There were aspects of my new school that I was prepared for, just as I could have prepared myself for the drying-out process by drinking lots of water or carrying a tub of lip balm around with me. I knew that kids in my congregation would be in my classes. I knew they had been going to church with one another for years, and saw one another more than the typical five times a week required by schools. They saw one another on the weekend at church, on weeknights during church activities. They went to Boy Scouts together, they were in the Young Women's groups together. They lived across the street from one another. By junior year of high school, many of them had become inseparable in some form or another.
I knew how closely linked church life would be to school—how, during a free time-release period from school, we would trek ourselves up Timpview's sloping parking lot onto a separate property. There, in a large, two-story church building, we would spend one hour in a protected environment governed by different rules, attendance policies, and teachers. The teachers were Brother This and Sister That, not Mr. or Mrs., and were called to these positions by the Church.
We opened with church hymns, we prayed, we studied various parts of scripture. Many students would talk about what a blessing it was to be able to come to this environment for an hour a day to avoid the evils of everyday high school. Some of these same students would end up down in the Commons area of the actual high school later in the day, swearing and flirting heavily with their latest conquests.
I was prepared for the hypocrisy, though it began to grate on me as time wore on. I would stop going to seminary consistently about halfway through my junior year, retreating into the computer lab used by the high school newspaper staff, which I joined on a whim. I could escape in my own way for that hour in the day, though my newspaper advisor occasionally poked her head in, telling me that I really should go to seminary.
Other things took me by surprise. There were dances every month, each having its own set of guidelines. Invitations were elaborate and responses were expected to be just as impressive. I had been raised with the knowledge of Homecoming, Winter Formal, Prom. But now I had new names to consider: Spring Fling, Sadie Hawkins (in which the girls asked the boys), and others, on top of the monthly Stag dances. I went to the first few dances my junior year, trying to act the part that I should play, but the dances too fell by the wayside as I continued to separate myself from normal high school activity.
I had begun to find and make friends outside of school, the kind my mom would refer to simply as friends, with pursed lips and a nice helping of verbal disdain. I met other gay Mormons: high school students who had barely come out to themselves, BYU students hiding their sexuality from everyone on campus because they could be kicked out, returned missionaries who told me horror stories of how they were treated during and after their two years abroad.
I made immediate bonds with those who were in these situations, but even having friendships in this place was difficult. At restaurants, going to movies, we were always watching behind our backs, hoping that we wouldn't run into people from our congregations or schools. If we did, we would think up excuses in advance. My friend Jeff and I agreed that if someone saw us together, we wouldn't explain that we had actually met each other online. We would claim that we had a mutual friend, named Jen. At one point, I was on a date with a guy who passed me off as his cousin when a couple of his college buddies saw us eating at a restaurant.
After they left, all I could say to him was, “Yup, we're definitely family.”
By the end of junior year, what had become clear to me was that I could never escape it—the judgment, the constant watching. In this valley, the very center of Mormon culture, I was immersed in what I was raised to be. I knew that was the point; I had been brought here partly to be saved from what tempted me in Chicago. What taunted me was the constant presence of something higher up and far away, those small snow-capped peaks that stayed on during the hot months. In some ways, I felt like I was constantly sinking lower into the valley floor. The longer I was here, the more I was surrounded by the culture.
But the more I was surrounded by it, the easier it became to reject.
Back on Timp, the climb continued through switchbacks on the rocky slopes and up into the flat, wild fields that I remember so well. It was 90 degrees and sunny on the valley floor that day, but the fields were enshrouded in a dense, 50-degree fog. The fog would appear from the valley as a small puff of cloud, a wisp of condensation in the dry heat, but in the midst of all of it the purples and blues and oranges and yellows of the field did their best to bleed through the thick haze of the chilly mountain air.
Trekking through the richly colored expanses, we came to Emerald Lake. It looked more like a pond to me, as my definition of the term “lake” had been formed by the much more expansive Lake Michigan. Regardless of its classification, it gathered at the base of the final ascent to Timp's peak, looking up the maiden's nostrils. Snow was close now, and it took only a slight look up to see the rocky glacier that fed the lake. Hikers who had time enough to get to the top were careening down the glacier, which functioned as a giant, bumpy slide for those who didn't want to walk down. Where the glacier ended, a small river formed and opened into Emerald Lake's basin. The edge of the water was at my feet, and though we intended to turn back for home soon, I had no desire to leave the dense, cool air.
It was hot on the ground in early fall of my senior year, a perfect Indian summer day. On this Sunday, though, I sat in my bishop's office after church had ended. It looked like any other bishop's office I had been in before, with white-painted brick walls and matching upholstered furniture. In this case, it was lavender. Bishop Holmes adjusted the air-conditioning unit next to his desk, tucked his red tie into his navy suit jacket, and sat down behind his desk.
“Not such a pleasant conversation,” he said as he eased into his leather chair.
He went on to explain what I already knew. A BYU student I had dated late in my junior year had had a change of heart about his sexuality. After dating for a few weeks, he'd cut off communication with me and decided to speak to his own bishop about his problem.
My bishop then explained that he knew because this student, Taylor, had told his own bishop who I was, what we had done, and where I lived. Though bishops and members were bound by something similar to doctor–patient confidentiality, he explained that special cases such as mine required communication between bishops so that the “process of repentance” could be expedited.
As I sank into my chair and blood rushed to my head, all I could think was that I had been ratted out. Taylor had been kicked out of BYU for violating its honor code and I was to blame.
“I contemplated telling your mother about this,” the bishop said.
It would have been easy for him to do so. He was a musician on faculty with my mother at BYU and worked down the hall from her. It would have been so easy for him to knock on her office door and ask to speak with her for a second—
“But I decided that wasn't the best course of action,” he said, and I nodded. “She has her recital coming up. I wouldn't want to upset her.”
I nodded my head again, knowing that my mother was deep in practice for a debut performance at the university in a week. I, however, thought there would be better reasons to keep this from her until he spoke to me.
For an hour, I recounted what had happened between Taylor and me—how we met, what we did, what we did sexually, why it ended. I knew why it had ended because Taylor had explained it very plainly in an e-mail; there was no call, no request to meet in person and say good-bye. Just an e-mail.
I told my bishop I would cooperate. I would continue to see him and try to resolve this problem on the condition he never spoke to my mother about it, even after the pressure of her recital was over. If he even so much as told her, I said, I would never come to church again.
He handed me a few pamphlets and a book. He told me that he would tell my mother that I had come to him about this, that I want
ed to resolve my problems. He said that the book and pamphlets would give me guidance from other ex-gay Mormons who had successfully walked down the right path.
I walked home on the warm fall day along a road behind my house, flipping through the success stories. I thought of Taylor's e-mail, and how he so desperately wanted to find a wonderful woman to marry and have children with so he could live a happy life.
I returned to the book in my hands. I flipped through the story of a man who kicked the gay habit, rejected his choice to become a homosexual, married a woman, and wrote a book about it under a pseudonym.
I stopped on the road next to the empty field below my house and let all the words go. With the afternoon sun setting below the mountains to the west, I threw the book and pamphlets into the field and erased Taylor's e-mail from my memory, knowing that the choice I had just made had nothing to do with my sexuality.
Years later, after I've returned to Chicago for college and am asked about my time in Utah, I place myself back in that image in the parking lot, looking east toward the peaks. I can feel the heat against my back, I can feel it come up through my flip-flops. My eyes dart about at the grooves running down the hillsides, imagining water racing down them from the peaks, invisible to the naked eye. The clumps of trees and brush are fine; they will survive the heat and impending brush fires that the dryness brings. The melting snow is close enough to them to bring sustenance.
I look down again. There is no water here on the asphalt. I twist the tar around more, noticing how it winds on along the parking lot, merging with other, smaller rivers of tar. They are the closest thing to flowing water that could survive here. I imagine that a drop of water, careening in a dive toward the asphalt, would hit the pavement in a sizzle, evaporating into the dry air.
I then remember myself up on Emerald Lake, watching as the rocky glacier sits stoically, hikers scuttling down its surface. Relief is up there: a cool breeze, a cold mass holding endless gallons of frozen water, keeping to itself. I could travel up through the brush and trees again and stay by the lake and fields. Even now, I can imagine myself up there. Looking down on the land below, I am enclosed in a thick layer of fog, taking in the scenery, never needing to see the hot valley floor again.
When You're a Gay Boy in America
by Danny Zaccagnino
When you're a gay boy in America, you quickly learn you need to develop a thick skin. This protects us from all the hateful words and unjust treatment we face every day. Our method of survival does have its flaws, however. Sometimes our armor is just not quite thick enough. Sometimes the pain can go so deep that it cuts through our skin and touches us. When it does, it leaves us with a scar. Gay boys are full of scars. There are the scars we can't see but still feel. These are our emotional scars. I carry an emotional scar given to me by a Scout leader who once said I wasn't boy enough to be in the Boy Scouts. Then there are our physical scars. Each holds a memory and tells a story. They tell of battles, weakness, pain, recovery, and accidents. Some scars we wear with pride and celebrate their stories. Other scars we attempt to cover up and pretend they don't exist.
Some scars can be intentional. I spent ninety minutes straddling a leather chair while a stranger dug into my flesh with an electric needle and black ink. It was the moment every suburban punk waits his whole life for: the day I got my very first tattoo. It was a gift from my parents on my eighteenth birthday. I had only been legal for a few hours when I eagerly went under the needle. When the rebellious act was over, I was left with a black dragon between my shoulder blades with the initials E.M. next to it. I had planned this day many years in advance. I wanted to make sure I had the perfect tattoo. There would be no cheesy tribal bands for me. I chose a dragon because they are protectors. I placed it on my back so I would always have someone watching my back. I wanted a tattoo that had meaning and told a story.
My tattoo tells the story of a very dark time in my family history. My grandfather's initials were added to my tattoo because his death marked the beginning of an eight-month period in my life when there was nothing but death around me. I was only twelve and had never had anyone close to me die before. My grand-father's death was quickly followed by the death of my uncle. Then a good friend of mine's mother passed away from cancer. Shortly after that my other grandfather died. Right before Christmas my close neighbor's infant baby fell out of her crib and died. Then the series of tragic events ended with the death of my grandmother. They say she died of cancer but really she died of a broken heart. I attended a funeral once a month.
This was such a horrible time for my family to live through. I felt like we were cursed. I thought we must have done something wrong and that's why we were being put through all this sorrow. I remember feeling like death was stalking me and my family. I don't know if it was an Italian thing or a Catholic thing, or maybe it was just a pothead thing, but I was constantly paranoid and scared that at any moment death would take me or someone I loved. I thought I could never be truly happy again, because if I was, that meant I or a family member would die. It took me a long time to get past it but eventually I did. I wanted my tattoo to depict this hard time I lived through. I wanted my dragon to protect me from the curse I felt lingered in my life. I took an emotional scar and made it a physical one.
That was me at eighteen. I was a boy who lived through a family curse and was slowly inching out of the closet. I had never been in a relationship. I had experienced only one sexual encounter with a man, and that had left me somewhat disturbed and traumatized. I discovered him in an Internet chat room. If you're a gay person living in a suburban or rural area, the Internet may be your only outlet to the gay community. You are able to look up support groups, get health information, and get a boyfriend. The computer is popular among gay people because it provides one vital feature: ambiguity. You can do, say, and look at whatever you want, secretly and safely in your own living room, without anyone else knowing. The Internet protects you from the dirty looks given to you by a Barnes & Noble clerk while you discreetly try to buy a copy of The Advocate. The Internet saves you the embarrassment of having a childhood friend spot you running out of a gay bar. You are safe there because you have no identity. You have no face. You are only a screen name and nothing more.
The Internet was a place of sexual exploration for me. I didn't even know how gay people had sex until I looked it up on the computer. This was something they never taught me at the Catholic school I attended. At first I would only talk in chat rooms and look at pictures. Eventually I graduated to the phone. I would call strangers I met online but usually got freaked out and hung up on them mid-conversation. One St. Patrick's Day, when I was sixteen, I decided to take the ultimate plunge. I was going to meet a man from the computer in person. I'd talked to him for several hours and he'd described himself as very good-looking and only in his early thirties. He seemed nice, and early thirties wasn't really that old. He kept asking me to meet him. I declined numerous times but my curiosity got the best of me and I finally agreed.
We decided to meet at a park near my house. This was the same park where I'd attended arts camp and tried mushrooms for the first time. It had always been a place of exploration and danger for me. I slowly entered the park and nervously lit a Parliament Light. In the distance I spotted a man in a gray suit. I knew right away he was my secret date. We made eye contact but I quickly looked away and continued to stroll. We both circled the park, far away from each other, for several minutes. One of us would occasionally stop to see if the other was watching or following. This awkward dance carried on for some time. I was strangely excited by the whole scene. Anxious to see what would happen next, I took a seat on a bench and waited for him to pick up on my signal. He slowly approached and took a seat next to me. I was so nervous I thought I was going to vomit right on the park's freshly mowed grass. He must have been my father's age and looked nothing like the way he described himself on the computer. I was not attracted to him at all. I wanted to run away right then but so
mething kept me glued to that bench. I guess I was just so desperate for this kind of attention from a man. I guess I was just curious to see how far we could take this.
He asked me if I wanted to take a walk while we spoke. I agreed, and we aimlessly circled the park while we discussed music and South Park. He seemed to know a lot about adolescent topics for a middle-aged man. The whole time I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure there were no neighbors or past elementary school teachers visiting the park that day. After a long conversation about nothing in particular, we reached an uncomfortable pause. It was a perfect opportunity for me to run but once again something kept me there. I was attracted to the darkness and the novelty of this whole meeting. I was in way over my head, though, and should have said my good-byes right then. I still can't clearly remember how it happened, but he cornered me and touched me the way no one had touched me before in my life. I just froze and closed my eyes. I didn't really want it to happen but I didn't stop him. I guess I didn't know how much I was craving this until I got it. The whole incident lasted a matter of seconds. I was easily excited. Once it was over I quickly snapped back to reality. This enormous feeling of guilt and total disgust came over me. I couldn't believe what I had just let happen. I frantically pulled up my pants and ran away, not saying a word to him. I got home, avoided my mother's questions, and immediately hopped in the shower. I rubbed the bar of soap violently over my body, trying to wash the filth and guilt off of me. I could still smell the man's cologne on me. I grabbed the T-shirt I was wearing and threw it out in the garbage. I thought it held too many memories of my actions that day and wearing it again would just make me sick to my stomach. Then I locked myself in my room and quietly fought back my tears.
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