In Too Deep

by Dwayne S. Joseph

  “Yeah well, you’ll never get that opportunity unless you get Tina in check.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Abe, I swear that shit was the last straw with her. I’m tired of letting her intrude on my life. Jalisa can handle it.”

  “Now you’re talking. Speaking of Jalisa, how is my beautiful niece handling Monique’s departure?”

  “She’s sad about it, but she understands that Tina caused it. I swear, man, she’s so grown it’s scary. I can honestly say that I underestimated my little girl.”

  I smiled. “Little Jalisa. Man, you two need to make a trip here to Florida. Get away from the New York hustle and bustle.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a plan. I think I could use the vacation right about now.”

  “How’s the writing coming? When’s the next book coming out? The last one was good, man. Serious, but good.”

  “It’s going into print in the next couple of weeks. It’s not as serious as the last one.”

  “Good stuff. So what was the other thing you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “I spoke to Travis yesterday.”

  At the mention of his name, my mood instantly changed for the worst. I hadn’t spoken to or thought of Travis in a long, long time.

  “When’s the last time you spoke to him, Abe?”

  I clenched my jaws. “Randy, I love you, bro, so I’m gonna be nice when I say this . . . don’t bring up that faggot’s name to me again.”

  “He’s your brother, Abe.”

  It was hard to control the rising volume and anger in my voice. “That faggot is not my brother!”

  “Come on, man. I’m not big on his lifestyle either, but we all grew up together. We shared the same rooms, wore the same clothes, man. He’s gay but he’s our blood.”

  “Fuck that! I don’t want to have anything to do with him. I told him that years ago. You were there and you know how serious I was.”

  “Abe, we were all a lot younger. We’re grown men now. Don’t you think it’s time you accepted Travis? Why be like Pops? I think he could really use his brothers in his life. He’s going through a lot of shit.”

  “Fuck what he could use. He chose that life, so let him deal with whatever shit comes his way. Damn homo deserves whatever he gets. If you want to speak to him, you go ahead. Shit, go hang out with his faggot ass for all I care. I don’t give a shit. I’ll stay right on the sidelines with Pops while you support his parade.”

  “Man, it’s not that I support his parade. You know I think it’s just as unnatural as you do, but he’s family. How can you continue to turn your back on him like that? Six years, Abe. Don’t you think that’s long enough?”

  I slammed my hand down on my steering wheel. “Randy, forever wouldn’t be enough time for me.”

  “Whatever, man. You need to change your stance.”

  “Not in this lifetime. Why’d you bring up his gay ass anyway?”

  “I have to pick him up from the hospital tomorrow. He got into some crap with his boyfriend.”

  Just hearing the word boyfriend being used in the same sentence with Travis made me want to hit something. I always had my feelings about him when we were growing up, but when he actually came out of the closet, I couldn’t take it. From that point on I knew that he would tell everyone and anyone about his sexual preference, and I couldn’t handle that. I didn’t want to deal with the stares and the questions.

  Why is your brother gay?

  Are you gay too?

  I couldn’t stand it. He was an embarrassment to both myself and my father, and unlike Randy, there was no way in hell we were going to be there to support or help him. God created man to be with and procreate with a woman, not with another man. It goes against everything that the Bible says. In my book, next to murder and pedophilia, it is the ultimate sin.

  “Randy, whatever that pillow-biter got himself into, he deserved it and more.”

  “Don’t say that, Abe.”

  “This conversation is finished, man. I gotta go inside to my wife and take care of my manly duties.”

  I hung up the phone without giving Randy a chance to say anything else. I was pissed. My mind went back to the moment I’d broken Travis’s nose when he came back home after being gone for three days. I could have killed him that day, and if Randy hadn’t pulled me off of him, maybe I would have.

  Fucking faggot.

  I counted to ten and then went inside, hoping that Nakyia wasn’t still in the mood, because I sure as hell wasn’t.

  Travis

  I was gay.

  I’d been gay since I’d come out of my mother’s womb, only I didn’t know it until I was twelve. Growing up I’d always been different from all of the other boys in school. I never wanted to play their games or play with the same toys. I preferred Barbie over G.I. Joe. I liked red and pink as opposed to black and blue. I was never interested in being tough, and I never cared that I couldn’t fight.

  I was in the seventh grade when I realized I was gay. By seventh grade most of the boys I knew had at least kissed a girl once or twice. I was not one of those boys. I had never done it, and I never had thoughts about doing it. I was constantly asking myself why I wasn’t “normal.” Why didn’t I like the things all guys seemed to like? Why didn’t I walk the same, talk the same? Why was I so different from my brothers? Why did I look like a boy, but feel like a girl on the inside?

  With the pressure of not feeling like a normal, growing boy weighing down on my shoulders, I figured the only thing that was going to take that pressure away was to have some type of physical relation with the opposite sex. So I asked my best friend, Vanessa Richards, to fool around with me.

  Everything changed after that.

  As inexperienced as we were, Vanessa and I kissed, tongued, and fondled one another in search of my answer, and when we finished, I knew that I was nothing like all of the other boys.

  I couldn’t stand the feel of Vanessa’s lips pressing against mine. The little bit of tongue action that she sloppily gave me, made my stomach turn, and fondling her breasts felt unnatural. While other boys in school talked about how much fun it was getting to first, second, and sometimes third base, I just found the whole act downright disgusting. I shared my feelings with Vanessa afterward, and just as I thought she wouldn’t, she didn’t take the dislike of the intimacy with her personally.

  My best friend since kindergarten, Vanessa was the only person I felt like I could truly be myself around. I never worried about getting a scrutinizing stare when I played with her dolls. I was never ridiculed because I chose to pass on playing sports to jump rope. Vanessa accepted me for who I was and not who she thought I should have been.

  After confiding in her, she suggested that I could have been gay. Of course, I disagreed with her. I was a boy, after all, and as my father and brothers always said and showed, boys were only supposed to be interested in girls. But when Vanessa broke down all of the things I was into and all of my “funny” ways, I started to really wonder if she could be right. I mean, yeah, I was very animated with my hands and neck when I spoke. And yeah, I thought LL Cool J’s lips needed to be bronzed. But gay?

  After minutes of going back and forth, I asked to fool around again. That was my first sexual encounter after all, and maybe I just needed to be schooled a little. After another awkward and unexciting kiss, however, it was obvious that I was a homosexual.

  But even though I’d admitted the truth to myself, I still tried to do things in defiance of my feelings. I put down the dolls and tried to get used to playing with action figures. I tried being into girls and finding something attractive about them. I even tried flirting with them, but that never got me anywhere; they just ended up becoming my close friends. My time of self-denial lasted for about a year and after a year’s worth of fighting, I gave in and finally came to grips with accepting reality.

  Letting the person who’d been trapped inside of me out was one thing, but breaking the news about it to my family was another. So I decided to live
in the closet for fear of them ever finding out. I knew how they—particularly my brothers and father—felt about gays, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the stress and ridicule. To keep my secret safe, Vanessa and I pretended to date. Whenever we were around anyone, we made googly eyes and acted like typical teenagers in love. We held hands and gave each other kisses, which I always hated. When we were alone, we talked about all of the cute guys in school and wondered what it would feel like to have sex with a boy.

  I lived that way until I was sixteen.

  That’s when I got tired of living a lie. Vanessa warned me not to say anything. She tried to tell me how things would get worse if I did; how my family would turn against me. She was such a good friend, that she actually suggested that we get married in the future and live together, that way I could have fun on the down low. But I just couldn’t do that. I was so damn unhappy. So damn stressed-out. As each day passed, keeping my sexual preference hidden became a burden that was killing me slowly. I contemplated committing suicide so many times, but I just never had the guts to go through with it. I was falling deeper and deeper into a pit of depression, and I knew that the only way I was going to be able to survive was to come out.

  “I’m gay.”

  We were having family dinner when I made my announcement. I sat dead still as my heart pounded in my chest, and waited for everyone’s reaction, which turned out to be nothing but dead silence. “I’m gay,” I said again as everyone stared at me.

  Another tense couple of seconds crept by until finally something happened. Although she didn’t speak, my mother, who’d been sitting next to me, took hold of my hand and gave me a smile. In that moment I could tell that she’d always known, and had just been waiting for me to come out. Holding my mother’s hand in mine, I looked to my father, whose reaction was the complete opposite. With venom in his eyes, he cursed me, damned me, and rejected my existence as his seed. “You are not my son!” he raged. “I do not and will not have a faggot for a son!”

  My mother tried to get him to calm down, but he was relentless and spat more insults at me, each one cutting me deeper than the one before. Unable to take the verbal bashing, I got up and left the house, and didn’t go home for three days. It was during that time that I had my first sexual encounter.

  After leaving the house, I’d caught the subway and headed to the Village in Manhattan and walked around aimlessly until my stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t really eaten. I had just enough money for a burger and fries so I stopped at a small diner. I was sitting at the front counter alone eating when a white man in his mid-forties walked in and took the stool beside me. He wasn’t the most attractive man. Truth be told, he was downright nasty. He was overweight, needed a shave, had bad skin, and smelled like old sausage.

  I knew the moment I looked at him that he was gay and had a thing for me. He introduced himself as Bill, and spoke to me for a little while, telling me things about himself, before he started asking me questions about where I’d come from. I usually don’t talk to strangers, but after the conversation I had at home, a conversation with a stranger just seemed like something I really needed.

  The whole time Bill and I spoke, although he hadn’t come out and said it directly, I knew what he wanted. Under normal circumstances, losing my virginity to a man like him would never have happened. But my father’s hate-filled insults were bashing me over and over again in my head, and I was broken inside. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but as unwanted as I was feeling at that particular moment, I finished my meal and left with the only person that wanted to love me. The fact that it wasn’t real love meant nothing.

  Bill took me to a hotel and paid for a room for three days. During those three days, I endured his funk, his weight, and his callousness, and experienced sex for the first time—all without a condom. Luckily, I didn’t get an STD.

  After the third day, Bill left and I went home and hoped that my father had somehow managed to calm down and would be willing to talk to me. I also wanted to talk to my brothers, whose reactions I hadn’t yet received.

  My father wasn’t home, and from the look in my mother’s sad eyes, it was obvious that his absence had been a good thing. Thankfully, she didn’t ask me too many questions; she was just glad that I’d returned home. As I shed a river of tears, she hugged me tightly and told me that regardless of my sexual preference, I was and always would be her son. She didn’t know it, but her words saved my life, because that whole ordeal had taken me to the edge and I was seriously considering giving it all up that night.

  Just as she always did, my mother put together a hot plate of food for me to eat, which I did within seconds. After eating I went upstairs to face my brothers. I knew how they both felt about homosexuals, so I knew the likelihood of them damning me the way my father had was high, but I still held out hope for their understanding and support.

  When I walked into the bedroom, my oldest brother, Randy looked at me and gave me a nod. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. With his eyes, he’d told me that no matter what, I was his brother and he would have my back. My other brother, Abe, didn’t speak to me either. Well, not until after he jumped up and broke my nose and bruised my ribs. Then, like my father, he called me a faggot and said I was no longer his blood.

  I left the home I’d grown up in after that and went to live with Vanessa and her mother, who welcomed me with open arms. I stayed with them until Vanessa went off to college. And because I just barely managed to graduate, I never entertained the idea of following in her footsteps. I stayed with Vanessa’s mother for a little while, but with her new boyfriend not happy with my presence and Vanessa not there to back me up, I eventually moved out.

  With nowhere else to go, I went to live in the streets of Manhattan and prostituted myself. Some days the money was good, most days I made just enough to get a nice hot meal, and every day I dealt with danger of some kind, whether it be from gay bashers, police, or the clients themselves who loved to be physical. I can honestly say that those were some of the worst days I’d ever experienced.

  Eventually, I got tired of living on the edge and being a stranger’s piece of meat, and gave up the prostitution to do what I’d seen a lot of my gay compadres on the street do—get a sugar daddy. They were usually older men, married with families who wanted to but couldn’t come out of the closet for fear of losing everything they had. For the first time, I actually had the upper hand in the “business arrangement.” See, with me they were able to truly let loose and be themselves without being scrutinized, and since I was fulfilling their needs, they gladly fulfilled mine by supplying me with enough money to live comfortably without having to get a real job.

  Having a sugar daddy was an almost perfect business deal. I scratched their backs, and they scratched mine until theirs no longer needed to be scratched. That was usually when the arrangement came to an end.

  But there was one exception.

  Married with four kids, Paul was a high-powered executive who worked in advertising. We met at a gay club one night in the city. Like all of the other arrangements before him, ours started out the same way: when he needed to be set free, he called me. Somewhere along the line however, things changed, and instead of calling on me only when he had an urge that needed to be satisfied, he would call me just to see how I was doing.

  For the first time, I was experiencing a real relationship, as I’d finally met someone who wasn’t just interested in only being satisfied. Paul genuinely cared about me and paid attention to me like no one ever had before, always taking the time to make me feel like the queen he always said I was. The more I saw him—which was never enough since he lived out of state—the harder I fell for him and his muscular physique, and handsome, yet rugged face.

  Unfortunately, as perfect as he was, Paul had a tendency to get violent with me sometimes. I know he didn’t mean to hurt me, though, because whenever he did, he always begged for my forgiveness and explained how stressed-out he was over the pressu
res at work, and more importantly, how being in love with me and having to live a lie was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

  He’d put me in the hospital a couple of times, but this last time was the worst, as my arm and three of my ribs had been broken. My eye had also been blackened. I wish I could have called Vanessa instead of Randy, but I hadn’t been able to do that since her fiancé, who was as homophobic as they come, demanded that she end her friendship with me or lose him. I couldn’t be mad at her for having chosen her future husband over me; she’d done so much for me already.

  I was fortunate to have the relationship that I did have with Randy. He may not have approved of my lifestyle, but just like he’d said with his nod years ago when I came out, he was always there. I don’t know why, but despite the hatred in his words and actions, I still held out hope that one day Abe would have been there too. As for my father—well, I wasn’t even going to kid myself. I knew he could have cared less if I had died.

  “You didn’t tell Ma, did you?” I asked, painfully getting into Randy’s car.

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “Good. The last thing I need is for her to be worrying about me.” I grunted as I closed his door. My ribs were sore and breathing was difficult. Randy looked at me and gave me a disapproving frown. I rolled my eyes.

  “Randy, please don’t give me any speeches. I’ve had a rough night. I just want to get home and get some rest.”

  “Travis, man, why do you put up with Paul’s shit? I mean, how much longer are you going to allow him to use you for a punching bag? Shit, man, look at you. Your eye is fucked up. Your ribs are busted, your arm broken. Is he really worth it?”

  I looked away from Randy and stared out the window. The sky was overcast with gray clouds as rain was coming. The clouds in the sky reflected my mood. I was hurting more than I wanted my brother to know.

  “Travis, look, I know you think this guy loves you—”

  “He does,” I said, trying to fight back tears that were forming in my eyes. “He does Randy, okay. He’s just stressed. He’s living in the closet and that’s not an easy thing to do. I know. I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to live a lie and never be truly happy because you can’t just be yourself. Putting on fake smiles for the world to see, pretending to be something and someone you’re not.”