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[Original publication note]: This
short, short story is offered as a glimpse at the problems,
difficulties, negative sides of relationships between men &
boys. If we expect to make a genuine contribution to our
understanding of our lives, we must look for the bad with the good, and
seek to explain both. NAMBLA NEWS encourages readers to send us
your own actual experiences, including those which show that we are not
saints any more than we are sinners, or that we are in fact both.
Mike was 13,
and already a bit of a queen. For an 18-year-old suburban- raised
college sophomore like me, Mike was an embarrassment. He was
skinny, freckle-faced, & as lively as a boy should be at his
age. He talked endlessly in a soprano voice; while he talked
his hands floated in mid-air as if weightless. His hip swung out
from under his torso in the faintest indication that he might as soon
identify with his mother as his father. He wore flower-printed
shirts & much-too-tight corduroy pants. He seemed a bit too
clean & well-groomed, but he made up for that by being boisterous
& aggressive. He was affectionate & compassionate, &
happened to take a liking to me. But the most embarrassing thing
about Mike was that I loved him.
I met Mike at a local gay-youth dance. We danced a few
dances. We fooled around a little in a dark corner, kissing and
necking like I used to do with my high school girlfriend. But I
did something I had never done with a girl: I invited Mike back to my
dorm room. I was pretty adventurous in the few months after I
"came out". If I was a homosexual or a bisexual or whatever the
hell I was, I wasn't going to be ashamed of it. If other guys
could bring back girls, which they actually seldom did, I could bring
back guys. Mike & I made love in my bed. I thanked God
my roommate stayed out all nite. When we awoke, we made love
again, and Mike went away, home.
I was unsettled about Mike. I worried about his youth. It
was hard enough being a homosexual; I didn't want to be a child
molester as well. I was also put off by Mike's subtle
femininity. Homosexuality for me had nothing to do with being a
woman. I was a man. If I wanted a man sexually, it was
because he was a man. If I loved Mike, I would take to bed both a
mere child and a queen. These fears were overwhelming in the face
of my attraction to Mike; his figure, his energy, his lust. The
fear of loving him grew when he showed up at my dorm the next
day. We made love, we talked & he left. But I was tense
the whole time & my joy was strained.
Before I describe our next and final encounter, let me backtrack.
As a child I had usually found it easier to carry on conversations with
adults than with my child-peers. But as much as adults would talk
with me, they never relinquished their dominion over me because I was a
child. I resented these adults who deprived me of my rights: the
right to choose my bed-time, the right to drive, to vote, & to
drink. I was never aware enough to know that I was deprived of
the right to have sex, but I knew that all my expression of feelings
and beliefs was severely restricted. I hated adults for
exercising their powers over me. I vowed when I grew up I would
judge all people by their merits, not by age. My fear of loving
Mike, even while I was still a teenager, was a first betrayal of this
vow.
My other fear also challenged my childhood attitudes. I had
always been a diehard pacifist & a liberal. Bigotry was
something I hated intensely. To mistreat or restrict someone on
the basis of color, religion, nationality, or even physical or mental
malady, were practices I denounced in classroom debates and school yard
altercations. I probably defended the rights of homosexuals and
transvestites long before I had any idea that defense might be
reflexive. Now I was afraid to love a boy because he was somewhat
effeminate. My fears of loving Mike in his youth & in his
femininity made a mockery of my personal morality.
Although I was aware of the hypocrisies, I could not overcome the power
of the fears they hid. My fear of loving Mike was strong.
The next time he showed up at school, he found me talking with a
professor. He began talking enthusiastically to me, but
discreetly in respect of the professor listening in. I had no
valid reason to be embarrassed by this talkative young boy. But
Mike's natural exuberance, which drew me to love him, & his slender
body, which beckoned me to embrace him, filled me with tension. I
wondered if the professor guessed that this boy was a faggot, my
faggot, and that we were involved in carnal sin. I might as well
have drawn a sword and dropped Mike's tender body to the ground; what I
did was every bit as heartless & unnecessary. I told Mike to
get lost. I told him he was a punk kid & that I didn't need
him hanging around. I told him he wasted my time & made me
sick. And I told him again to go away. My memory of his
reaction is drawn out in my mind like the eternally slow-motion
projection of the Zapruder Kennedy assassination film. In the
seconds between the end of my verbal barrage and turning back to my
professor to continue as if nothing had happened, I witnessed the death
of a spirited boy. His stomach caved in as if my words had hit
him there. He took a small step backward with each foot.
His face drew back in pain & I thought I saw his freckles
disappear. His eyes & mouth opened up wide and gave his face
a stupid, gazed look. I thought he might vomit. But no
violent counter reaction came; he did not rebound from his
recoil. I saw the shock, the disbelief, & the dismay in his
eyes before he went back the way he had come along the sidewalk.
Our relationship was over, not because I had ceased to love Mike, but
because in my fear I had murdered a boy's spirit. Though Mike
lives on, I
killed the boy.
Like all evil men, I would be punished.
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