“Puppy!” I bark back.
“BUNNY!”
“PUPPY!”
“Bark, bark,” he barks back. “Too bad we didn't know each other back then.”
“Bark, bark,” I respond. “At least you wouldn't have been shafted by that girl and left all alone at your prom night.”
I reach over and clench his right hand. He smiles. I smile.
“Well, if I had to go back to change my prom night, I don't think I would,” I say. “Everyone was so shocked that I actually brought a girl. And then everyone at my table was so shocked that I didn't get drunk when I downed that screwdriver.”
Wesley laughs. “That's right. This little bunny likes to drink.”
“That's right! And that's why whenever there's alcohol, I'll drink for both of us,” I say. “It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.”
Wesley smiles. He laughs. I laugh.
“Well, we're here,” Wesley says. “I'm surprised you didn't fall asleep.”
“Sometimes you just keep me going all night long,” I say, smirking.
We drive into Markton Park. The place where we first kissed when we met a year and a half ago. The place where we kissed for five hours on a cold January night. The place where we learned how much fun two people can have in a sleeping bag in the nearby forest. The place where we made a lot of memories.
Backseat down. Lying in the back compartment. Kiss. “I love you,” Wesley says. Selena sings “Dreaming of You.” Kiss. “I love you, too,” I say. Embrace. Kiss. Tickle my armpit. Kiss. Glasses off. Stare into his light blue eyes. Kiss. Stroke his dirty-blond hair. Kiss. Massage. Kiss. Car swooshes past. Duck. Breathe. Kiss. Takes his blue sweatshirt off. Kiss. Pulls down his blue Levi's. Kiss. Takes my “I'm in no shape to exercise” teddy bear T-shirt off. Kiss. Pulls down my black tearaways. Breathe. Kiss. Rubbing. Kiss. Windows fog. Kiss. Soft fingers caress. Kiss. Car lights approach. Kiss. Car lights stop. Red and blue flash. Kiss. Duck. Shit. Door slams. “Shit,” Wesley says. He scrambles for his jeans. Pulls them up. Knock, knock.
Wesley, bare-chested and wearing Levi's jeans, opens the car door. I huddle at the far end of the car, far away from the door. Naked. A cool breeze wheezes into the car.
“Yes, Officer?” Wesley asks.
The police officer's voice shoots through the door. “Is everything okay in there?”
“Everything is fine, officer,” Wesley stutters. “I assure you.”
“Can I see your ID?”
“Sure,” Wesley says. He reaches into one pocket, and keys clank. He picks his other pocket, and fumbles for his wallet. The wallet clinks with coins. He pulls out his driver's license, and hands it to the police officer.
“Okay, sir,” the police officer says as he hands the driver's license back to Wesley. “I would also like to hear from the woman, if you don't mind.”
I groan. My eyes narrow. I crawl forward, naked, toward the open door. Wesley lays his hand on my shoulder. I face the police officer. His face blurs with the flashing red and blue lights from the police car. I squint.
“I'm FINE, officer,” I mutter in a deep voice.
The police officer steps back. “Well … I'm sorry … for, um … disturbing you.”
Quick crunches of gravel. Door slams. The police car roars off.
Wesley grabs for the door and slams it. We sit there in the back compartment for a few minutes. Silence. Wesley bursts into laughter. I jerk my head to him, my eyes still narrowed. Then, my eyes widen. A smile emerges on my face. I break out in laughter.
“Oh my God,” I giggle. “Could he have run any faster?”
“You should have seen his face,” Wesley laughs. “When he saw you, he looked like he'd seen a ghost.”
“I think we better get out of here, before things get worse.”
“I think you're right,” Wesley agrees.
While Marc Hall—in blue-dyed hair and a blue tie, in a white tuxedo and white patent-leather dancing shoes—dances the night away with his boyfriend, my boyfriend Wesley and I tear out of Markton Park.
“Okay,” I say, “let's make sure that we do not let this happen again … and let's not tell anyone about this.”
“Why not?” Wesley giggles. “It's so funny.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, smiling. “At the very least, we can always say, ‘The night Marc Hall went to the prom with his boyfriend …’”
“… we fooled around,” Wesley continues. “And got caught by a cop.”
“And the cop thought I was the woman…,” I groan. “So I came out and flashed him….”
“… and the police officer ran,” Wesley concludes, laughing again.
A few months later, Wesley takes his class G driver's test. His examiner looks at his driver's record and asks, “So … did you and your boyfriend have a good time at the park that night?”
Don't Tell Me That I'm Overly Sensitive and Paranoid
by Alex Weissman
My camp counselor and personal hero, Hank, is babysitting me and my brothers one night. He says that if he saw two men walking down the street holding hands, he'd take a baseball bat and beat them. My brothers and I argue with him, but to no avail. My hero is lost.
At Hebrew school, with our teacher Adam, we are studying Leviticus. We get to the famous passage and I learn that I am not to lie with a man as one lies with a woman, as this is an abomination. Adam tries to put a positive spin on it, but I wonder how a religion that teaches us to love thy neighbor as thyself could breed so much hate.
Mrs. Green's Language Arts class takes a field trip to a retirement home so we can learn about what it's like to be old. When we begin to get off the bus, my best friend Paul pushes me so I fall on top of his stepsister, Melissa, and says, “Look! Lesbians!” I apologize to Melissa for falling on her and glare at Paul. He thinks it's hilarious.
My best friend Steve is sleeping over my house on the weekend. Somehow, we end up talking about sex and he says that anal sex is disgusting and so are gay people. Without the language or confidence to convince him otherwise, I feebly argue that not all gay people have anal sex. Our friendship begins to dwindle over the years and eventually we stop hanging out
I spend some of my time after school doing makeup for the high school show, The Crucible. My mom tells me she thinks it's “not good for my development.” I cry because my mom is worried I'm going to grow up gay when I know it's already too late.
During Japanese class, in which we do nothing, my best friend Danielle writes things like “Alex is gay!” “Alex likes cock!” and “E-mail Alex for hot butt sex!” all over my folder. I laugh, but only because I know it's true.
Coach Waters of the varsity volleyball team makes a joke about one of the players spending too much time on his knees. Everyone laughs because sucking dick is funny. I quit the team and do theater instead.
The summer before college, I begin to come out to some of my friends from high school. One girl is very excited because now we can go shopping together! I wonder when I mentioned anything about suddenly enjoying shopping, but she seems determined.
I'm walking down the street with my first group of gay friends in Boston. A man passes us and coughs the word “faggots” as he passes by. The other faggots keep walking. I stop dead in my tracks with my jaw hanging on the sidewalk.
The guy who lives next door to me consistently says “That's so gay” to refer to stuff he doesn't like. Every time, he looks over at me and apologizes, saying he didn't mean it like that. I give up on him monitoring his speech and spend most of my time with the girls down the hall.
I'm walking across the quad before spring break and out of nowhere I hear someone scream “FAGGOT!” from one of the dorms. I look up to see a head quickly retreating back into a window. I go home for break, angry before I even get there.
I study abroad in Chile and live with a host family for five months. They make comments about a gay character on TV that make me uncomfortable. I lie to them for five months about my sexuality and go hom
e unsatisfied with my study-abroad experience.
While abroad, my friends and I get invited to a Chilean family's house for dinner. During dinner, the mother says that she would not be happy if her son turned out gay. She elaborates by explaining that she has nothing against gay people. Hell, she'd even have one over her house for dinner! I feel awkward, afraid to speak my mind to this homophobic woman who kindly, naively, invited me into her home.
I am forced to take a biology class in order to graduate from college. One week, the discussion topic is the biology of homosexuality. One student comments that “gay men do not have lasting relationships. Maybe fleeting intimacies, but not lasting relationships.” No one, not even the professor, says anything to challenge her. I raise my hand but get ignored in the large lecture hall. I disengage from the class and end up getting my worst grade ever at college.
I'm walking down the street, holding hands with my boyfriend. People stare at us, totally perplexed by the existence of an interracial, same-sex couple. I stare back, confused by their racist, homophobic existence just as much as they are by my existence.
I participate in a psychology study over the summer to make a few extra bucks. The researcher and her assistant are chatting about the human male's inability to decorate. Men apparently didn't get that gene. The researcher quips, “Unless they're gay, then that's all they got!” I'm shocked and feel like a fish in an empty bucket … my mouth moves but nothing comes out. Instead, I fuck with her experiment and lie about my answers.
I go to the special Shabbat service at Hillel that is designated to be the week when they especially welcome the queers in the community. I know the rabbi would never marry a same-sex couple, and gays are only indirectly referenced in his sermon. I leave, disappointed in my religious community.
I begin dating a semi-closeted guy, John, whose straight housemates I know well. One of them says that he's never heard John admit his homosexuality. He hopes that he can talk to John and get him to admit his homosexuality. I wonder if a Catholic confessional and a priest will be necessary for this admission.
Exams are over and I'm celebrating with some friends. My friend is trying to describe someone whose name she can't remember … he's tall … brown hair … wears peach and pink a lot. Carmen's boyfriend seems shocked that a guy would wear peach and pink a lot. It's subtle, but I still make a mental note to keep my distance.
I am home for vacation and my older brother tells a joke that has homophobic undertones. I get pissed and stay quiet the rest of the night. Finally I tell him why I'm annoyed. He explains the joke and it turns out I had heard it wrong. It wasn't homophobic at all.
People aren't as homophobic as I think.
I'm just overly sensitive and paranoid.
My poems
by Isaac Oliver
I hate my poems.
I used to love them, back when they knew their place. Poems are like dogs you walk in the park to attract off-duty firemen who love them and in turn love you. Not my poems.
My poems used to be shy; they used to stand in front of the mirror
and complain about their bloated syntax and pimpled thematic structure.
But now they leave the house in couplets I don't remember rhyming,
and when I ask where they're going and with whom they're going out,
they say, “He's not your style. He writes think pieces, political pieces.”
Oh God, not think pieces, not political pieces.
My poems see a guy across a crowded room, start talking pretty, saying things like, “Your eyes are like moons,” and before I know it, I'm left standing alone at the punch bowl. I'll grab a stanza's arm and say, “Just let me have this one, please.”
“You snooze; you lose,” it responds, rolling its eyes.
“You think you're so hot with your semicolons,” I shout after it,
“but I wrote you for a class assignment! You weren't even inspired by anything!”
My poems make better theatre dates than me.
They make jokes; they offer multilayered compliments;
they know someone in the chorus.
My poems spend money without thinking twice.
They hold hands with men on the subway no matter who's looking.
“How'd you get so fearless?” I ask a particularly savvy poem that insists
on all lowercase letters and refuses every title but “untitled.”
“I don't know. Are you jealous?” it replies,
its thumb making circles on the palm of a modern dancer/social activist.
My poems are bitches.
So they've been to some festivals; that doesn't mean they know me.
“You're much less grateful than my earlier work, when I used to title poems,” I snap.
“You mean the ones you wrote with Tori Amos playing in the background
and without the sense of humor?” “untitled” retorts.
My poems also come knocking in the very early morning,
and I let them sleep on my couch, and they cry about cruel men
and betrayal and Karl Rove,
and I hold them and remember why I wrote them.
I've needed to be fearless, to not capitalize words,
to laugh, to spend money, and to leave something untitled.
I've needed them to be my spies,
to have their hearts broken and their spirits tattered,
and to come back to me for punctuation.
Sacagawea
by Laura Heston
When I was 16, you offered condoms
to a virgin, and gave me a Sacagawea
coin with advice not to give it away.
Like Lewis and Clark, Kathleen and I took her
on our expedition. We traded her
for pleasurable plastic mysteries
in a truck-stop bathroom.
You listened intently to my misadventures
with boys. One faked a brain tumor,
another was a beekeeper,
and I'm allergic.
When I gave back the rubbers
and confessed I loved a woman,
you said not to give up
on men. I would awake one morning
to realize my Catholic destiny
and ask you to make my dress. No sense
disappointing my father too.
You wished for me to hide my Sacagawea
in the bank, to never touch her
in front of you.
A Fairy's Tale
by Travis Stanton
Like all things, I suppose my fairy tale started at the beginning. Pardon the cliché, but for me, it really did. People often ask when I first knew I was gay. My answer: since I was a fetus.
The fact is, I truly believe I knew I was different from day one— or at least as early as a child can have coherent thoughts. I'm not naive, or New Agey enough to believe that I was having homoerotic fantasies in the womb, but I do believe I sensed the fact I was somehow special. Looking back on my childhood, so many confusing memories now make sense—certain feelings I had for childhood playmates, bizarre emotions surrounding my heterosexual dating experiences, and specific moments that stand out in my mind like photographs.
But for me, knowing I was different and realizing I was gay came at two distinctly different moments in my life.
I remember growing up in a small town in eastern South Dakota, where everyone wore the same kinds of clothes, had the same kinds of childhood aspirations, and did the same sorts of things. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how growing up would have been different if so much of my early years hadn't already been predetermined by small-town societal norms. Would I have still played baseball with the other boys, or would I have taken up gymnastics with the neighborhood girls instead? And how would that one tiny variation in my path affect the person I am today? Similarly, I sometimes wonder what life would have been like had I grown up in a world where being gay was accepted and understood. Would I have still been taunted by school bullies? Wou
ld I have still dated girls in high school? Would I have taken a boy to the prom instead? Would I have fit in better by being myself than I did by trying to be who others expected me to be?
In the end, I always remind myself that when questioning the past it is less important to ponder what could have been different, and more important to take inventory of the lessons reality taught us along the way.
Part of the difficulty in growing up gay, for me, was having this overwhelming internal understanding that there was something unique about me, but not knowing precisely what it was. Some of this was alleviated by the elementary school message that we are all unique. But I sensed what made me different from everyone else was more significant than your everyday individuality.
I remember wishing I had some sort of visible difference to which I could attribute these feelings—to be outwardly beautiful, visibly wealthy, or to have a different skin color than the rest of my homogeneously white schoolmates. At times, I thought even being particularly unattractive, or visibly impoverished, would have made being me simpler. That way, others would accept the fact I was not entirely like them. I suppose I thought being markedly different would be a Get Out of Jail Free card when it came to the expectations people placed on me, to walk a certain walk and talk a certain talk. But to most, I was your run-of-the-mill child—and that mediocrity, coupled with the intrinsic knowledge I was anything but, was suffocating.
And yet, despite the fact I sensed I was different, I never really thought the difference had anything to do with my attraction to other boys. In fact, I assumed that in that respect I was just like everyone else. I assumed all boys had these feelings, but didn't act on them. I couldn't comprehend that something so basic could be what made me different.
In so many ways, I grew up like I imagine many young girls do. I enjoyed the company of girls, didn't particularly enjoy sports or the rough-and-tumble activities typically associated with young boys, and was noticeably more sensitive and compassionate than most male children. In hindsight, I don't think I confidently embraced the male side of myself until high school.