Follow Carmen, a young and deeply closeted gay teenager as he navigates the 1980's and 1990's yearning for love and trying to find where he fits in.
This story is rated M because it contains elements of death (including children), homophobia, religi...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Derrick's death put a new urgency on my coming out. I kept thinking about how James was being kept in the dark by Derrick's parents, and although I was angry at them for being like that I couldn't really blame them: After all, Derrick had been keeping them in the dark about James for years. How could they be expected to react when this guy they didn't even like started coming around saying 'Oh, by the way, I've been fucking your son for years, so how about you tell me what happened to him'. And knowing James, that is exactly how he would make the demand.
I shuddered at the thought.
Most importantly though, I did not want Troy to ever have to go through something like that.
My only problem was with bringing it up. For weeks, every time I was alone with Mom & Dad, I wanted to tell them but just couldn't bring myself to. All of my anxieties and insecurities, and those dire warnings Bruce had given me, kept coming into my head and I'd chicken out. I was worried that I would never get up the bravery to tell them.
Then, one July Saturday, near Dad's birthday, he made the decision for me. I had been at their house and Dad was drinking. He was getting bored sitting at home, so when I announced that I was leaving he asked me to drive him to his best friend Al's daughter's apartment. She lived in my building. Al was there visiting her, so Dad wanted to go drink with them. I agreed to drive him over.
We got into my car and were on our way when Dad reached ahead and turned the stereo down. This didn't surprise me, as he did not share my love of Judas Priest. What he said next certainly did, though.
"Could you pull over for a minute?"
"What? Why, are you going to barf? You'd better not barf in my Thunderbird!"
"No, it's not anything like that. I just want to talk to you and I don't want you to be driving while we talk."
Uh oh. No good could come from this. I pulled into the parking lot for the lake, right across from our apartment building. I shut the car off and waited. Dad sat staring through the windshield.
"Do you think Troy might be gay?" He finally asked.
My heart started pounding.
"Um, probably", I said.
Dad sat there still staring ahead through the windshield and nodded. I knew what was coming next, and I was dreading it more than anything I had ever dread. I could feel the moisture leaving my mouth. Sure enough:
"Are you?"
This was it.
A million thoughts entered my head at once. Dad had always been very strict, and even though he was older and less intense, I was still very much afraid of him. I was also thinking about all of the homophobic comments I'd heard from him and my mother, not to mention from my siblings. I was remembering them ridiculing Chaz back when I was a young teenager, and I was remembering every mean thing I had ever heard them say about gay singers, gay movie stars, gay TV characters, and the like.
