What about kismet? - 6. The Gayest Question Ever: To be or not to be?

Chapter 6:

The Gayest Question Ever: To be or not to be?

“Someone grabbed my ass the other day, and the following day and the next day...I found out that it was my seatmate trying to put his notes under my ass whenever he got called for a recitation. That little cheater; but I give him an A-plus for his ASSertion.”

New York, the big apple, the city that never sleeps, and the city that had welcomed me for the last three years as I opened another chapter in my life, as it had seemed. For whatever its worth, New York is a city considered as the threshold for various cultures, food that thrives on what is bizarre to what is unique, nightlife that hosts the best clubs in the world, known for its haute couture fashion, Wall Street, Madison Square Garden, its socio-economical diversity, Skyscrapers known for its architectural and historical importance, and NYU.

I had just been accepted at that university’s business program. I really have no clue if whether I even wanted to take that course and be called an executive in the future. But after having spent a year of my life full of introspect, much hesitations, much thorough thinking, months of waiting tables, and a year of struggling on my own; I decided that I do not want to waste anymore of my time trying to analyze what I wanted to do with my life.

As all 19 year old young adults out there trying to sort what it meant to be young and be full of aspirations, trying to figure out what one’s sexual orientation would be was a great hurdle that most gay men have faced in their teens. Luckily for me, not having dealt with that identity crises for too long, it all boiled down to me, trying to grab that opportunity of having to take risks and taking at least a certain direction that would be a step to growing up and learning about myself.

We all needed to grow up eventually, not knowing when in our lives it would hit us, and suddenly it just happens, without having noticed that we did. For me, it happened when I was working as a waiter in a coffee shop at Greenich village, and I saw a couple of quirky college kids talking about what they would do after they got their diplomas.

As I was eavesdropping on their conversation while I took their orders of Mocha Latte’s and Hazelnut Expressos, it dawned on me...what would I do after I take their orders? What was I going to do after my shift ends? What will I do when I go to my cramped up apartment? Will I sleep on my futon bed or read a second hand book that I bought for a slashed price? What happens next?

What did happen was I quit my job, submitted my five page essay about the complexities of free trade in the industry of retail clothing. And after having gotten an interview, and passing the rigorous entrance exams, and after having explained myself of why I took a year off after graduating high school, I finally had some direction in my life – by getting a degree.

One thing that still irked me was when they found out that I was the only son of Elizabetha Amelina Dupree Montenegro Cornwall, the owner of the fashion mogul house ‘Eluka Dupree’, was that they let me skipped a couple of background checks and easily bounced me off to their priority list.

Although the dean did say that my essay was immaculate and commendable, his still gave me that astonished look that the rumoured bastard child was indeed alive and breathing, in front of him, verbalizing his reasons for wanting to pursue a career he barely understood if he wanted, at their esteemed university.

Just to clarify some things, I was and am not a bastard child. Well, probably I am, but I was more of a lovechild of the famous 70’s jazz musician, Henry Whitmore. My alleged dad and my mom met when the era of love, sex, drugs, hippies, peace, rock, studio 54, and promiscuity were rampant and living. I was the product of that generation.

Although my mom did conceive me in her mid thirties, back in 82, mom and dad were already rumoured lovers before an era that I was born. With one important note, my dad in that decade was married to some teacher who lived in the Bronx.

You would probably know what happened next...I never existed on the planes of this reality where I was considered illegitimate, unrecognized by the public and considered only by my family. Not everyone did see the truth attached to me by not bearing my father’s family name. He had not recognized me as his own kin to avoid some public scandal – only my mother’s family did – probably because my dad had a family of his own.

Since I was the only heir to the Cornwall lineage in my family and the current trend in my families’ genealogy was that they all ceased down to having one child per generation.

My great grandfather, my grandfather, my mother, and me, became the single offspring of centuries brought on by a series of unfortunate accidents. My great grandfather’s mother had three miscarriages due to her poor health. My grandfather’s twin brother died of lymphoma at the age of 12, and my mother’s older brother was gunned down by military activists in Portugal where he worked as a peace corps; I never got to meet my uncle though. While I on the other hand, was simply a bastard child...pretty much that was it.

My grandmother, Mama Nena, made sure that I got the Cornwall family name. She made sure that I got my grandfather’s family name branded as my surname, and in line of her old family’s Spanish tradition, she inserted those long frustrating first names that had me hell bent backward on my childhood years, while trying to spell my name when I stepped into school.

Luke Christian Adelino Josefino Montecillo Cornwall was my complete name as registered in my birth certificate. Mom called me ‘Luka’, Mama Nena called me ‘Hijo’, my grandpa Carl called me ‘Johnny boy’ (he passed away when I was 10), and my Nana Magda or my Nanny called me ‘Junjun’.

I do not know where all the frivolity or historic cause for those various names as to why they had referred me with such various nomenclatures. Nevertheless, all I knew was that I had a family who loved me and still loved me despite having been known to some social circles that I was a bastard child. And to my family, having opened to them about my sexuality despite their silent welcomes was more than enough to say that being illigitimate meant nothing for me.

The first person, who knew that I was on the other side of the colorful world of rainbows and ponies, was Nana Magda. One night, as she was checking me up on my room, if I have gone to bed, she heard me utter my first crushes’ name, Marcus, while asleep and probably dreaming about him.

I did say ‘I love you Marcus’ so she need not inquire upon if whether Marcus was a girl to her own predilection, for no normal parent would name their daughter Marcus unless she was showing signs of preferring action figures instead of playing with her dollhouse collection.

Marcus was my best friend in high school. I was the all school nerd, drama theatre fanatic, book club president, La Cross enthusiast, and Cricket player. While he, on the contrary, was the typical jock that learned to develop interests in girls at an early age due to his muscular physique, boyish charms, and that festering ability to manipulate everyone to his follies.

At age 15, he found the eternal secret that he could use his dick as a deadly arsenal for attracting the opposite sex. He was the son of a wealthy businessman in Ireland. He also had a mother for an actress who was one of the lead roles in a BBC lunch drama called “The Bold, the Bolder and the Boldering”.

The first time we met in class, he picked on me for my dreary attire composing of black rimmed spectacles, outdated leather shoes, and monochromatic backpack that was surely unfitting with the school alma matter’s prescribed uniform dress code. Having that spirited feisty trait that my Mama Nena called ‘Spanish Flair’ running along somewhere hidden beneath the depths of my bloodline, I lit Marcus’s expensive tote bag on fire alongside with his books. The following day, we were best of friends then on since.

Of course, that changed when I told him I am gay and that I liked him, and the only thing he said in reply was that he was unsure of himself if he liked me on the same degree of my attraction to him, or if he even liked men.

He did not even mention to me if we were still to be friends after my revelation to that homophobic bastard. He also said that it would never work out because, maybe, our religions would clash eventually if we did become a couple, since he was Jewish and I was Roman Catholic.

I was stupid enough to have said to him that I loved him, despite that I was being told the most ridiculous excuse a man could ever make – make it an issue about religion. He could have just told me ‘Bugger off faggot, I’m no dick licker.’ instead of pointing out that obvious reason that he was straight, instead of making up some lame excuse that he does not want to ruin our friendship – for which it did anyway.

I would have happily converted myself to being a Buddhist, an Islam, a Shinto, a Jew, or even a Pastafarian who followed a Flying Spaghetti Monster as his deity, if in case that was his religion. I would have done all of that for the name of love, since I did love him, without expecting nothing in return, besides love me back.

One thing I have to say about Marcus was that he was a gifted writer, and a poet. He dared not to speak of it in public or to anyone except in the premises of each other’s company, him and me alone. He would think of a literary prose in a matter of seconds, write a story about two lovers who were lost in the shadows of love’s vindictive nature in a couple of hours, and he could explain to me about the complexities of life in the eyes of an antediluvian poet. He was the apotheosis of a gifted child, whose gifts he never acknowledged.

I envied him, and with my envy came my love for him. For my intellect, which most of the populace in our school considered mine as above average, were subpar to his logic, wit, and reasoning.

That was what attracted him to me; the need to be with someone whom I knew would have the proclivity to aid me in my moments of weakness. Because if he was my paragon for excellence. I was his archetype for his emotional stability, his advisor, his priest, and his supervisor for questions that bothered his heart and emotions.

He was my illumination to achieve more, to seek more and become more. Yet the contradiction laid in the fact that his fears of being known, as the brilliant young man that he was, it was overshadowed by his lack of fortitude to overcome the pressures of who he believes he should be, which he thought was greater than the genius that he was.

His father wanted him to become a corporate lawyer, while for sure, as what he confided to me in our youth, he wanted to be a writer. We were indeed the complete opposite that clashed to the likes of water and of stone. He feared what he could have been, while my fears were what I would become.

He kept his distance for the remainder of our junior year until we drifted afloat into your senior year and I focused on my other co-curricular activities in school, while he got busy with studying for his entrance to Oxford University.

Everyone knew of us as best mates, but they all found out the reason why all of a sudden, it was as if we never bothered with each other. Only because someone posted snippets of my love letters to Marcus, all across the halls in our school, to which I had specifically put inside his locker.

I still am clueless as to how it all went viral, and even blamed him for his indiscretion, like breaking some man-code or something or simply the trust that I confided with him. It was an upsey turvey of acceptance and rejection that I got from everyone who knew me, and from those who barely knew me, and to those who did not even try to know me. Some of my classmates loved me more while some turned their backs on me, and that included him...my supposed best friend whom I thought I knew that well to even think that I was in love with him.

After graduating in high school as the school’s Salutatorian, (it was a 2.0 marginal difference in our final GPA scores for the girl who was the Valedictorian) – you could say I let Valerie Compton get that recognition in her bag for I knew she needed the scholarship to go with that distinction – I stepped out of the closet and told Nana Magda that I like men.

She said to me in her wackiest Filipino accent, “Finally you are out and proud JunJun.” She told me of how she found out that I am gay and it did not surprise nor bothered me. It was good that someone in the family knew about me.

I also developed this fear after high school of being found out that I am gay without telling them personally, of who I was. Therefore, I applied to myself the simple military policy of accepting gays in the army, which was the ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell’. The only difference was, I tweaked it a bit, and made it gayer friendly, which was ‘If no one asks, then you don’t have to tell.’

I lived with that maxim with dedication and reserve, since I never denied my true self to anyone who asked, if the curious did ask me. But then no one did ask me, so that was an easy belief system that I used with zero rate chances of success, since I lacked the courage to shout to the world of how I proud I was to be me, at that period of my awakening in my teens.

I also developed ways of covering up my sexual desires to the same sex, which lead to some cool abilities to develop over time. First, if ever I saw someone on the street, in a mall, at church, or even within the vicinity or the premises where my family was around...I only got to look at that guy once, and only once.

I got one chance to look at some random stranger’s face, body, or features that would had ignited my longing. Followed by my thoughts that lingered to something disturbing such as decapitated kittens or something scary, such as Regan MacNeil’s 360 degrees head twist from the Exorcist movie, just to get my head out of someone I might fancy on a physical level, due to my fears of being labelled as a gay slut.

Second, I developed the power to will my brain into thinking that my sexual organ was nothing more but an elaborate attempt to make me horny all the time. So I thought that if I could control those urges, then I could live a more freer life than become some sex-crazed addict at the Betty Ford Clinic.

I always had this fascinating ability to make the most attractive of all men, the most undesirable in my head, which would make an imminent erection, seemingly like an ordinary dive in cold water, where everything shrivels up to a compote.

Third, I learned to acquire this photographic memory in seeing facial definitions of a person I just had a glimpse. Since I tortured myself from not looking at some cute guy for the second time, I managed to memorize what the person would look like at a first glance – and then poof! – moving on.

That skill sure comes dandy in aiding police investigators to identify missing individuals, with me describing what they would have looked like unless they were the complete opposite of gorgeous, then hey, render me useless if that was the case.

If there were advantages to making yourself a complete drone of limiting your sexual desires, there were its faults and weaknesses as well. First, my gaydar or known as gay radar, was completely fucked up. I was dumbfounded in assessing who was or might be gay, or who was straight anymore. Therefore, the ensuing catastrophe that I was left to be a dork forever was to be engraved on my deathbed.

After high school, the only time I got a date was if I let a guy man up and ask me out for one, to which came as a rare encounter to the third kind. And even if I sensed that the guy was indeed cute, or tickled my gonads to explosion, I dumb down to a mere idiot by being defensive who made these snide comments.

There was this boy who tried making a move on me, the only problem was...I was unaware if whether he was flirting, or trying to cut in front of the cue for the movie. He knowingly bumped my soda to spill on my jacket and said, “I’m sorry mate, but do you reckon if I put my number inside your jacket, you’d call me?” I gave him a snarky comment and said in reply, “Yeah, and put your address too. I’ll send you the docket for the dry cleaning bill... bloody idiot.” He smiled as he went past us.

My lesbian friend Sally, the vice president of our school’s book club, said to me “You do know that he is flirting with you?” so I snapped at her and said, “Why would someone try to hit on me if that idiot deliberately ruined what I’m wearing. Isn’t that a civil case for a public outcry for his lack thereof, of puerile attention?” And she quietly said in reply, “God, you’re hopeless.” to which I completely agree with her now.

I never did see that guy’s number hidden somewhere inside the pockets of my jacket, since Nana Magda had it run to the dry cleaners, as what I had predicted. To think and reminisce now that he was cute, he did looked like a younger version of Chris Evans, before he buffed up on steroids then completely looking like he was Photoshopped in real life, not that I have any objections with that.

Second, I have never grown to have any distinct tastes in certain men, I was an all around guy what can I say. Some gay guys would pick one category from an array of classifications such as body type: bears, cubs, otters, beefcakes, twinks, athletic, naturally thin, pleasantly plump, daddies, and hunks. Even racial classifications have been labelled in the gay industry of knit-picking men, such as Latino, Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, European, or Genovian, or even someone from the planet Ur-anus.

It was darn well confusing, and mindboggling to having go through all that trouble of assessing, which was which, and what was what! Not to mention those subdivisions of sub-classifications, of lesser subcivilized, auxiliaries of submorphications, of subversions of subversive sublets of sub sub sub...(see the point, it’s fucking tiring) of what composes of the gay nation tantamount to the whole society, most especially those roles one has to play when sleeping with another guy.

Well, please then be my guest, as you cut my dick for not knowing what to do with it, for no one teaches you in class where it should be inserted or where it should not be, or have your parent have a one on one talk with you, on the proper moral distinctions of what was snowballing or teabagging – unless you had a pamphlet.

Yes, the wonderful glory of a glossy piece of paper instructing you of what you should know.

Everything was and is explained in a pamphlet for being gay. It was intricately the same as reading a manual, except it teaches you how to become yourself, so that no one considered you a moron for not knowing who you were when Mr. Right came – yeah, even a dream guy may be judicious and cynical, especially in bed.

Everything sounded confusing, so might as well go to a devout Christian brainwashing facility and have my scrotums pulled out to have myself converted straight, just so that I would not be left with the decision of having so many options yet no inclination of which one to choose.

It would have been easier if there were to be be some mail-order checklist for the perfect man in E-bay and have it delivered in your doorstep, with all the modifications and specifications you need in a man that were right there in front of you.

• Submissive! (check)
• Pleasantly plump guy who looks like a hunk, oh wait...that is a bear! No, I do not prefer the hair to block my breathing when making out. How about, an otter...a combination of both. (check)
• Damn it, might as well choose that guy from Genovia or that green blob from Ur-Anus – that settles it then! (check)

*please input your mastercard visa account details for purchase, thank you for shopping with us*.

If only that were easy as choosing black and white, yes or no, probably or maybe, or sometimes or not often...then it would have made being gay a lot easier, thank – you – very – much.

Whoever said that coming out of the closet would be the happiest thing any gay individual in this planet earth would experience was full plain crock of shit. Any gay man who has finally accepted that he is gay would be very happy to surprise everyone and come out of a large dressing room, and say *drum roll please* ‘I am gay everyone’ if there were actual people waiting for you outside who were happy to hear your declaration of your life’s worth.

But what about those gay guys like me who had to learn everything on their own, and the only thing that waited for them outside of that closet was a dog licking its balls, and a pamphlet about the things you should learn to become a fully fledged homo...then what made it worthy to come out anyway?

For what, just so you could have a relationship with a man, and have sex with a man? Was that what it was all about – being gay that is?

When I finally came out, I was sure that it was all there was to it for being gay. To tell the world, exclaim to the universe that your mind has fully opened to the idea that you are now ready to be loved and to be loved by a man who sees you as whom you truly are – someone who is gay.

I wholeheartedly knew what I want when I came out, and that was to have a relationship with a person whom I may only dream to love someday, whom I may choose, need, and want to love. And in terms of those preferences, I did not need some pamphlet dictating me what I should prefer in a man. I already knew what I want in my future partner in life.

And that did not involve some kinky ritual of leather straps, hot candle wax, long elongated perforating object that would leave me in a coma for a week, or any pungent-smelling-fluid-like-substances coming out of my body, or saying random expletives to show one’s satisfaction, or fists being shoved to any of my apertures. No sir, I expected a no fuss no huss clean consensual sex between two consenting adults with passion involved.

What I expected from MY man was that he was there, for me while I was there for him.

For example, someone who actually smelled good for a change, someone who could inspire me, someone who could teach me, someone who knew my weaknesses, understood it with all care, someone who listened, someone who had dreams and aspirations, and someone who knew that he could handle my complexities, bullshit, and crap that I throw in every once in a while when I felt the world was bare backing me without protection. I should have put an ad that said for a heading, ‘Things I want my man to be, for hire!’ up in Craigslist.

In all honesty, I could say that I was inexperienced in the field of relationships. for even the basic application of countless books, articles, and journals that I had read online and through countless research, was adequate for me to say that I still had a lot a learn about myself and about my community. For I may have had the sufficient knowledge in all the technical terms, however, being in a gay relationship may be an arduous task if preferential advantage was deemed to be the greatest focal point in a gay relationship – superficial much?

When you think about it, even straight guys were picky in choosing their girlfriends, fiancées, wives or spouses. But at least when picked the one whom they knew they would decide to be with for the rest of their lives, it was mostly reliant on the aspect of ‘Will this woman have the posterity to bear 12 dozen kids, cook me food, and be there for me till the end of our dying days so help me God?’ – I think that applied more to slavery.

But the underlying truth was...for me, you lose all sense of bearing or logical assertion if you aim to meet someone who you know would make you happy, and defy all rationality despite your brain telling you not to logically pursue that person, despite all there is to say. I do not intend to sound like a cheap ripped-off version of a Kate Hudson’s romantic movie that were bleh! But that was what it simply was, was it not?

In the end...was I ready to settle and test every morsel of delectable goodies out there and be promiscuous. Or choose one dish that I could forever go back to, satisfying my nutritional needs, as I feel good not only in the inside but also on the outside - read that from a carton of cereal.

So what do I do if my brain was malfunctioning properly and not deciding on what kind of guy I should want or need? What do I do if my heart was saying to choose wisely? What could I say to myself to appease my worries that by having told someone you love him, was not the same as being told that he loves you back? What do I say to myself 30 years from now, if my astringent ways of selecting men have gotten the better of me?

How could I know if he was the right man for me, if I could not even ascertain if he was gay or straight? How could I reciprocate to someone who wishes to go out with me, be with me or even want me? How can I trust me that by opening myself to these possibilities will I truly find my answer or even be happy? How could I believe that by taking that infallible risk that so everyone admonished as a fact one must take, will serve its purpose in the end, if I ended up stuck in a rut out of my own risks?

How could I even believe that someone would love me, if the first person that I gave my heart to, threw me in the first landfill he saw, or ran away? Why does my logic, despite my broad level of intellect, defy its own reasoning...if emotions were involved? What was I so afraid of...why was I even afraid? Why?

These were the thoughts that ran in my head, mere questions; the minute I took my seat inside my first class that very morning. It was never the classes, or the lectures, or the teachers, or the institution, or even the city. It was I trying to search myself in that speck of a classroom, assessing if whether out of the 40 students that day that attended Mr. Liebster’s general economics class, one would consider me worth it for someone’s love and worth it to be loved.

When I told my mother I am gay, she said to me that my soul would burn in the pits of hell for being attracted to men. She never said a word since then about the things that I do with my life, or the admonition of my sexual orientation, or any clandestine effort that acknowledged the reality that her only son is gay, and proud of it.

It was only inherent in me to prove to her of my worth, what my life’s purpose was, to make her realize that she made a mistake not showing any amount of care that would console the biggest fear one would realize, “Would anyone love me?”

Someone once told me that the single greatest cruel act you could do to any living thing who has emotions, was to never give apathy, be indifferent or simply, do not care. For treating someone as if he or she never existed, was nullifying his/her existence in this world.

That was what I felt; no one cared. So I went to New York, ran away from our estate in the UK, asked some favors through my contacts in high school, and tried to live in a city where everything exploded with colors and pizzazz. I tried to soothe my head in the idea that maybe, just maybe, it would all work out – but it did not.

Never did I take any money, or asked money from my mom after she found out I was living a couple of miles away from her boutique in Manhattan. Her secretary found me, only to discover it was I serving them their lunch.

Mom was never mad that I ran away, she simply was all too calm and reserved about it, like the sophisticated woman that she was who never seemed to get angry at anything, besides become secretly disgusted at me for being gay.

I got a check from her worth $100,000 to get a decent apartment, away from that cockroach infested of a unit that I was staying then. A decision she resorted after some man, a private investigator she hired, followed me at my work at the coffee shop.

I refused to use it for my own advantage, for the only motivation that I got, was the need to prove to her that I can be someone she would learn to love and accept, not for the son she knew, but for the son that I have became. I never changed; I only got better by knowing who I truly am – a truth she never understood.

I did get some motherly advice and suggestion from someone. Through my Mama Nena’s urging that I took a part of the money in my trust fund, which I used it to pay for my tuition, rental fees and monthly expenditures. I resented that money, a benefit that never assuaged what was inside my heart.

If some rich folks lavished themselves with power, women and the fulfilment of their desires, I lamented on the truth that it was simply solidified water on paper notes – it runs empty after some time.

Yet, everybody needed it to function properly in a society that worshipped it. And I needed it as well, for it was the only mean or method for me to even prove something, even to myself, and for that...by getting the best education that money could afford.