Jumping Ahead to the Big One.

Somewhere along the way, at some point in my Junior year, I believe, I got the bright idea that I could use my piece of shit computer to log onto the Internet in the middle of the night, after everyone went to bed.  I would go online and I would mostly just do Survivor stuff, play Survivor games and shit like that.  I downloaded an AIM and MSN and began my first instances of chatting.  Anyway, I have another entire post in mind for what this Internet thing did for me and I plan on skipping back to it at some point.

This is about the big one.  This is about my being FOUND OUT.

Throughout my senior year, I started getting cocky in my Internet usage, not waiting until people went to bed before I logged on.  I don't really know what I was thinking.  So I lived in the basement of our house.  The basement was divided into two parts, my room on one side and the family room/laundry area on the other.  The steps from the main part of the house led down into the living room area, with the doorway between the two rooms right about at the foot of the stairs.

What I would do is take a phone cord and run it from the back of my computer into the phone jack in the family room.  I would usually place something over the phone line where it was exposed and tuck the rest under the carpet.  I thought, at 17, I was being so sneaky.  And I was, I just was stupid as well.  Anyway, one night I got online at like, 11:00.  Around 11:30, I'd guess, I hear the door to the basement open and steps start to come down.  So I immediately cut the power to my computer and dive into bed.  But the steps didn't go to the washing machine, like normal.  They stopped at the bottom of the stairs and I sneak a peek and see that the phone line is being dug up.

I knew I was caught at that moment, I knew it.  But he didn't do anything, he just went back upstairs.  I got back online that night, after he had gone to bed, and I remember telling everyone that I believe that I had just been caught.  I went to bed that night, like normal.  I got up the next morning and everything seemed normal.  I went to school, wondering what the hell was going on.  (This was around, oh, the beginning of March, I believe.)

That day, my mother picked up my sisters and then came for me, like normal.  She was in a pretty quiet mood.  I was especially chatty, talking all about my day, finally starting to get worried.  I was getting one word answers back.  Just as we were turning onto our road, my little sister asked for permission for something and my mother only replied, "No, I don't think you deserve that.  All of my children are bad."

We entered the house and I went to my room.  I froze in the doorway.  My computer tower was GONE.  I started immediately freaking out, pacing my room.  If he took my computer tower then he surely knew what was on it.  Being, really, nothing more than short stories and chat conversations I had saved, maybe some photos.  Nothing serious, nothing pornographic.  I certainly had never had enough balls to look at porn while under his roof, but I did risk looking at pictures of hot guys kissing.  Besides, at that stage in my life, it was all I really wanted.  Kissing, to me, is much more a form of acceptance than sex.  You can totally anger fuck someone, but it's hard to kiss that same person.  Getting off track.

I knew that if my computer was gone, then he knew.  I knew that this very night, he was going to come down and demand an explanation and I knew that I was painted into a corner.  I had no choice, because I had to tell him.  I immediately sat down and wrote out a speech on green index cards.  I thought that green was his favorite color and maybe that would make things go much more easily for me.  I was desperate, clutching at straws.  Halfway through my speechwriting, he came home and made a stop in my room, telling me that he would be down later that night because we needed to talk.

I finished my speech around 5:00.  I knew he wouldn't be down until at least 8:00 and the tension was killing me.  Somehow, somehow I fell asleep.  I don't know what I would have done had I not passed out.  That time needed to move and if I hadn't passed out, I very well might have run away.  I considered packing a bag, I thought I would need it even if I managed to give my speech.  Around 8:30, he finally came down.  I was sitting on my bed, calmly waiting for him.

He sat in my desk chair and said, "James, we need to talk."  I said, "I know.  I wrote a speech."  He smirked.  "Well, by all means, let's hear it."  Slowly, I began my speech.  It was about 7 or 8 index cards long and I didn't even say the words "Because I think I'm gay," until card 5.  Getting to card 5 was extremely hard.  I needed a good few minutes to literally get those words out.  I often wonder how they would have come out if I was delivering them into kind eyes, not ones of ice.  Anyway, to his credit, he let me finish my entire speech before beginning.

"James, I knew exactly what you were going to say.  I looked through your computer and found all of your, eh, nasty surprises.  I know that you've been sneaking online behind my back and that you've disrespected me and my rules.  I know that you've been encouraging this evil inside of you and I will not allow that in my house.  You have severely broken my trust and I'm not even sure how I can allow you to remain here.  You are in a state of severe mortal sin and if you were to die right now, you would be burning in Hell.

"This is what is going to happen.  Your computer is gone, you lost the rights to that for good.  If you had any friends or weekend activities, you would be banned from those as well.  As it is, I am only going to allow you to work one day a week.  You shouldn't be leaving this house and be exposed to dangerous influences.  No more phone calls and you are only allowed to watch television that I approve of.

"We will certainly have to figure out the matter of your college education now, but this is a discussion for another night.  I certainly feel a share of the responsibility for allowing this to happen to you.  If I had been a more assertive father with getting you to explore more masculine outlets, you might have been spared from this.  Therefore, I consider it to be partly my responsibility to fix this.  There are a number of men and women out there who have felt urges like you and who have faced those urges head on and beat them.  I am going to find someone to help you through this and you are going to overcome that.

"In the meantime, I am never to hear you speak the word 'gay' again.  Gay is a term which applies to a more political nature, a political attitude that you want nothing to do with.  You are suffering from homosexual urges, nothing more.  You are not gay.  Now, the only matter left for tonight is what I am going to tell your mother."

It took a minute for this to sink in.  "You, you don't have to tell her anything."  He smiled at me.  "Now, what kind of a husband would I be if I didn't?"

As much as it breaks my heart to say this now, I knew that her knowing this would break her heart then.  I looked at him, I looked at Pat, pleading with my eyes for him to not say anything.  He stood up.  "I wouldn't recommend coming upstairs again tonight."  He left the room.

I sat there in stunned silence.  A few minutes later, I heard a plate fall to the floor and shatter.

It took her a week to be able to look at me.

More Early Childhood

My mother got married when I was six, but she started dating my stepfather when I was four.  I don't remember too much about him from before the marriage, really.  I guess he was around fairly often, but I only have two real memories of him.  One was him buying me Operation and playing it with me, telling me that it was one of his favorite games when he was young.  Back when my mother and I were still living with my grandparents, he and I would sit up in the attic loft that was my mother's room and play Operation.  I guess it was fun.  My other memory of him was up in that same attic loft and he had bought me some book... I think it was The Butter Battle Book.  I can't exactly remember.  But he read it to me and I guess at that point I thought he was pretty cool.  I must have been very young though because we were still living at my grandparents', which means that I hadn't yet turned 5.

Then she got married.  I was the ring bearer at the wedding and I remember being scared witless about screwing up.  It was held at St. Andrew's Church, the parish of my stepfather and his family.  (His family who, by the way, was made up of 13 children.  He was the oldest.  The youngest two, James and Joe were twins and only four years older than me.)  Most of his groomsmen were his brothers and some of his sisters were bridesmaids of my mother.  The wedding itself is pretty fuzzy.  The real fun doesn't come into play until the reception, when I had a mother-son dance to Sha-Boom, which I knew from my favorite movie, Clue.  The entire reception formed a circle to watch us dance to this song and I remember being a bit frustrated because I didn't want it to be just between the two of us, but thinking back on it now, I'm glad that it wasn't any other way.  It was the last time I really got to be with my mother as just the two of us.

At some point during the reception, I went missing.  I have no memories of this whatsoever, I was only recently told about this.  Apparently they had to form a search for me because everyone was panicked about my going missing.  They found me, having found a crawl space underneath the stage.  I was bawling, furious about... not her getting married.... but at having him as a father.  I don't particularly remember much about what I thought of him before the wedding, but if I was crying then, I'm not sure how to take it.

They went on their honeymoon to... Aruba, I think?  I honestly don't remember.  It doesn't matter, but my great-grandmother, Gigi, came to stay with me for the week they were gone.  Before they left, my mother gave me a special gift.  My favorite show at that time was Tiny Toons and I thought that Babs Bunny was just the greatest thing which ever existed.  She gave me a plush Babs before she left so that I wouldn't be too alone.

They were married in April '91, when I was in first grade.  That May, my grandparents took me and my uncle, Jaye, to Disney World.  It was probably the greatest vacation of my life to date, I would wager.  I remember crying hysterically on the King Kong ride at Universal, filming the "bee scene" from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and (for some godawful reason) riding the Small World ride.  I even think we went through the Hall of Presidents.  I dunno.  Maybe I made that up.

That trip ended and I came home to a new life with my mother and stepfather, Pat.  I remember being allowed to call him Pat, at least at first.  I think, in those early days, we simply tried to stay out of each other's way.  In those days, he had some sort of job... I think at the local GE plant.  I'm pretty sure that he and my grandfather kind of knew each other at work.  Pat had been a teacher at one point, a math teacher.  I don't know why he left it, but he was working at the GE plant for some time.  He wasn't home all that much in the beginning, I don't think.  My mother and I would have TGIF nights, watching Full House and playing Clue a lot.

At some point soon after that, my mother and I needed to start taking Catechism classes so we could be good Catholics and join the church of my stepfather.  I remember sitting in some back room of some church, it was very cold and very red.  Those days were the worst for me, sitting there, droning through stuff I didn't understand in the least.  I don't remember if we ever had a ceremony or anything, but at some point, we became Catholics.

We stayed out of each other's way for a while, but that didn't stop me from having a great deal of fear instilled in me.  Maybe I was too young at that point to notice a lot of things that were happening, but I remember being deathly afraid of him.  At one point, Pat and my mother decided to look for a house back in Erie and they would drop me off with my grandparents while they went house searching.  This was a secret for some reason and I was under strict orders not to tell my grandparents.  Well, naturally, I let it accidentally slip out.  I was a freaking kid, it shouldn't be surprising.  But I immediately realized my mistake and started hyperventilating, crying furiously.  I knew that I was in trouble for that one.

My grandparents were a huge influence on me during that time.  I stayed with them every weekend, it was nice to spend time with them, considering how much of an influence they were on me during my early years.  They also gave me a way to escape from Pat from time to time.  Naturally, I was a bit spoiled by them.  I was their first grandchild.  I had a great collection of games, toys, and books.  My room was always a bit messy, but I was a kid.  You know, it happens.  Well... we used to go to Myrtle Beach every summer.  My grandparents, my mother, me, sometimes my uncle, sometimes a cousin or two.

One summer, we went to Myrtle Beach.  Pat never came with us.  Well, I must have been about 8 at the time... but we came home and I went to my room... and I found that all of my toys were gone.  All the games, all of the toys, most of the books.  I guess that I hadn't cleaned my room to absolute perfection before I left on the trip and Pat, deciding that I had too much and was too spoiled, took it upon himself to liberate me of all of this.  So he cleaned my room for me and threw out all of my stuff.  Both Operation and Babs Bunny were victims of this purging.

I think as early as then, I knew I was fucked.