In spite of the fear - 4. He was different from the beginning

His mother was born in what we call the interior of our country. Her family, quite tight-knit and poor, lived from what they could harvest in their good land. It gave them the reassurance of never going hungry, though it was very difficult to sell their produce, as transportation to the main towns was harsh. Travelling by animal powered cart took too much time. Though the land occupied a vast area, they were not able to use all of it. Therefore, some of it was rented to cattle owners for grazing.

Education was taken seriously by his grandparents, which led their seven or eight children to walk a couple of hours a day – barefoot – to and from school. This meant rising at four o’clock in the morning, washing up by the river, and eating a meager breakfast before starting their five-days-a-week walk.

Perhaps thanks to the daily exercise – now a luxury in our society – Blanca was very healthy, which added to her beauty. There were some Spanish ancestors, their genes having selected her for having clear blue eyes. She was given her name because her skin was very fair when she was born. It meant “white,” in English. Due to this, she was different from the rest of her family, though in a pleasant way. Of course, she was chosen to be the one who would go on to high school and then move on to the capital city, Panama.

I have no information as where Blanca completed her high school education. All I know is that she moved to Panama City, eventually, quite young, and made a living by selling lottery tickets on the street. She was probably housed by some members of her extended family, which was the custom. On the other hand, she may have hired herself as a servant in a well-to-do household.

As is usually the case with immigrants from the interior, she met a very handsome fellow from a South American country and, after a while, she found herself pregnant. This was so common that it was almost expected. Almost following a pattern, the fellow disappeared and she found herself without any future support. How she fared during her pregnancy, I have no idea. In due time her son was born – a beautiful child with almost jet-black hair, very long eyelashes and dark eyes – who stood out for being light skinned. All the newborn children in the hospital were mulattoes.

When the baby was around three months old, Blanca met a young man that was enthralled by her beauty, especially her light blue eyes. He fell in love with her and her baby. As his wife had not been able to bear him any children, he was already in the lookout for an alternative. Blanca had the guarantee of being able to give him a child. Therefore, a divorce by mutual accord took place and he decided to marry her and adopt the child. Later on, she told me that she was not in love, but the protection the man promised she could not turn down. She learned to love him as the years went by.

Four more children followed – three boys and a girl – within five or six years. The girl inherited her mother’s light blue eyes. Luis inherited his mother’s trait of being different – his siblings were mulattoes. Nevertheless, his adopted father’s family accepted him and he never felt that being different was a hindrance in their relationship. That did start to occur when in-laws came into the picture. However, his immediate family had provided enough security for him to develop a firm self-esteem.

Things started to get somewhat complicated when the boy was caught in some sort of sexual play with an older boy – probably in his early teens. Though everyone immediately blamed the young teenager as the culprit, my friend recalls that at his young age of five, he was the one who enticed the older one to engage in fondling. “I knew that I liked boys since I was a child,” he told me once.

Though no other incidents were reported, his parents were concerned about his behavior. Where his brothers loved contact sports, he did not. All the other boys were rough; he was delicate. His parents took him to a psychologist who offered a program that would help him to correct his rather feminine gesticulations, but advised that if he was gay he would remain so. He was enrolled and, as expected, he kept being somewhat delicate but lost his hand gesticulations and adopted a more masculine stance.

Nevertheless, he continued standing out. As he hit his teenage years, he turned into a young man that people would think to be too pretty for a man. Girls found him attractive, but he always ended as their best buddy. He was also aware that many men wanted him sexually -- which was mutual. At some point at that early age, he initiated his homosexual life, though he always considered that his first time had been when he was five.

He was fifteen years old when his father approached him with the clear intention of wanting to have a conversation with his son. Apparently, word was getting around that the boy was having sex with men of the neighborhood. He loved his son too much to criticize his sexual orientation, but his social behavior was a different matter. Watching the boy being on the verge of becoming a social outcast he could not stand. It was bad enough growing up in a ghetto.

I do not know the details of the conversation. A few concepts I was fed gradually by Luis. Among them, don’t allow your sexual behavior to become the key to your life; love and respect yourself; gay people suffer much, everywhere. Apparently, the last message hit home because the son decided that suffering he could avoid. At this moment, he decided to search for psychological help. Someone suggested he should go to my clinic.