CHAPTER ONE

It's Dark In This Closet Mum And Dad, When Can I Come Out Of It?

“YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE, YOU DIRTY GAY FAGGOT!”, thundered my father.

“Bender! You bloody bender!” added my mother, not as loudly but equally as homophobically.

I was really sad about these things that my parents said to me, and so I began to cry about them. This was a mistake. What I should have done was exhibited gay pride (rather than gay sadness at their anger at my being gay) by not crying. But instead, I cried tear after tear after tear, which gave my father another ‘round’ of ammunition. This wasn’t just any old ammunition however, this was homophobic ammunition.

“Oh look! Now the flipping queer is crying! He really is a disgusting poofter then!” said father, leaving the faintest suggestion of a pause, in which he presumably decided with impressive haste whether or not to explain this last remark. He decided to explain this last remark.

“Because you’re crying like women or gays do, you must be one or ‘t’other!” he explained in his Yorkshire accent. “And I know”, he continued, “that you aren’t a woman because I used to bathe you when you were younger. You probably enjoyed that, you ruddy limp-wristed batty man.”

“Yeah”, agreed mother.

I couldn’t deny that by crying about mother and father not reacting well to me telling them that I was a gay man and had sort of known as such since my fourth birthday – my parents took me and some small friends to see George of the Jungle at the pictures, and I remember being really impressed by Brendan Fraser’s hot body in that film. Little did I know that what I thought was non-lustful admiration was actually lustful admiration – I had flown straight into my Dad’s homophobic Venus fly trap. But despite not being able to deny what I’ve just talked about, I was angry.

“Don’t you want me to be happy?” I said loudly. “All I want is to be in a relationship with a man not a woman. Is that so bad? Is that so wrong? Doesn’t love not discriminate Dad? Weren’t you from a richer, more aristocratic family than my Mum (your wife)’s working class family but didn’t you marry her anyway?

I was really, really angry at this point and you could tell. My grammar in that last remark was appalling. Father knew what I meant to say and knew that I was right, because he couldn’t come up with a counter argument. Blinded by anti-gay prejudice drilled into him by the relative (to his own) career success of a homosexual classmate of his at A Posh Boarding School, and without any good reasons that I could see to hate all Gays he flung the front door of our house open and told me to get out of it, in two ways.

“Get out of it! That’s a load of womanly soppy shit! And while you’re getting out of that way of thinking you can get out of my house you big gay disgrace of a son!!!”, he boomed.

And then he threw me out of the house physically, into the gutter where he thought all gays belonged.

“Why?” I asked no one in particular. “Why did I have to be gay? Or even if I absolutely had to be gay, why did my parents, who until 5 minutes ago loved me like one of their own (which I was, until 5 minutes ago) have to be so ruddy homophobic? IT’S NOT FAIR!”

“Life isn’t fair, duck” scolded an old woman who was walking past, and for the first time in my life (because I’d never met or spoken with her before) I agreed with her, one hundred and ten percent. Life isn’t fair.

“Gay life is even more unfair, ma’am” I responded while she was still in earshot.

She said nothing, but I got the feeling that she too was a homophobic woman, like my Mum. I cried some more and thought about what the hell I was (going) to do next. Just as I was beginning to think about considering the very real possibility of sleeping in the gutter that I was still sat in, a voice spoke behind and to me.

“Careful there Donald, your bum’s going to get wet if you sit in that gutter all evening!”

Still upset and cross about my parent’s homophobia, I rather snidely replied “Why are you looking at my bum? Are you a stupid gay too, like me?”

There was a pause, then the person who was standing behind talking to me said “Actually yes, yes I am gay. I’m a gay man. I don’t know about stupid though!”

I laughed at that last remark. Wait, WHAT? I laughed? Just 5 minutes ago (a few minutes had passed since I said that my parents’ rage began 5 minutes ago earlier, so five minutes ago now refers to about a couple of minutes into their homophobic tirade) I thought I’d never laugh, smile or do anything happy again. And yet this person made me laugh, and was gay. I couldn’t help wondering if there might be a romantic spark between us, and prayed to God that he was physically attractive. I turned around, like one of the judges on The Voice. In fact, this whole conversation was like a gay The Voice, in which I was the only judge and contestants spoke instead of sang, in order to cultivate a gay relationship with me. I had buzzed by laughing, so was at least in part committed to the conversation, but as my The Voice equivalent of a chair spun round to face the mysterious charming gay man behind me, I knew that if this gay guy was good looking, I was going to take him all the way to the Live Finals of the gay relationship equivalent of The X Factor (I’ve only seen the auditions round of The Voice and so don’t know what the later stages of the competition are called).

“YES!” I thought as I finally took a look at the mysterious man, “He’s really attractive!”. And he was. He was not too tall, with a lot of muscles, teeth that were the perfect shade of off-white (properly white teeth like Simon Cowell’s look odd), a great smile, very prominent and good cheekbones, hair of a beautiful brown colour that was styled excellently, nice eyes, and eyebrows, ears and neck that were unremarkable which is good because they have never informed my opinion of how attractive someone is so it’s best that they don’t get in the way, which they didn’t in this case.

“What’s just happened to you; why are you in this gutter?”, he asked.

I told him what just happened to me; why I was in this gutter.

“That’s terrible”, he said.

“I know”, I said.

He then said this: “Well you can come to my home and live with me and my family. My family and me are progressive; my family has no problem with homosexuality and I myself am gay as I said so you’re welcome to live with us forever if need be, and I really do mean that, I promise I do, Donald.”

“How do you know my name? Thanks for being kind, by the way.” I said.

“I’m in some of your classes at school. Don’t mention it.” he replied.

“Oh, okay. And alright, though I am grateful.” I responded.

“I know. And let’s go to my house now.” he came back with.

“Alright then” I retorted.

I went with him to his house and in that way began my Gay Life. What a Gay Life it would turn out to be.