so-called wedding day and your kids and your white picket
fence or whatever, you know it doesn’t apply to you. I’m not going to get to
have kids, I’m just not, that’s not going to happen for me. And meanwhile you
have to sit there living with that knowledge while people blab their fairy
tales. They are like fairy tales, only
the people telling them believe them and you know they’ll never be true. There’s
no version of your story. Am I going
to have a life partner or whatever?
What does that look like? Nobody tells me those stories. It’s just— I don’t
know.”
“You know, where I grew up, there are a lot of gay people. I
saw them all the time. Couples holding hands and stuff. Some even have kids.”
“I can’t even imagine that. It seems like another planet.”
“It isn’t.”
“I guess, like, with you ,
I can see myself having a place of my own, or sharing a place with someone.
Maybe I won’t ever find a boyfriend or a quote-unquote life partner or whatever. But I can find friends who know the real
me and like me anyway, and that’s a thing that I can have. It’s weird. It feels
like having a future .”
Wesley was quiet for a long time. Lights came in through the
window and played on the walls. Finally he said, “Well that’s nice of you to
say, Ollie.” But I think by then I was falling asleep.
***
Picture him friendly but shy. He was quiet in groups,
though in some weird way they revolved around him, the way a courtroom revolves
around a judge whether she’s speaking or not. It must’ve been because he had
the best stories, or because he was exotic (the rest of our hallmates were
Mass-holes like me, and as a San Franciscan he may as well have been an alien),
or because he had a way (with his curtains, with his music) of making a hallway
cohere into a home.
Ours was composed of half of the third floor of Johnson
Hall, Northeast Campus. In a double on the other side of the lounge were the
two freshman girls we met our first day, Kaitlyn and Amy. Next door to them was
a senior, Harriet, who had a room of her own. She was pretty with red hair,
dressed Mod, planned to be a playwright. Across from her was Bruno, an oafish
junior who wasn’t often around, but when he was he loved to tell us the kind of
stories nobody is ever interested to listen to—drinking stories,
driving-around stories. Beside him was Shelley, a pixie of a girl with curly
black hair that bounced when she walked. She was authoritative and competed
with Harriet for the role of hallway matriarch even though Shelley was only a
sophomore.
One night during the second week when it was too stormy to
venture outside, we all sat in the lounge and demonstrated our secret talents.
Amy said she could stand on her head without using her hands, and proved it
after Shelley ran off to get a pillow. Harriet could name the presidents in
eighteen seconds. Kaitlyn could tap dance. Bruno could belch “Stairway to
Heaven.”
While I watched them I wondered what my talent could be. You
could say that in high school I’d had a talent for acting, playing someone
other than who I really was. But at this point I hadn’t mentioned that side of
myself to my hallmates. It seemed easier to coast on the Wesley success for a
while before letting new people in on it.
When my turn came I performed the lightning-fast lyrics of
R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” The
lyrics rattled across my tongue like feet across a crumbling rope bridge while
I watched my hallmates watching me. I felt like I might stumble, but each word
bought me enough time to remember the next one. Word by word I got through. I
ended it slowly, no longer as freaked out by all of them looking at me, and I
dragged out the last line, “ It’s the end
of the world as we knoooow iiiit .... ”
Breathless but grinning (because who was this boy who had just been so
visible?), I collapsed onto the sofa beside Harriet.
“And do you
fence or whatever, you know it doesn’t apply to you. I’m not going to get to
have kids, I’m just not, that’s not going to happen for me. And meanwhile you
have to sit there living with that knowledge while people blab their fairy
tales. They are like fairy tales, only
the people telling them believe them and you know they’ll never be true. There’s
no version of your story. Am I going
to have a life partner or whatever?
What does that look like? Nobody tells me those stories. It’s just— I don’t
know.”
“You know, where I grew up, there are a lot of gay people. I
saw them all the time. Couples holding hands and stuff. Some even have kids.”
“I can’t even imagine that. It seems like another planet.”
“It isn’t.”
“I guess, like, with you ,
I can see myself having a place of my own, or sharing a place with someone.
Maybe I won’t ever find a boyfriend or a quote-unquote life partner or whatever. But I can find friends who know the real
me and like me anyway, and that’s a thing that I can have. It’s weird. It feels
like having a future .”
Wesley was quiet for a long time. Lights came in through the
window and played on the walls. Finally he said, “Well that’s nice of you to
say, Ollie.” But I think by then I was falling asleep.
***
Picture him friendly but shy. He was quiet in groups,
though in some weird way they revolved around him, the way a courtroom revolves
around a judge whether she’s speaking or not. It must’ve been because he had
the best stories, or because he was exotic (the rest of our hallmates were
Mass-holes like me, and as a San Franciscan he may as well have been an alien),
or because he had a way (with his curtains, with his music) of making a hallway
cohere into a home.
Ours was composed of half of the third floor of Johnson
Hall, Northeast Campus. In a double on the other side of the lounge were the
two freshman girls we met our first day, Kaitlyn and Amy. Next door to them was
a senior, Harriet, who had a room of her own. She was pretty with red hair,
dressed Mod, planned to be a playwright. Across from her was Bruno, an oafish
junior who wasn’t often around, but when he was he loved to tell us the kind of
stories nobody is ever interested to listen to—drinking stories,
driving-around stories. Beside him was Shelley, a pixie of a girl with curly
black hair that bounced when she walked. She was authoritative and competed
with Harriet for the role of hallway matriarch even though Shelley was only a
sophomore.
One night during the second week when it was too stormy to
venture outside, we all sat in the lounge and demonstrated our secret talents.
Amy said she could stand on her head without using her hands, and proved it
after Shelley ran off to get a pillow. Harriet could name the presidents in
eighteen seconds. Kaitlyn could tap dance. Bruno could belch “Stairway to
Heaven.”
While I watched them I wondered what my talent could be. You
could say that in high school I’d had a talent for acting, playing someone
other than who I really was. But at this point I hadn’t mentioned that side of
myself to my hallmates. It seemed easier to coast on the Wesley success for a
while before letting new people in on it.
When my turn came I performed the lightning-fast lyrics of
R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” The
lyrics rattled across my tongue like feet across a crumbling rope bridge while
I watched my hallmates watching me. I felt like I might stumble, but each word
bought me enough time to remember the next one. Word by word I got through. I
ended it slowly, no longer as freaked out by all of them looking at me, and I
dragged out the last line, “ It’s the end
of the world as we knoooow iiiit .... ”
Breathless but grinning (because who was this boy who had just been so
visible?), I collapsed onto the sofa beside Harriet.
“And do you
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