A Good Hand - 1. Story

A Good Hand

By Sabat

Looking back on my thirty two years, twenty six if anyone asks, thirty seven if we're being technical, I'm struck by how innocent my younger self was. Innocent, naive, dumb, take your pick, I could probably be charged with all three and if being sexually backward until the age of nineteen counts as a crime I would stand guilty as charged. I think I prefer the term late bloomer, it conjures up images of myself as a virginal maiden waiting for Mr Right rather than the slightly less palatable truth of my teenage self as a horny toad complete with bad skin and a tongue with a life of it's own.

I blame Michael for this sudden attack of reminiscences. For him life is there to be documented at every stage, picturesque rose coloured vignettes to be rolled out for the grandchildren, anybodies grandchildren, hell he'll tell grandparents given half the chance. I blame it on his being a only child, he feels like if he doesn't corroborate his story with other people he's back in his bedroom pouring his feelings out to Jacob his imaginary friend, I'm sorry, I was supposed to keep that to myself but I mean really who has an imaginary friend outside of a Disney film? I humor him by saying of course it's normal, everyone has them, I had several, I was popular. The closest I ever came was wishing that I had a twin, an evil twin, who would do everything I wished I was brave enough to do, but I didn't talk to him, I may have imagined messing around with him but that's different, it's just like kissing your hand or masturbation, it's hormonal, like if Bruce Wayne got it on with Batman.

Michael doesn't know what it's like to come from a big family, the joy that brings. Nothing hones your ability to survive like four brothers, your home becomes a warzone, your parents are the equivalent of the U.N, you want their approval but if you don't get it nothings going to stop you launching a tactical strike on the nearest sibling, you know they'd do the same to you given half the chance. Every scrap of information becomes either a blackmail tool or a piece of propaganda, if I'd found out that one of my brothers had an imaginary friend the only thing that would have saved them would have been adoption and even then I've no doubt I would have done my damnest to track them down so that one balmy autumn evening I could arrive on the doorstep of this poor unsuspecting family, oblivious to the true nature of the child they'd adopted. Perhaps he'd be sat on the front porch, his jaw dropping when he spotted me. Maybe he'd be out with real live friends and they'd all return to find me sat on the sofa, his new mother sobbing into the arms of his second father, a stern looking woman from the adoption agency stood by the fireplace ready to take him back to the orphanage. In an ideal world his new family, friends, neighbours, everyone in a five mile radius would be gathered in the back garden for a party into which I could make a grand entrance like Joan Collins in her prime. Correction, make that Heather Locklear, I don't want to be showing my age. 'I'm back and I've brought your friend Timmy.'

Michael doesn't get any of that, he thinks anyone with siblings should be off solving crimes with them or forming singing troops, hosting get togethers where the whole family wear matching jumpers and laugh at the good times. He has no idea of the reality that faces survivors of brotherly love. The only reason I can stomach my family now is because of the distance between us.

The other day Michael asked me when it was I first realised I was gay. That's what set me on the road of youthful rememberences. He'd been out having lunch with Sheila, one of his surrogate sisters and the topic of Michaels old girlfriend Alison came up. Yes Michael used to be on the other side. I like to tell people that I converted him and if he's drunk enough he might go along with my bragging but more often than not he'll announce that Alison turned him off the female species and was such an overall bitch that even I seemed nice in comparison. People ask if I never worry he'll switch sides again, like he's some double agent looking to come in from the cold. I tell them that the way I look at it, at least if he leaves me for a woman I won't have to sit weeping and wailing 'What's she got that I haven't?'

I tried to think back to a time when I wasn't gay and couldn't. I think I was gay before I even knew what gay was. Back in the very early days it wasn't a sex thing it was all about gender, I was convinced that there wasn't a problem in my life that wouldn't be solved instantly if I could just turn into a girl. For a short while I went through a phase of lying in bed each night and praying that I'd wake up with long blonde hair and a name like Jessica or Veronica, something glamorous ending with an a. I was convinced that there had been a mix up and that somewhere out there was a girl desperate to play football and climb trees, a girl who would gladly trade places with me if we could only pray hard enough and remind God of the tiny mistake he had meant to correct. Sadly either God was too busy off smiting folk or Samantha didn't pray quite as hard as I did for no miracle was forthcoming. Maybe her parents saw nothing wrong with her love of sports, a practical short haircut and jeans, maybe they even thought calling her Sam was cute and encouraged these little eccentricities, my family however did not share this enlightened view of the world, I doubt anything could have convinced them that my passion for dolls wasn't something to be stamped out with a vengeance.

My plans for a sex change continued until I discovered the joys of sports, not the actual physical exertion or competition but the changing rooms afterwards. I became addicted to a sport which can only be described as trying to see as many naked men as possible. Hours would be spent in the local swimming pool all for the sake of that glorious heart stopping five minutes in the company of men in various stages of undress. Even now the thought of it raises my pulse and I must be one of the few people around who finds the scent of chlorine appealing. I didn't really understand why I wanted to see men in the nude, it was just this uncontrollable urge I had, a fascination. I remember at one stage a rumor went around that someone at school had been flashed at in the local park, our dog never had as many walks in it's life as it did that week as I set out on a furious mission to be the next witness to this exposure, sadly nothing came of my attempts, it may have been a mistake to be accompanied by a dog that looked like it would bite off anything that was waved in front of it but I couldn't think of another excuse to be hanging round the park at all hours, my hormones may have been raging but I had to try and keep a rational head about it all. "Yes officer I know it can be dangerous for a boy of my age to be out this late but Mindy needs her walk, now are you sure you don't want to strip search me?"

Michael had it easy growing up, not only was he sibling free and the centre of his parents attention, he also had a much older female cousin who would often babysit him, bringing with her a boyfriend, so he got to see first hand the mating rituals of the adult human. I on the other hand would be left in the hands of a slightly older brother on the occasions when my parents would risk leaving us alone in the house, the car would drive away and two minutes later things would have descended into the realms of cage fighting. I had no one to talk to about sex and so like most kids my age I turned to the school yard where others like me, the clueless masses, would believe every story to be factual, tales taking on mythical status that we would repeat as a mantra and where the person who brags the loudest about their knowledge becomes a messiah to those of us in the dark. At my school this person was Dean Graham, his popularity enshrined by the fact that his parents were so laid back they hadn't noticed he was receiving sex shop catalogues on a weekly basis. We were an audience in rapture desperate for a furtive glance at the holy grail of sexual knowledge. Sadly with it's content censored by black squares throughout it promised so much more than it delivered, what exactly was happening to that woman? We could see from her face that she was possibly enjoying it but what exactly was 'it'? DP, MFF, CIM, it was another language and if anyone dared to ask what it meant they would be greeted with a chorus of "Don't you know?" and thus shamed they would never ask again. My moments with the brochure were fleeting and would be consumed by a search for that rarest of things, a man, like a near extinct nocturnal sub species of Madagascan lemur, a man was seldom to be seen in the adverts for straight porn, it was all about the women, most of the time I had to make do with a glimpse of a male limb in the corner of a shot which when combined with the stamp censoring the picture often gave the impression that the poor woman was giving birth to some kind of huge hairy mutant, still it was enough to fuel my imagination. Every so often however the miraculous would happen and a man would take centre stage, I treasured those images, determining to commit them to memory to fantasize about later.

Back then sex was something shocking to us, the mention of it induced a kind of hysteria that would draw a crowd in seconds. I remember the near riot that occured when one of the girls in my class managed to get her hands on a copy of a Judy Bloom book, even Dean Graham and his porn couldn't compete that week, this was a book with sex and relationships, it was practically a guidebook for us and pretty soon crowds could be found huddled over the one copy, pouring over the more eye opening chapters.

Our sexuality was like the games of poker we would play late at night, usually drunk on whatever alcohol someone had managed to sneak out of the house. We had no real idea of the rules but we knew it was a game for adults and so we would bluff our way through it in an effort to appear mature, just as we had no real clue of the rules of engagement when it came to sex and relationships so our knowledge of flushes and straights was rudimentary at best. All that mattered was that we were taking part, playing the role, acting like the mature grown ups we so wanted to be. Donnie Post tells us his cousin showed him how to deal, we believe him just like we believed him when he told us his aunts neighbours daughter showed him how to kiss, we were so clueless we wanted someone to believe in. Rumors would fly around and become facts overnight, Linda Graham went all the way with two guys in park, why wouldn't we believe it, she showed her bra to make enough money to buy another card the last time we played, the girl was a whore in the making as far as we were concerned. It's embarrassing looking back at it now but really we made the Salem witch trials look even handed and fair, we revelled in it all, the only thing worse than being accused of doing something was an accusation of doing nothing. "Tom Porter I hate you and your squirrel dick." Nancy, I forget her surname screamed at one party, an insult I memorized for later use although I cut out the line she used about his dog being a better kisser, all this because a rumor swept the room that she was refusing to do anything other than kiss as she was saving herself for marriage. Chastity, the single greatest curse on a teenagers reputation. You would think that being gay I would be ripe for attack, after all not only wouldn't I do anything with a girl I most likely physically couldn't and yet I escaped the scorn of my peers, if anything my sexuality made it easier for me, I was quite the hit with girls who found me a safe bet, they could be seen with a guy who wasn't going to try anything on with them, we boosted each others reputations, nothing enhanced your standing like being part of a pair.

Of course Michael takes this all to be proof that I was effectively in the closet for my teenage years and therefore in no position to judge his voyages to the land of the bisexual but of course I can't bring myself to see it like that, I stick to the belief that everyone fakes something about themselves at some point in their life in order to fit in, for me it just happened to be who I found attractive. I wasn't so much hiding the fact that I was gay as I was hiding the fact that I felt dull and awkward and completely unremarkable and here I was being presented with the opportunity to be something more. The skills I used to bluff in poker actually finding a use in my personal life, now who says gambling is bad for you. I never even had to lie and say I had a girlfriend, I just hung out with them and gossip did the work for me. I was the beneficiary of that most teenage of phenomena, fame through association, the house of cards that was social standing was based on one simple principle, if someone popular liked you, you must be worth knowing and so more people would vie to be seen with you which made you seem even more well liked and pretty soon you found yourself going supernova from the amount of heat you were attracting. I felt like a bit part actor who'd been plucked from obscurity and made into a star. My days of hiding in the library at lunchtime because I had nothing better to do made way for snatched moments in there when i needed a moments peace.

My friend Ben acts like I'm responsible for every bad thing to happen to gay teenagers the world over. He can get very animated when it comes to gay rights whereas I often find it difficult to work up the energy to get off the sofa, let alone spend an evening making placards. He wants me to admit that I should have been some kind of figurehead for the gay community while I was a teenager, a shining example to future gay teens, I told him that as far as I'm concerned gay teens have the youth that deserted me a long time ago, they can't suffer enough. Ben wasn't popular at school, he had as he puts it 'a close knit group of friends.' Translation, he hung out with the fat kids and had deep and meaningful conversations interrupted only by the click of their asthma inhalers. He doesn't understand how addictive popularity is, it's like your life is a television show complete with a studio audience, people watching you, laughing at your jokes, cheering your successes, going awwww at your failures. How are you supposed to go from that to a life without a spotlight or laugh track? I know in the long run his friends turned out to be genuine while mine were as fake as the girlfriends I had but I'm convinced that mine were the happier schooldays.

The way I look at it, if life deals you a poor hand you have a choice, you can either fold or raise the stakes, pretend you're a winner and if you somehow manage to convince people that you hold all the aces you don't go spoiling the victory by owning up to really being a loser. I rode my success all the way through high school and into college and enjoyed every minute of it. That's not so wrong is it? I mean it was all just a game and nobody got hurt despite what Ben says.

I've tried playing poker as an adult, strangely it's nowhere near as much fun now that I know how to play, but I'm probably just being like Michael and looking back on things through a sentimental haze. I still find myself trying to bend the rules to suit my hand and either my skill at bluffing really is as good as I remember or I'm playing really trusting players because I often find myself getting away with it. It's highly likely that they decide to humor me because winning seems so important to me, I can't help it, blame it on my upbringing or my genetics but I hate being on the losing side for anything, I am physically unable to accept defeat gracefully, I prefer the go down kicking and screaming route, anything to help me taste success.

You know looking at it rationally maybe the people who think I should be worried about Michael converting back to heterosexuality have got it all wrong, perhaps he's the one who should be worried about me, can I say I wouldn't leap back into the closet and nail the door shut if I thought the reward was worth it? Possibly not over something as trivial as a game of cards, even I'm not that bad a loser, but something bigger? You never know.

© 2008 Sabat

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