You Are the Reason (25 page)

I don’t know who was more surprised at my words—me or Lee.

He frowned. “To the Drop-In?”

For some reason, my heart was racing, my breath was coming faster, and my palms were getting sweaty. What the hell was I doing? “Yes. I mean, just to hang out and give support to anyone. I can do that, can’t I?”

Lee seemed to have trouble finding his words. “But… I guess… although, if you’re going to do it on a regular basis, you need to get a police clearance.”

“Great, then,” I said and stood to clear the table. “What time are we going?”

When there was no answer from Lee, I turned and raised my eyebrow. I could see he was deliberately choosing his words. “We love having volunteers there. Many hands make light work and all. And the larger population of the kids that come in are young gay men between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. So it’s great to have positive role models for them and a variety of examples, but….”

He trailed off and took a deep breath. “Davo, a lot of these guys are gay—defiantly gay. They go out of their way to look extra gay, as a way of saying ‘up yours’ to the world they think’s rejecting them. And the ones who get rejected the most are the femme gays.”

“So?”

“So they’re going to be in makeup and have their hair dyed and be wearing… pink.”

The word “pink” was almost a whimper. I realized how much of a dick I’d been in the past. What a totally and utterly repugnant person I was. Well, I was going to change. I was going to turn over a new leaf. This old dog was going learn new tricks.

“That’s okay,” I said with as much bravery as I could muster. “I’m going to be fine with it, Lee. I swear it. I can do it.”

T
HE
D
ROP
-I
N
was behind an anonymous glass door on the side of a plain brick building. The center was located behind a storefront, and was a huge surprise. The outside was simply brown brick, but inside, it was bright, airy, and welcoming. There was a large room with a TV and lounges at one end, a kitchen and table to the side, a pool table centrally located, and lots of plastic, stackable chairs grouped together in informal circles. Through another set of glass doors, I could see that there was an outdoor section too—with more chairs, a basketball half-court, and a barbecue—all bricked in with no view of the street. I could appreciate that the kids would feel safe there.

Posters lined the walls, and I could see lots of messages about safe sex, warnings against drugs and sharing needles, advice about types of physical abuse and that it was not okay, and educational encouragement telling the kids about the benefits of schooling. A few doors led off the main room and were clearly labeled with artistic graffiti, saying such things as
Toilets—all genders. Get over it
and
Mike’s office, knock first
.

I did a quick headcount and could see three adults and about fifteen youths, ages ranging from about fourteen to twenty. There were very few girls.

“Lee.”

I spun around to see a gangly boy rush over and embrace Lee. He was about sixteen and seemed to have a facial piercing for every year he’d been on the planet. He also had on black eyeliner, and his hair was dyed neon green.

“Todd. Great to see you. Did you get that job?” Lee enthusiastically thumped him on the back, and I had to smile. Lee’s joy was obvious.

Todd pulled back and made a face of resignation. “Yeah, but only ten hours a week. Matty says that there’s a possibility of another five hours opening up next week. I’ll just have to see.”

“Good,” Lee said. “It’s a start. Experience and references are what you need.”

Todd gave me a once over and jerked his chin in my direction. I could see several other guys were looking my way, eying me off as if they weren’t sure if I was going to be trouble. “Who’s he?”

“This is Davo,” Lee said. “He’s a friend of mine. He’s going to hang for a bit while I’m here today. Be nice, okay?”

A sullen look came over Todd’s face. Distrust. “Who is he? He a cop? Or is he one of them government social-worker dudes who’s out to save the world, one homo at a time?”

I laughed at that. “Hell, no. I work for a sheet metal fabricator. I’m just hanging with Lee today.”

Todd’s face changed from a distrustful look to a leer. The innocence of youth and not being able to hide your emotions.

“Ohh” was Todd’s knowing comment. “So you’re the guy bangin’ Lee?”

I was startled and about to put the little bugger in his place when Lee held up his hand. “Oi. What’s the rules? No discussing intimate details without the other person’s express agreement. That goes for volunteers and counselors too.”

Todd looked shamefaced and cut me a quick glance. “Sorry, mate.”

I nodded my acceptance of the apology and smoothed things over. “It’s okay. But yes—Lee’s my boyfriend, if that was the word you were looking for.”

Lee looked a little stunned. Perhaps I should’ve asked him before making that declaration, but it was out there. Todd gave me a shy smile, which made him look even younger despite the bright hair and overdone eyeliner.

“Cool. Lee’s great,” he said.

“I know. He is,” I replied, and we grinned at each other in agreement.

Lee was blushing. He grabbed my bicep and pulled me away. “Enough with the mutual Lee Appreciation Society. Come and meet Mike. He’s our coordinator.”

Mike was a shorter man in his forties, with a balding head and a big, bushy beard. Lee introduced us and asked Mike if he could keep an eye out for me while Lee met with someone called Simone. Mike nodded and showed me where the coffee was, while Lee unobtrusively slipped through a doorway with a young person—who I thought was probably born male but was dressed as a female.

Twenty minutes later, one of the other volunteers, Terry, pulled me into a group discussion. Ten of us sat in a circle on plastic chairs in a private part of the room and took turns in speaking. Terry led the topic.

“Okay,” he said. “Now remember, what we say here is private. There’s no discussion of other people’s answers outside this circle. Respect the answers given, answer as honestly as you can, and remember to support your fellow peer as much as you can. Today we’re going to lead off with the discussion of who was the first person you ever told you were gay, and what was their reaction. For me, the first person I ever told was my sister, when I was thirteen. Her reaction was to hug me tight and promise never to tell. It was great—acceptance and secrecy all in one sentence.” He nodded to his side, to a young man in a tight white shirt. “Your turn, Wes.”

Wes was a highly feminine-looking man. He waved his hand around in the air and said, “Oh, yes. The first person I ever told was my best friend John. He’d just told me he was gay, so I told him I was too. Then he kissed me.”

There were a few titters as the others seemed to think this was cute, and so they went around the circle until they reached me.

“Davo? Your turn,” Terry said.

“Me?” I asked, startled to be included.

Terry nodded. “Don’t be afraid. We’re all allies here. Just tell us, who was the first person you verbally told?”

I smiled in remembrance. “My mum, actually.” A few of the guys in the circle nodded and smiled. Others looked sad.

“And what did she do?” Terry prompted me.

I tried to keep from grinning at the memory. “She told me she didn’t care if I was gay, or an atheist, or a Muslim, or even if I was painted green with pink polka dots, I still had to go with the rest of the family and watch my cousin in the school play
Jesus Christ Superstar
. I was trying to get out of going by protesting that organized religion was against who I was.”

There were some chuckles around the circle.

“She didn’t believe you?” a pimply-faced boy named Dean asked. He was one of the youngest there. My heart had broken when his answer was that he first told his best friend, who laughed in his face and made sure that the entire school knew by the following day.

I shrugged. “I think she thought it was simply another excuse. It was days later before she sat down with me and asked me about it.”

“How old were you?” Dean said.

“Fifteen.”

“Did she hate you?”

My broken heart shattered even further. “No,” I solemnly replied. “She was shocked, but she didn’t hate me. It took her a bit to reconcile to it, I admit. Now I think back on it, I guess she didn’t treat me any differently after it came out. But I felt better. I felt like I could stop lying. Stop pretending.”

There were some thoughtful expressions on some faces, and I looked at Terry in alarm. Had I said something wrong? He made eye contact and nodded his chin at me, ever so slightly in approval. Then he moved on and asked Kevin, sitting next to me, about his experience.

We finished the circle and came back to Terry, who gave us a new topic. “Great answers, everyone. Now, the next question is who did you fear the most in telling?” Terry looked directly at me. “How about you start, Davo? Who did you dread the most finding out about you being gay?”

That was easy. “My dad,” I answered immediately and shook my head as I remembered the acid burning in my stomach when my mother had said to me, “That’s okay, sweetheart. But I’m going to have to tell your father now.”

“Why?” prompted Terry.

I swallowed and tried to think back to what I felt at that time. There was all the rage of being a teenager—not quite an adult, but no longer a child. I had felt lost. I was trying to find my way in the dark, searching for that self-identity that every teenager has to discover. Hormonal changes, body changes, pressures of school and peers—all of them weighed down on me. But why did I fear telling my dad?

“I didn’t want him to think I was a girl.” The words from my mouth sounded familiar, but for some reason, for the first time in my life, I was also appreciating how dumb I sounded. I tried to explain further. “I was still Davo. I liked footy and wrestling and helping him build stuff in the shed. I didn’t want him to treat me differently. I didn’t want him to judge me differently. Just because I was gay, it didn’t necessarily mean I was going to start painting my nails pink and watching
Gilmore Girls
.”

Wes piped up. “For me, it was the exact opposite. I dreaded my dad finding out because I
wanted
to paint my nails pink and watch
Gilmore Girls
. I don’t think my dad cared about the ‘liking other guys’ bit, but for me not to be masculine and manly, he felt it was a reflection on
him
. He felt threatened by it. It was okay for other boys to be like that, but not
his
son.”

I felt for the guy. Disappointing a parent was an agony some kids had to go through. Wes probably felt terrible with the knowledge that he’d let his father down, and all he ever did was be himself.

Kevin sat forward then. He was a smaller guy, about seventeen. He dressed like an average teenager, but the way he crossed his legs and talked with his hands was painfully obvious.

As were the scars on his inside elbow, which told their own story of self-hatred and self-harm.

“Maybe, Wes, you should ask your dad about it? For me, not that I think anyone in my family was shocked to hear it, I was afraid of my uncle finding out. He’d been in the army, and I think he’d seen things done there. Things that he was afraid would happen to me if I didn’t ‘toughen up.’” Kevin made finger gestures to what was probably an oft-said phrase in his house. “He loves me. I know he does. But because of that love, he’s afraid that I’m going to get hurt. He taught me self-defense at a young age, and was always saying I needed to pretend to be braver than I was. He’d say, ‘Be brave, Kev. At home, you can be yourself, but out there, you need to act brave. Don’t show ’em your weakness.’ I don’t think he understood that being true to myself is the bravest thing I’ve ever done.”

Terry looked at Kevin. “Do you think that you could learn to be someone you’re not? Do you think that acting like a jock will change you?”

Kevin waved his hand in a dismissing motion. “Hell, no. Forcing me to ‘act straight’ was never going to turn me straight. Forcing me to drink beer and go to monster truck rallies was never going to turn me into a trucker. It’s not like the testosterone atmosphere would enter me via osmosis and suddenly I would be able to burp the alphabet and wrestle crocodiles.”

There were some chuckles in agreement. Stu was a young guy who I would’ve put in his early twenties. And straight as an arrow. He shook his head. “There’s so many preconceptions around what a gay man is. For a long time, I assumed that I wasn’t gay because I didn’t like musicals and I didn’t give a shit about clothes. I thought there was something wrong with me.”

Kevin was quick off the mark. “Sweetie, if you don’t like musicals, there
is
something wrong with you.”

We all laughed as Stu cracked up and said, “Oh fuck off,” without venom.

It broke up the circle, and we all drifted off to do other things. But it gave me a lot to think about.

How in the hell had I gotten to the age of twenty-seven, thinking that hanging with femmes might change me? Sitting in a circle of gay boys at a youth center made something crystal clear to me. We were all born a certain way, but that in no way made us the same. Kevin, despite the manly name, the monster truck rallies, and the testosterone poured upon him, was never going act like Stu. And Stu was never going to care about makeup the way Wes did.

I had allowed one twisted individual who didn’t want
his
students to act gay to dictate the direction of my whole life. What had I missed out on? Probably a whole lot of musicals, by the sound of it, so that was one thing to be grateful for. But I’d probably missed out on a lot of friends like Lee.

Dean, the youngest boy from the circle, was still sitting on the chairs, giving me shy looks as if he wanted to ask me something, so I smiled my encouragement at him. He blinked a couple of times and tentatively asked, “Does your mum really not hate you?”