The Weird Kid
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Brucie is Fabulous!
Brucie is 11 years old. The last time I saw him he was only 3. I remember him then, how he leaned against me languidly and asked, "Imez...can I do your hair?" His father Dan, now my adored friend, once my math teacher, let his eyes drift while his wife chuckled uneasy.
"Oh, he just loves hair. He plays with his sister's dolls and stuff...just because she's older, you know."
That scene, particularly the glazed look in Dan's eyes, became a private joke between me and Sean.
Two nights ago Brucie stepped up to me after an 11 hour drive, with a big grin and hugged me tight, no matter that I'd become a practical stranger. He was impressed by my decorating scheme. He saw the yarn on the couch I'm inexpertly trying to wrench into a purple octopus for Smudge.
"You knit!?"
With a huge grin he sat on my floor and opened his travel bag. He pulled out 5 inches of stockinette stitch resting on two long purple needles. "I LOVE knitting!"
The next morning Brucie did my daughter's hair in braids, then pig-tails, then cornrows, then buns, joyfully restyling them throughout the afternoon. He enthusiastically took over my pancakes, cooking each to a lovely golden brown, always remembering to butter the pan first. "I'm a great cook. But I still might want to design clothes when I grow up."
The kid is so cool. Not like any other little boy I've known. So...affable and cheerful. Kind and unwary. His parents are terribly in love with his older sister, as she is modestly beautiful, chaste, poetic and musical, with feisty sensibilities. A girl birthed right from the pages of Bethany House Christian novels that the family loves to read. Far from being jealous, he sits near her, skinny legs pulled into his chest, anxious to fill in all the good parts of the stories of her greatness. Never minding his own lack of stories.
That night in bed Sean observed, "Terrific kid. But I think Dan's already taking high doses of Homocil."
Dan is A Good Christian. That is how he defines himself. And of all the "good Christians" I have known, he has more right than most to consider himself one. So it isn't surprising that he disagreed when I told him I remember him not liking my sorta closeted gay best friend Leon in high school. But really, he didn't. And the only reason I can imagine, as Leon showed respect and excelled in math, is that Leon was gay.
Leon wrote me this about Brucie:
I wish I was there to take in the scene of a sweet, 11 year old Queen breezing through your home, goldening your pancakes, setting your hair, and laying down a blanket of domestic bliss. Lord knows if he were my child, I'd encourage it. Soccer? Heck no! We're going to cooking class! Dinner party? No problem, my son will crochet a table cloth! But, he's not my son, but Dan's. If I were a betting man and there was a line on this in Vegas, I'd put my chips down 10 to 1 that Dan's gonna be hard on his son and will resent him on some levels.
It would be so like Satan to throw a flamboyant wrench of this magnitude into their family's well-greased Christ-loving machinery. If Brucie was gay, the family would truly believe it their loving duty to try and help him fight it off, and Brucie, perhaps like Leon, would never entirely free himself of the shame.
Another of our teachers at the same Christian school, he was gay. Massively, la-la-la like Liza gay, but yet he married and had children and tried to be straight, as Christ would apparently have him do.
No one was fooled. Probably not even Jesus.
I gotta keep in touch with little Brucie.
"Oh, he just loves hair. He plays with his sister's dolls and stuff...just because she's older, you know."
That scene, particularly the glazed look in Dan's eyes, became a private joke between me and Sean.
Two nights ago Brucie stepped up to me after an 11 hour drive, with a big grin and hugged me tight, no matter that I'd become a practical stranger. He was impressed by my decorating scheme. He saw the yarn on the couch I'm inexpertly trying to wrench into a purple octopus for Smudge.
"You knit!?"
With a huge grin he sat on my floor and opened his travel bag. He pulled out 5 inches of stockinette stitch resting on two long purple needles. "I LOVE knitting!"
The next morning Brucie did my daughter's hair in braids, then pig-tails, then cornrows, then buns, joyfully restyling them throughout the afternoon. He enthusiastically took over my pancakes, cooking each to a lovely golden brown, always remembering to butter the pan first. "I'm a great cook. But I still might want to design clothes when I grow up."
The kid is so cool. Not like any other little boy I've known. So...affable and cheerful. Kind and unwary. His parents are terribly in love with his older sister, as she is modestly beautiful, chaste, poetic and musical, with feisty sensibilities. A girl birthed right from the pages of Bethany House Christian novels that the family loves to read. Far from being jealous, he sits near her, skinny legs pulled into his chest, anxious to fill in all the good parts of the stories of her greatness. Never minding his own lack of stories.
That night in bed Sean observed, "Terrific kid. But I think Dan's already taking high doses of Homocil."
Dan is A Good Christian. That is how he defines himself. And of all the "good Christians" I have known, he has more right than most to consider himself one. So it isn't surprising that he disagreed when I told him I remember him not liking my sorta closeted gay best friend Leon in high school. But really, he didn't. And the only reason I can imagine, as Leon showed respect and excelled in math, is that Leon was gay.
Leon wrote me this about Brucie:
I wish I was there to take in the scene of a sweet, 11 year old Queen breezing through your home, goldening your pancakes, setting your hair, and laying down a blanket of domestic bliss. Lord knows if he were my child, I'd encourage it. Soccer? Heck no! We're going to cooking class! Dinner party? No problem, my son will crochet a table cloth! But, he's not my son, but Dan's. If I were a betting man and there was a line on this in Vegas, I'd put my chips down 10 to 1 that Dan's gonna be hard on his son and will resent him on some levels.
It would be so like Satan to throw a flamboyant wrench of this magnitude into their family's well-greased Christ-loving machinery. If Brucie was gay, the family would truly believe it their loving duty to try and help him fight it off, and Brucie, perhaps like Leon, would never entirely free himself of the shame.
Another of our teachers at the same Christian school, he was gay. Massively, la-la-la like Liza gay, but yet he married and had children and tried to be straight, as Christ would apparently have him do.
No one was fooled. Probably not even Jesus.
I gotta keep in touch with little Brucie.
posted by Imez at 12:51 PM
5 Comments:
Well, maybe Dan will surprise you.
Maybe.
I like your friend Matt. I hope his life is better than what I'm afraid Burces' will be.
That Utube clip was funny. I'd not seen that. Too bad there isn't a real pill like that. I know tons of people who need it.
I wonder if I'll live long enough to see the day when people can be who they are without judgements and fear? I seriously doubt it. Sad really.
I hope you stay in touch with Bruce. He's goning to need a real friend....probably sooner than later too.
I love the way you write...btw :)
meno- It really would be a surprise. But, as I love the man, I won't put it past him.
tt- Matt is thirty and just starting to emerge out of the closet. At least Brucie has the advantage of being born in to a world 20 years friendlier toward gays.
I find it ironic that you just wrote about this after the drama I alluded to in my last post. See, it involves a man whom I was interested in (and I assumed to be interested in me) who became involved in an illicitly gay act after many inclinations that he and I might start a relationship.
I'm not sure how I feel about gay Christians, or how homosexuality should be viewed from a Christian standpoint. I'm a follower of Christ, and I also have many friends who are gay. I can't bring myself to think that they need to deny their inclinations in order to be safe from eternal damnation. I'm not sure if I believe that lifestyle is a sin or not.
I was also unsure whether I could be in a relationship with someone who was/had been gay, because I felt like the other party would never be fully satisfied. And yet I found myself in that situation. My normally low self esteem has dropped even lower. I can't compare to a man. If that's what he is attracted to, than I'm doomed.
I wonder if his attraction to this man and his transferred affections deal with his internal struggle, or society's insistence that this type of exploration is accepted and encouraged, or his own self-esteem issues, etc. I think he needs to be true to himself, but I wish he was also true to me.
Why is it that lines of infidelity are sometimes blurred when it comes to matters of sexual orientation?
That kid sounds wonderful. I wish I could adopt him. If he can overcome Christian resistance to gays, he's going to be a fantastic adult. I hope you do keep in touch with him and tell him he's a great person.
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