Chapter Five-No Myth Part One

We said goodbye before hello
My secrets (s)he will never know
Michael Penn

Homosexuals are liars.

I say this as a known liar so please don’t think I am passing judgement or making a sweeping statement without thought. Most gay people are very good liars, we intertwine lies through every part of our life. Family, work, friends, everything. Everything we do sometimes are just lies on top of lies. Some of us even lie to ourselves, but we weren’t born that way. Dimes to dollars, we were made this way by someone else. We all have one of these stories, each of us our own little private introduction to the world of falsehoods. A moment of pure truth that shows us for the rest of our life, the value of a carefully crafted lie. Usually it’s young and it is easily forgotten by others. It is never forgotten by us.

Mine was Sam.

Sam was the kid who lived next door to us the summer we lived in Santa Rosa. Sam was a disturbed child who liked to burn things in his backyard. I was a disturbed child who wanted a friend that was tangible and had the ability to talk back.

We became fast friends.

Sam was a spastic kind of hyper, that wasn’t so much a sugar rush as it was violent waves that passed through him. Unlike most of us Sam wouldn’t run around, jumping on things screaming and yelling, the tornado that most children were. Sam wasn’t like that at all. Sam was a mental earthquake. He could sit and play quietly for hours until he would suddenly hurl the offensive toy across the room with an inarticulate scream of fury and then move to the outlining regions of whatever room he was in. Anyone with half a lick of sense knew to stay out of Sam’s way.

How many licks of sense do you think I had ?

We were polar opposites. I was a quiet, sullen child withdrawn and private while he was a couple buckets of crazy slopped over the frame of a small child. He was also the recipient of my first boy kiss. Not the brightest moment of my manhood.

I had spent the night at his house, as was the case on Fridays. Fridays was Sam’s place where his mom would buzz herself on a few glasses of wine and watch TV as we played aimlessly in his room. Saturday was my house where my mom would leave us alone until about 2am when she would stumble in drunk with a group of nameless ‘friends’ from the bar and ask very loudly why we were still awake at this hour ? Sundays were always be very quiet day as everyone adult had a hangover day.

So this Friday wasn’t any different than previous Fridays except for the Star Wars cards and I can’t in good judgement blame them. One, because the cards possessed no special power to sway minds and bend wills but more importantly, these were black border 1st edition Star Wars cards so they were WAY cool. I had bought the cards from another boy at school at the ridiculously cheap price of five dollars that even in the 70’s was a good deal. For I knew the one true rule about item swapping between boys.

Toys are cool, money rules.

No matter how cool or outstanding the toy or card was that you had, it never was cool as the phat ass money in the other kids hand. And I had become an expert at going through my mom’s ‘friends’ wallets while they slept during Be Quiet Sunday. So I had gone from kid who didn’t have any toys to Richie Rich almost overnight. The black bordered, first edition set of Star Wars cards was exchanged for a crisp five dollar bill, and that included the shoe box the kid had tricked out with stickers to show them off. He was thrilled at the hard earned money he had gotten, I was aglow in the thought of an entire set of Star Wars cards.

I could go on how there were about 402 series of Star Wars cards after the black border set that started more and more focusing on lesser known characters like ball face from the cantina scene or evil C-3PO like clown robot that was thrown in the back of the Jawa carrier but I won’t. It is embarrassing how they strung out the franchise over the years making even the idotic of characters have their moment of glory with these cards. It is stupid, wasteful and above all else unfair that I could never get all those cards. The only set I had a complete run in was the black bordered so in retrospect are the coolest. We could debate that further but we don’t have time, needless to say, THIS was the set of all sets. And I owned it.

So of course like any good friend would, I took my newly bought box of loot over to Sam’s house to gloat. This consisted of me holding up a badass card and then passing it in front of Sam’s face, as if the thing had an odor of butterscotch and rainbows rolled into one. And Sam, with strict orders not to touch the card, would hold his head out as his hands were behind him and gaze at the card like it was magic.

If you are shaking your head and wondering what the hell was the big deal you NEVER saw the black border set of Star Wars cards.

This went on for far longer than I am betting you think it could until Sam finally got tired and wanted to touch the cards. I mean come on, TOUCH the black bordered Star Wars cards that were already becoming a legend in their own right ? Please. I paid for the cards and only I got to handle them. He countered that it was not fair and I agreed it was not fair but since it was not fair on my side, I was ok with that. He offered me some of his toys which in comparison seemed like crap covered pieces of crap in a light crap sauce next to the awe that were the black…

You are going to stop reading if I say Black bordered Star Wars cards again aren’t you ?

Sigh.

Well compared to the cards his offers fell way short and he knew it. After all, what did he have that I wanted that bad ? His offer was both puzzling and intriguing.

“I’ll let you kiss me.”

“Huh ? Wha….why would I want to do that ?”, I said pulling back quickly.

Why the hell did I want to do that all of a sudden ?

“You ever kiss anyone before ?”

No.

“Yeah lots of times !!”

He looked at me closely, “Ever kiss anyone that wasn’t a family member ?”

Damn !

“No.”, I said looking down at the now worthless box of papers I had in my hand. My mind was awash in the mad dash of warmth and confusion racing through my body. I was tingling and sweating and I couldn’t figure out why.

“Well then if you don’t practice you are going to suck when you really do it. And then everyone will laugh at you.”, he said with just enough of a sneer combined with the slight arrogance that all small boys possess. He was right, what if I sucked and what if people laughed at me and what if I was just never good at this and what if my kissing could be so bad that people would die and what if ,what if…

What if I never had a chance to kiss someone again ?

“I let you hold the cards and I can kiss you ?”, I asked trying to deduce how much this was going to cost me. But Sam, Sam was too clever for that. He saw there was something more behind my eyes, something that was more than a stupid curiosity and boredom. He knew that he had struck paydirt with this little scheme and just holding the cards, that wasn’t enough. He saw the hunger in my face and the desire in the way I clutched the cards. He may have not understood it for what it was but he knew that I wanted that kiss more than I wanted the cards and he wanted the cards more than anything else.

“I want the cards”, he said with a look I was going to later understand was a leering sneer. A lot of people don’t get to see expressions like that but they are quite common with men and power. Men realizing they have power sneer a lot. And men who deal with men in power, see it a lot. Without knowing or caring why, Sam knew he had something I wanted more than the cards. Funny thing was I didn’t know either. All I knew was that the box of dark colored cards in my box were plummeting in value and for every second we stood there I became more and more consumed with what would kissing him be like.

“All of them ?’, I said in confusion. All of them ? A complete set of bla…of very special cards for one kiss ? One lousy moment of two sets of lips pressing together, the tingle that reached from the top of your head right down your spine. The light headed feeling that caused your eyes to close the very moment flesh met flesh ? One stupid set of cards for one perfect moment ? Of course he wanted all of them. Hell if we stood here long enough I might have to throw in my action figures, baseball mitt and possibly my first born. Of course with only a small amount of common sense one would figure out that last one was a sucker bet out the gate.

“All of them”, he knew he had it. This negotiation was over all that was left was to spilt the spoils. For me it was handing over my once treasured box. For him it was closing his eyes and bringing his lips together. The space between our faces was less than a foot but it felt like a million miles. I could feel his breath as I leaned in, my eyes starting to close once I got down where his lips were in the first place. And there, in the middle of his room our lips met and I had my first boy kiss.

Then he burped in my mouth.

I almost threw up as I hurled myself across the room. His laughter was like nails on a chalkboard as he pointed and cackled. My macaroni and cheese dinner coming dangerously close to dessert in all the wrong ways. I was angry and sad and confused all at the same time. And as I looked up at Sam with burning tears in my eyes, the truth was laid bare at my feet. And that was the exact moment I began to lie.

“What you really wanted to kiss ?”, he asked, part of him knowing the answer before I could even craft one.

“NO!”, which was too loud and too quick to be a truth. I realized that the rate and manner of which words were used was as easily if not more important than the very words themselves.

“Then why did you give me the cards ?”, he said showing his ill gotten loot to me as if I didn’t know what I had lost.

I was beginning to figure out what I had lost and it wasn’t a box of stupid cards.

“Cause”, and then the pause. To think of something that was plausible but still so out of left field it would seem like something he hadn’t thought of yet. A something that was fantastic but still bound to reality. And then I remembered, we were 7 year old kids, ”Cause it isn’t a full set !!”

“What ?”, he said looking down at the cards as if they had betrayed them as well.

“And”, I was grasping here but I think I had just what was needed, ”And I farted on them.”

He dropped the box so fast it looked like the cards were floating in the space in front of him for a full second before they fell also. There was little else worse than a small boys fart, trust me on this. In the space it took for me to gather my cards up was about all we needed to finish what was left of our friendship. Small children have a knack for making friends fast, but it is nothing compared to their ability to make enemies.

“You wanted to kiss me”, he said his eyes narrowing to slits.

“Eww gross !”, I countered with just enough disgust in my voice. Namely for myself for wanting it in the first place.

“Then why were you leaning in ?”

Good question which meant good answer which of course meant great lie.

It’s like a mask made of paper mache at first. One strip of lie placed over your true intentions, obscuring just that one small slice of what you really want so no one can see it. It is just one strip so the look and shape of your face is altered in no discernible way. You are simply a person with a strip of paper covering one part of your face. One small part that people will end up making the reason for you. Perhaps it’s a hurt you don’t want to reveal. Maybe it is a sensitive subject that you shy away from or maybe it is just something you refuse to acknowledge. The thought that one small strip could be hiding something THAT important never passes through peoples mind. And that’s how it starts. One strip at a time. A failed kiss, a glance that lasts too long, a ill timed erection. Each one another strip, binding to the last one with steel like tenacity. And one part after another your true face is concealed behind those lies. One after another, one layer over another and after awhile, the face you see in the mirror isn’t yours. It isn’t anyone. You are just what you look like.

A walking lie.

I wish I could remember what lie I used on Sam but I knew it wasn’t good enough, That summer him and I halved up the neighborhood kids and ended up in a blockwide civil war which lasted for well over a month. Its culmination was me breaking Sam’s nose with my oversized toy of the Millennium Falcon, the only toy I had that was blessed with the very useful handle built into it’s bottom. Probably so a child could use it to pretend the Falcon is soaring past the stars and worlds beyond instead of using it to bloody the nose of the kid who lived down the street who kept saying I wanted to kiss boys. I never did get the blood off the Falcon’s nose.

I don’t remember what I lied to Sam about on why I wanted to kiss him but I do remember that night. Alone in my room after I had fled his room and house, sitting on my bed with huge, sobbing tears rolling down my cheeks because I didn’t have an answer for myself. I didn’t know why.

I still wanted to kiss him.

“Don’t do that”

I looked up at the incredibly handsome boy who had followed me out of the lunch room who now had cranberry juice rolling down his face. For a moment it looked as if he was crying blood which was a sight that was as disturbing as it was vivid. It would be months later that I realize I was having a Deja Vu before it happened. It took me a moment to process what he had said.

“Don’t do what ?”, I asked trying to wring the sticky substance out of my hair.

“Don’t cry, least not where they can see you”, he said gesturing towards the quad and the rest of the school. There were a few curious onlookers peering around the corner to catch a glimpse of the soon to be famous cranberry rat. I saw them looking and of course in high school that meant judging. I hadn’t been a freshman ten minutes and I had already been found, tried and convicted to geekdom in the eyes of my peers. This was junior high all over again except this was four years and I had nowhere else to go.

Suddenly I realized I might be out of lives.

“You are all right, aren’t you ?”

His eyes were a blue I had never seen before. They were less a color and more of an emotion. A blue that was both soothing and electric in the same moment. There was something very real right there, behind those eyes. As if they had a whole secret to tell themselves that Dean himself didn’t even know. And there in those eyes I saw something I hadn’t looked at in a long, long time. Something that was so terrifying that I realized there was no chance in hell I could answer that question.

I saw the truth.

I saw a truth in that moment. A truth that he was worried and that he genuinely cared if I was alright or not. I saw a truth of real emotions and concerns that equated themselves into one very large match to my equally large paper mache mask of lies. A truth that if even glanced at could bring down this little collection of lies I had built my life on. Those lies that kept me from realizing what I felt for Shayne was way too close to what I was feeling next to this dark haired boy who only wanted to know if I was alright. All of this raced through my mind in a split second and I knew, I knew right there.

This was never going to work.

“I’m fine dude”, I said standing up abruptly. He stepped back as I shook my jacket out as I talked, “I’m fine. I mean sure Kelly is an ass but I am cool. Gonna be hard to explain this to the chicks but hey, you know what they say ?”

Did I just use the term chicks ?

“No”, he said.

No ? No ? What the fuck was no. No he wasn’t buying this. No he didn’t for once believed that I was ok and the words coming out of mouth were real. No he wasn’t going to let me walk away from what, on the surface, seemed very real ? No he wasn’t buying my bullshit and wanted the truth ? No ?

“No what ?”, I finally asked.

“No I don’t know what they say”, he said with what could only be confusion in his voice.

“Oh”, I stammered. I was shook up worse than I thought, I needed to get away. “Was that the bell ?”, I asked.

He looked around in now complete befuddlement since no damn bell had gone off. But there I went nonetheless. Fleeing the safety of the side bench and braving the dangers of the quad I didn’t even look back as I dove into the nameless masses to escape him. The one person who might have cared.

Dean, I head in my head, his name is Dean.

I wanted to turn around so bad to see if he was following but in the end, I didn’t know what I was more afraid of. Him chasing after me or letting me go. I opted for just running and hoping I ended up somewhere better than here.

I am 15 and I just left him for the first time. I am 17 and I he is leaving me for the first time. I am 18 and I realize I am never going to see him again.

I am 15 and I am running from the truth.