Robert Glazer
Eliot jumps away from me, literally jumps, and runs up the lawn and into the house. For a long moment I just stare straight ahead, still in disbelief. I have to be asleep – this can’t be happening. It’s an illusion. I’m still sleeping next to Eliot, we’re going to wake up soon, and then go home and start our future together.
I slap my forearm. I leave a whitish welt, and that’s when it really hits me: it really happened. Mary Kate knows. And Eliot is gone.
With my face down, I power-walk up the hill and into my room, desperate not to see anyone. But in my room, I don’t know what to do, either. She really knows, Mary Kate really knows – is she going to tell everyone? Has she already? Or is she going to just kill me? And I came here for the funeral. How could I leave before Sara’s ashes are spread? Would anyone want me there? Surely they wouldn’t, if they find out what I’ve done. What we did together. What in the world should I do?
I glance at my phone and see a text from last night that I never opened, one from Eliot saying simply, ok. Oh, Eliot. I really did love him. I did. I do. I can say that now. I know it’s crazy, but it’s true. And we fucked it all up. I’ll never see him again after Mary Kate Prince is done with me. What have we done?
I catch my reflection in the mirror and see the touch of grey in my hair. I think of my age, and how at this point in my life I probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows.
Fuck, I really thought I had something here. Against all logic and common sense and everything else, I thought I’d found something. And now it’s gone.
My face folds in on itself, and tears burn my eyes. I can’t face myself, and I can’t look at this. I am an adult man, watching myself dissolve into tears like a toddler. The shame just makes it worse, the feeling that I should be stronger. So that all compounds on itself to make the tears harder, and soon I am sobbing alone in my room.
After all my running, I thought I was coming home. But I wasn’t. It was just another dead end. Just another disappointment. Just another letdown, another mistake…
When I have no more tears to shed, I barricade myself under my comforter – which smells of Eliot – and dry-heave myself to sleep.
~
I wake again at ten, disoriented and empty. The service is soon. Before everyone leaves, we’re having a small ceremony and pouring Sara’s ashes into her beloved lake.
I sit up and rub my head. I feel hungover in a way that has nothing to do with alcohol. But for some reason I want to stay. I want to see this through. I thought I’d be gone by now, but I can’t leave – not yet. This is the whole reason I came. I can’t back out now.
I take a shot of whiskey and hide behind my biggest Ray-Bans. God, sometimes I get so tired of this life. I am so tired…
Gay men cannot win for losing in this world. Society has evolved, but not as much as we want to think it has, and much less than it should be. I call them “the judging eyes,” the factors that rise against us and hold us back from living our full lives – the skepticism and the judgment gay people face every day, in ways big and small, in noticeable ways and in ways only we would ever know. These “judging eyes” hold us down and make us believe we don’t deserve to shine like other people do, and the effects can be lethal.
If you are deemed “too gay,” too loud or brash or feminine, you face the judging eyes. If you aren’t gay enough, if you are too discreet or too unassuming or perhaps closeted, other gay men will say we are hiding ourselves, and we will face the judging eyes. (Sometimes the biggest obstacles we face can come from our own communities.) If you are too open with what you are, too confident or too proud about something the world thinks you should conceal, you face the judging eyes. The simple act of existing in public can elicit attacks that you are shoving your truth in someone else’s face. (I am forty years old and have never walked down a sidewalk holding the hand of a man I loved.) So eventually gay men start defeating ourselves before the judging eyes can even find us. We lie to ourselves and tell ourselves we are not magic. We can’t win for losing, so we stay losing. We hide in plain sight.
But…I want to shine. I want to be magic. I want to be seen being exactly what I am, to show everyone behind me that they can do the same. In a world that does everything it can to keep you from getting to be yourself, walking down the street and owning every inch of yourself can transform the universe.
But I can’t do that. The person I want to be magic with – the world won’t let me be with him. The judging eyes are still holding me back…
And it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all over.
I head outside. Everyone gathers on the upper platform, above the dock house, probably twenty feet above the water. I avoid every pair of eyes I see, but the energy doesn’t really seem too “off” or anything. Most people aren’t even paying attention to me. I don’t know who knows and who doesn’t, anyway.
When Eliot comes out, I feel all the blood drain from my face. We got so close, we were almost there…and God, he looks so beautiful in his crisp white shirt…more beautiful than I deserve, of course. I’ll go home and I’ll start over. I’ll just have to forget this, get beyond it. I never should’ve started in the first place, actually.
Soon everyone gets impatient. Mary Kate isn’t here yet – I guess she’s the last one. Finally Susan speaks up.
“Go,” Susan says to her husband. “Just go. Mary Kate knows we’re here. She knows she’s late. If she sees us starting, she’ll see us and-”
“No need,” a voice says, and everyone turns. It’s Mary Kate. There is makeup all over her face, and she looks absolutely wasted. Or just hungover, perhaps? Either way, I’m fucked. She’s here. I’m dead. She could arrest me, she could tell everyone in the world about this…
I glance away before we can make eye contact.
“Honey,” Susan says, walking over to her. “You look…you look awful. Let’s get you back to the house for a second and-”
“No,” my ex-wife says, standing taller. “I have to say something. I’m…I’m really fine. I swear. And I also have this speech that Mother wanted me to give, too.”
“Speech?” Susan asks, and Mary Kate reaches into her purse and holds up a tattered sheet of paper.
“Yes. Speech. Eulogy, really. She wrote it and sent it to me two months ago. She said to open it at the service.”
“What?” Susan asks her. “Why didn’t I get one?”
“Probably because you got the Cadillac SUV.”
“True,” Susan nods, giving up. “Okay, whatever, I guess we’re giving the stage to MK now. As if this wasn’t enough of a circus before…”
That’s when Mary Kate turns and looks directly at me. Oh, fuck.
Here we go…