The Boy Behind the Red Door

62 Pages·2011·1.227 MB·English

by  Goode, John

The Boy Behind the Red Door • John Goode

The Boy Behind the Red Door

If there is anything harder than growing up gay, it’s
growing up gay in the Midwest.
There are few places on the planet that are nicer than
Foster, Texas, to be raised in, but there are a few conditions
on that kind of perfection. There is a reason that Children of
the Corn was based on places like this. They are pleasant,
accepting, and loving people who respect each other under
God, as long as you are exactly like them in every way that
counts.
Sexuality counts quite a bit.
I remember growing up thinking I was the only person
in the world like me. Like one of those mutants you read
about in comic books, a normal-looking person on the
outside, but with a hideous secret just under the skin that
forever set me apart from everyone else. It was so typical a
response that I am loath, in this day and age, to repeat it out
loud to other gay people.
I remember being on the edge of seventeen, that
dangerous time between childhood and young adult when
the cement is still wet in your mind. That part of your life
where things get stuck and form who you are for forever,
liked or not. Offhand comments, distant laughter, anything a
boy’s fragile ego could mistake for a slight on the kind of
man he will one day become. There is never a time in your
life when love is so sweet or pain cuts so deep, or when
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memory is so undeniably carved in stone.
Though I am closer to thirty than twenty, I can still
remember moments in time from when I was a teenager that
are so vivid they could have taken place yesterday. Ask me
the name of the guy who talked to me at the gym last week,
or Sophia’s boyfriend’s name, and I draw a blank. But ask
me about the time I saw the boy down the street mow the
lawn shirtless for the first time, and I can still smell the cut
grass and feel the way the sun beat down on me mercilessly.
It could have been this afternoon instead of a decade ago.
And that is not always a good thing.
“So…,” Sophia said, swirling the straw around in her
glass in the same manner a cat plays with a mouse before
eating it, “…home for the holidays, huh?”
I groaned as I put my head down on the table. “Why
won’t you let this go?” I begged.
“Because, my dear friend,” she teased, “sometimes I feel
like I’m best friends with James Bond and not some fag hag
to an uptight hick.”
“I hate that word,” I mumbled into the tabletop.
“Which one?” she asked. “Hick or fag?”
“Both,” I answered.
“I know, it’s why I use them,” she said, taking a sip of
her drink. “So, spill. What’s a real Texas Christmas like?”
Images sprang to mind of my four brothers and their
families crowded into my parents’ living room, all of them in
some demented race to have as many offspring as they
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could, while I sat in the corner trying desperately to
remember their kids’ names. The stifling heat, because my
mother thinks the moment I moved out of state, I lost the
ability to handle a “proper North Texas winter.” The painful
smile I keep on my face as my sisters-in-law ask again what
it’s like living in such an exciting place as San Francisco,
and I must be having the best time! The entire time I try to
convince myself what they are saying isn’t code for, “So
what’s it like having a ton of gay sex in the big city?”
“Long,” I said miserably, as I looked up and saw the
cute barista walk by and flash me a pity smile.
“And that’s what she said,” Sophia added, laughing at
her own joke. “So when do you leave?”
“Day after tomorrow,” I said, trying to find a way to turn
around and look at the barista without seeming like I was
turning around and looking at him.
Sophia looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Just ask him
out already,” she said in exasperation. “Or better yet, go
corner him in the bathroom!”
I tried not to blush and failed miserably. Sophia learned
everything she knows about gay culture from watching
Queer as Folk and is constantly miserable that I am nothing
like the characters on the show. “He just reminds me of
someone,” I said as I snuck a peek over my shoulder.
Of course, that was exactly when he was walking back
with a few empty cups. He smiled and stopped. “Did you
need another?”
“Another what?” I blurted out, turning away and seeing
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the empty coffee mug in front of me. “Another coffee
obviously, because I’m in a coffee shop, and what else would
you be asking me about?” And then I realized I said all that
out loud. My head hit the table again. “No, thank you.”
I could hear Sophia cackle as the blood rushed to my
head. I hate Christmas.
“He’s cute,” she commented, and I prayed he was out of
earshot.
I looked up in exasperation. “Of course he’s cute. He
works at a gay coffee house for tips.” I pushed my mug away
dejectedly. “The only other professional that depends more
on looks is a male stripper.” I looked over at him as he
smiled and took another order behind the counter. “’Sides,
he’s not that cute.”
“Who’s not that cute?” Whatshisname asked, wiping his
hands on his jeans as he headed back from the bathroom.
“The guy behind the counter,” Sophia explained to her
boyfriend, whose name I still could not remember.
He looked over, then back with a lewd smile. “Oh, yeah,
he’s hot.”
I looked over at Sophia and rolled my eyes. “You
seriously know you’re dating a gay guy, right?”
“Hey, I’m not gay!” Whatshisname said as he took a sip
of his coffee. “I am an enlightened man of the times.”
“You dress better than I do and are constantly pointing
out cute guys,” I said, tiring of this argument again. “You’re
gayer than I am.”
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“That’s not saying much,” Sophia said under her breath
as I pretended not to hear her.
She’s right. I am, hands down, the worst gay guy in the
world.
The other horrible part about growing up in Foster is I
had no gay role models to speak of. There was that gay uncle
on Bewitched, the weird guy on Too Close for Comfort, and
Mr. Roper batting his eyelashes on Three’s Company, but I
wasn’t that type of gay. I had played football since I knew
how to walk—not very well, but I did play. My brothers and I
were all jocks in high school, and even though I was the least
jockish of the bunch, I still passed as more than straight to
the general populace. When I moved away to the West Coast,
I thought I’d finally be free. Able to explore my sexuality and
all the joy that came with it.
I realized I had moved from being a misfit in a culture I
wasn’t a part of, to being a freak in a culture I was supposed
to be in. I didn’t believe in casual sex, I didn’t like to get
drunk, and I had never done drugs. Bars were too loud,
smoky, and sad for my taste, and frankly, I had never met a
man who could measure up to the ideal in my head.
“He means he’s not cute compared to the boy with the
red door,” Sophia said with a wicked smile.
“I hate you,” I said, meaning every word.
“The guy with the red what?” Whatshisname asked.
“There was this boy that lived down the street that Matt
here was in LLLOOOVEEE with when he was in high school.”
Her laughter was like nails on a chalkboard. “But of course,
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being Matt, he never once talked to him, only stalked him
from afar and now judges every man he meets against that
guy.”
Whatshisname looked over at the counter and back at
me. “This guy with the red thing must have been hot.”
“Okay, honey,” Sophia said, quietly patting his arm.
“Little too much sharing.”
She was right, which is why I hated her so much.
Growing up, there was a boy who lived two doors down,
and he was the reason I knew I was gay. Foster was an odd
town; we were small in terms of an actual town, but in
population there seemed to be more people than were ever
seen. We were the closest thing to a real town within
seventy-five miles, so we ended up being the hub for a
couple dozen smaller towns that depended on us to survive. I
remember as a teenager being baffled anyone would come to
Foster to have fun. We had enough people that we supported
two different high schools, and there was no real way of
telling who should go to which one.
My brothers and I went to Foster High, the school that
was an odd mix of yuppie kids and those from the wrong
side of the tracks. It was the older of the two schools and
also considered the worst, which made us fight that much
harder in whatever sport we played. Granada was the newer
school, and the boy went there, which meant he was a
Capulet to our Montagues.
He was also a jock, playing a variety of sports much like
we did. Everyone knew him, walking down Main Street in his
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letterman jacket, easy smile, tattered white T-shirt that
looked so soft you just had to touch it. He was always with
friends, always surrounded as if the entire town wanted to
touch him, be near him, draw what warmth they could from
his presence. If he was uncomfortable with the attention, he
never showed it; he was always smiling nervously and
running a hand through that golden hair, making the T-shirt
ride up. Like a comet, that brief glimpse of skin between his
shirt and jeans was worth waiting weeks to see.
Sophia snapped her fingers in front of my face, breaking
me out of my stupor as I remembered him. “Okay, back to
Earth. So how long you staying?”
“As little as humanly possible,” I said, looking at the
time and realizing I was close to being late. “Shit, I need to
go.”
“So does his family still live in town?” she asked.
“I’m not seeing him,” I said, grabbing my messenger
bag. “I’ll call you later,” I threw over my shoulder as I turned
to dart out of the café.
“Bye!” the cute guy behind the counter called out. I
turned to see him waving at me.
I went to wave back and slammed into the front door,
and almost fell back onto my ass. He covered his mouth in
horror as I shook my head, realizing the entire place was
staring at me.
“Fucking Christmas,” I cursed as I fled the scene.
I secretly blamed the boy for making me different. His
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fault that something in my mind switched from girls to boys
when I saw him, really, for the first time. I might have had
thoughts before, might have wondered, but it wasn’t until
the day I saw him that I knew, knew for sure. I wanted
someone that looked just like him. And if not, as close as I
could get would do.
It was a Saturday afternoon, one of the few when he
wasn’t roaming free across our small town with his pack-
mates like they owned the place. Instead, he had been
resigned to mowing his lawn, and it was that day, as I
walked by on my way to the library, that I knew… I was
never going to be the same again.
He wore a pair of blue jeans that had been old last year.
They were frayed and faded to the point of distraction, with
the band of his white boxers just hanging out, daring
someone to comment. He pushed the lawnmower around like
it owed him money, he was so angry; two white headphone
wires trailed down his back as he ignored the world around
him and took it out on his chores. His hair was matted from
the heat as drops of sweat trailed down his face. The world
stopped spinning as I watched the sun reflect down on the
tanned perfection that was his shirtless form. I paused in the
street, completely floored by the Adonis in front of me. And
there, in the middle of the explosion in my mind, he looked
up at me. Our eyes met, and if he knew what I was looking
at, or why, he gave no indication. His eyes blazed under the
green John Deere hat as he kept moving with the lawn-
mower, looking away slowly.
My brothers hated him on spec, of course. It was as if
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there was an instant rivalry between him and his friends and
the rest of us. As the youngest, I had been sworn to hate him
also. But seeing him alone for the first time, things changed.
I knew I was different; my brothers and their friends seemed
to live for spitting and farting. Talking endlessly about girls
and their various comparisons left me cold, though I went
along with it because the alternative was sitting alone in my
room. I never had a name for what was inside of me; to be
honest, I never wanted to name it. I craved to be like them so
bad that I just ignored it and hoped one day it would pass.
But seeing him there, shirtless, sweat pouring down
every muscle he had, it suddenly received a name.
Visions of him haunted me all day at work.
If I had more than thirty seconds to myself, my attention
would drift back to that day when I knew I was sexually
attracted to him, and not in a small way. After that, I
thought I was so obvious that everyone in town was just
being nice to me while laughing behind my back the whole
time. Everything I did and said fell under self-scrutiny,
looking for any hint I was less of a man than the rest of
them. I began talking about girls, loudly and quite
awkwardly. I tried drinking beer in the back of my friends’
pickups on our way to the lake; I asked Marsha Benning to
the Winter Formal.
None of it made me any straighter.
My phone rang in my office, once again bringing me
back to the here and now.
“Matt Wallace,” I answered, trying to dispel the ghosts of
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