The Guncle

by Steven Rowley

“You’re both looking at me like you’re a couple olives short of a martini. BOOM. Euphemism for not keeping up.”

like JED, the gay throuple who lived in the house behind his, went so far as to call him a recluse. John, Eduardo, and Dwayne would pop their grinning faces over the wall that divided their properties with friendly (but barbed) taunts, like a Snap, Crackle, and Pop who fucked.

“No, we’re kids.” Maisie finally decided her pancake was safe enough to try, and she sectioned off a small bite. “What do you read, then?” “Kid thtuff.” Grant’s speech impediment seemed exacerbated by maple syrup, as if Mrs. Butterworth herself had stapled his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

Grant looked skeptically at his uncle. “What?” “You have a lot of muscles.” “Thank you. One day I’ll tell you about gay men and body dysmorphia, but not today.”

“Guncle Rule number seven: In this house we wear what we want, it doesn’t matter if it’s for boys or girls. Anything goes, anything you want, so long as it doesn’t have mean words printed on it and it’s not making fun of anyone else. We don’t worry about what others think. Deal?”

“The kids are with my housekeeper. I left them looking at videos on my iPad. Can you believe it? I have a sixty-five-inch television and they have no interest in watching it.” “They’re not size queens like you,” John teased.

She watched tiny clouds of feathers float around us and then she asked, ‘Uncle JoJo?’ She called me JoJo. ‘Does that hurt the chickens?’ How marvelous, I thought. We were having this strangely beautiful moment, and she wanted to know if the wind was hurting the chickens.” “I love this story,” Dwayne said, as if they sat around and told it every night. “I just remember thinking, children’s souls are so gentle. I wanted to be around that all the time.”

“Would you like a martini?” “I’m six.” “Is that a yes?”

Guncle Rule number eleven: Make the yuletide gay.

“People who love each other fight. The opposite of love isn’t anger. It’s indifference. When people stop fighting, that’s when you should be worried.”

“What do you think gay people do? Have done for generations? We adopt a safe version of ourselves for the public, for protection, and then as adults we excavate our true selves from the parts we’ve invented to protect us. It’s the most important work of queer lives.”

Patrick let it go. He would never make her understand the bravery of the arts. The importance of exploring the human condition, particularly for gay people, who did so with gusto, and with the very tool that they were first rejected for: their large, beautiful hearts.

“Howdy, neighbors.” John waved. “Just doing some planting, when I heard the kids playing. Thought I’d check on them.” It takes a gay village.