Everybody Has Those Thoughts So It Doesn't Mean You're Gay (2 page)

They both walked out to the car and got in. Jack’s dad reversed out of the driveway and shifted the car into drive. Just as he did Cindy came running out of the house in her mini-golf outfit. She wore a lime green checkered skirt, white top, and a Scottish tam with a fuzzy ball on top.

“Wait for me,” she yelled as she adjusted her mini-golf club bag on her shoulders.

Pretending not to hear her, Jack’s dad drove off. Cindy, with the commitment of a boxer hound, ran down the sidewalk after the car.

 The weight of her golf bag made her rock back and forth like a boxer hound wearing a Scottish tam with a fuzzy ball on top. And to add to her commitment, the look on her face said one thing, ‘I will play some mini-golf. Oh yes, I will.’

“I think Cindy’s chasing the car,” Jack said, looking into the rearview mirror.

“Yes she is, but she’ll give up.”

And after a while, one that included them circling the block once, she did give up.

“Yep, she’s got your mother’s little legs so I knew she’d tire. She put up a good fight though,” Jack’s dad said. “Now it’s on to mini-golf.”

Jack smiled.

*****

3

The mini-golf course where Jack and his father played was old. That meant that there was an unusual amount of sand on the parking lot, the giant clown head on the 7th hole no longer made that creepy laughing noise, and if you placed your ball in the right place, you could putt your ball along a groove in the artificial turf.

Jack’s friends hadn’t discovered the grooves. That was the secret to all of Jack’s victories. He wasn’t sure if his father had, and when Jack asked his father why it was that he kept winning, his father replied “I’m a doctor, and my specialty is in kick-buttockaphy”. But that wasn’t one of the types of doctors that Jack had learned about in school so Jack didn’t know what that meant.

“I think I’m going to beat you this time, dad,” Jack said, feeling his confidence come back to him.

“Well it’s important that you believe that son,” Jack’s father replied with a smile.

Jack’s first putt was exactly where he wanted it to go. Jack had placed his ball on the very edge of the groove in the artificial grass, and like a marble it rolled around the course and into the cup. It was a hole in one.

“Beat that,” Jack proclaimed while holding his putter over his head in victory.

“I don’t know if I can. That’s a good shot.”

But exactly on cue, Jack’s father lined up the shot and rolled it in too. It was another hole in one.

“How’d you do that?” Jack asked.

Jack’s dad smiled back. “I’m just that good,” he replied.

The two walked over to the next hole.

“So now I have a question for you,” Jack’s dad said to Jack who was lining up his next putt. “What happened during your game of Truth or Dare?”

Jack stepped out of his shot for a second. But after a breath, he stepped back in, missed the groove and knew he would need three putts to finish the hole.

A little peeved by his dad’s timing, Jack waited for the moment that his father was about to putt before he spoke.

“I guess we were playing Truth or Dare and Billy asked me what my strangest dream was,” Jack said, interrupting his dad’s stroke.

Jack’s dad stood without putting. “What did you say?”

“Well, I had this really strange dream once where Billy and I were walking along this really narrow mountain path. And as we were walking Billy slipped and I grabbed him. He reached up and grabbed my shirt and it ripped. I then went to get a better grip, but he slipped out of my hand and fell.

I didn’t know what to do so I got on my knees and looked over the cliff. And when I looked over he hadn’t actually fallen. He was holding onto the ledge.

So I reached down, grabbed his arm and pulled him up. And when I pulled him onto the ledge, because it was so narrow, he rolled onto me.

And we were both completely out of breath so neither of us could move. But at the same time we were both really relieved that he hadn’t fallen. And then after a second…” Jack stopped talking and looked up at his dad. “We… kissed.”

Jack’s dad paused for a moment with almost no reaction on his face. Then after a few seconds, his dad broke the silence. “And this is why your friends said that you were gay?”

Jack, with a guilty look on his face, nodded his head yes.

Jack’s dad refocused himself, leaned over his putt and sent the ball past the windmill blades and onto the backside of the hole. This was certainly going to be a two putt for him.

“Jack, dreams are funny things. Our brain is like a computer in a way. Just like a computer we have our short term memory; in computers it’s called ram. And we have our long term memory; in a computer that would be the hard drive. And do you know how when you shut down a program or turn off a computer it doesn’t always turn off as soon as you press the button?”

“Yeah,” Jack said as he continued putting.

“Well, that delay happens because the computer is moving all of the information from its short term memory to its long term memory. It is the same thing with your brain.

All through the day your brain takes in more information than any computer could ever dream about. And while we sleep, our brain is moving all of our day’s memories into long term memory.”

Jack’s dad quieted down for a second while he made his second putt. Jack then putted after him and made the hole in three putts like he thought he would.  

“The brain, however, has a super efficient way of storing memory.”

“What does efficient mean?” Jack asked, as his father was about to putt on the next hole.

“When something is efficient it is done very quickly and with the least amount of energy possible. Got it?” Jack’s dad asked, looking back at Jack.

“Yep.”

“So the brain stores the information in a way that allows it to be accessed very quickly whenever you need it. And the way it does that is by putting your daily memories into categories. A memory might be stored under the adventure category. And another memory might be stored under the good-times category.

But then what the brain does is scan the memories for similarities to other memories. So let’s say that you were wearing your blue jacket in your memories today and you were wearing the same blue jacket in a memory that you had two months ago. Well, what your brain does is create a connection between the two memories by growing a neuron. A neuron is kind of like an extension cord between memories. This is done so that if you ever want to remember when else you wore that blue jacket, you can.”

“Wow,” Jack replied while staring at his father.

“Cool, right?” Jack’s dad said with a smile. “Now the problem is that when your brain is processing all of those memories, your mind has to be on. It is like the way that your computer has to be on. And the result is that we dream.

I don’t think that you have actually walked along a narrow mountain path, have you?” Jack’s dad asked.

“No,” Jack replied.

“But you probably saw it in lots of movies, right?”

“Yeah.”