by Chris Birch
‘So, a stroke made you gay, that’s quite a story?’ an Australian voice echoed
from the ear piece I had been given.
‘Certainly is,” I said with a slight giggle as I tried to keep myself still on the
swivelling chair.
I patted my hair to make sure it wasn’t ruffled. I had got hair extensions put in and dyed especially for the interview. I had one thick blonde stripe of hair coming across my head, meeting in a point just above my eyebrow. Margaret, at the salon, had referred me to her friend for a round of botox and I had even bought a new outfit to wear. I should have looked pretty polished but now I was sat in the studio I began to worry that getting tipsy beforehand wasn’t working in my favour.
My voiced echoed back at me and made me grimace. After ten minutes of the
same questions I had been asked dozens of times before, the interview drew to a close.
‘You have a good night Chris,’ the presenter said, cheerily.
‘Ohhh I will,’ I said with a smile.
I triumphantly joined the girls in the limo and we went on to have a brilliant
Christmas party. It wasn’t until the next morning, as I woke with a hangover, that what had happened dawned on me. Everyone gets paranoid about what they might have done wrong after too many drinks. But most people don’t have to worry about their drunken antics being shown on television to thousands of people. I quickly grabbed the laptop, googled my name and found a video of the interview.
‘Oh god, I even look drunk,’ I sighed to Jack.
He laughed back.
‘They’ll probably just think you’re an eccentric British person,’ he scoffed.
Pointing over my shoulder Jack scrolled down on the page and then started chuckling
‘What?’ I asked.
Jack had doubled over and his whole body shook with laughter.
‘WHAT?’ I asked again.
I looked back at the page, in the comments section someone had written, he
looks like a skunk, gay or straight, it’s no excuse for that dodgy hair cut. I couldn’t help but laugh too.
A week later I was invited to another interview, this time it was for an Irish programme that aired live on a Saturday night. They paid for Jack and I to fly over on a private plane, stay in a swanky hotel and be driven by limo to and from, the airport and studio. It was exhilarating speaking in front of the huge, live, audience but the best part of the trip was spending time alone with Jack. It gave us a chance to relax after all the craziness we had been through and when we got back home I realised there was something I needed to ask him.
I bought a ring, hid it in my pocket and when Jack got home one day told him there was surprise hidden in the flat for him. He quickly tore through the cupboards like an excitable puppy, looking up every now and then and to ask,
‘Am I close?’.
After ten minutes of searching Jack was getting frustrated and I was almost bursting with nerves but then Jack turned to me,
‘Hang on, you’ve got it, haven’t you?’ he said.
I nodded and Jack patted my pocket until he found the box, he looked shocked and when I pulled the box out and opened it a smile spread across his face.
‘Do you fancy getting married sometime?’ I asked.
‘Yes!’ Jack said, he pulled the ring out of the box and put it on his finger.
We gripped each other into a tight hug, it was the happiest I had ever felt.
Technically, it was the second time I had proposed to someone but for me, there had only ever been Jack.
Chapter Nineteen: Backlash
I pierced the plastic film on the food tray and plonked it on the microwave plate before speedily pressing the start button. Those days of cooking meals from scratch, to use up my time, were well and truly gone. Between the salon, radio and TV interviews and spending time with Jack, I didn’t have a moment to myself. My story had gone viral, it was everywhere. After the two interviews I had agreed to do were published, the article went online, which meant it could be republished anywhere without my permission and so it quickly spread onto news websites across the world. If I googled my name it brought up thousands of results, from America, Australia, India, Brazil. In places I had never even dreamt of travelling to they knew my name and my story, it was an odd feeling. But since I no longer had control over what was being printed they had exaggerated some parts and fabricated others. He Woke Up Gay, one wrote. A Somersault Made Me Gay, another proclaimed. My story was being manipulated and had got more unbelievable and shocking with every reprint.
‘Did you see the article in the paper today?’ Jack asked casually and got two plates out of the cupboard for us.
It had become a bit of a catchphrase, every day there was a new article published about me and that morning another newspaper in the UK had printed a version of my story.
‘That must be it now,’ I sighed, ‘there can’t be a newspaper left who haven’t
printed it’.
Jack nodded, ‘I’m sure it will die down now,’ he said.
I could tell from his tone that he was just trying to make me feel better.
Ever since I had seen the article that morning I had carried a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the newspaper that Derek, my Mum’s husband, read. I had managed to convince myself that she hadn’t seen the original articles as she didn’t read either of those publications. But there was no avoiding it now, Mum must had read it and part of me was dying to know what she thought. It turned out I wouldn’t haven’t to wait much longer to find out. As the microwave pinged to tell us dinner was ready my mobile phone began to trill.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘It’s Mum.’
She’s seen the article and she isn’t happy, I instantly realised.
‘What is all this in the paper then?’
Her voice was abrupt, she was clearly furious.
‘Half of it isn’t true, you didn’t do a somersault, you’ve made it sound far worse
that it was ..’
‘Well, no, I didn’t say that, it’s a case of Chinese whispers, it’s been exaggerated
by that newspaper ..’
But Mum’s tone was ferocious.
‘I’m not having it, why did you have to go and tell everyone?’
Before I could answer her, Mum interrupted me, she kept repeating the same thing.
‘I just don’t know why you had to go and tell everyone, you’ve made us look
ridiculous.’
That’s why she’s upset, I thought. She’s annoyed because now everyone knows she has a gay son. I tried to keep calm, to let Mum finish her rant and just listen, my old-fashioned belief that you should respect your mother prevented me from interrupting her.
‘You shouldn’t have done those articles.’
It was the some tone of voice she had once used to tell me off when I was a naughty child. But it was getting harder to hold my tongue, dark thoughts I had tried to ignore began to surface from the back of my mind. It’s your fault I was homeless, it’s your fault I tried to kill myself, I thought. Without giving it a second thought I suddenly heard my voice.
‘You have no right to speak to me like that,’ I said sternly.
The words quickly escaped from my mouth. I heard Mum stutter on the other end of the phone.
‘Where have you been? You haven’t been here, you haven’t been supporting
me,’ I snapped.
Mum was silent. I knew she would be shocked that I had argued back, I was shocked too but it felt good to finally tell Mum what I really thought. Ever since she had dumped my stuff in the car park I had imagined what I would say if I saw her again. I had run through dozens of scenarios in my mind where we bumped into each other and I made some clever remark that made her realise how cruel she had been. When she came over after I took the overdose I was still in a daze and unable to voice how I felt. This time I wanted to try and get through to her. I suddenly remembered a lady who had
been in the salon that day, she had told me about her son and her story had stayed with me.
‘Y’know Mum, there’s a lady who comes into the salon and her son is in prison.…’ I started, recalling the conversation I had with the lady.
‘Despite what he’s done, she goes to visit him every, single, week and yet, my mum won’t speak to me just because I’m gay,’ I said.
The line fell silent. I had hoped my story would make her see how wrong she was but I realised there was little point, I couldn’t make her feel anything she didn’t want to.
‘I have nothing to be ashamed of,’ I said defiantly.
Mum cleared her throat.
‘I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,’ I repeated confidently and then cancelled the call.
When I walked into the sitting room Jack was anxiously waiting for me, our untouched dinner was sat on the coffee table.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
‘It’s was Mum,’ I said and shook my head.
He grimaced back at me.
‘Everything okay?’
‘She can’t really hurt me anymore, I’m past the point of caring.’
As I sat down and started to eat my dinner Jack smiled. He held up a forkful of the rubbery lasagne and laughed.
‘Well, I’m looking forward to when all this dies down and you start cooking again,’ he said.
The following morning a big TV programme in the UK, This Morning, contacted me to invite me on the show. It was a chance to explain some of the inaccuracies that had been printed and the hosts always seemed really friendly, so I agreed. That afternoon, in a bubble of excitement, I shared my news on my Facebook wall.
Looks like I’m going to be on This Morning this week, early start for me : )
Friends liked and commented, they wished me luck and promised to tune in.
That evening, I was mentally running through a few of the points I wanted to make when I heard our doorbell buzz.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ I asked Jack.
He shook his head.
Probably charity collectors, I assumed.
But when I pulled the door open I was greeted by an unexpected face, Mum. She looked furious, her face was pale, her eyebrows arched together, her thin lips pursed.
‘Come in,’ I offered.
Mum had barely walked into the kitchen before she started ranting at me.
‘You are not going on This Morning!’ She shouted.
I was taken aback. She was the last person I had expected to see, it took me a few moments to compose myself. How did she know about the TV show? I wondered then realised someone must have seen my post on Facebook and told her.
‘You aren’t Christopher, you are making a mockery of our family,’ she said.
Her words were full of venom.
‘Think of your poor Nan, she’s going to have to watch that.’
I walked through the flat, whilst Mum shouted behind me.
‘You are going to embarrass your nan …’
It’s embarrassing having a gay son, is it?, I thought.
‘Please stop shouting,’ I finally said.
My heart started to race as the stress of the situation. Doctors had repeatedly warned me that if I got too stressed I could suffer a mini-stroke and so Jack and I had a rule, no matter how annoyed we were we never raised our voices.
‘You aren’t going on This Morning!’
It was like she was a possessed, the same words kept falling out of her mouth like she had no control over them.
‘We don’t shout in our home,’ I said, sternly, ‘please leave my house’.
Mum was taken aback. She looked exhausted, she had clearly been working herself up for hours before she had arrived, probably running through what she would say to me. I could tell she was prepared for an argument but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
‘Seriously, if you’re going to shout I don’t want you here, please leave,’ I said,
coldly.
She didn’t take much convincing, I guess she had already said everything she wanted to. As quickly as she had appeared, Mum swooped towards the front door and left. I watched her shadow disappear into the night and with it, mentally said goodbye to my mother.
‘Do you think she will come back?’ Jack said, he sounded worried.
‘No’ I replied, ‘the next time I see her will probably be at her funeral, maybe not
even then,’ I said sadly.
Jack put his arm around me. It was an awful thing to say but I knew it was probably true. In that moment I accepted that my hopes of Mum and I being reunited were just a childish dream. Things were never going back to how they were, it was impossible, I couldn’t forgive her for everything she had done to me.
‘I’m not going to do the show,’ I said after a minute of silence.
‘You can’t let her stop you,’ Jack said supportively.
‘It’s not because of her. I just don’t need the drama,’ I sighed.
There was something final about that moment. Our relationship had crossed a line that it could never come back from. Mum hadn’t been part of my life for such a long time that I had mourned the loss of her, I didn’t know the woman she had become and she no longer knew me. I knew that also meant saying goodbye to my nan and Simon, they wouldn’t speak to me if Mum was mad with me. But instead of feeling sad I was a little relieved. I could finally close the door on the three of them and any misguided hope of a reunion.
Since the first article had been published I had seen hundreds of tweets, messages and emails from members of the public who wanted to share their opinions on my story. Most were good. But the odd person seemed to doubt that I was telling the truth. Some people even suggested that I had been paid to make the story up. One day, I did an internet search to find the original article about me and came across a video someone had made. Before I could question whether I should watch it my fingers had already clicked play. The grainy picture showed a middle-aged man, with an American accent, sat in a living room, staring back at the camera.
‘I’ve read about this Chris Birch..’ he said, accusingly, with a South-American
drawl.
I still found it bizarre to hear someone I didn’t know talk about me, I shuddered away the odd feeling and tried to concentrate on his words.
‘He says a stroke made him gay. No it didn’t, no it didn’t,’ he said.
There was a finality to his tone, as if he were a judge.
How does he know? I thought, he’s never even met me. When I had decided to share my story I hadn’t for one moment considered that people might not believe me. The thought didn’t enter my head, I mean, why would I make it up?
The more people that my story reached, the more negative the comments became. One night, when I read tweets about me on Twitter, I was shocked at the responses. He’s so homophobic he can’t bear the idea that he was gay all along, one user wrote. When -It- woke up was -It- a man or a woman or a transgender, just asking? another tweet read. He’s been gay his whole life, he’s just an attention seeker, someone else suggested. Join a church and repent for your sins, another tweet said. There were thousands of people debating whether or not my story was true, they were discussing my life like it were a philosophical question that could be argued either way. Then my eyes fell upon one, horrible, sentence. Proof you can cure gay people, it read. I took a deep intake of breath and clicked on the link that was alongside it and was redirected to the page of a right-wing Christian group in America. As I scanned the article my heart raced with anger at what I was reading. If someone who was once straight can be ‘turned’ gay then it proves that we can reverse someone’s homosexuality. Gay people can be cured, it declared. I had once seen an article about the camps, in America, that promised to cure homosexual teenagers and was horrified. Now my name was being used to advocate that. They had taken my story hostage and were using it for a sickening purpose. I was furious. A few critical comments was one thing but this...
I couldn’t take it.
‘You got loads of positive comments too,’ Jack said.
I had showed him the article when we were cuddled up on the sofa one evening.
I shrugged. He was right of course but the negative comments seemed to be the ones that stayed with me.
‘I just can’t believe how people are twisting things,’ I said.
‘Ignore them.’
Jack passed me a biscuit and smiled sympathetically.
‘Some people think I was gay all along, they don’t believe me.’
Jack fell silent.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ I continued, ‘I clearly wasn’t gay before.’
Jack shifted in his seat, he suddenly looked a little awkward.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
He stayed silent but gave me a quizzical look.
‘Well, are you sure you weren’t gay before?’ he said softly.
My mouth fell open and I sighed loudly, not him as well?
‘It’s just, it does seem hard to believe, lots of people don’t realise they are gay until they are older.’
I stared back at Jack dumbfounded.
‘Maybe it was just a coincidence that you didn’t realise until after the stroke.’
His voice was hushed, as if he was trying to soften the blow of what he was saying.
He doesn’t believe me either, I realised. It hadn’t ever occurred to me that Jack might doubt me too.
‘You think I made it up?’ I asked.