My Secret

I never thought I'd say it.  I never would have thought I'd ever say it.  Never could I ever have supposed that this would be something that I should or even might ever even have thought about ever saying.  

One of those data points, bits of evidence my father confabulated to support his case against me.  You know, about how I'm a gay.  So.

Confession is good for the soul.

When my son was nine I was trying to have some sort of family contact, as with my father.  He had a son as well, six months older than my son -- or maybe six months younger -- haven't seen him for nearly 30 years, so I don't recall.  And my father had gotten himself involved with local little-league baseball.  He coached his son's team, made him the pitcher, and I signed my son up. So I was a sort of assistant coach, despite having zero interest in the general situation.

There were two brothers on the team, a year or so apart.  The older was, well, thick-boned, stocky -- not fat, that of course would inevitably come later -- and he was a loud-mouth.  The younger boy was slender, with glasses ... whatever the cues are, the costume, to dress the character type.  Maybe a reader -- we'll say so ... and the stage is set.  

So I watched the dynamics between these brothers, and I felt compassion for the younger boy, and being as I was, still a teacher, and more open than in subsequent years -- and at the time, being still a hugger -- and I just now recall that it was the last game of the season -- I did, I admit it, hug this younger boy. 

That was the day -- in my father's car, driving back to his house -- he initiated that heart-felt discussion about my being gay.  

That's what really did it.  He will have seen me hug this boy, and formed his conclusion.  

Isn't shame an odd emotion?  Even an accusation gets us.  Like my little pirate treasure chest, with its tell-tale jewelry.  Shame is the external face of its internal counterpart, guilt.  Shame is social, guilt is soulish.  It's an Eastern/Western thing -- Judeo-Christian with its personal and accountable and eternal individual soul -- the East with its ultimate subsuming into the non-existence of the finally foamless Brahmanic ocean of cyclic oblivion.  The East talks about losing face, the West about the corruption of the heart.  

At the time of course I was just, call it, surprised. Bushwhacked?  Ambuscadoed?  But the slow still shock with its inarticulate denial slipped, as it will, over the following days and weeks, into outrage.   And I laboriously pieced together the subtle clues of the mysterious case of the meaning of my childhood and my role in that household.

So the precise term my father would have been groping for is not, actually, gay.  It should have been pedophile.   

What boy would I rape.

As I have said, I didn't see him after that for perhaps 15 years.  

I said it was something I have always known -- a father takes the blows.  This is imprecise, obviously.  I should have been more theoretical.  That's how it should be.  A father gives the blows?  Well that's just cheap.  Usually it's a combination, and necessary, given the need for correction, about things that cannot be ignored.  

I could go on, about justice, Justice, with her blindfold and her sword.  Point is, justice has nothing to do with mercy or grace.  These must be different goddesses.  But, dad -- when you urge so heartily for manliness, remember the frailty of a child's soul.  Sometimes there should be compassion, even if it's just a sort of psychological projection.  Sometimes silence would be a wiser option.

Not every true thing needs to be spoken.  Likewise, not every fear.

J