Sweet Tooth

by Tim Anderson

  One week later, grumpy Ms. Sutton made us publicly choose the movie we’d be writing about, and to make it fair, we drew numbers out of a hat to see who would choose first. We had twenty-eight people in the class, and I picked #27. Drat. I leaned back in my seat in an attempt at nonchalance as one student after the other went to the board to write their choice. There went Norma Rae, thus went Sunday Bloody Sunday, and thither went Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. I feared that someone would swoop in and take Aidan Quinn away from me, but it turned out I’d underestimated how unpopular the “gay people with AIDS” topic would be among my peers. When it was my turn to divulge my choice, I had a clear path to Aidan. I stood and wrote the movie title on the board and walked back to my seat without looking at anyone because I didn’t want to see if any of my classmates realized what I’d just signed up for: two months of research and writing about gays and AIDS. In high school in 1990, that alone made you a power bottom.

  I rented the movie and got to work reading article after article about AIDS, its insidious attack on the body, its tragic consequences for the gay community, and the attendant fear and loathing of gay people in the culture at large. In the movie, Aidan Quinn contracts HIV from his lover, who he finds out visited bathhouses when Aidan was out of town. For the purposes of this TV movie, it was important for Aidan himself to be guiltless, because otherwise the American audience would not side with him, owing to his being a vile gay slut going around spraying his AIDS everywhere. Instead, his lover was tasked with being the vile gay slut, and Aidan had everyone’s sympathies. Sadly, he had to tell his parents Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands that he was gay and had AIDS in the same conversation, which was just awful. I never wanted to have to do that. Mr. Gazzara did not respond well.

  “You should watch Maurice,” Bernice, my coworker at the Coterie, said to me one day. “It might be good for your research.” Bernice knew from gay folk: Her best friend was as gay as a $3 bill.

  “Is it about AIDS?” I asked.

  “Nah, just about gay people in England. Takes place in, like, 1900 or something.”

  “But why will it help me if it’s not about AIDS?” I asked.

  Bernice looked at me with the subtlest of knowing expressions. “Just watch it, it’s good.”

  Bernice was on to me.

  So, Maurice had nothing to do with AIDS. Still, it was about homosexuals, and it sounded like some sort of costume drama, and maybe it took place at some posh private English school with communal showers and hazing and games of soggy biscuit, and I needed to see it right now. I went to Blockbuster and tracked down the video. On the cover of the box were two young men riding horses in a misty morning scene. I swooned as I grabbed it off the shelf and walked down the aisle toward the checkout counter. Then my eyes came upon Torch Song Trilogy on the shelf. There was Matthew Broderick among the ensemble of actors, looking adorable with a terrible feathered hairstyle. I quickly swiped that video up as well, looking around to make sure no one was shadowing me and taking note of my swishy home entertainment choices. (I was ready with an airtight excuse: research.)

  My parents were out of town that weekend, but instead of throwing a sloppy booze party like any other hot-blooded young seventeen-year-old would have, I sat home in the dark and watched gay videos. I watched Maurice five times, all the way to the last frame of the exit music and closing credits. Basically, the movie was the gay A Room with a View, and it told the story of Maurice and Clive, two students at Cambridge who fall in love but, after years of platonic concert-going, close friendship-having, and picnicking, they ultimately find their situation unmanageable. Clive marries a woman named Anne, and Maurice, after years in the wilderness during which he undergoes hypnotherapy, ends up with Clive’s randy gamekeeper Alec, the end. It was a total bummer. Sure, Maurice and Alec were together and in love, but their prospects looked bleak—their relationship was illegal, after all. And Clive was living a lie with that poor Anne. It broke my heart. And I couldn’t stop myself from watching it over and over, sitting on the couch, stuffing my face with sugar-free vanilla wafer after sugar-free vanilla wafer.

  “Well, at least they didn’t have AIDS,” I said, shrugging, after watching the closing credits roll for the fifth time in two days. The gays back then had it easier in some ways, I supposed. Sure, they had to hide from society, were constantly in danger of being arrested, had to construct false lives for themselves, and probably needed to emigrate to the Continent to be able to do any solid dating. But at least they weren’t collectively being eaten alive by a disease seemingly bent on their—and pretty much only their—destruction.

  I finally got around to putting Torch Song Trilogy into the VCR on Sunday evening, and at long last got the chance to lie back on the couch and finish watching that kissing scene I’d glimpsed briefly at the Cowboy Junkies show a year earlier. Two men kissing. Romantically. In the dark. And what made it even better was the dialogue that preceded it, which included surely the most fantastic rejoinder in all of cinema. Harvey Fierstein’s character Arnold tells Ed that he’s a female impersonator as he unlocks the door to his apartment, then asks if that bothers him.

  “Not yet,” Ed says. Touché, Ed.

  I lapped up all the gay hijinks that ensued—men shopping for clothes in the women’s department, men getting it on in the back room of a gay bar, men dressed as women singing about keeping svelte by puking after every meal. Then Matthew Broderick enters the picture in the second act, and just when we’re thinking that this is just the most blissfully gorgeous love story of all time, one much more likely to succeed than that of Maurice and Clive, Matthew is cruelly torn away from his frantic seventeen-year-old viewers watching at home in the dark while their parents are away from the house, in a painful scene of anti-gay violence. Killed “by kids with baseball bats,” as Arnold put it to his shrewish mother. Arnold goes on to have a bittersweet happy ending, but still. Matthew Broderick—beautiful, angelic, nubile Matthew Broderick, the former Ferris Bueller—dead from a hate-filled blow to the head.

  “Well, hmm. At least he didn’t have AIDS?” I thought, struggling to focus on the life-affirming aspects of the two videos I’d spent my weekend drinking in.

  “Yes. Maurice, Clive, Alec, Harvey, Ed, and Matthew Broderick never got AIDS.” I raised my hand in the air and gave the weakest of triumphant fist pumps.

  Then I turned off the television and switched on the light in the living room for the first time all weekend, returning to my term paper on AIDS-ridden Aidan Quinn as my parents’ Chevy pulled into the driveway.

  When I said “I’m gay” for the first time out loud to someone, it was exactly one week after writing it down for that same person. The person was, of course, a therapist I’d been going to, Dr. Shawn. I’d started seeing him that fall when my mom got worried that I never left the house, even on weekends, and spent the vast majority of my senior year in my room doing God knows what. (We all know what.)

  “Whatever happened to Young Life?” she asked me, prompting me to roll my eyes, sigh, and return to my spiral-bound poetry notebook and lazily scribble something idiotic.

  Dr. Shawn was not a warm person. But he wasn’t cold, either. He just kind of sat there, taking it all in. During my first session he gave me a five-page questionnaire to fill out so that he could determine what issues I was dealing with. I took it home with me, got out a pencil to fill in the little bubbles, and started going through the questions. It was very satisfying to see the sheer number of disorders and disadvantages that I didn’t suffer from. In one section of the questionnaire I was being asked to indicate any conditions that applied to me.

  Physical abuse? No.

  Sexual abuse? Nada.

  Drug use? Whenever they are offered.

  Alcohol? Beer, PJ, Boone’s Farm.

  Sexual activity? If only.

  Then I came to a question that caused me to go red:

  Sexual attraction to someone of the same sex? Well, heh, uh, funny you should ask that particular questio
n because [sound of pencil breaking] I was just wondering if this question would come up [sound of rubber ball being slammed into wall] and what I would say if it did and [sound of cat howling after being stepped on] I couldn’t help but notice there’s no space to, you know, explain myself below the question [sound of books falling off a shelf] and should I maybe just insert a little comment or maybe I could just put a check between “yes” and “no” because [sound of toilet flushing] I see that there’s no “maybe” box and [sound of rubber band snapping] oh, fuck it, YES.

  I mailed the questionnaire back to Dr. Shawn, and when I went in for my next session I assumed that we would talk about absolutely nothing besides the fact that I want to shower with dudes all day, every day, forever. But he didn’t even bring up the questionnaire. He just sat back, asked me about school, and nodded along as I prattled on and on about whatever tiny inconsequential thing entered my brain while I waited for him to say something about my damn same-sex attraction issues, hurry up!

  But he never did. He just kept nodding along sagely as I blathered about being nervous about college and stressed about exams and a little worried about how much I hated my ex-girlfriend and resentful about being diabetic and just feeling antisocial these days it’s no big deal. Finally—finally—I ran out of things to talk about, and there was silence in the room. I could feel Dr. Shawn’s eyes on me. I knew he had to have read the questionnaire I’d filled out. He knew! Why wouldn’t he just say it!

  Just say it, Dr. Shawn! “You are a big ol’ Nellie queen, aren’t you, Tim?” Just say it!

  Nothing. Silence. And at long last it occurred to me: Dr. Shawn wanted me to say it. He was deliberately letting this awkward wordless space stand and expand in order to force me to fill it with my confession.

  I looked at Dr. Shawn’s poker face. If I were to tell him, would he say “That’s great”? “That’s disgusting”? “That’s hilarious”? Who knew? But let’s face it, he knew already. Might as well say it.

  “So I was wondering if you’d looked at that questionnaire I filled out?”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “So…yeah, I’m just wondering if you saw anything interesting in it?”

  He made an expression that conveyed nothing; a facial shrug of the shoulders.

  “Like, was there anything unusual that you saw?”

  After a few more excruciating seconds of silence, Dr. Shawn finally spoke.

  “Was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?”

  “I, uh, well, just…was wondering…if you saw…that part where…the question about…sexual attraction.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I saw that.”

  “Well, what did you think of my answer?”

  A few silent seconds went by. “What do you think about your answer?”

  Few more seconds. “I think…I don’t know. What do you think?”

  I sat there wishing there was a third person in the room—maybe a drag queen in a mink coat and bloodred high heels to whom I could turn and say, “What do you think, Sassy?”

  It was clear I wasn’t going to get anything out of him before offering myself up on a silver platter with an apple in my mouth.

  When I’d dreamed about how this particular session would go, it had gone something like:

  [Tim walks into Dr. Shawn’s dimly lit office, following a trail of rose petals to his usual seat in the corner. The room is lit only by a few candles and a lava lamp on the coffee table. Dr. Shawn, standing there in a wifebeater and sensible slacks, greets him.]

  Tim: Dr. Shawn, what on earth is going o…?

  [Dr. Shawn dashes up to Tim and presses his index finger against his lips.]

  Dr. Shawn: Don’t speak.

  [Dr. Shawn turns to the wall, touches his nose, and a heart-shaped bed with bloodred satin sheets descends to the floor. Dr. Shawn crawls onto the mattress, turns, and beckons Tim to the bed with his big toe. Tim slides into the sheets next to him.]

  Dr. Shawn: Now, let’s talk about that questionnaire you filled out last week…

  [And scene.]

  This obviously made perfect sense and would have been a completely healthy outcome for the both of us. Sure, Dr. Shawn was an only mildly attractive married middle-aged man who in any other circumstance would have never entered my daydreams dressed in anything more revealing than a turtleneck. But he was a man. A full-grown man. And now he was the only man in the world to know my deep dark secret, which was kind of sexy.

  There was no seduction, in any case. Just me sitting there in a painfully quiet and fully lit room, forcing myself to say the word “gay” in reference to myself out loud and in front of this man of mystery sitting before me. He could have been thinking about how disgusting homosexuality is; he could have been thinking about pepperoni pizza. I didn’t know. And he wasn’t telling.

  I relented and gave it up.

  “I think I’m gay.”

  He nodded. “And what do you think about that?”

  What did I think about it?

  “It’s…annoying.”

  He nodded. “I can imagine it is.”

  “And…irritating.”

  “Yes.”

  “And…frustrating.”

  “Well,” Dr. Shawn began, “it is right now, I’m sure. But you’re young. Everything’s annoying and irritating and frustrating.”

  I walked out of his office that day completely naked—sadly, only in the metaphorical sense. I’d finally, after much quiet nudging, pulled off all my clothes, flung them on the carpet, then just sat there and let a silent man look at me and wait for me to tell him how I felt about being naked.

  I felt a draft.

  So it was onward to the friend confessional. The night began, as so many great and meaningful nights do, in a pool hall. Dani and I had gone to one of our regular haunts, the bowling alley on Hillsborough Street downtown, which had a quiet room near the snack bar with two pool tables that no one ever used, as well as a chalkboard on the wall that invariably featured charming smut written by some guttersnipe who’d wandered in off the street. (Sample: YO MOMMA PUSSY SMELL.)

  Journey’s greatest hits were howling out of the bowling alley’s speakers as Dani proceeded to beat me senseless in pool, as was her wont. I’d made a plan that at some point in the evening I was going to tell her the terrible truth, and as the defeats stacked up I began to get twitchy and worried about actually going through with it. It’s hard to just drop something like that into normal pool conversation.

  “Nice shot, Dani! Did I ever tell you I want the drummer from INXS to beat me with his drumsticks?”

  “Remind me, Dani, am I stripes or solids? Also, I kinda wanna tongue-kiss the lead singer of Depeche Mode, Woody from Cheers, and all of the Beastie Boys.”

  “Another solid victory, Dani, well done. You know what would taste good about right now? Matt Dillon’s cock.”

  A change of venue was in order. Because who can come out of the closet to his best friend while a chalkboard with the message BIG OLE FAT ASS PUSSY hangs on the wall?

  “Hey, you wanna go to the park?” I suggested after she beat me again. “We could get some snacks and go swinging.”

  “Yeah, OK,” she said. “I’m bored with beating you anyway. Let’s go.”

  So we headed over to the playground at Shelley Lake to swing, smoke some cigarettes, and tell each other we were gay. I pulled in to the empty parking lot, found a space, and shut off the car. We walked down to the playground and sat ourselves on two swings. Swinging, in our case, usually led to singing, and it didn’t take long for Dani to launch into one of her favorites by Janis Joplin.

  It was the one about freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose, and I joined in with her, thinking, “Janis, honey, you really are singing my tune tonight.” Dani and I swung higher and higher as we sang, and as the song ascended out of my vocal range it seemed like the moment had arrived. I had to stop singing and tell her.

  I halted our gorgeous duet and left
her all alone to finish off the song. When she realized that I was no longer singing, her la-las began to drift off until the clinking of the swing-set chains was the only sound left in the air.

  “Uh, so, I wanted to tell you something,” I said.

  Dani had been talkative that night, and it had been a challenge to find an “in” for my horrifying declaration. I needed to get in there before she started a new song, especially if it was the jingle for Dark and Lovely hair products, because I would not be able to not sing along to that; it just wasn’t in my constitution. But I’d managed to force my introductory phrase out of my mouth and now either had to make something up real quick that could be considered newsworthy enough to justify such an opening or tell her the truth. Which would it be?

  “Uh, OK,” she said, hopping off the swing. We walked over to the sandbox and sat on the wooden rim. She took out two cigarettes, handed one to me, and we lit them.

  “What’s up?” She looked a little nervous.

  “Oh, I don’t know, there was just something that I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  She looked away from me as she exhaled a plume of smoke.

  “I’m gay.”

  Dani jerked her head around. Her eyes were wide with shock.

  “Oh!”

  “Are you surprised? I mean, did you know?”

  “No! I mean, yes! I mean, no I didn’t know, yes I’m surprised.”

  “Really? Is it weird? Does it bother you?”

  “Oh, no. I mean, no. I mean, yeah, it’s weird because…”

  Because why, Dani?

  “Uh, well,” she stammered, “I thought you were going to say something…very different.”

  “What?”

  “It’s embarrassing. I thought you were going to tell me you’re in love with me.”

  “Hmm. Quite the opposite.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. Still, you know”—she slipped her hand quickly across her brow—“phew.”