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- 08/13/2014
- 865 Words
- 2,124 Views
- 3 Comments
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
An Understanding - 1. Whence You Came
Hell fucking no. Not on my watch. Lord knows it. But what on Earth can a 10-year old do when his parents say, "sorry son. We're moving across the country to a place called Atlanta, Georgia, to take care of your grandparents." Oh fucking joy.
I'll tell you what you can do. You can suck your best friend's dick the night before you go because you won't get another chance.
I started cursing at a very young age -- fourth grade, if I remember correctly. I wanted to seem more intimidating; older. I wanted to seem someone I wasn't. To be honest, really the best one-two I could muster was "fuck up" instead of "shut up." But I was 8 and that's what made me feel like a badass. And for a certain time I was well-regarded. I had friends that I could invite over for sleepovers and play games with. And I had a girl I was sweet on, to whom I wrote a note I (get ready to cringe) ran by my mother because I wasn't sure if it was "too much."
One of my earliest memories of liking boys is still almost as vivid as the day it happened. I had come home from school and sat myself at the table for the customary snack when suddenly I was jumping sideways knocking over the chair. My friend John had been waiting under the table (and I wondered twenty minutes later how long he had been there) knowing my routine and precisely where I would sit. He grabbed my leg, unleashed an almighty roar and, sorry mom, but that chair has really never been the same since.
He, the next-door neighbor I had grown up with. From the Power Rangers costumes several years earlier to the daily pool time that seemed only weeks ago during summer's peak. We were brothers, him filling in for my lack of a brother and me filling in when his older brother got to be too adolescent.
It was the grabbing of my leg and the immediate apology afterwards -- "I didn't mean to scare you so bad!" -- that did it. I loved him. I knew it immediately. And I was 8 years old.
So we started messing around, in the casual way that people do when they have absolutely no goddamn clue what the actual fuck is going on. We would watch movies (a ritual of ours) and every time sex -- pardon, "sex"; it was clinical and obtuse to us -- was mentioned we would go all red and not look at each other until the hot girl was done snogging the guy. Afterwards would we ask John's dad what a condom was, which was met stoutly with an admonishment to go play, that we were too young to know what that was.
So play we would. And re-enact the scenes we would. And it all felt natural and like nothing. Until the day he grabbed my leg from under the table.
That day, everything changed. I had, unbeknownst to me, grown up in a refuge of sorts for gay men and women across the country. The small town closest to us (this being rural Alabama) called St. Croix had welcomed with open arms the people suffering from AIDS and disownment. I had no idea "gay" was a word people used, or that so many were hated so fiercely. The town and people were loving, supportive, and my mother had been a part of the community for nigh on 30 years by the time I was born.
Why I tell you this is because I grew up in paradise. Not only was the backdrop one of absolute acceptance, but I had the run of the small mountain John and I were born on and we used its expanses to their fullest extent. Some days we wouldn't get home until the lightening bugs were peppering the fields with their incandescence yet never a hand was raised or a punishment enacted. There was never a worry of someone abducting us or other modern horrors, everyone knew each other -- what would be the point? Which is why we were able to sneak away and bring the movies to life.
They were the best years of my life.
And then it was time to move. Gone were the days of whoever woke up first coming over to tap on the other's window. Gone were the days of sharing Pop-Tarts. Gone were the days of idyllic ignorance.
The house packed and the tears shed left just one night before beginning the trip to a new life. Of course we slept over together, holding each other close and promising things only 10-year-olds can promise, swearing we'd mail each other and call and not lose touch. Naked, of course.
I'll always remember him standing in the driveway, waving as we drove away. His face blurred in the mirror by the bumpiness of the country road and the stream of tears pouring from my eyes. Everything had conspired to say, "goodbye, childhood, and thank you for everything."
Thank you so much for reading.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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