Gay Perception

"I remember that you and dad went to a marriage counselor for a while," I said to my step-mother. "How did that go?"

"Oh, he thought it was all bullshit because he couldn't face his own shortcomings."

"That figures. So you stopped going?"

"Yes, no, I mean he stopped, buy I kept going for a while." She looked at me and paused, considering what she was about to tell me next. "Your dad wanted the counselor to test you to see if you were gay."

I was only in fifth grade at the time, ten years old. In today's world, kids that old have been exposed to sex on television, from their peers, internet porn and chat rooms. The age of innocence creeps down every year, but in those days, sex education was a hotly debated topic, and was only brought up as a lightly broached subject in our school that year. They told us about how dogs mate, hoping apparently that we would make the logical connection, but we didn't. I remember saying in my class that I would never stick my peter in a woman's vagina, and the whole class burst out laughing and the ridiculousness of the idea.

I certainly never got the "talk" from my dad. My step-mom thought sex was a duty she performed for her husband, not recreational, an experience to enjoy. I learned early thanks to my Catholic upbringing to keep "impure" thoughts to myself. It became part of me, and manifests itself even today in my marriage.

Amy Cottle. My first crush with an older woman. She was in sixth grade and I was in fifth, and she was best friends with my neighbor Cindy Miller. I confided in my friend Darin my feelings for her, and soon enough Amy knew.

For school lunch, you stood in line with a tray and collected your plate, silverware, food and drink, then sat in the next available seat at tables that spanned the length of a gymnasium, so that the people that sat across from you were random. I would always sit with Darin, and look around furtively for Amy, who reminded me of a country singer I had seen on Hee Haw, singing Lizzie and the Rainman, perhaps Tanya Tucker. One day however, to my absolute horror, Amy and Cindy sat directly across from us.

"Scott," Darin called playfully, long and drawn out, like you would call a hiding kid, "Amy's here."

My face flushed and I poked him in the ribs and said to the floor, "Stop."

Cindy added, "It's all right Scott, Amy knows."

I finished my meal quickly, without looking up. That night my dad found me in my room with my face buried in my hands.

"What's wrong?"

I spilled the whole story in a rush, except I didn't admit that I liked Amy: "I told Darin that I thought a girl at school was interesting, then he told Cindy, who told Amy, and now I'm accused of liking her!"

Dad tried to suppress a smile, and offered some parental guidance that blew through my head, then left me alone. But this is right before he and mom went to the counselor.

Mom continued, "He thought your were gay because you didn't want to play football anymore. And where was he? Out fucking some whore while I had to take you every day to practice and you were absolutely miserable."

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well, I finally had enough and asked you if you wanted to quit."

"And I said I did."

"That's right, and that was it. And boy was your dad ever mad at me."

"And me."

I decided on my own to play again in high school during my senior year, and was sorry that I hadn't played sooner. Dad was so happy that he volunteered as an assistant coach. The tough guy of my grade, our ferocious linebacker Dennis, once asked me, "That's your dad?" He motioned towards where he was taking a leak fifteen feet away from our huddle.

As I was about to leave for college, years of wondering had finally gotten the better of him, and he asked me outright.

"Son, I need to know something."

"Shoot dad."

"Are you gay?"

"Are you serious?"

"As a heart attack."

"No."

"Then why don't you ever bring any girls around for me to meet?"

Now there was a question that had many answers, none of which he would have liked. We lived in squalor, and I was ashamed. It's not that we lived in a trailer, although that was part of it. We had a St. Bernard whose water bowl was the toilet, that shook drool worms like schoolboy loogeys onto the walls and furniture, that dried and were rarely cleaned. We had no pride in ourselves, how we dressed and how we lived. To dad, women existed to wash our dishes, but what he got was a lazy, loud mouthed, barroom floozy that couldn't be bothered to get off the couch. Thank God we didn't have remote controls back then, or she never would have gotten any exercise. The tension between them was palpable, and their fights started promptly at eight. Everyone was miserable, and college was my glorious escape. I disagreed with almost everything dad believed in. He was old school from rural Ohio, where being a gay was second only to being black on the list of taboos. He never went to college, and was always surrounded by like minded people, but unlike his parents, he had a sense that his way was wrong, but was helpless and unwilling to fight it.

"I'm just private dad, what can I say?"

"There's nobody?"

"I think about Heather," I offered. "Would you come to my wedding if I married her?"

He laughed a little too loud, and replied with the most magnanimous and giving offer that his sheltered, monochrome upbringing could afford, "I'd even come to your wedding if you married a nigger."