Throwing Stones Read online

  I'd been doing all kinds of online research, about how homosexuality is just as natural and normal a condition for people and animals as heterosexuality is, how marriages between men were proving to be more stable than straight marriages, all kinds of stuff like that. I'd printed reams of it out, hoping against hope that I'd have a chance to show it to my folks.

  I'd tried it out on Brad one day after I'd told him about me. We were in a booth at The Flying Pig, that place where you can get sodas and stuff served like cocktails. I had a Market Pig— which was Coke with, like, three different syrups and skewered pineapple in a wide glass with a tall stem—and a large order of fries I was sharing with Brad. He munched on fries as he scanned my printouts. I asked him to start by looking over my summary document, which he did, and then he skimmed some of the more detailed information on the other pages. After a few minutes he pushed the whole pile toward me, a dribble of ketchup on one corner.

  "This would make a great school paper, Jesse, but in the end I don't think it will matter all that much to anyone who's already made up their mind that being gay is bad. Facts won't matter to them."

  The red stain felt like my blood. I'd been counting on keeping things on as rational a basis as possible, and I wanted the weight of this research to make my case for me.

  But he was right. What my family would care about would be how it made them feel that their son was gay. Dad and Stu would feel sick to their stomachs just thinking about it. Mom would be sure that I’d lead a miserable life, and she’d assume that she’d get no grandkids from me. What would matter most, perhaps, would be knowing that I wouldn't be able to stay in Himlen. I’d have to leave. I knew that, already. Everything about this news would make them sad, or sick, or angry, or all three. And it could all be wrapped up in one ugly package: I was a disappointment to them so huge that it would make them want to scream.

  And not all the research was good. One disturbing thing I found had nothing to do with facts or studies. It had to do with family. Somehow, last year, I'd missed this video that had gone viral. A guy in Atlanta named Daniel Pierce decided he was going to come out to his folks, and he was so scared of what might happen that he used his phone to record the whole thing. Then he posted it.

  It was horrible. They screamed at him, they wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say, and then they threw him out. The good news for him was that after he posted the video, people from all over the place started sending him money. He got so much that he told people to send any more donations to this home in Atlanta for queer kids who’ve been disowned. I read an article where the director of that home said that about half of the kids in the southeast who come out to their parents get kicked out of their own homes. Half the kids. And I wondered, what was it about the southwest?

  Whatever, after what Brad said, I was afraid I'd have to put my plans on hold. But then, after a particularly moving sermon at church the Sunday after my birthday, a week after I got my truck, I decided to go ahead. The sermon had been all about love, really, even though as long as I've known Reverend Gilman he's been saying plenty of unpleasant things about gay people ruining traditional marriage. But that Sunday he quoted Matthew, where Jesus says to love God with everything we are, and to love all people as much as we love ourselves. Reverend Gilman pointed out that we must know ourselves in order to love God with all of ourselves, and we must love ourselves, or loving other people has no meaning. He quoted First Corinthians, where St. Paul says that he’s nothing without love. All knowledge, all wisdom, all faith even—all of it is nothing without love.

  By the time the sermon was over, and we all stood to sing a hymn, I realized that this was how I'd tell my folks. Love is everything; all else must bow to that. So I didn't need my research. I didn't need facts and data and studies. I just needed love, and I needed to call on love before I told them. Up to this point in my life, I believed my family loved me as much as I loved them.

  After lunch, Stu headed off to fetch Patty for a picnic or something. I was glad Stu wouldn't be home when I talked to my folks; I was outnumbered as it was.

  Dad was still at the table with the last of his coffee, and Mom was loading the dishwasher. I needed to get this started before Dad headed downstairs to the family room to watch TV or work on stuff for his business or something. I kept telling myself, Say something! Anything! Just get it started! But I could barely breathe. I tried to take a deep breath and failed. I told myself I couldn't lose my parents’ love. I told myself again. I took another breath and it seemed okay, but then my hands started shaking, so I clasped them together so hard my knuckles hurt.

  Dad pushed his coffee mug away like he was about to get up, and with a massive effort I pulled myself together enough to say, "Mom? Dad?" My voice was so squeaky I sounded like someone else. Mom didn't even hear me over the water running in the sink. But Dad looked up.

  "Jesse? Is everything all right?"

  Mom looked around at that. "Jesse, what is it?" She grabbed a towel to dry her hands.

  I cleared my throat; it helped a little. "I need to talk to you." I put my hands in my lap so no one could see how white my knuckles were or how much I was shaking if I didn't clench my hands. I had my parents' attention, that’s for sure. They looked worried. Probably I did, too.

  Mom sat in the chair across from me. "Jesse, what is it? You’re scaring me."

  I tried to smile, but even my mouth was shaking by then. "Sorry. I don’t mean to. Um, first, I want you to know—" This is such an awkward thing to say. No one ever just blurts it out like this, but I needed to set the stage. I clenched my hands harder and looked down at the placemat on the table: blue and white weave, fringe on the edges, a few odd specks of something caught among some of the fibers.

  Dad was losing patience. "Know what, Jesse? What are you talking about?"

  "I want you to know that I love you. Both of you. And Stu, and Patty. And I know you love me." I looked up at them. "That’s very important. That you know that. And I need to tell you something about me that I know won’t change that, even though it might be hard for you to hear. Even though you probably won’t understand it."

  Silence. I took two or three breaths, closed my eyes, opened them again. I didn't even try to breathe. And for the second time in my life, I said, "I’m gay."

  I had intended to keep my eyes on theirs, to watch for their reactions, to see whether there was shock, or horror, or anger, or what. But I couldn't. I couldn't look at them. I looked down at my hands, and then that seemed wrong; looking down made it seem like I was ashamed, and I was determined not to be. So I looked up again, but I couldn't really settle my gaze on anything. Then I saw Mom’s hand fly to her face, covering her mouth. Her eyes were huge, strained wide open.

  It seemed like an eternity before anyone said anything. Finally, Dad said, "Who told you that?"

  That made no sense. Now I could look at him. Now I wasn't shaking nearly as much. "No one. No one told me anything. It’s just something I know."

  "I don’t see how you can know something like that. You’re too young."

  I shook my head, hard. "It has nothing to do with how old I am, Dad. And anyway, other guys know they’re straight. They go out with girls, because that’s what they want to do. I don’t want to do that."

  Mom found her voice. "Jesse! You’re not going out with boys, are you?"

  "I’m not going out with anyone. Dating is not the point. It’s not the dating that matters, it’s what I know about myself."

  Dad was starting to get angry. "Well, you got one thing right. I sure as hell don’t understand."

  "Gene! Language, please."

  "Diane, this goes beyond language. Do you understand what our son has just told us?"

  They stared at each other for several seconds while I held my breath again. Would Mom let him drag her into antagonism? Finally she said, "I don’t think we can understand it. I think we need to give this some time, let things settle, and then talk about it again later."

  Dad l
ooked like he had something unpleasant to say to that, but Mom interrupted him. "It won’t do any good to get angry, honey. If Jesse is right, yelling at him won’t help. And if he’s just confused, he’ll have to find his own way out. We can help, but we can’t pull him out."

  Dad crossed his arms on his chest and glared at the refrigerator.

  Mom said, "Jesse, sweetie, how long have you felt like this?"

  "I’ve known," I corrected her, "a long time. A couple of years, anyway. And I suspected before that." That floored them, I could tell; she was probably sure I’d say it had been only a few months or so.

  I glanced at Dad; had he softened at all? Didn't look like it. Suddenly he stood, and the chair went flying behind him. Without another word he tromped downstairs. Mom and I sat still, silent, not looking at each other, until I heard the television.

  "Jesse, I honestly don’t know where we go from here." Mom’s voice sounded sad.

  "If it will help, I have lots of information I can give you. You know, to help you understand what it is and what it isn’t. Because there’s a lot of misunderstanding out there, and I think probably that’s all you and Dad have, because you’ve never needed to know anything else. But now you need to. So tell me if you’d like to know more."

  "What kind of information?"

  Deep breath, Jesse, I told myself. Take it slow; don’t get excited. "Like, I can show you scientific proof that this is a natural condition. Lots of animals are gay, not just people. And marriage equality is working. So far, they’re seeing that—"

  "Oh, Jesse… gay marriage? Do we have to go there?"

  "I—it's just a point I need to make." Something about the look on her face made me stop from making that point. This hurt. She wasn't even going to let me make my case? "Mom, this is real. I'm real. I need you to understand."

  She nodded, looking down at her hands on the table. "It's like I said, Jesse. We need time. Especially your father, and Stu. You've known for a while. We're just finding this out now, suddenly."

  "Don't you think it would help if you knew more about it though?"

  "Maybe. Maybe. Just not all at once, Jesse. And—I don't think we should tell your brother. Not right away, at any rate."

  "You're all going to start hating me now, aren't you?" My tone was sharp; I was getting pissed.

  "Oh, Jesse! Of course not."

  "And you were totally right to say that it won’t do any good to yell at me. It would do about as much good as yelling at Stu for being straight. You couldn’t force him to want to be with a guy no matter what you did. And no one can force me to be straight. Including me, by the way. Not that I want to." I was pretty sure that last statement surprised her. So I added, "In case you were wondering."

  She didn't take the bait. "Well, I think we all need some time. You hang onto that information for now, Jesse. We’ll just have to see." She dropped her head onto her hands, massaging her hairline. "I don’t know. This is so unexpected. I don’t know what to do."

  "You don’t have to do anything, Mom. I’m still me."

  "I need time to think."

  I got up rather suddenly, my chair scraping across the floor, and headed upstairs to my room. I needed time to think, too, but once I was sitting in front of my sleeping PC it was obvious my brain wasn't my friend for this situation. I was at a complete loss. I thought about texting Brad, maybe going driving with him someplace, but I would be really shitty company.

  Suddenly I was at the window, looking out at the gray afternoon, pissed that here was a chance to have what I’ve always said I wanted: a real conversation with my father. I'd even given him a topic. And what did he do? He clammed up and went to hide in the basement.

  I pounded a fist on the window frame. And again. And again.

  "Jesse? Are you all right?" Mom must have heard that from downstairs.

  I was out of my bedroom in a flash. "Fine, Mom." Down the stairs to the living room. Down the stairs to the family room. The TV was blaring an ancient rerun of some cop show. Dad, slumped into his recliner, stared at the screen, obviously not really taking it in. I walked past him and sat on the couch, my eyes on him, not the TV. He said nothing, like I wasn't even there.

  "Dad." He didn't move. "Dad, we have to talk. We don’t usually talk about much of anything. This is important."

  He hit the remote’s mute button, stared at the screen for a few seconds, and then turned so suddenly it startled me. "You wanna talk? I tried to talk to you. I tried to teach you what I know. You were never interested. Maybe it wasn’t good enough for you, I don’t know. All you wanted to do was play computer games, and then cook, and then go traipsing around hunting for rocks. You think I wanted only one of my sons to value what I do? My business is growing, Jesse. It’s going to take two people to run it. I wanted that to be you and Stu, both. But, no, it’s not what you’re interested in. So what are you interested in, will you tell me that? Besides cooking all the time."

  I blinked stupidly at him, struggling to remember the last time he’d tried to engage me in his business. It must have been a long time ago, and I didn't remember being aware that that’s what he'd wanted. And since when did it bother him that I was becoming a great cook? He sure ate all the stuff I made. Before I could say anything, he was talking again.

  "I just don’t understand you, Jesse. I’ve never understood you. I’ve tried. Oh, I’ve tried hard. Well, maybe this is the reason. Maybe you’ve just explained it all to me."

  "That’s not fair!"

  "What? What isn’t fair?"

  "I’ve tried to talk to you, too, y’know. You think I’m not interested in what you care about? Well, you’ve never been interested in what I care about, either. It’s not that I’m gay, Dad. That’s not the problem. It’s that we’re different."

  We glared at each other, and I was sure each of us was tallying up complaints about the other.

  I was faster. "You say you wanted me to help out with the garage. Well what about helping Mom out? ‘Cause I do a lot of that. I’m interested in cooking, sure. But I’m not always in the mood for it. But whenever she needs help, I’m there. Other times I volunteer when I see she’s busy or tired, whether it’s what I want to do right then or not. I go shopping for her, and I clean up sometimes. Stu never does any of that. I’m not saying he should. I’m saying I do. Her job isn’t any less important than yours."

  I couldn't have said where that came from. Who knew having an argument with my father would bring up resentment I hadn’t even known about?

  "Don’t you tell me I don’t take care of your mother. She has all the time in the world to play piano, and teach, and spend money on those—those things she collects."

  The words could have been worse, but the tone? It took me a minute to grasp what "things" he was talking about, but very quickly I knew he meant Mom's collection of Hummel figurines. She loves those things. She's collected them for years. There's a special locked case in the living room with the most expensive ones in it. And suddenly I knew, beyond any doubt, that he hated them. Or at least he dismissed them, considered them a waste of money and time. I think he'd barely stopped himself before saying, "those stupid things she collects." Or maybe even a worse word than stupid.

  If he had contempt for something Mom felt passionate about, I didn't want her to know. For sure, I didn't want her to find out because of me, because of what I'd set in motion today.

  "Keep your voice down!" I hissed at him, like he was the child and I was the parent. "You do what you want, too, y’know. Cars might be more functional, but that’s what you chose. You could have been a miner, or a farmer, or a friggin’ insurance salesman. Mom chose to be a mother, but that’s not an interest. It’s a life. You chose to be a father. And then you chose what interests you. Mom deserves the same."

  More glaring, neither of us knowing what to say now that we’d come so far from the subject at hand. Or maybe we’d come to it. And it wasn’t about cars or Hummels, or even about being gay. I’d already hit on it. I d
ecided to go back to it.

  "The problem you’re having is that we’re different. If I’d been a girl, no problem. But I’m a boy, so I have to be like you."

  "And that’s a bad thing. Being like me." His voice dripped sarcasm.

  "No! Stu’s like you, and he’s a terrific brother, and a great guy. But, Dad, I’m not like you. That’s not a bad thing, either. And being gay is just one way that’s true."

  "Oh, there’s a lot more to that one, my boy."

  "Yes. There is. And I didn’t tell you before because I already felt like you didn’t know me very well, and this would prove it. I don’t want that to be true, Dad."

  "What’s true is that this gay thing makes no sense." He was avoiding the real issue. He didn't want to admit that he doesn’t know me at all, that he’s never tried very hard, beyond hoping I’d be like him.

  "Y’know, Dad, not everything that makes sense is going to make sense to you."

  That got to him. He leaned forward, his voice low and threatening. "It makes no sense to anyone that any man would want to touch another man. There’s no way that works."

  "It doesn’t work for you. I get that. But you need to get this: It makes no sense for me to want to touch a woman. And there are lots of people like me."

  "Did it ever occur to you that there’s a problem with that, and they all share it? Like some kind of disease?"

  Oh. My. God. I couldn't believe he went there. "Did it ever occur to you that you didn’t choose to be straight?"

  He stood. He was trying not to shout. "I didn’t choose it, because it’s how men are! It’s how we’re supposed to be!"

  I stood, too, but my voice was quiet. "And I didn’t chose to be gay. Because that’s how gay men are. You have no more right to manhood than I have. And I don’t have to be just like you to be a man." I headed for the stairs.

  "Jesse! Get back here!"

  I stopped on the third stair. "Why? So you can tell me some more about how every man needs to be just like every other man, and how we all need to be just like you?"