Oh God, I sound so pathetic!
What do You think of all this? A Catholic boy living in venial sin. How pathetically predictable. Screw it. I can’t do it anymore, God. I can’t pretend that I’m like all the rest of the sheep in the flock. I’m not. And by the way, I don’t even know what You are. And I don’t know that I should call you God because I think you’re something different than what I was taught you are. Universal Life-force Energy is too wordy. I’ll call you Antonio. Which is actually fitting since I can’t help saying “Oh my God” every time I see Antonio Sabato Junior.
I PUT down the pen. Okay then, that was a rapid marathon through a little swamp of confusion, wasn’t it? Maybe Millie is right. Maybe there’s more going on in my head than I realize.
The waiting game. Getting up this morning, strange new energy envelopes me. It is an acute anticipation, an excitement. I can’t wait to get to school, yet there is new joy in the usually mundane and monotonous tasks of my morning procedures. I find myself singing in the shower. Extra special attention is taken in the choice of clothes, the intricate styling of my hair. I take a moment to evaluate myself in the mirror. My blond hair is already starting to rebel against the positions I meticulously placed it in. It’s got body, bounce, and curls despite my wish for it to be straight. I could wage war on it, but I’d lose.
My face is still boyish in ways and my big brown eyes only emphasize this. They are dripping with heavy lashes that every woman I’ve met enviously chastises me for. I’d happily pluck them out to look tough. My high cheekbones and full lips push me away from receiving compliments like handsome and toward words like pretty and beautiful. I know they are meant sincerely, but they’re still worrisome to my teenage ears. Studying my face once more, I conclude that it’s not androgynous, but it is that kind of pretty that makes rougher boys want to punch it.
My mind races as I eat breakfast and think about Chris. I fantasize about our initial encounter. What I say. What he says. I set out on my bike and the sun kisses my face. Yes, I ride a bike. It’s both sporty and environmentally friendly. No handle grip ribbons yet, but I’ve been seriously considering investing. Where was I? Oh, yes…. A gentle wind caresses my chest. This path I’ve traveled a hundred times reveals new beauty. I notice the trees decorating themselves in white and pink blossoms as if in celebration. The salty, humid air brings a rush of emotion and visions of last night. I play back our conversation and see our encounter as an audience viewing a film. God—I mean Antonio—make this be right. I need this love, this friendship.
Jazz class. No familiar orange parachute pants. No Chris. Where the hell is he? Oh shit, oh shit. You knew this would happen. You were moving too fast, fell too soon and too hard. He doesn’t feel the same way. What was I thinking anyway? He’s in a relationship! And he wears orange parachute pants! Get it together. He’s probably just late.
End of Jazz, lunch, I struggle through the day. Unfocused. How can a day birth so much promise and bring so much uncertainty? Back home after dinner, I sit cross-legged on the kitchen counter deliberating. Should I call him? What will I say? Wait until tomorrow…. No, if he’s sick I need to show my concern. For my sanity I have to call. I lift the receiver and tentatively dial Chris’s number. Then I hang up. After a few moments I dial again.
“Hello?”
“Hey buddy, this is Ashley. Missed you in class today. I was just calling to see how you are.”
“This is Blair.”
“Oh, sorry. Uh, how you doing?” I sheepishly blurt.
“All right, man. Should I get Chris?” Blair asks.
“Yeah, thanks.” Crap! Of course Chris’s roommate would have to answer.
“Hello?” Chris. My heart skips to somewhere up near my throat.
“Uh, hi. How are you?” I ask.
“I’m good. How are you?” he asks emphatically.
“Good, good, I’m doing good. Where were you today? Sick or did you take one of your spiritual hiatuses?”
“Spiritual hiatus.” He laughs. “What are you doing now? You want to come over?”
Oh God yes! “Umm, I was just doing some homework but I could take a break for a while. What do you want to do?” I ask, assuming a cool, unexcited tone.
“Well, we could watch a movie or something?”
Freeze frame. Okay, I have to explain something before we continue….
THE LAST time the two of us watched a movie together was a frightening experience, and not just because we went to see Scream 3 at a Halloween rerun festival. Chris is a fan of the horror genre in film and has dragged me to forgettable features in the second-run theater such as 9th Gate and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. Although I can definitely find beauty in darkness and have loved cult classics such as Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, my spirit is enlightened by “feel-good” shows like My Best Friend’s Wedding, Beaches, and Moonstruck. How gay is that? Did I mention Fried Green Tomatoes? Don’t laugh, rent it. It’s gorgeous. Okay, back to the frightening experience…. So a large group of our friends from college had decided to screw the homework and head downtown for a film. Jeremy, to my sheer delight, was nowhere to be seen. As we walked down the aisle amidst a plethora of pseudo murders and screams, my heart raced as I mentally calculated the exact coordinates of our seating arrangements. I settled into my red fabric chair between two best friends, the beautiful Michelle on my right and Chris on my left. As the trailers (my favorite part of the movie experience) rolled, I unabashedly started the dance. Wait, what’s that, dear reader? Let me explain what I mean by dance. I pressed my leg against Chris’s. Then I leaned over and whispered a guess at who the killer might be.
By the time Courtney Cox appeared as Gail Weathers, I was putting my patented secret gay contact strategies into practice. I folded my arms, and with the hand squeezed between elbow and ribcage, I brushed Chris’s arm. I was definitely treading on dangerous ground. He could’ve turned and looked at me strange, at which point I’d pretend to scratch an itchy elbow. Or he could….
Fold his arms and slip his left hand under his right arm to meet mine. Sparks! The sexual tension between us was only heightened by our surroundings and the need to keep this contact secret. We grasped each other’s hand desperately. Chris turned and looked at me. I returned his gaze and was lost in the blue ocean of his eyes. It seemed volumes were spoken and an eternity was shared in this momentary glance. Or did he just want his hand back so he could get more popcorn?
Neve Campbell had escaped with her life intact once again, and the house lights flickered on as the audience filed out. There was a consensus among our friends that coffee and dessert at the Cheesecake Café was in order.
“Let’s take a walk,” Chris suggested. He tugged on my arm and motioned for us to take a side street away from the group. It was a beautiful night, and we walked in silence toward the harbor. The Legislative Building’s every tower, window, and molded archway was illuminated with sparkling white lights. Small waves lapped at a few yachts and several sailboats docked in front of the Empress, a large castle-like hotel covered with vines resting among immaculately landscaped grounds. A horse-drawn carriage clip-clopped by us as we rested against the ornate stone balustrade encircling the inner harbor.
“There’s nothing I’d like to do more than kiss you right now,” Chris suddenly gushed. “I mean, this is all so weird but it just feels so right. I could hardly concentrate on the movie.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…. But I couldn’t help it. Every time I’m around you, I can’t think. I just get so excited. I want to kiss you too. Like nothing else. But I don’t know…,” I rambled in a breathless soliloquy.
“What?” he asked, blue eyes imploring me. “What is it?”
“It’s just, you’re with Jeremy. And I have Rachel. I’m confused. I don’t want to move too fast, you know? Do something we might regret?” I continued in my tripping speech.
“Yeah, okay.” Chris took my hand in his and unwittingly attached my heart to a string. �
��Let’s get going. Everyone’s probably wondering where the hell we are. We’ll talk again?”
“Yeah,” I managed to spit out, “that’d be good.”
Frightening. Frightening to my soul. My life was going along fine, and then Antonio decided to shake things up a bit. Throw a wrench into the smoothly running engine of my life to make me reevaluate things. Watch a movie or something? The international code for “let’s get it on.”
“ASHLEY, ARE you there?” Chris asks, pulling me back to the present. I grip the phone a little tighter.
“Yeah, sounds cool, I’ll be over in about half an hour, all right?”
“Great. See you soon.”
I hang up and stretch my arms up heroically. “We Will Rock You” blares through the stadium and the crowd goes wild. Until I realize I’m in desperate need of some antiperspirant. Okay, get changed and let’s go.
THE WALK from my house to Chris’s is lined with blossoming trees, rolling streets, and large old houses nestled in gardens of beeswax, robin’s egg, coral, and ivory flowers. My breath lives shortly in the night air as I arrive and knock on the door. It opens to a vision in faded jeans and a blue T-shirt taut over his chest, a precocious smile, and those big intent blue eyes that haunt me. “Hey, you look great,” he says, giving me a hug. “Come on in.”
I remove my boots, my Airwalk snowboarding pair that I love though I don’t board, and listen to Chris chattering and apologizing for the mess. How his roommate is such a slob, leaves his socks everywhere. God, you’re hot, I think. His apologetic, self-effacing nature is so endearing. It’s also a weakness, I realize. He doesn’t comprehend the magnitude of his talents, his looks, or his charm. People like him, all people. You seriously can’t get mad at the guy. He could be a lot more commanding. Really go for what he wants. But that’s not his way, I guess.
“What are you thinking?” Chris asks, sitting in his black leather swivel chair facing me as I sit cross-legged on his bed.
“How weird this all is. How much I’m into this, into you.” I can’t even look at him without smiling. “I mean, I know I wanted something to happen between us the first day at school, the first time I saw you.”
“Me too.”
“It was just, I had a girlfriend and wanted so desperately to maintain that facade of a normal life, you know? I wanted the family, house with picket fence, some sort of stability, all that bullshit.”
I sit in silence for a moment, trying to grasp the implications of a life alone. That’s the thing. I can’t imagine myself getting married to a guy. Even living together would seem strange to me. My concept of accepting gay life is associated with loneliness. I pull at the fray of a hole in my jeans and high school comes rushing back.
THE ONLY thing I lost when coming out was my best friend. The one I longed for, my buddy through it all, and my imagined lover. How ironic for him to push me away! He was gorgeous to me in his boyish way and mannerisms. He was skinny and lanky, but his blue eyes called me. His goofiness and humor attracted me, and one day I realized I was falling for him. I knew his body as well as I knew my own from changing together in gym, swapping clothes, and having sleepovers until we were sixteen. Sharing the same bed, under the same sheets, inches away but never touching. I’d never slept less in my life, adrenaline pumping and my mind racing as I stared at the ceiling all night.
We used to do everything together until I told him I was gay. I was going away for the weekend, and he was driving me to the airport. I thought it was time he knew. Lighting a cigarette for him and one for myself, I exhaled my secret. “So you know I’m gay, right?” He shifted awkwardly in his seat and took a big drag off his smoke. We both stared straight ahead out at the highway in silence for what seemed an eternity. Then he turned to me and promised it was fine, and he wouldn’t tell anyone until I was ready. The weight I felt crushing my chest for so long was finally lifted. I had shared myself with someone, and he accepted me. I flew away that weekend with a new sense of freedom and excitement. Maybe, just maybe, he was gay too and now he would come out to me. I actually expected that.
I came home from my weekend away and arrived at school to strange stares from people and fingers pointing from clusters gathered in the locker-lined hallways. Everyone knew. When I confronted him, all he could say was, “You didn’t actually think I could keep something like that to myself, did you?” From then on everything changed. We stopped hanging out. Just like that. Before the deadly poison was released we hung out every day, talked on the phone for an hour every night. Now, if I was lucky I got an awkward lift of the chin in recognition down the school hallways. I stopped him one day and asked why it was weird. I told him I wanted my friend back. He replied, “I’m still your friend, I just hate gays. I think it’s disgusting.”
I guess that’s when the loneliness started to settle in.
“DO YOU remember when we did that AIDS walk together in the fall?” Chris asks, pulling me back to the present. “I wanted to ask you out so badly, but then you told me you had a girlfriend. I was crushed.”
“I probably didn’t even realize that you were interested. Actually I know I didn’t,” I recall.
“It was like we were part of each other’s lives but we kept missing each other. You were always there and I could sense it, but it was like you were behind a scrim I couldn’t penetrate, so to speak.”
I laugh at his innuendo. “Yeah, it was a growth time for me. I was discovering I actually had feelings and needed people.” I lie down on his bed and place my arms behind my head, closing my eyes. My mind drifts to the many ups and downs I’d experienced since coming to college, this place of self-realization.
I open my eyes in contented disbelief to the sound of Chris gently singing. Propped up on one elbow, he strokes my hair with one hand as he smiles and continues singing. I take his hand in mine and shove any thought of how cheesy this all is out of my head. I don’t care! I lean over and stop his mouth from the second verse with my own.
III
I ROLL over and fumble with my alarm clock until it stops its annoying, pulsing beep and grab a pen.
March 18
6:00 a.m. Here I am, devoted to these damn morning pages…. The life and times of Ashley no doubt! What did this little devil do last night? Or should I say today? I went over to hang with Chris. Where did we end up? Oh, making out. And then I slept over. Funny, I feel no anxiety about writing it now for the first time. I am gay. I am a homosexual. I like guys. I just broke up with Rachel like a month ago. I know. It’s crazy. I don’t know what I’m doing but it feels right. I feel I’m taking the correct steps towards truth. Yeah, so it happened. I’ve been dying for a kiss, to hold his hand. When it started out the rule in my head was “above the belt” and we kept it there… mostly. Shit! I loved it. It felt so right and so good….
The walk or ride home after sleeping with someone is always full of excitement. Ideally you want to spend the night in each other’s arms and wake up to kisses you wish were post the magic of a toothbrush. But that shimmy down the fire escape, the walk home in that miraculous moment when the night conceives the dawn is beautiful. Whether you’re stuck in early morning traffic, greeting the window cleaners, realizing you forgot your key, or it starts to rain; you’re happy. You just made love. And that makes you feel good.
I think one of the best parts is when you can smell the other person on you for the rest of the day. Maybe I have extraordinary olfactory senses, but sometimes even after a shower I can smell sex. It’s great. I’ll be sitting in class or at lunch and I smell sex and I can’t help but smile!
Of course it eventually goes away and then I’m forced to press Play on my mental VCR and view past adventures for stimulation. This can be greatly entertaining and especially useful if you can view past tapes with your eyes open, caught in a dry conversation or boring location. I don’t bore easily, though. I think I was bored once when I was like seven and started coercing my playmates into mild strip games. That’s when my mother explained s
ex to me. I’ve been interested ever since. Growing up was an endless game of truth or dare. Truth held my interest for a while, but I loved to give and get juicy dares. I played with groups of girls (which was fun) and groups of guys (which always left that feeling of going over railroad tracks in my stomach).
I remember the first time I saw a real “dirty” magazine. I was thirteen and my older brother was driving me to my friend Kellyn’s house. Halfway there he pulls out this magazine from his backpack.
“Here, feast your eyes on these titties!” he said, throwing it in my lap. With my jaw slack, I ripped through pages of beautiful women exposing their breasts and inviting me with their eyes into their world. Then I came to “Ricky and Rebecca.” They have guys in these magazines too?!? I was instantly hot and sweating as I gazed at Ricky staring back at me. The next five pages were Ricky and Rebecca teasing each other, stripping, and getting it on. My eyes were glued to this man, this beautiful naked male. Even as I tried to “rush” past the layouts with guys to confirm my heterosexuality for my brother, I was downloading every picture I saw, saving each as a jpg. file to bring up later. When we arrived at Kellyn’s house, I handed my brother the magazine from sweaty hands and hopped out of the car mumbling a good-bye. I could hardly walk. I beelined around the corner and into the back alley where I could calm down before going in to meet the girls. When I was on a level playing field, I went to the house where Kellyn, Joanne, and Erin met me at the door. In that moment I realized that “Ricky” was equally if not more appealing to me than these girls.
Boy Midflight Page 2