I'm From Driftwood

(TRIGGER WARNING: Racist slurs, Homophobic slurs; Violence; Bullying)

by Tirrell Thomas

The rocks flew alongside forced laughter.

“You can’t hit me.” It was a declaration and prayer.

What began as a daily “game” during recess sometimes got scary. I would stand on one side of the haphazard concrete area that was also known as the basketball court and a group of my “friends” would stand on the other side holding rocks, but only for a little bit. It was imperative for me to dodge flung rocks and hurtful slurs with laughter and jeering. If I slipped up and was hit it was my fault. What other choice was there but to brush it off? It builds character, builds a thick skin—builds that wall that you need to survive in a rural town in the Arctic. It wasn’t like I could run away either, unless my goal was the other side of town. There are no roads in or out of Kotzebue. The only ways in or out are jets and planes, which sometimes couldn’t land due to weather and boats in the summer or snow machines in the winter. Isolation at it’s finest.

But it was fun. I had fun. I had a lot of fun. I played a lot of… games… growing up. When I wasn’t dodging rocks, I was racing friends home. The objective: not to get caught. It was turned into an adult version of tag, with more extreme consequences. So you might see me running on dusty roads, laughing, hanging on to the only element I had control over, my delusions. Outrunning my pursuers, I was hyped up on adrenaline, the sugar from the soda I just drank and a dash of fear. Those were the spurs and I had foam in my mouth, which was smiling.

And when it wasn’t a physical battle there were verbal matches of slurs and insults. That’s where my book smarts rescued me. I made it hard for those calling me “fag” or “nigger” to continue insulting me when I was throwing words they hadn’t even heard of into their ears. Because on top of hanging out with too many girls, not wanting to hunt and fish with the guys, and the plain fact that I liked guys, I was not full Inupiaq Eskimo. Or even half, so most people felt the need to remind me that I didn’t look like them. I wasn’t physically strong enough to stand up against them, so I used my words, and not my best ones to fight back. It wasn’t noble, it wasn’t brave, but it was all I had at the time. So I used the looks of confusion I received as leeway to scurry home while they scratched their stone heads. My verbal prowess reached the point to where my cousin was like a boxing manager for me, a really bad one. He would bring me over to a group of people who had been talking bad about me, he’d then tell me what they said and then just step back to watch and laugh while I raged. I was just that good.

After, I’d trudge home from school, down the one paved road to the three-story, egg yolk-yellow apartment building I lived in, spent. Mentally exhausted. I’d then continue trudging down the hallway, go into my room, pick up a book and reenter the comforting world of my delusions.

Everything will be better tomorrow. It was promised.

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by Jeremy Cauffman

I grew up in Fish Lake, Indiana. Where the population never quite reached 800. What was once a summer destination for Chicagoans to flee from the sweltering heat during the 60′s was now a dying village during the early 80′s. You would think that being from such a small town that anyone displaying any gay characteristics would have it rough. Yet living in such a small town sheltered me from homophobia and the stigma of being gay. I was living in a bubble. I was who I was without hesitation. I remember as early as kindergarten having a crush on a set of twins that were in my class. When the other children would be drawing pictures of cats and big yellow suns I would draw pictures of me and the twins living in a castle high in the mountains with our hoard of Popple minions. When I would bring my masterpieces home my mother would proudly display them on the fridge. I would play secretary with my cousins and asked Santa every year for a Barbie because I was jealous of all the girls in the neighborhood that had one. Unfortunately Santa believed that dolls where for girls and fire trucks were for boys. Still none of that was strong enough to penetrate my bubble.

It wasn’t until 6th grade when I had to be bused into the city to attend middle school that I began to become aware that what I acknowledged as being normal was anything but what others considered to be normal. During Sex Education week my entire class was brought into the auditorium to watch a film about the differences between boys and girls, our changing bodies and a very rudimentary explanation of  sex and the consequence of not practicing safe sex. The consequences being unplanned pregnancies, being considered unclean in the eyes of God and STDs that involved an array of bodily discharges. Suddenly there was a male couple holding hands marching down the street with other men holding hands. What was this? I became very interested. Then it happened. A portion of the film was dedicated to AIDS, which at the time was still largely believed to be a disease that only gay men could contract. As I watched the men marching with picket signs pleading for help from this horrible disease a large number of the class began to chuckle. I believe that was the first time I can recall ever hearing the word fag. POP! My bubble had burst. There it was looking me right in the face. “I am gay.” I began to sweat as fear began filling every part of my body. I was so glad that the lights were dimmed otherwise everyone would have noticed that I was blushing in a panic that I would soon be outed, labeled and subsequently judged by my classmates. When the lights came back on I was no longer the same boy that had entered the room. I was now a boy who had to pretend to be someone I was not.

After a year of feeling as though I was living a lie I had finally had enough. I might not have been ready to tell the world, but I needed to tell someone. It was a Friday morning as I was walking to school with my best friend Melissa that I decided today was the day. I would tell Melissa that I am gay. If I couldn’t tell my best friend who could I tell? As we were walking Melissa could tell that something was up. She kept asking me “what is wrong, did I do something?” I explained to her that I had a secret I needed to tell her, but I would tell her after school. I figured that way if things didn’t go the way that I imagined, I wouldn’t have to face her again until Monday. Tuesday if I could convince my mother that I was sick. Something that I had become an expert at. For the remainder of the day Melissa kept trying to guess what it was. Are you moving? Are your parents getting a divorce? Did someone die? By 5th period English class I knew that when the time came there would be no way I would be able to find the courage to utter the words “I am gay.” Even to my best friend. I decided to write her a note and pass it off to her after class. At that point I only had band practice between me and the end of the school day. I pulled out a piece of paper from my trapper keeper and began to think of a way to finally come clean about my big secret. Not being one to sugarcoat things, even in the 7th grade, I simply wrote “I’m gay” in the middle of the paper. I began folding the note, sealing my fate with every fold. It was then that I caught the eye of my teacher. “Jeremy is that a note that you are writing? You know the rule, bring it to the front of the class and read it.” My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. I thought I was going to pass out. I could just lie and pretend to read words that were not really there. Saving myself from the humiliation of the truth and the inevitable name calling from my fellow classmates. As I stood there staring at the class I realized that I was done lying. I was done pretending to be someone that I was not. It was time to stop living in fear. “I am gay!”

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by Robyn S. 

When I was small, I practiced kissing with other girls.  But everyone did, and I never thought much of it.  I kind of hated girls.  They picked on me, and I always seemed to be one step behind their styles, their jokes, and their interests.

I was in 10th grade, and I realized one day that a girl I knew was gay.  It just kind of hit me – I knew why she talked that way, why she walked that way, why she was so loud sometimes, and so quiet other times.  She was gay, and she knew it.  Wow.  Being gay was a real thing. Anybody could be gay, I could be gay.  Yup, I could be….and the next day I just was. I tried it on walking down the halls, tried on the gay hat, and it fit. Ellen’s character came out later that year, and I watched her show with interest. By the end of the school year that girl and I were both out, and it turned out we had a couple of fag friends too.  We were the gay kids, and we were a clique just like other cliques, going to parties, pretty normal stuff.  I finally told my parents a few years later, they were cool.  I kept it secret from them because I was 15 and I didn’t really want them to know anything about me.  Such is the life of the teenage girl I guess.

My wife and I were married in 2005; we got engaged in 2003 right when all the legal stuff was going down in Canada.  We were in our early 20′s, apolitical, and not really paying attention.  We got engaged because that was what people did after being together for a while. No big deal.  Our wedding was small, our parents danced all night.  It was really nice.

Now my wife is pregnant, and we are expecting our first baby any day now.  We are in our early 30′s, and it was just time to make babies – we asked a pal who happily carted his porn over to our house, and donated some sperm.  We will be mommies soon and we can’t wait.

I have been so lucky.  To be born in a big city, surrounded by support, growing up at a time when our society was growing up too.  I’ve never really experienced homophobia, and my biggest concern is whether I will be mommy or momma in the years ahead.  For folks reading this who live in smaller closed-minded places, who live in fear or shame, my heart goes out to you. For those a bit older than me, I am grateful that your struggles have made my journey so smooth, and I try my best every day to make the road even more clear for the next generation.

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by Bella Gambino

(TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, Child Abuse)

Mommy bought me a new Barbie bed yesterday. She said if I was good I could go out and play. She told me if I was good, I could have the doll house to match.

She left me alone with her new friend. I didn’t like him and didn’t want to pretend. So I went to my room and played with my toys. He came and sat down and asked if I liked boys. I shake my head no and go to my own world where I dreamt of being with a girl. He didn’t like my answer very much. He calls out to me but I pretend not to see because Momma never allowed stupidity. I’m so afraid. He makes a mess. Mommy’s going to be mad.

“You’re not my dad!” I screamed.

He blacked out and was mean. I peed on myself. As he entered me, I was looking at him like a deer caught in headlights. He snatches me up. Mommy’s going to be mad. Those were brand new. Instead of stopping he only pursues. Mommy probably won’t notice or care that there’s blood everywhere.

“Mommy! Mommy!” I scream.

Stop.

Fast forward.

Then rewind.

Two years later I’m in intense therapy playing care-free because Mommy loved a man more than she loved me.

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NOTE: Bella’s story was collected during ‘Sylvia’s Place Week’ in 2009, when I’m From Driftwood dedicated a week to stories from LGBTQ youth at Sylvia’s Place, an emergency night shelter and daytime community space for homeless LGBTQ youth, ages 18-24 years, in New York City.

by Alex G.

My first kiss wasn’t on my fifteenth birthday. It wasn’t with my girlfriend in my bed. It was on the last day of Reading Buddies in second grade.

I was partnered with a first grader, and I can’t remember her name now. We were all saying our goodbyes, and I felt this overwhelming want. I didn’t know that it was wrong, that it was taboo or abnormal. I had always been an affectionate child. All I knew was, I really, really wanted to kiss her. She was adorable, from what I remember. Blond hair, a big bow, a happy laugh. I pulled her over to the side, both of us giggling. Then I leaned down, and kissed her. I don’t think anyone saw, we were out of the line of vision of the PTA crowd. Later, circa third grade, my next door neighbor and I played doctor (with my new doctor set). I was listening to her heartbeat, and I wrapped my fingers around the tiny stethoscope to feel her pre-pubescent breast. She pushed me away and called me a word that I had never heard, and didn’t know what it meant.

“What’s lesbian?”

“When a girl wants to kiss another girl. It’s a sin.”

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by Christopher T.

I first realized that I was attached to guys in my first year of primary school, at about 5 years old. It was during an afternoon playtime and someone suggested that the boys should try and catch and kiss one of the girls.

Tina was the prettiest girl in the class; she was blond with blue eyes. I discovered that I didn’t want to be kissing her but rather I wanted to be kissing Paul who was also blond with blue eyes.

So, we all ran around trying to catch a girl to kiss, except I was doing my best not to catch a girl and was doing really well until a girl called Margret caught me and tried to kiss me. I pushed her away.

When I got home from school, I told Mum and Dad about what happened and they laughed and Dad told me that when I got married I’d have to kiss girls. Even at 5 I had a smart mouth because I told him that if I had to kiss girls, I’d never get married.

And, I haven’t.

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by Jake Halbert

I was just a typical five-year-old kid on the playground, like many others, with no particular direction in life, or so I thought. That was, until I wanted to be involved in an innocent game of “house.” Many children do it. There is a mom, and a dad, and a sister, brother, dog, etc. to make up your “family” and go about your “day” at recess. I wanted to be the dad, but the thing is…I didn’t want a wife. I wanted for my best friend to also be the dad. Easy enough? Right? Two dads couldn’t hurt! Well, it worked just fine until our recess teacher caught wind of our playground shenanigans. She confronted us with apparent rage and demanded we disband our game. I asked her why my idea was so bad, and she just told me plainly then and there: “It’s just wrong. Two daddies can’t be married.” Being five, I wept. I’d realized something that would play a seriously significant role in my life. I was different. And this was bad. But as I grew, I developed my understandings of life and became very comfortable living with the innocent open-mindedness of my five-year-old self, which is fine with me. My experience taught me a lot throughout the years about opposition and individuality. I am proudly the person I am today because of it. And I can’t wait to play real “house” with two daddies.

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by Frances

It is my dad’s 36th birthday and I am holding a cardboard box that is moving. He’s on the phone —he’s often on the phone—but the night’s plan has no room for interruptions. My present has begun to open itself.

This is the first living thing that I’ve ever been able to present to anyone, and my hands are shaking when my Dad says, into the phone, “Oh, they got me a kitten.”

Someone names the kitten Pete because that’s what he looks like, and I become absorbed in his habits. I am shocked by the functionality of the litterbox. I learn what “neuter” means.

Pete’s home and mine is on a jagged hill of subdivision houses, so heavy on lifted foundations and skylights that you’d imagine there was a beach nearby. There is no beach nearby. The cliff behind our house, carved out by construction workers only a few years before, overlooks the main stretch of road, named after a civil war battlefield. I spend afternoons watching traffic and rolling rotten vegetables from our garden into the street below. Pete prefers to plunge himself rear-first down the cliff’s edge, feigning panic by wagging his paws, crustacean-like, towards the nearest shrub. He is always very close to landing on his feet.

But we are at our best when we’re indoors, doing what I call “making a picture.” We’ll curl up together next to a pile of laundry we’ve just folded; on the edge of a carpet we’ve vacuumed; or on a couch with neat stacks of bills lined up on the edge. We’ll pretend to sleep and lie in wait for my parents to come home and see us, Pete and me.

We are friends, and we are afraid for each other. Every evening we find one another at the back door, and check to see that we are still Here. I begin reading stories about pioneer children taking their dogs to their one-room schoolhouses and I wonder how I can lobby for a bigger backpack.

And then Pete is gone.

Afternoons go by. My brother and I put up flyers on signposts and my parents start giving each other meaningful looks. On the seventh day, my dad wakes us up early to tell us that he and my mother have found Pete dead on the side of our subdivision’s main road. They’ve buried him. They show us the shovel. I feel hollow and excited. I want the phone to ring and for it to be a celebrity who will have sensed the profoundness of our loss and will offer the kind of weighty condolences that can only come from repeated rehearsals. Both of my parents cry.

After that we have cat years and non-cat years. There’s no cat the year I begin to get a murky sense of something that I can only then see as an irrevocable liability, a big gay cloud on the horizon. When that feeling comes, it makes me think of what Pete must have seen coming. My sense of tragedy is the slow inevitability of a four-door sedan going the residential speed limit into a body that can do nothing to save itself.

And when the thickness of that fear gives way, I’ll listen and hear the thin walls of our house adjust like the shaking of a cardboard box. And it’s then, with no sense of panic aside from a slight trembling in my hands, that I am desperate to allow myself to be given away.

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by Jessica Max Stein

I drove past the house this weekend. Some goateed stout guy I’d never seen before sat on the front steps nonchalantly reading a magazine. The nerve of him, the trespasser, sprawled out on our front steps like he owned the place.

But, of course, he did own the place, now. The thought was a punch in the gut.

Six months ago, my dad sold the house where I grew up. I have been surprised at the depth of my feelings of loss. I wonder how much my experience of growing up queer there intensifies the transition.

The house is a brick colonial in Rust Belt suburbia, on a street canopied by maple trees. A great place to be a kid, wearing whirligig maple keys on the end of your nose. Not such a great place to be, shall we say, a righteous babe.

In 1993, after the big gay march on Washington, some friends and I started a gay student group at Niskayuna High School, in Schenectady, New York. We called the group Visibility. Little did we realize how visible we’d be.

A lot of people gave me a hard time for being queer (gay, feminist, outspoken, what have you) in high school. There were a lot of incidents: I was name-called, prank-called, chased home, I ran away from home for three days (to New York), I violated the school attendance policy in one of my classes and was nearly held back, the principal accused me of falsifying complaints “to further your cause” – oh, I had a hell of a time. I was pretty much always scared and no one took it seriously.

Near the end of senior year, in June 1995, I was walking after dark, just a block from our house, when a car sped up and came towards me. I switched to the other side of the road, but the car swerved right at me, the guys in the car screaming at me – “DYYYKE!” I ran behind a tree, and they sped off.

I made the Great Queer Migration to New York City just two months later, or as soon as I possibly could, and have lived here ever since, ensconced in my big queer tribe.

It’s a common queer narrative, from Molly Bolt to Michael Tolliver: Queer person flees small town, migrates to big city, finds tribe. How ironic to think that in growing up small-town queer, so often in apparent isolation, we are actually participating in collective, community experience.

After my own migration, I held onto my anger for a long time. I used to wish my family would sell the house and start over in a new town. A decade ago this would have been a dream come true.

But I kept visiting. Mostly I went for my mother – for many years she struggled with breast cancer, and by 2000 it was vastly easier for me to come up than her to come down. As we kibbitzed at the kitchen table, or stood together on the back porch watching a thunderstorm, I found myself glad to be there. And when she passed away in 2003, and my father called to ask me how to use the microwave, I visited to be with him.

I started to revisit some of my old nature haunts, all within hiking distance of the house. I learned to recognize the birds – a raucous crow, a whistling chickadee – that before had been just background noise. I strolled along the Mohawk, swimming in a secret cove as New York City sweated out another record-breaking heat wave.

And I came to remember: before I hated Schenectady, I loved it. I loved it back when it was all I knew, and now I loved it knowing what else was out there. Maybe this sounds corny, but it wasn’t; it was work, and it was worth it.

And that’s what irks me about the queer migration narrative: I don’t hear any healing in it, just fleeing. What about what we leave behind, back home?

Just as I learned to love my hometown, our family left. I feel like I showed up just as the party let out – compounding the loss of the house, the memories let loose. If leaving had felt like a choice, would I have an easier time now, saying goodbye?

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by Marie P.

I knew I was gay by the time I was 4 years old.

My mother basically did the best she could but most times that wasn’t very much. Although I had two older half siblings I felt like an only child because my half siblings were taken away from our mother and full custody was given to their biological father. My mother was incapable of parenting most of my childhood and was constantly taking off for weeks or months. Fortunately, I had aunts while not perfect, cared enough about me to take me in each time mother “went away.” I was especially close to my aunt we will call Tina. Aunt Tina was so kind hearted and soft spoken she just emanated a maternal Aura to anyone who met her. I was living with her at the time when I was four years old. We lived in a low income rough part of town in government subsidized apartments.

I made a friend with a boy who was nice and my same age. One day while playing in the complex we walked by an apartment with black trash bags over all the windows. I made a comment about why someone would use black trash bags as curtains. My four-year-old friend just nonchalantly says it’s because a ladyman lived there and some people in the complex were mean to the ladyman and liked to look through their window and call them names. I didn’t know what a ladyman was but I was furious and heartbroken that whatever ladyman was people were mean to ladyman for no reason.

That evening while eating dinner I asked my Aunt Tina what a ladyman was. She asked if this was regarding to the tenant in 6B. I nodded my head yes, secretly worried I was about to get in trouble for asking as it all seemed so taboo. Aunt Tina compassionately explained that tenant 6B was born different and was born part boy and part girl and I shouldn’t use the term ladyman. The correct name is a hermaphrodite and that was the way God made him and God doesn’t make mistakes (Her intentions were good) and I was to never ever join the other kids who threw rocks at his/her windows or yell nasty names at him. I listened to her every word…after all she is explaining what is wrong with me. I am a girl who wanted to grow up to kiss other girls so in my limited four year old logic, it’s because I must be a hermaphrodite too and it’s just the half boy in me that wanted that.

Days later while again playing with my friend I proudly proclaimed to him that I was a hermaphrodite and when I grow up I will kiss lots and lots of girls (I made true on that one!). He shrugged and that was that; back to the monkey bars. A few days after this I ran to catch my friend on his way across the complex. After finally catching up with him (I was yelling his name but he was running away looking back at me) he finally stopped and stood dead still. I asked why he did that and I saw his eyes tear up as he just stood there looking down he said softly while trying to hold back his tears he sadly choked up the words, “My mama said I can’t be friends with you anymore that you’re not a hermitbite that you’re just a queer. I told her I never saw you do queer stuff but she wont let me be your friend.”

My little naive heart broke right then and there. I whispered okay and started the long walk home crying. Why would Mrs. A say that about me? Was I such a monster I shouldn’t have friends? What is a queer and how the hell did I become one? How did she know I was a queer? Was there a “queer mark” on the back of my legs or somewhere I couldn’t see?

I ran through the door sobbing clinging to my Aunt Tina. I finally calmed down enough to tell her someone thinks I’m a queer and I don’t know what that means but I know it’s something awful. She stroked my hair and soothingly shushed me and held me close until I could calm down and catch a normal breathing pattern again. She sweetly told me queer is a mean word some mean people use to call gay people. So now I don’t know what gay means but by the tone of my Aunt Tina’s voice and the non hateful way she talked about it, it must mean it’s not a bad thing. Days later I met a new neighbor who had a home phone (early eighties in low income housing; they were more rare than you would think) and phoned my brother and sister as I did as often as I could find a nice neighbor who didn’t mind letting a strange young child occasionally use their phone to make a collect call every couple weeks.

During that call I asked my wise older sister what gay meant and she explained in a non-hateful way that it’s just boys who want boyfriends and girls who want girlfriends.

Ohhhhhhhh….

Things started making sense and I pondered this new “gay” thing some people do, for days. Finally I deducted that I am in fact a girl who does the gay thing. That night after dinner I told my Aunt Tina I needed to tell her something. I was finding it hard to say it because I wasn’t sure what her reaction would be and even at that young age I knew she was all I had. If I lost my Aunt Tina I wouldn’t have anyone. I would be forced to stay in those awful foster homes. For whatever reason I HAD to tell her. Even going another day just wasn’t an option. So after trying to say it and failing I asked her to come inside my homemade tent I called Planet Protect-ton (don’t ask) and in Planet Protect-ton as she knew, the rules were people were not allowed to get mad and stop loving people.

Sitting in her lap, arms held tightly around her neck, face buried snug into her neck I quietly said, “I’m a gay person.” Tears falling down my face I braced for the impact…

She took an extra large and deep breath in and what felt like minutes but instead was mere seconds, she exploded…into laughter. Like from the gut head back laugh. I was so completely confused by this action. There was only 2 possible reactions for her to have and this wasn’t one of them. I raised my head to just look at her but her laugh was so infectious I couldn’t stop myself from giving in and laughing with her. We say there in Planet Protect-ton laughing as heartily as our lungs would allow and without any inhibition for minutes. Finally Aunt Tina catches her breath and wipes away laughter tears and sighs and said, “Oh sweetheart…you don’t know what gay means. When you get older you will learn and you will laugh so hard at this story.”

Letting the last few leftover chuckles she had in her escape her while she put her hands on the sides of my face and gave me a kiss on the forehead and climbed her way out of Planet Protect-ton I sat in the planet alone. Unable to move. Unable to understand what had just happened.

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