The Dark Tunnel

“Jump” my best friend said.  I leapt off our second story deck into the giant snow pile below.  I could feel the cold crisp air rush against my face as I landed in the soft snow. I was laughing.  We had spent the whole day in the woods sledding. Building bobsled runs through the tall pine trees in a small town in Colorado.  My older brother had finished shoveling the decks wrapped around our 3-story house and the snow piles were ready to be jumped in, forts built and the inevitable snowball fights that happened.  I felt free and happy.

“Doctor” was the word he said as I put my ear and then mouth over my cousin’s dick and told to blow. I was sitting next to my aunt when my cousin, 7 years older than me asked me to come upstairs to his bedroom. He pulled out the game operation. We played for a bit then he laid on the floor between his bed and the wall, hidden from the door, pulled his pants down and said I was going to examine him. I don’t remember anything else, except for an overwhelming presence of blue.  I remember feeling it was wrong, but also not. I was conflicted. At some point not long after, I was with my two older brothers, my cousin, and friends of the family. I’m not sure whose house but I remember there was a pool table and I was running around it.  I was the youngest one there.  My cousin began teasing me in front of everyone. I was embarrassed and angry and lashed out and told everyone what had happened in his bedroom.  Everyone laughed, my cousin denied it, I never spoke of it again.

“Faggot” was the word I heard mumbled under his breath as he turned and walked away.  Time stopped, my body froze in fear, my mind went blank, the sound of a thousand kids on break in the hallways disappeared. The last word you wanted to be directed at you in high school in the late 80’s was just sent my way.   I was in 10^th grade, living in Virginia, and working the yearbook table on break between classes.  I can’t remember the conversation or interaction we had had a moment before, but I remember the coolest kid in our class of 500 had just called me a faggot.  He didn’t know me.  We didn’t run in the same circle.  I had one friend, and he definitely wasn’t friends with him.

“Five dollars” the man behind the ticket window said as he slid a token towards me. I handed him the money and grabbed the token.  I was nervous but felt electrified. I had never done anything like this before.  I was pretty drunk and full of liquid courage. I was 21 and living in Las Vegas. It was dark, I dropped the token in the slot and pushed through the turnstile.  I turned to the right and the of smell bleach hit my nostrils. I continued around the corner and looked up and stopped.  On the screen was what I had only imagined so far in my dreams.  Men were having sex.  I looked around the theater.  I saw men sitting next to each other.  Some had their pants around their ankles others just had their pants unzipped.  Most had their cocks out.  Guys were getting blow job’s, hand jobs, stroking themselves and I saw two men having sex down in front.  This is where I learned to love, in the dark corners, theaters, bookstores, video arcades and bathhouses. I entered drunk or on drugs every time for the next 14 years and left each time full of regret, shame and self hatred. I wasn’t gay.

“I’m especially fucking angry at myself for not being stronger. “

“30 minutes” my roommate said to me over the phone.  If I wasn’t out of her house, she was going to call the police.  I was 30 and had tried to kill myself the night before but didn’t succeed. I was living in Atlanta and my addiction to crack was out of control.  I had quit my job a week before, been stealing money from my roommate to support my habit and she had discovered it. I was hopeless.  My world was crashing on me, and I couldn’t imagine living past tomorrow.  It wasn’t the drugs. It was the thought that I was gay and might have HIV.  The night before I had taken a bottle of prescription sleeping pills, washed them down with a bottle of vodka and went to bed. I left a note on the dresser to my parents, “I’ll never be who you want me to be.”

“No” I said to my parents.  It was the first weekend they could visit me in rehab.  I was 35. My sister-in-law told my parents I struggled with drugs and alcohol because I was gay, and they had just asked me.  My sister-in-law didn’t know me, we rarely spoke.  Who the fuck was she to say something like that to my parents. She had no facts other than her suspicions. She tried to out me, when I couldn’t yet admit to myself, I was gay. I entered rehab in 2007 for two reasons. To stop drinking and using drugs and to find out if I was HIV positive. If I was, I wanted to be in a safe place that could help me process it. I had lived the past 14 years with the belief that I had HIV.  I had no evidence other than having had sex with thousands of men.  Mostly safe sex, sometimes not.  I believed it was a punishment for my behavior. I lived in fear of dying.  I wouldn’t get tested, because if I did have HIV I would have to admit where I got it.  It was easier to bury my head in the sand and live with a death sentence hanging over me. I tested negative the day before my parents came to visit.  I broke down crying when I found out.  A weight I had carried for 14 years had been lifted.  I vowed that day to never put myself in that situation again. I wasn’t gay, it was just a behavior and if I was sober, I could control myself. I never told anyone about the sex I had with men. I didn’t have to, I was negative.  For the next 11 years I didn’t have any sexual contact with men.

“Yes, I’m gay” I said to my parents. I was 47. I came out 10 months before to myself, my brothers 5 months after that and now my parents.  I told my parents together; their reactions were their own. Similar but different, they didn’t love I was gay. They didn’t understand. The conversation was long, but what I remember is that they would never meet someone I dated or let alone ever attend my wedding. They told me they loved me, but to me, their love became conditional. My worst fear in coming out all these years had just happened.  My parents rejected who I am.

I am writing this on Thanksgiving.  Probably not the best day.  This is my favorite holiday.  It’s a day for family and food. I’ve got the turkey in the oven.  There is 10 of us in the sober house I’m living in right now. We are together 24 hours a day. I’m grateful I’m here and sober.  However, writing this is bringing up a lot of emotions.  I’m fucking angry.  I’m thinking about that kid playing in the snow and I’m wondering where he went.  I know he is inside me, but he is gripped in pain so strong and tight that when I start to feel it, to release it and live through it my tendency is to shove it back down.  I’ve spent a lot of time on the back patio smoking cigarettes, thinking and feeling shit I don’t want to feel and crying. I’m physically present with the group today but emotionally withdrawn.  My favorite place to be.  I’m angry at my cousin, my brothers for laughing, for being called a faggot, for learning that gay love is only transactional sex that takes place in the dark, at my parents for not creating an environment that I could come to them when I was young and didn’t understand what was happening to me and I’m especially fucking angry at myself for not being stronger. 

We went to a park on my third week in rehab for art therapy.  The assignment was to find something interesting to us and to write or draw it.  I sat in front of a storm drain. Here is what I wrote.

The Dark Tunnel

My Life flows like a river

It emerges from the darkness

Brings joy to me and others around

But it also carrys my past

I’ve caged it, the bars hold it back

Blocked from seeing the light

It is spilling out, but I’m afraid and lost

I don’t know how to remove the bars

And once removed will I ever be able to stop the pain

Will I Survive