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| "Relentlessly Gay" |
My mom and I had discussed, extensively, the possibility that one of them would bring up the recent Supreme Court ruling on (and in favor of) gay marriage. My mom planned to say, "How is it hurting you?" and "Oh, what was that country that just got wiped off the map for supporting gay marriage? Oh yeah, Canada!"
The "label" that comes closest to describing my feelings and attractions is bisexual, so I wanted to say, "Well, I love it! Now I'm not a second-class citizen anymore," and officially come out to them. (Though I have been wearing two gay rights pins and a bisexual flag pin for a while now, I don't think they would know the bisexual flag.)
"I don't care, I love my rainbow girl!" My mom said, the night before.
"Yeah, I know," I sighed, for that was old news to me. Later I would decide to paint my nails and actually be a rainbow girl.
No one brought the subject up, per se, to my or my mother's knowledge. But I also had other plans for that day...
I had been given a hand-me-down shirt by one of my mother's friends, something that her daughter didn't want. It was already the gayest shirt I had ever seen (which was hilarious, given the homophobes that it was depicting!) and it looked like this:
It is light pink, and the term "beard" refers to a gay person's opposite-sex boyfriend or girlfriend, that they date so that they can stay in the closet.
I had always wanted to buy some fabric paint and "gay it up" even more, possibly wearing it around our family. Then I thought, "Why can't I buy some paint tomorrow, and paint it on their lawn, in front of everyone?"
I didn't plan to tell everyone what I was doing, just letting them see it, if they were outside. But everyone wanted to stay in the house and keep cool. Besides, I thought of other mischief to do, and so while everyone was opening birthday presents (multiple birthdays), I snuck out and started spray-painting it.
The dog was out and would surely get in my way, if the shirt was on the grass, so I put the finishing touches on it, on the hood of my homophobic relative's (I'll call him an uncle to simplify things) newly-bought 1988 Volkswagen Cabriolet.
My mom says, "That's a gay car," because she says that gay men love this style of Volkswagen. Kind of creepy, when you think about it, since Volkswagens were invented by the Nazis, who put gay men in death camps.
The bottles of paint were tiny (in cheap plastic squirt bottles), I was holding them literally an inch above the shirt, and I had put a thick piece of corrugated cardboard between the layers of the shirt, so I wasn't worried at all about getting any paint on his car. He will never know, until I choose to tell him, in a few years, and since I didn't damage the car at all, he can't call the police.
What he does and says, and did to my cousins and me as he bullied us as children, hurts a little less when I think about the "terrible" secret I'm now holding over him. Those are two of his biggest fears--gays and people not showing the proper reverence to his cars.
I later gave it more coats of paint, to make the letters stand out. So far, it looks like this:
Eventually, it will be obvious that it says, "Love Rules," though it takes many coats, and I may have to add a heart or something above the "L". I want to make stencils and put an American flag on one shoulder, and a rainbow flag on the other. I'm going to color in their beards. I also want to write in permanent marker, on the back, "In The Closet:" with a list of homophobic celebrities, and possibly relatives too.
So after desecrating a holy relic on his car, I stashed the shirt in my mom's old van and went back inside. In the living room I saw my cousin Blue-Butt, who last Christmas had tried to physically intimidate me in an argument, but quickly backed down when I wouldn't back down. It had been one of my proudest moments, though I was conflicted at the time.
"Hey, Blue," I asked casually, "can I see your tattoo?"
He got a very scared look on his face. "Shhhh!" he said softly, putting a finger to his lips. He reminded me faintly of an adult cautioning a child, and I wondered if he saw me that way, though I am three years older than him.
"Oh." I nodded and sat down at the table in the dining room. He had been sitting next to my grandfather, who worries almost constantly, especially about hell, but who is also very hard of hearing. All the other people in the living room seemed, to me, to be engrossed in loud conversations with each other.
After about a minute, Blue walked past me into the kitchen. "AJ!" he said, just loud enough. When I looked up, he gestured for me to follow him.
"I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone," he explained.
I followed him into the deserted laundry room. "I'm sorry, I thought everyone knew," I shrugged. I knew that Uncle 'Phobe had been self-righteous and upset with him, and that our grandfather had worried (of course!), but I thought that it had all blown over by now, given that it didn't seem to be awkward between him and these people.
"They don't know I have it." He pulled up his sleeve to reveal an inspirational quote: "Whoever cannot face Death without fear, is not worthy of Life."
"Oh, cool," I murmured, for I did like the old-fashioned script.
"When I told them I was getting it, they got really upset. Uncle 'Phobe was really mad, and they wouldn't talk to me for about a month and a half," he explained dramatically.
"That's crap!" I said. "It's not like it's 'Hail Satan 666.'" (To answer your question, yes, maybe someday...)
"I know, right?" he agreed as he left the kitchen. His brother, Red-Butt, was passing through and apparently heard, so I guess Red knew and could keep a secret.
"Green's dogs are just so cute," I smiled when I returned to the table. "I just love them." I was referring to Blue's girlfriend; every time Blue visits from college, he inundates us with pictures of her dogs on his cellphone. I had so far been spared the Dog Show, but I knew he had new ones.
I later thought about that quote, and wondered if he feared their disapproval more than he feared death.
Later I joined my mother and my Uncle 'Phobe outside, for the house was getting stuffy and crowded. He inevitably (as he always does) managed to turn the conversation onto his favorite topic, which is: How We're All Fucked.
"Obamacare is designed to kill people--I believe that!" he said. Then the usual stuff about Obama's inevitable martial law; the End Times; and how he knew that God was in control and that this stuff was inevitable, but that it still scared him. He brought up a new argument he had recently heard, about the penal system.
"'We have to keep track of criminals', 'We have to keep track of pets.,'" he said, patting the same dog that had witnessed me committing blasphemy against the Robertsons on his car, "Pretty soon, we'll have to keep track of everyone...except the gay couple down the street," he added bitterly. (Don't know if he was referring to an actual couple.)
I could not believe my ears. He thinks that gay people will not be compelled to take the mark of the beast!
Does that mean that gay people will be the only ones to go to heaven? Or that (straight, homophobic) Christians will say that they are gay in order to avoid it? It's not exactly denying Christ, after all, just blending in (and I've even seen movies where believers make fake marks, which could possibly be construed as denying Christ).
I would think that he would think gay people would be the first ones to want to take it. And how does it damn people if they're forced against their will--without even the option of execution? Or if they don't know what it is, when they take it? That seems greatly unjust and unfair of God to me.
I can argue against moral arguments (and I would be arguing for myself, because I wanted to, more than for him), but how could I possibly argue with someone's fear? Especially if I can't even follow his line of reasoning, and if he selects what to believe based upon his fears, which I believe he is doing.
I'm still figuring out how to deal with my very fearful and trembling family, but at least I got a few good stories out of it.
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