by Chely Wright
I was bullied for no reason at all, but the torment caused so much pain and fear that I often considered not going to school at all. Perhaps I would have become withdrawn, or fallen behind in academics. Young gay students have an added strike against them when their schoolmates who are bullies identify another reason to single them out and push them to the margins of society.
Underwater
Growing up, there were times when I believed that bad things happened to those I loved because of my sexuality. It was God’s punishment for my being gay. It was my fault that the Old House burned down, that my parents couldn’t stop fighting, that Uncle Earl was killed in a trucking accident. When my brother, Chris, broke his arm and shoulder and cracked his head open in a bike wreck, it was my fault. When my sister, Jeny, crashed her bike and needed dozens of stitches in her leg and face, it was my fault. These were messages of disapproval from the Lord Himself. That was the fire-and-brimstone God who berated me in church. Yet at the same time I knew that there was another, kinder God—one who knew and loved me and was on my side.
After the Old House had been reduced to ashes, we moved to a double-wide trailer on a three-acre plot surrounded by horse pasture outside of Wellsville. By then, I was talking regularly to both Gods in prayer. In church we’d pray for people who put their names on the prayer list—for so-and-so’s grandma’s bad hip or someone’s husband who’d had a heart attack. And I’d created the special prayer that I knew that I couldn’t ask to be put on any prayer list: Please, God, don’t let me be gay. I began saying it every day, three times a day. I did the math: Saying the prayer approximately 1,095 times per year. Multiply that by three years and that’s 3,285. That should’ve worked, I thought. That’s many more times than we’d ever prayed for a hip or a liver. Then it occurred to me what I had been doing wrong. I had been saying my prayer silently, in my head. I knew that I needed to speak it, to say it out loud, like we did in church.
Several times a day, after school and into the evening, I’d head out to my “spot,” a huge pasture behind our trailer where eight horses roamed. I’d walk out into the middle of that pasture, where I knew that no one could possibly hear me, and speak my prayer. I’d often get back to the house and feel the need to turn around and do it all over again. Sometimes I got yelled at by Mom for taking off when there were chores to do. But my new approach to the prayer was far more important, and it filled me with hope. No one knew about my secret except those eight horses.
But it wasn’t enough to change me, or to spare those close to me. One Saturday morning, when I was ten, I heard my mother talking in hushed tones on the telephone to Aunt Char. She hung up, went to the back bedroom, and got my dad. Within a few minutes they’d piled us all into our Plymouth station wagon and headed to Aunt Char’s place in Kansas City. Our cousin David had unexpectedly been admitted to the hospital. He was thirteen, the second oldest in our mob of five cousins, and he and his sister, Carey, then nine, were as close to me as siblings. We played together, got spankings together. We were given nearly identical new pairs of pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. We shared bathwater, underwear, beds, and parents.
While the adults played pinochle or poker in the kitchen, we cousins got into trouble. Carey was famous for swiping a pair of scissors and cutting her own bangs, with predictable results (to this day, I still scan Carey’s hairline to see if she’s been hacking away at her locks again). Jeny and David were the ringleaders who would corral the younger kids into capers like climbing onto the roof of Aunt Char’s house or lighting something on fire. The only straight arrow among us was my brother, Chris, who would never tell a lie. David was wild enough to put Jeny into a clothes dryer, turn it on, and walk away. Despite any mischief, David was a shining star in our family. Aunt Char was a busy single mom and not a regular churchgoer, so David would take himself to services and Sunday school. He was a gifted violinist, and we often played music together. He was also a diabetic. David kept to a special diet, had to have snacks, peed on little sticks, and gave himself shots. Initially, the idea of his being in the hospital didn’t throw us. I remember my mother telling us as we sped along the interstate early that summer morning, “He’ll be all right. They just have to get his insulin levels straightened out and then he’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
At the hospital, Dad took us to the waiting room and bought us one bottle of Pepsi to share. Hours went by. Then Dad went upstairs for what seemed like forever. When he returned, we asked after David. “He’s very sick and if he doesn’t start to get better within the next couple of hours, he could get worse,” my father said. “I’m going to take you kids to Aunt Char’s so the babysitter can leave.” Carey had been at home with a neighbor the whole day, and Dad told us on the drive there not to tell her how ill her brother was. After he dropped us off, he headed back to the hospital. We asked our little cousin what she wanted to do, and she suggested we all go swimming. There was a public pool within walking distance, but we needed money to get in. So Carey went into David’s room, took the little rubber stopper off the bottom of his piggy bank, and took out a few dollars.
My parents and my aunt Char never missed a chance to line us all up, oldest to youngest, when they took our picture. Chris (age 6), Jeny (age 5), David (age 5), me (age 4), and Carey (age 2).
All day I’d been dying to say my prayer. I had wanted to on the drive to Kansas City, at the hospital, and in Aunt Char’s bathroom. But I was afraid to risk it. So once I got to the pool, I jumped in and stayed underwater most of the time. I prayed underwater that day. I didn’t just speak the prayer. I screamed it. I was just so afraid that God had made David sick because of me. I came up for air, but then I’d just go back under and stay under. Over and over, I’d come up for a breath, then dive back down and pray. We didn’t stay at the pool long. After we got home and changed out of our damp suits, the big station wagon pulled into the driveway with Mom, Aunt Char, and Dad in it.
We all ran to the front door full of questions. “Where’s David?” My mom stared at the four of us blankly and said, “He died,” as if she were talking about the weather. That night we went to Godfather’s Pizza for supper. Aunt Char, Carey, and the rest of us sat at two tables with red-checkered tablecloths eating pizza and drinking pitchers of flat, warm Pepsi.
My prayer had failed me again.
Let Me Sing for You
On the back porch of our house out in the country in Wellsville, Kansas. 1983. Left to right: Carey, Jeny, me, Chris.
I started getting paid to sing and play piano when I was eleven, not long after David died. If there was no money to be paid, but there was a willing audience, I performed anyway. I’d haul my keyboard, an amp, and a microphone to bars, VFW halls, auto shop openings, picnics, weddings, funerals, hospitals, schools, churches, and living rooms. But my specialty was nursing homes.
I had landed my first official gig years before, when we were still living in the Old House. The way my parents tell it, I was four years old, roaming free in our yard, when all of a sudden I disappeared. My folks searched the shed, the chicken coop, and under the big gray porch. Then they started to panic. Neighbors canvassed the neighborhood and finally found me six blocks away at the Wellsville Manor nursing home, playing their piano and singing songs to a couple of residents in wheelchairs.
After my parents got me home that night, they asked me where I had learned to play the piano. They say that I informed them that I always knew I could; I just needed a piano in the house and I’d play for them too. In my short life leading up to that day, I had spent many hours sitting on the lap of my great-grandmother, Melvina Dixon, as she played old-time church music on her upright piano. I can still see her and the light blue veins that crawled in her translucent, pale hands. I’d put my tiny hands right on top of hers as she played. I told her once, “Grandma, I can do that.” To which she replied, “I know you can.”
Later, my folks inherited Grandma Dixon’s piano and it became my best friend. My folks asked me if I wanted to take
formal piano lessons and I said yes. They didn’t have extra money for such an expense, but they scraped some together and saw to it that I had a chance to properly learn my instrument.
My first piano teacher told me that I had perfect hands for playing piano. I have long, skinny fingers that I’ve always been a little self-conscious about. Running them up and down the keyboard has always been as natural as breathing.
As a kid, I’d listen for new songs on 61 Country AM, remember the tunes, and run to the piano and play them. My dad’s coon-hunting buddies were always around the house, and I’d tug at their Carhart coveralls and make them sit by me while I played. Once I even convinced a Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman who showed up at our door to attend a private concert (my mom bought the vacuum cleaner, too).
One day when I was five, Rev. Skiles, the Baptist preacher, came to call, and I asked him if he wanted to hear the latest song I’d mastered. He obliged. I sat down on the piano bench and patted the empty spot next to me. I played the song perfectly and when I finished, I turned to him and asked, “Whaddya think, Warren?” All he could say was “Wow.” At that moment my mom walked into the room and asked what I’d been serenading the minister with.
“‘Love in the Hot Afternoon’!” I declared with pride. I watched the color drain out of my mother’s face as she realized that her young daughter had just sung the 1975 Gene Watson hit about a tawdry, midday sexual encounter between two strangers to our preacher.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
That we fell right to sleep
In the damp tangled sheets so soon
After love in the hot afternoon
As I got older, the performances got better and my audiences got bigger. By the time I was eleven, I began to get calls to come play with bands or to play solo. I also found my way to Opry shows—regional country music concerts modeled after the Grand Ole Opry and often broadcast live on the radio. These shows drew large audiences of country fans who would drive for miles to hear their favorite music. Typically, I’d perform three or four songs with a house band of seasoned musicians. Kansas City had a popular show called the Farris Opry, owned and operated by a musician named Byron Jones. I had a burning passion to land a guest spot on his show.
If you successfully auditioned for a slot on one Opry show, others were likely to book you as well. In that way you could build a regional following, and I knew that if I ever wanted to make it in Nashville, I’d have to be able to make it big in Kansas City first. It seemed to me that the Farris Opry, just an hour up the pike in Kansas City, held the keys to my success. By my early teens, I had enough of a name playing around Kansas and Missouri for Byron to allow me to come up for a special closed audition.
My parents never pushed me into entertainment, but when I asked them to drive me wherever I needed to go, they did. So they happily took me up to Kansas City. The plan was for me to do my audition, join my folks for dinner at a restaurant, then come back to the theater to enjoy the Opry that night. I hoped that if things went well, I’d be back in a month or two as a featured guest, so catching the show that night would be homework for the future.
I performed a few songs, backed up by the house band, which was led by Byron’s son Kevin. He was the best guitar player that I’d ever heard live in my life. After I sang, Byron asked me a lot of questions as he stood in the center aisle of the auditorium. When we wrapped up, he chatted with my parents by the concession stand and asked if we were going to grab a quick bite to eat. We said yes and asked him for a restaurant recommendation. He gave one, but added, “Be sure to get back here by the start of the show, ’cause you’re going on in the second slot.” I about jumped out of my skin. I was going to be singing live on Kansas City radio while performing on the stage of the Farris Opry that very night, in front of a sold-out crowd! My parents were happy for me and we went off to that restaurant. I don’t think I ate a bite.
Salisbury Steak, Please
It was around this time that I received one of many signs from God. When I was about twelve years old, I started to explore the notion that I had a birth defect—a big one.
I began to consider the possibility that I was actually supposed to have been born a boy. I was good at sports, I liked to play outdoors, and I thought that girls were pretty. So, naturally, I’d been praying really hard to God, asking Him to give me a sign to let me know how to go about addressing what I now believed to be a birth defect.
I went with my family to the only sit-down restaurant in Wellsville for dinner one evening. This was a rare occurrence for us—to actually get to go out to eat. I was excited and I knew just what I wanted to order: the Salisbury Steak Dinner. We were seated and our waitress came to our table with a tray of ice water. We knew her. Everyone knew everyone in that town, but we knew her as a friend of the family.
She had played on the high school girls’ softball team that my mom and dad had coached a year or so before. She started making small talk with my folks, talking about school and her new softball team. I was seated nearer to her than my folks were; they were next to the wall in the booth and I was the closest to where she stood. Her leg kept bumping my leg as she chatted and laughed next to me.
She held the empty ice-water tray over my head as if it was a little shelter she’d built for me. Because I was seated and she was standing, I was on eye level with her breasts. I looked at them, in her tight T-shirt, and then I forced myself to look away. It wasn’t right, I thought to myself. There must be something wrong with me. I was born in the wrong body. I was defective. I told myself not to look again, but I couldn’t resist. I checked to see if my brother was staring at her chest, too. He wasn’t. He was busy trying to blow the paper wrapper off of the drinking straw into the light fixture dangling above our heads.
I suppose our waitress informed my family about the dinner specials that night, but I can’t be sure. After being fixated on those breasts for a good two minutes—a long time for a twelve-year-old girl in Wellsville, Kansas, to be staring at a seventeen-year-old girl’s boobs—I got a sign. I finally actually noticed the words ironed onto her T-shirt. Written in red capital letters was the message GOD DON’T MAKE MISTAKES.
I felt, on that night, that I was okay. I had hope and some comfort, for a while at least, that I was just as I was supposed to be.
The beautiful young waitress turned to me and asked me for my order, and I shouted, a little too enthusiastically, “Salisbury Steak Dinner, please!”
She smiled. “Okay, sweetie,” replied God’s buxom, cheerful messenger. Then she tapped me on the head with her pencil and bounced off toward the kitchen.
The Boy on a Tractor
By my teens, I was looking hard to find anyone who was like me. I knew a few girls who were considered stereotypically tough and tomboyish, but they had boyfriends. I didn’t fit the stereotype of a gay woman, but I knew my sexual identity was outside the norm. I hadn’t heard many discussions about homosexuality, but what I heard in church was enough for me to realize that the church did not approve.
There was one person in Wellsville who I thought was gay—a single man in his thirties named Sam. I never saw him with a boyfriend, but some people called him our town pervert. I assumed the only way he could have earned such contempt would have been to be a homosexual, though I never asked about it. I just knew I didn’t want to join him.
Faced with the possibility of life as an outcast, I tried hard to develop feelings for boys, with no luck. That is, until Loren Gretencord moved to town. I wonder if I was drawn to Loren because of his unisex name or the fact that he was so pretty. Not merely handsome, but beautiful—with smooth skin, full lips, long eyelashes, and wavy blond hair. In fact, I thought he was prettier than any girl in Wellsville Junior High. He was two years ahead of me, but we were cast together in the school play. I wrote Loren a love letter, and I asked my sister to give it to him, enclosing a school picture and asking him to go out with me. Days went by without a response. Loren didn’t look at me in the
hallway and didn’t act any differently toward me at rehearsal. It was mortifying. I just knew that the other kids in school had read my letter and were going to make fun of me. I recently asked my sister, “What ever happened to that letter I asked you to give to Loren Gretencord? Did you even give it to him?” She snickered and said, “Of course not, silly.”
With my love life stalled, I focused on music, basketball, schoolwork, and chores. Had I been into boys, I would’ve made a lot more time for them. But when I was about to turn fifteen, I met Mike Folks. It was toward the end of summer, and I was driving down Main Street to pick something up for my mother (at that time, kids in Kansas could get their driver’s license at the age of fourteen, but they were only allowed to get behind the wheel without an adult if they were running “farm errands”). I was in my mom and dad’s old beat-up truck when I noticed that there was a big tractor in front of me at the flashing red light.
When the young man driving the tractor turned at the signal, the wind picked up and blew the ball cap off his head and it landed in the street. He’d made an attempt to grab it as it went airborne, but he was in mid-turn on a big piece of farm equipment. Even though there were a few cars behind me, I switched off my ignition, got out of the truck, and picked up the cap. But the young man on the tractor didn’t see me retrieve it, and he kept on driving.