Fools 18:  Not Your Usual Love Story

When Barry came out to his mother at the age of nineteen, she was shocked, appalled, flabbergasted.  “How can you be sure?” she asked.  “Have ya tried it?”

“Sure.  Lots of times.”

“And have ya tried... ?”

“Girls?  Sure.  Lots of times.”

“And ya actually prefer...”

The silence was deafening, so he finished her sentence for her: “Men.”

She swallowed.  “Do you really put that thing in your mouth?”

His nervousness over coming out to her had put Barry on the defensive, so he struck back: “Take, Mom, not put.  Don’t you know how it’s done?”

She slapped him across the face, sat down at the table, and wept.  Barry stood by, resigned, waiting for her to calm down.  He thought her slapping him might break the ice, but it didn’t.  Yet there was so much more to say, so much more that needed saying.  On the other hand, what more could either of them say?  He had said everything. 

Then a thought occurred to her, and, still sniffling, she sat up and blurted out, “Oh, sweet Jesus!  Whatever’re we gonna to tell Barry Sr.?”

That was his father.

She went on talking to herself as if Barry wasn’t there.  “He’ll murder him.  He’ll throw him outta the house.  He’ll ground him for the rest of his life.  He’ll call in the preacher, and then everyone’ll find out.  He’ll die of a heart attack.  He’ll put ’is fist through the wall.  He’ll throw things an’ break all my best china.  He’ll give us all AIDS.”  (She meant her first-born, not his father.)  She did not consider these separate possibilities, but imagined them happening all at once.  “We’ll hafta find some way of gettin’ the children outta the house before we tell him.”

“Why on earth?”

She looked up and was surprised to see him still there.  “What ‘ya mean?  They don’t know, do they?”

“Of course they do.  They’re not dumb.”

She didn’t catch the implication that their parents were.  “You told your sisters?

“I didn’t have to tell them.”

“They knew?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“How did they know?”

“They just knew.”

It took a while for her to process the information.  “And whatta they think about it?  What’d they say t’ ya?”

“Do you want their exact words?”

She nodded.

“That’s cool.”

That was too much for her.  She dropped her hands to her sides, her mouth fell open, and she just sat there staring into space, dry eyed.  Barry wasn’t quite sure what to say next, so he said nothing.  About ten minutes later his eight-year-old sister Lucy walked into the kitchen and saw them still in the same position.  “Oh,” she said.  “I guess you told Mom, huh?”

Barry Sr. reacted in none of the ways his wife had predicted.  He sat on the couch, shrunken, diminished, the rug pulled out from under the self-assurance of this respectable, successful man.  Then the expression on his face altered, and he glared angrily at his son and demanded, “Who did it?”

“Who did what?  Seduced me?”

“Ya damn well know what I mean.”

“Nobody seduced me.  I used to fool around with the other kids my own age.  Kids do that, you know.  A couple of us turned out gay; most of us didn’t.  I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“Drop dead.”  That was the closest he came to murdering him.  After that he launched into a series of unfinished questions, exactly as his wife had, and Barry answered them all truthfully.

“An’ ya...?”

“Yes.”

“An’ ya...?”

“That too.  I’ve done it all.  I do it all.”

“An’ ya like it?”

“It... is... wonderful.”

“Oh God!” he whispered, and his shoulders sagged.

“Don’t act like it’s the end of the world,” said Barry.  “It isn’t really.”

His father seized on this one glimmer of hope.  “You was just joking then?  It ain’t really all that wonderful after all, is it?  It’s only something ya done once or twice that ya felt ya had to tell us about, and now it’s over with?  Right, boy?”

“It’s not the end of the world.”

“For you maybe.  Andja feel good about yourself?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Listen to him!” he told his wife.  “He’s goin’ roun’ puttin’ out fer evrabody, an’ proud of it too!”

“I do not ‘put out’ for everybody.”

“Ya mean ya got yerself a steady?  That there’s more o’ you queers in a God-fearin’ town like ourn?  Shee-it!  Ya hear that, Betty Ann?  Our son’s got a... what’s that fancy word we’re supposed to call ’em now... a partner?”

“A boyfriend?  Yes.”

“Who is he?”

Barry blurted it out, a man seven years older than himself, a man they all knew and who his father thought was straight.

Barry Sr. sat there in disbelief.  “Chuck?  Ya mean the football player?  The guy that fixes ya bike?  Him?”

Barry nodded.

“An’ he gives it to ya in the...?

Barry nodded, looking as he might have looked ten years ago if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or five years before that if they’d found him looking at a dirty magazine.  He didn’t feel guilty about it, but in front of his father he felt as small as a hamster.

It was more than the old man could take in all at once.  He sat unmoving, trembling, torn three ways between rage, bewilderment and disgust, his son cringing in front of him.

Then... “That bastard!” he thundered, and jumped up and grabbed his shotgun.

“Dad, don’t!” Barry cried out, but he was too scared of being shot to try to grab it away.  His mother tried, but the man was livid.

“You keep away from me, woman!” he said, and pushed her to the side with such violence she fell to the floor.  Then he turned and stormed out of the house and down the porch.  The screen door slammed shut behind him.  They heard him rev the engine of the truck and the screech of the tires as he pulled out and drove away.

“I’d better call the police,” Barry said, but his mother rushed to throw herself in front of the phone and barred his way.  “Then at least let me call Chuck to warn him.”

She shook her head.

“Please, Mom.  Think what’ll happen to Dad if he kills him.”

“Ya promise not to call the cops?”

“I promise.”

She stepped aside, but stayed closed to phone and watched him dial, her finger ready to push down the little button if he started calling 911.

“Chuck, I told them, and it’s worse than we ever imagined.  My dad’s on the way over to your place and he got a gun.  Lock the doors and keep away from the windows.  And call 911.  My mom wouldn’t let me.  I’ll be right over to see if I can stop him.”

When he’d gone, Barry’s mother thought of calling the police and telling them it was a crank call.  Then it hit her that if Barry Sr. did shoot him she could end up in prison too.

Barry drove his motorcycle at top speed and cut through back alleys, and got to Chuck’s house to find his father screaming threats and banging on the door.  The police hadn’t come yet, if they’d been called at all.

“Dad!” he yelled.

“Doncha come near me!  Not when I’m like this.”  And with one mighty kick he broke the door off its hinges and ran into the house.

Barry followed him.  Chuck stood backed up against a wall, sweat dripping from him, eyes staring in terror, not daring to say a word... if he could even find his voice.  Barry Sr. stood in the center of the room, not ten feet from him, the shotgun raised and aimed straight at his chest.  Barry froze in place.  Did his father really mean to kill him?  He just might.  He’d lapsed into dialect, a sure sign he was out of control.  He prayed that Chuck had listened to him and called 911, and that help would get there soon.

Slowly, Barry Sr. took a couple of steps forward till the muzzle of the gun was just inches away from Chuck’s heart.  “OK, you sonofabitch,” he snarled.  “Ya cornholed my son, dammit, an’ now ya’s gonna marry him!”