Major Conflict

by Jeffrey McGowan, Maj USA (ret. )

  I stood for a moment in the center of the room, by the great brass clock set atop the information desk, and took the whole thing in, feeling immensely relieved and happy. And just as I was about to head off east toward the subway, I thought I saw two boys sitting on one of the counters across the way. Cigarette smoke fluttered over the head of the smaller one, while the bigger one seemed to be chewing on a large piece of gum. Their hands were locked together beneath the bigger boy’s left thigh. I thought I could smell smoke then, and the strong smell of, what—a strawberry Starburst, maybe?—but then the image disappeared, and I knew I was seeing things. I knew it was Greg and me, the memory unspooling. The image came and went so quickly that I tried to conjure it up again, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t coax it back. It wouldn’t return, those two boys were gone forever, I knew now, and so I got on the escalator to go down to the subway. Just as I reached the bottom, just as I passed the heavyset nun in full nun regalia, who was always stationed there at the bottom of the escalator on a stool with her cup, all my newfound clarity and joy was suddenly tempered and enriched with sadness, the sadness of regret over all the time I’d wasted, over all the youth I’d misspent.

  But then I was on the train, and before I knew it we were bolting out of the earth at Hunter’s Point and I was feeling reinvigorated. There’s nothing like it, the way the train just emerges from beneath the ground on the Queens side, having just crossed beneath the river, and then rises up and up and makes the great sweeping curve north until the skyline of Manhattan appears to your left just behind the bridge. We pulled abruptly into the Queensboro Plaza station, the old Redbird rattling on the elevated, just as an N train pulled in on the other side, so that it felt like two roller coasters competing at Coney Island. The doors opened, then closed, and the train lurched forward again. And as the N veered off dramatically to our left, heading north into Astoria, and we started the climb up to Forty-third Street, I began to feel doubtful.

  How could I be sure that this wouldn’t be a replay of Paul? Wasn’t this too good to be true? Suddenly all the pain I’d experienced from Paul came rushing back to me, and I found myself wanting to run and hide. But I’m being ridiculous, I thought to myself, as we rushed past the apartment windows at Fifty-second Street nestled right up next to the train tracks, revealing brief snippets of private lives—a man standing in front of a television set, a woman crossing a room. Billiam is out (of the closet, that is), I told myself, and I’ll soon be out of the army, and this isn’t going to be anything like Paul. By the time the train rolled into Woodside I’d decided that life was about taking risks, that just because I’d been hurt once didn’t mean I’d be hurt again, that I’d be a fool to pass up an opportunity to make something with Billiam. Not only was I attracted to him, I was really impressed with his intelligence as well, and his sophistication. And you know what, I thought to myself, after all the trauma with Paul, I think I deserve a shot at a relationship in this new, healthier context. So when the doors finally opened at Eighty-second Street, my mind was entirely made up: I would pursue a relationship with Billiam. That’s what I would do.

  And so for the third time the light switch was flipped on, and this time nothing stood in the way of letting that light shine as brightly and freely as possible. My new life had begun to take shape, and all my anxiety about changing careers and fitting into civilian life were now made bearable by the presence of this special man who seemed to have arrived at just the right moment, as if on cue.

  Before I knew it I was meeting the family, something I’d never done before. Billy’s sisters, Yvonne and Andrea, share his striking good looks. At that time Yvonne lived on Eighty-sixth Street on the East Side, not far from Central Park. When he took me to meet her, we walked in and were met by a tall, elegant woman, who bore a strong resemblance to Julia Roberts, with thick brown hair, and, despite being pregnant with her daughter Helena, a near perfect figure. She wore one of those smiles that manage to put everyone at ease instantly, and I knew right away that I was going to like her a lot. Next to her stood her husband, Chris, a tall, blond, sturdy fellow, with handsome features, who, it turned out, is a kind of Renaissance man—an accomplished corporate finance banker and oil painter. Seeing the two of them together I couldn’t help thinking that I’d somehow managed to stumble into an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

  I was nervous at that first meeting, but it quickly became clear that they accepted me for who I was and were prepared to open their home to me with the same generosity and kindness they offered to everyone.

  Soon thereafter, Billy took me to meet his sister Andrea, and her husband and daughter, at their home in Westchester. Like her two siblings, Andrea is stunningly beautiful. The moment I met her I was struck by her fierce intelligence and warmth. She’s so open and easy to talk to that she quickly took me into her confidence. To this day she is one of the people I turn to for advice. Her husband, Bill, a successful trader, comes from a large and wonderful family, and whenever we spend the holidays with them it’s always a raucous good time. The aforementioned Wilhelmina was only ten months old when I first met them, and she was already showing signs of being very precocious. I would be remiss if I did not mention the three children who followed, Helena, Claudia, and Harrison—all of whom are destined for greatness.

  That first month of our relationship was truly magical. Since I was on leave and had nothing better to do, we were able to spend a lot of time together, whenever Billiam’s busy work schedule permitted. It was just so easy and right, I could not believe it. It seemed as if time stopped whenever we were together, as we laughed and talked about everything under the sun. He was funny, smart, good-looking, and kind; in short, a dream come true. I knew even then that I was in love and that I would spend the rest of my life with him. It was the kind of conviction that starts in your gut and then expresses itself in the mind.

  The neatest thing, which was also a little intimidating at first, was the fact that he was so comfortable in his skin. The old adage that opposites attract could not have been truer in our case. For so long I’d had to censor myself and try to fit in; Billiam just was, and it was great. I was champing at the bit to be drawn out of my comfort zone and create a new life for myself, and Billiam was the perfect man to help me do it.

  So here I was, this kid from Queens, suddenly thrust into the town-and-country set, and they took me in like one of their own. I was part of a family that accepted me hands-down and provided me with all the love and support I needed to transition from the army to civilian life. I was a lucky man, indeed.

  And I was quickly learning just how wrong I’d been. So much that I had thought was entirely out of my reach—love, family, and the deep satisfaction that comes with them—was, in fact, quite possible. All it took was honesty. I had to find the courage to be honest with myself, and after that, everything fell into place. That did not mean that it came easy. I had to work for everything, and for the first year or so it was very hard.

  Transitioning from military to civilian life was in some ways like immigrating to a new country—that’s how different I found things. So many of the rules in the civilian world were completely different. A lot of it was better—the freedom to be with Billy openly for one, and that’s a big one; some of it not so much—figuring out how to dress appropriately for work took some real time and effort; and some of it was actually a little scary—job security, for instance. One of the most glaring differences was the absence of the structure and predictability I’d grown accustomed to in the military. People no longer stood up when I walked into a room. I no longer had a driver. And since I’d reached the rank of major and had a pretty substantial tenure with the army, I had to take a hefty pay cut. So, a lot of the fears that Paul had expressed to me were in part valid, but nothing that time and hard work could not overcome.

  I chose to go into pharmaceutical sales because I figured it would give me the opportunity to help people in some small way after having spent most of my adult life focusing o
n how to kill them. I quickly learned what it means to be an entrepreneur and to have to hustle. The upside to all this was that I had someone in my life who loved and supported me. There was no law that barred my relationship with Billiam or forced us into the kind of weird secrecy that destroyed my relationship with Paul. And there was, of course, no longer my fear of being found out, which had ruined my relationship with Greg. The light was lit. The genie was out of the bottle for good. We could be and do whatever we wanted.

  I would be lying if I said that I found this easy to deal with initially. I was so used to being closeted and in denial that I had to unlearn (and am still unlearning and probably will be for the rest of my life) all the ingrained habits and ways of thinking that characterize the kind of unintegrated life I was living. Time, though, is the great healer, and I have managed to shed much of the paranoia that was part of surviving in the army.

  Over the years my relationship with Billiam has undergone many changes as we’ve struggled with my adjusting and all the normal ups and downs of life. And through this we’ve both grown individually and we’ve grown together as a couple. When I talk to our straight friends, I’m often, still, struck by how much we have in common, that we are, in the end, just like them, good people working, and sometimes struggling, to stay together and pay the bills.

  About a year into our relationship we decided to buy a house in the New Paltz area. We chose the Hudson Valley because of its great beauty and proximity to New York City. We were a little leery of what our reception would be, since it is definitely small-town America. What we found was a wonderfully open-minded community that welcomed us from the very beginning. After introducing ourselves to our neighbors, we met the town supervisor at the time, Judy Mayle, who graciously extended an invitation to both of us to sit on the zoning and planning boards. We accepted immediately, because we both believe in public service and want to help out in any way we can. I serve on the planning board and Billiam is on the zoning board. One year, I even ran for a seat on the town council.

  In the early days of our relationship I’d not given much thought to the idea of getting married. But all that changed in 2003 when Billiam attended a debate among the local candidates running for the legislative seats in Ulster Country. That night he came home bursting with excitement about one of the candidates, whose name was Jason West. His exact words to me were, “He is destined to do great things.” One of the main reasons Billiam said this was because Jason was the only candidate for any office he’d ever known who publicly supported same-sex marriage. After that night, he followed his campaign intensely and became an avid supporter.

  After Jason was elected mayor of the village of New Paltz, Billiam got to know him better and asked him if he really meant what he said about supporting same-sex marriage. The answer was still yes. Over the next several months Billiam kept in contact with him and helped him formulate how to best go about doing it. Truthfully, I did not think that it would happen because I thought it was against the law, but every time we talked, Billiam assured me that there was a legal basis for it.

  A couple months later, we met a gay couple—Charles Clement and Maurice Zinken—who had moved to the area from Holland to open a bed-and-breakfast. Charles is American. He is an extremely talented artist and has the wisdom of several lifetimes. From the first time we met, I knew that he would be a close friend of mine till the end. Maurice is Dutch, and easily one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, speaking four languages fluently. They’d been married in Holland where same-sex couples can do so legally. From the start I was impressed by their great generosity. They opened their home to Billy and me and treated us with kindness and hospitality on an epic scale. What they teach me every time I am around them is that any limitation in my life is generally self-imposed, and I can change it if I want to. They’re two truly amazing human beings who, in a very real way, have become my heroes. Their relationship should be the subject of a book of its own.

  One night they invited us over and toward the end of the evening casually popped their wedding video into the VCR. I think to a certain degree their marriage wasn’t entirely real to me until I saw the video. Almost from the moment it began playing, I was awestruck by the beauty of this happiest of rituals. And suddenly seeing two men there instead of a man and a woman made so much sense; it looked so natural, so right. It was a wedding just like any of the weddings I’d attended over the years for my straight friends. But seeing the evidence of their freedom to marry so clearly in front of me shook me to the core and inspired me deeply. The very next day, I asked Billiam to marry me.

  We thought we’d simply have a commitment ceremony, until Billiam told Jason about it and convinced him that the time had come to act on his convictions. San Francisco had begun to conduct weddings, and the momentum was building. And the rest, as they say, is history! Billiam and I were the first same-sex couple in New York State to get married, thrusting New Paltz onto the national stage.

  For me it was a natural next step. I love Billiam, so why shouldn’t I have the freedom to marry him and to commit myself to the responsibility of that marriage? As for the fact that we are the video clip you see every time the issue appears on television, well, that was just really frightening to go through. The pressure to be dignified and not put your foot in your mouth on your wedding day was nerve-racking. I shudder to think what it must feel like when the scrutiny is negative. Thankfully, once again everything turned out okay.

  As a result of this very public act, I have been blessed in countless ways. The first wedding gift we received came, amazingly, from Greg, with whom I’d completely lost touch. I’ve heard from old army buddies and college friends. Every week it seems that people I knew long ago contact me to tell me they support me and that they want me back in their life again. All in all, not bad for a kid from Queens.

  If you had told me fifteen years ago that in the late winter of 2004 I would announce I was gay and get married to another man on national television, I would have said you must be smoking crack and would have recommended therapy. Then again, I guess I am living proof that you can teach an old (though not so old, really) dog new tricks.

  Epilogue

  MAY 2004

  It was a brutally hot Sunday, the temperature reaching up past ninety, and Billy and I were walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in linen and seersucker. We were marching along with a few thousand others from Brooklyn to Battery Park in support of same-sex marriage. We would be speaking at the rally in the park later on. The walk over the famous bridge was a first for me, and I savored every minute of it, watching the magnificent skyline sparkle in the bright spring sunlight. Occasionally my vision would be drawn to the lower end of the island, and I’d feel a twinge of pain, that odd absence, looking for the two graceful towers that should have been there but were not, just blue sky opening out to New Jersey, a clean wound now, perhaps, though a wound nonetheless.

  What was most striking to me about the march was how young everyone seemed to be. Everywhere I looked, I saw a sea of young faces, smiling and laughing, eager to show the world that their relationships have value and that they’re entitled to the freedom to marry and are prepared for the responsibility it entails.

  Later on, after finishing my speech in the park, I was accosted by two kids from Scarsdale, Cindy and John. Both were dressed comfortably in T-shirts and shorts. They told me they were both straight and part of the gay-straight alliance at their high school. I’d heard of such organizations but wasn’t quite sure what they did, so I took the opportunity to pepper both of them with questions. They seemed a little surprised that I was so clueless about the gay-straight alliance phenomenon. I explained to them that I didn’t get the chance to meet many high school kids these days but was grateful that they’d filled me in. Toward the end of the conversation, John said to me, “Mr. McGowan, you’re a hero. We just wanted to thank you for all that you’re doing.”

  If they only knew! My life was an example of everything you shouldn’t d
o, at least when it comes to being true to yourself. In fact, I had spent the last fifteen years doing everything in my power to deny and evade the truth about myself, hardly the stuff heroes are made of. Yet, by an odd twist of fate, I’d been blessed (cursed?) with my own fifteen minutes of minor fame—enough, at least, to have made an impact on these two serious teenagers from Scarsdale.

  During the media circus that surrounded our marriage ceremony, reporters frequently asked me if I was now going to become an activist. To me that word conjures up images of ponytailed people in tie-dyed shirts, bearing strident manifestos, an image that is about as far away from the person I am as can be imagined. And so when John said the word hero, and I saw the expression on his face and on Cindy’s face, two earnest children looking up at me in my linen and seersucker, I cringed, feeling entirely unworthy. The truth is, as this book shows, I haven’t spent years of selfless sacrifice in support of the movement, and I have no right to pose as someone who has.

  If I have done anything to advance the just cause of equality for gay people, it was by accident, a result of simply finally making the decision to act. Powerful change often comes from the least likely of places. All it takes is one ordinary person doing one extraordinary thing. The civil rights movement is replete with examples of this. Whether it was Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus or Sergeant Leonard Malevitch coming out to his air force commander in 1975, these were simple people who had the guts and the integrity to stand up for what they believed was right. What I’ve done doesn’t even begin to come close to what these people did. I’m not in their league. The point is, we all have a role to play, and we can all make a difference to one degree or another if we only make the decision to act.

  Why have I written this book? How have I arrived at this point? These questions can be answered with a few more very simple questions. Why not me? Why not now? What do I have to gain by remaining cautious, hidden? Immersed in the antigay culture of the military for so long, I mistook being reasonable with conformity, with doing my soldier’s best to squeeze myself into a box made for others. I believed being reasonable meant sacrificing personal fulfillment for the sake of my profession, and as a result I spent the best part of my young adulthood as only half a man. Those days are now over.