbringing. I never heard him say anything even remotely misogynistic. He was smart, too, and knew how to fix anything, a skill, sadly, I never inherited. He built the white picket fence surrounding our backyard. And it was my dad, in fact, who taught me how to use the sewing machine. He thought nothing of doing household chores like washing the floor or vacuuming. And he never put demands on me. Never told me I should be a certain way or made me feel like I wasn’t living up to his ideals. He never criticized me. Not when I signed up for calligraphy class. Not when I took up the time- honoured craft of paper quilling. He never questioned the stuffed animals that lined my bedroom shelves or my penchant for baking or even my decision in Grade 8 to sign up for Home Economics instead of Shop. (I had lied to my parents and said the Shop class was full.) He never pushed me into sports. Or made remarks when my weight began to balloon. He never made me feel like I had to be something I wasn’t.

  And this, ironically, made me feel worse about my difference. If he had been an asshole, if he’d pushed me into sports, if he’d been critical, the anger I felt would have fuelled my queer rebellion. But that wasn’t the man he was. My dad had been kind. Patient. Soft-spoken. He even looked like Mr. Dressup. The least I could do was give him the son he deserved.

  But I couldn’t even do that.

  I did try, though. I signed up for softball. I wanted nothing more than to see him in the bleachers, cheering me on. So imagine how my dad must have felt, watching his uncoordinated, overweight son in right field, running away from the ball he was certain was about to hit him. Or unearthing chunks of dirt and grass with every swing and miss of the golf ball. Or begging to be taken out of swimming class. (I was convinced the instructor was out to drown me. I still can’t swim to this day.)<
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  I sometimes wonder why my dad had made a point of mentioning homosexuality during our sex talk. In hindsight, it didn’t seem like the kind of essential information a ten-year-old needed to know. I wonder if he suspected, even on a subconscious level, that I was gay. Or maybe it wasn’t subconscious. He was an observant man and there were signs that would have given him pause, especially if he compared me with his friends’ sons, as I’m sure he did.

  Photos, Sam. There are always photos.

  Me, at two, dancing in my sister’s metallic dress. Me, a chubby fourth-grader, in a blond wig and garter, my skirt hitched high to reveal legs in pantyhose. Me, at twelve, in a black polyester (and highly flammable) witch dress, coupled with a black (and highly flammable) wig, my nails also painted black.

  These photos came back to haunt me. I couldn’t wait for the slide projector to click to the next image or for someone to flip the page in the photo album. Everyone laughed. A joke in a dress, that’s how I was seen. A ham. But I never quite got the humour in the same way. Even though that witch’s wig was terrible and I’d done a shitty job on my nails, that wig and those nails made me feel more special, more me, than any pair of corduroys ever could.

  What took root inside me were the layers in the laughter. Layers and layers and layers.

  I don’t remember if my dad and I went back to our kite flying after our sex talk, but those orange eyes would stay with me in the days ahead, staring down from their vantage point. No matter what corner of the field I’d run to, I knew they would follow.

  * * *

  —

  The day of my dad’s sex talk, a door closed inside me. I had heard his words loud and clear. And while I didn’t quite understand them at the time, they left their mark. I came to accept that whoever I was on the inside would never find safe harbour on the outside. And so, like many gay kids, I retreated inwards, constructing a parallel inner universe for myself, a fantasy world where I could flourish and which was more satisfying, more honest, than my reality.