Where’s the drama? Where are the tchotchkes?”
“It’s fine,” I repeated.
“I don’t know why you invite me here and ask for my opinion if you’re not going to take it,” she pouted.
“I love you, Mom, but I don’t remember the part where I asked for your opinion. Actual y, I don’t remember the part where I invited you, either.”
“I assume I have an open invitation to see my only son,” she said.
“You do. But don’t you miss your own home? Your husband? I know that Dad misses you.”
“Good,” she said. “Let him miss me. Now, tel me about your work.”
I paused. Looked around the room pensively.
Settled on the windows.
“Curtains,” I said thoughtful y. “You know, now that I think about it, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. What did you have in mind?”
CHAPTER 12
Visiting the Spider in His Web
The next day I hit the gym (double cardio), volunteered at The Stuff of Life for the lunch shift, and then polished off a quick client at an uptown church (don’t ask).
At 6:45, I met Freddy in front of the building on the Upper East Side where the Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy has its offices.
Once again, I went for the preppy look: Brooks Brothers khakis and blue polo shirt. Freddy looked dashing in black Juicy Couture jeans, a white T-shirt, a silver choker, and black cowboy boots with silver tips.
“You forgot the spurs,” I told him.
“I didn’t want to over-excite the masses,” he said, giving me a hug. “You look very Republican.”
“I’m trying to look unhappy with myself,” I said.
“Repressed. Self-hating.”
“That’s what I said, darling. You look Republican.”
We took the elevator to the second floor. The Center had the entire story to itself. The lobby was vast and intimidating, cold and modern in its design with lots of stainless steel and white surfaces.
“ V e r y 2001: A Space Odyssey,” Freddy observed. “Where’s HAL?”
“Straight ahead,” I said, as we walked towards a handsome but blank-looking young man sitting at a long, curved reception desk. He didn’t smile as we approached.
“Hi, we’re here for…” I began.
“Straight ahead and to your left,” he directed. “The big room at the end of that hal way.”
Freddy rested his hands on the counter. “How, if I may be so bold as to inquire, do you know what we’re here for?”
Blank Boy didn’t blink. “I assume you’re attending our free informational session, Flight from Homosexuality. Am I correct?”
“It’s the boots, isn’t it? Straight boys would never wear boots like this.”
“It’s the only session being held tonight,” HAL answered.
Freddy leaned in closer. “What do you think?” he half-whispered. “Does this shit work?”
“It did for me,” Hal said robotical y. “Have a productive session.”
Freddy pul ed me aside as we walked towards the meeting room. “We have got to get out of here!”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s like a whole Stepford thing going on here,” he hissed. “Did you see that boy? They make you straight by stealing your identity and replacing you with a pod person!”
“The pod people were Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In The Stepford Wives the women were replaced by androids. Or something like that. I don’t think it was very clear. Now stop being such a baby.”
“OK,” Freddy said, “but if I wake up in a giant pod, I am going to be very, very angry with you. Green is so not my color.”
The meeting room was as cold and sterile as the rest of the office. Ten rows of eight chairs apiece faced a raised white platform that served as a stage.
The room was brightly lit from overhead halogens.
We sat in the back where there was a chance we’d go unrecognized.
There were about forty other men in the audience.
Although the program had not yet begun, they sat silently, staring straight ahead, leaving an empty chair between them whenever possible.
“This is weird,” Freddy whispered. “We just walked into a room ful of gay men and no one turned around to check us out.”
“They’re here to eschew that kind of behavior,” I reminded him.
Freddy stood up and raised his arms over his head. “Damn, I think I pul ed my shoulder out at the gym this morning,” he groaned. He stretched out, causing his T-shirt to ride up and reveal his flawless stomach and his biceps to bulge menacingly against the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Mmmm…” he moaned,
“that feels better.”
Every eye in the room turned to look at him. Eyes widened, jaws dropped. Lips were licked. Then, almost as one, the men, remembering why they were here, guiltily flushed red and turned away.
You could feel the defeat in the air.
Freddy grinned. “That’s better.”
Just then the overhead lights dimmed to total blackness. At the same time, a spotlight from behind us il uminated the stage. I could feel the floor vibrating a little before the music started to swel.
The song, incredibly, was “Sharp Dressed Man.”
“ZZ top?” Freddy asked.
“I think it’s like a theme song for straight guys,” I answered.
Just then, from where I don’t know, a tal, handsome man ran onto the stage. Michael Harrington, bursting with energy. Over the roar of the music he shouted, “You. Can. Change!” With each word, he pointed into the audience. “You. Can.
Change!” he shouted louder, stil turning and pointing. “You. Can. CHANGE!”
He pointed right in the direction of Freddy and me, but his expression didn’t alter. Good. He couldn’t see into the dark audience.
Gone was the reserved and dignified man I had met at the reading of his father’s wil. Michael was now in ful televangelist/motivational speaker mode, and it was a sight to behold.
Suddenly the music cut off. The room seemed quieter than silent, if such a thing was possible. The loudest noise was Michael’s heavy breathing. He stood stil for a moment. Then, in a whisper, he slowly extended his finger and swept it around the room, pointing to al of us at once.
“You… can… change,” he whispered theatrical y.
Another dramatic pause.
He pointed directly to a man in the front row. Stil whispering, he asked him, “Can you change?”
No answer.
“This is not a hypothetical question,” Michael’s deep voice began to rise again. “This is not a hypothetical life. This is the real thing, man!” He got right up in the guy’s face. “Can you CHANGE?”
The poor bastard in the front row wasn’t getting it.
“I hope so,” he squeaked.
“You hope so?” Michael thundered. “You hope so?
Hope is for church and for women! You are men!”
He pointed to someone else. “Can you change?” he bel owed.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Louder!”
“Yes!”
“Make me believe it!”
“Yes!”
“If you can’t make me believe you mean it, then how can you make yourself believe it?” Michael raged at him.
“YES!” the man screamed like a lunatic.
Michael threw his hands to the sky in a silent hal elujah. “That’s it! That’s the passion. You have to believe! You have the power! Al of you, together now: Can You Change?”
It was hard to tel in the darkened room, but I’d say about three quarters of the audience answered with various degrees of enthusiasm, including Freddy. I turned to look at him.
“I got caught up in the moment.” He shrugged. “I thought he was talking about changing my outfit.”
I scowled.
But the truth was, it was easy to get caught up in Michael Harrington’s moments.
Have you ever seen a TV infomercial that seem
ed to be too good to be true? Someone tel ing you that you could make ten thousand dol ars a week extra income with no investment of time or money? A pitchman extol ing the virtues of a vitamin that would turn back the clock and melt off the pounds? A motivational speaker promising you that his life management system can add hours to your day and years to your life?
And even though you knew-knew! — there was no way the product could meet those claims-were you ever tempted to pick up the phone and order?
Those spokespeople have their jobs for a reason.
There are some people who are just natural persuaders, people whose charisma and carriage and charm strike just the right chords to be convincing on even the most spurious claims.
Michael Harrington was one of those people.
Fantastical y attractive, deep-voiced with authority, he strode the stage like an athlete about to set a world record.
As he spoke on, it was hard not to get excited and believe. Some of what he told us was what anyone would want to hear. We “have the power.” We “are in charge.” We “control our destinies.”
Some of what he said were generalities that could apply to anyone, but when he looked into the audience, you felt he was looking into your soul. Your mother “loved you, but she couldn’t love you enough, and not in the right ways. You worshiped your father, but you feared him, because you were always afraid you couldn’t measure up. When you hit adolescence, you felt different from the other kids, apart from the other boys, frightened of the blossoming girls, awkward and alone.”
Wel, who didn’t feel awkward when they were growing hair in new places, erupting in acne and springing inopportune boners? But if you were looking for a cure, looking for someone who understood you and could lead you to a better place, Michael Harrington would be easy to fol ow.
Then, he spoke specifical y about homosexuality.
How gay men were stuck in a developmental stage,
“like a caterpil ar that never emerged from the cocoon.” That we needed to “break free, to spread our wings, to fly (that word again!)”. That any behavior can be changed through the right kind of conditioning and support.
At the end, he threw in references to a higher power. We were not fol owing Mother Nature’s plan.
We needed to get back to what the Lord had intended for us.
“I don’t get it,” Freddy whispered to me. “Is it God who’s in charge or Mother Nature?”
“I think they’re the same person,” I whispered back.
“Like in drag?” Freddy asked.
Throughout the message, Michael planted seeds of self-hatred and doubt. Weren’t we there because we knew we were on the incorrect path? Didn’t we always sense there was something wrong with us, something deep inside? Didn’t we want to live a life congruent with society’s values? Didn’t we want to make our parents proud of us?
“Wel you can!” Michael thundered. “You have the power! And so, I ask you one more time: Can You Change?”
This time the crowd roared. “Yes!” they cried with one voice. They clapped and shouted and whooped it up like Oprah’s audience being told they had al won brand new Buicks.
“OK,” Freddy whispered, “this is a bit much.”
“Ya think?”
Suddenly, the lights came on ful force. We blinked in the sudden bril iance. The room became sober again. “Just by coming here today, you’ve al taken the first step towards reclaiming your lives and your identities as men,” Michael smiled. “Any questions?”
A man in the third row raised his hand. Michael nodded at him.
“Excuse me,” the man asked Michael, standing up, “I’m wondering if you’d like to go on a date?”
The audience was shocked by the audacity of the man’s proposal. A few men gasped, one hissed.
Michael glowered. “Excuse me?”
“Wel, since I figured that’s the last time I’m ever going to ask another man out, it might as wel be one who’s as good looking as you!”
The audience exploded with laughter and applause. Michael grinned. The man went on.
“No, real y, you can’t imagine how much you’ve inspired me today. I came here with, wel, not exactly no expectations, but pretty low ones. But a friend I know, he went through your program, and, he’s real y doing it, you know? He’s dating a girl at work now and he says it’s not too b… wel, he says he’s real y getting used to it. And I just thought, wel, why not; let’s give it a shot, because I’ve been so unhappy for so long and,” the man’s voice caught for a moment and I real y hoped he wasn’t going to start crying,
“wel, I guess I don’t real y have a question.” He sat back down again.
Michael smiled warmly at the man. He put out his hand. “Come up here.”
The man walked to the front of the room and turned to face us. He looked to be in his early thirties. He was tal, thin, and had one of the worst cases of post-adolescent acne I’ve ever seen. If Michael were honest, he’d tel this guy to skip the counseling and get to a dermatologist.
Michael put his arm around him. “You’re going to do it, friend. Our program combines counseling, peer support, positive reinforcement, neuro-associative conditioning, hypnosis and, where indicated, even pharmaceutical assistance that wil make it impossible for you not to change!”
“He left out the pods,” Freddy whispered.
No, I thought, but he’s thrown pretty much everything else into the mix. Hypnosis? Drugs? Dr.
Chambers was right-it takes a lot to suppress someone’s natural orientation.
Michael pul ed the guy closer and put his other hand on the guy’s stomach. Right above his belt. It was almost sexual. “And the next time I put my arm around you,” Michael continued, “I promise you, you won’t be hoping my hand slides lower.”
The room again broke into laughter and applause.
Michael put both his arms around the guy and squeezed him tight. I could swear he even ground his crotch into him a little. He released him and, with a pat on his ass, sent him back to his seat. The crowd was stil laughing and cheering. I looked at the guy’s crotch and thought he might have gotten a little chubby from Michael’s teasing.
I thought about something else Dr. Chambers said, that many of these “ex-gays” were gay themselves. Michael was total y butch and said homophobic things, but he was also single. Where, I wondered, did he fal on the Kinsey scale?
Michael looked out at the audience again. He took a few more questions and answered them with the professional aplomb of a talk show host. Every time his eyes glanced our way, we slunk low in our chairs to avoid detection.
At the end of the session, Michael marched triumphantly out a door at the front of the room to cheers and applause. Immediately, two fresh-faced young men with clipboards came in to announce that anyone interested in signing up for a discounted one-on-one introductory session should fil out one of the forms they were handing out.
“Can we leave now, or do I have to attend the individual brain washing session, too?” Freddy asked.
“Come on,” I said, as we slinked toward the back door. I noticed only one other guy was leaving without signing up. A pretty-good-looking guy who was one of the youngest in the room. One of the staff members gave the three of us a dirty look.
Sorry, I thought, no sale.
Right outside the room was a restroom.
“Darling,” Freddy said, “I need to powder my nose. Want to join me.”
“No,” I said, “I’l wait out here.”
I was looking at some flyers on the wal when I felt someone come up from behind me.
I turned around. Michael Harrington was standing there.
“Leaving so soon?”
I looked up at him. And he was tal enough that I real y did have to look up.
He grinned. “One might think your interest in my seminar was less than sincere. Did you real y think I didn’t see you there?” His words were a little harsh, but his delivery was charming, frisky. His eyes wrinkled with amus
ement.
It was a completely different face than the one he had shown me at the lawyer’s office. Gone was the officious authority figure. Now he was playful, teasing. Provocative.
“That was quite a performance,” I said.
Michael stepped closer. A chal enge. “Did you like it?”
I stepped closer too. If either of us moved another inch, we’d be touching. “Very much. Very inspiring.” I tossed back my hair, bit my lower lip. “You had the audience in the palm of your hand.”
“How about you,” he asked. “Where did I have you?”
“That depends,” I husked. “Where do you want me?”
Michael’s eyes burned into mine. “You’re flirting with me.”
“Like you were flirting with the guy you brought up?” I asked. “You know, the one you felt up in front of us?”
“That’s my job,” Michael said. “It’s a seduction, you see? Al sales are a seduction. You of al people know that.”
“You seemed to enjoy it.” I was trying to figure out what makes him tick.
“What I enjoy about my job,” Michael said, “is the opportunity to help people.”
“I bet.”
“Believe it or not,” Michael said, “I’d like to help you, too.”
Michael wanted something, but I didn’t know what.
Any other man and I’d be thinking he wanted to bang me. But Michael had made a career out of hating homosexuals, and teaching them to hate themselves.
Of course, be they preachers or politicians, most of the people who are real y rabid about homosexuality are just acting out on their own repression.
Or, Michael could just be playing me. But to what end? To throw me off the track of his father’s murder? To convince me he real y was an OK guy?
And, to be brutal y honest, standing next to his rampant hotness, feeling the undeniable sexual energy he exuded, I could think of worse places I could be than mano y mano in his office.
I decided to play along. “Real y?” I asked, doing my best to sound naive. “You think you could help me?”
“I do. Why don’t you lose your friend and come with me to my office?”
“Just the two of us?”
Michael put his hand on my shoulder. I could feel the cotton of my shirt begin to smolder. Nobody this sexy could be al bad.
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