The Hidden Kingdom

It was really hard for Jonas to say exactly when he knew he was gay. He just always was. He never made that transition from girls being those others we don\'t want to touch because they had cooties to those others we really want to touch because they have boobies. Later, the same guys he\'d played pick-up games and Smear the Queer with on the playground were the ones he thought about as he laid awake nights exploring his changing body. (Smear the Queer- isn\'t that ironic?) So, he dated girls all through high school because that\'s what you did. They liked him because he was handsome and athletic and he had a reputation as a nice guy, one you could have over for dinner to impress your parents with how much you weren’t still dating that hooligan that kept you out all night and nearly got you suspended from school. Jonas was a good friend and a good decoy for lots of girls.

Then, on the day that they graduated from high school, his friend Suzzy, who\'d never tried to kiss him, even though they got on so well, pressed a book-shaped present into his hand and made him promise to open it only when he was safely alone. His curiosity burning, he kept his promise and waited until after he went to his room that night and he was sure his mother was asleep. (She still checked on him at least twice before she went to sleep each evening. He was her baby after all.)

After he ripped open the thick paper and read the title, a hot flash swept over him. Suzzy knew he was gay! Suzzy knew he was gay and wanted him to do something about it. He\'d never said a word. He\'d been too scared of it to, even to her and they had been best friends ever since he\'d given Jimmy Laradino a black eye for calling her Fuzzy Suzzy in the seventh grade because she had short-cropped hair. Somehow, she saw it on him, saw it in something he did or said. Shit! Did everyone know? Had his mother guessed? Oh God! Had his father guessed? Was that why he\'d left before Jonas could even walk? No, that was stupid. Nobody saw it on him. Suzzy just knew him- knew him really well.

He took a few deep breaths. Well really, it was a bunch of hyperventilating, followed by a few deep breaths to keep from passing out, hitting his head as he fell and remaining unconscious until morning when his mother would find him, bleeding on the floor, with a book on homosexuality in his hands, causing her to die of shame on the spot. Then when one of the neighbors finally found their bodies days later, they\'d be all over the headlines, remembered as gay family tragedy. He couldn\'t have that on his conscious.

He cursed Suzzy\'s goddamn name, locked his door, sat on the bed and cracked the binding. Inside the front cover, Goddamn Suzzy had left him a note:

Joey,
This is me, too. Call me tomorrow.
Love,
Suzzy

Nobody else was allowed to call him Joey but his mother, his mother and Goddamn Suzzy, who thought she was his mother. Goddamn Lesbian Suzzy, who, if she was true to form, was going to make him face this, even if it killed him. Goddamn, he loved her.

So, in the morning he called her and they met at Loco\'s Diner for lunch and talked for hours about how hard it was that they were different and how scared they were of telling anyone else, because aside from each other, they didn\'t know anyone who was different the same way that they were. Sure, there were lots of homosexuals in California or New York, but in rural Kansas, it seemed like they were pretty sparse.

Suzzy was determined to both come out to her parents by the time she left for Harvard and find herself a girlfriend by Christmas. Jonas was pretty shaky on the whole coming out thing. He couldn\'t imagine how his mother would react; she was so religious. Then again, she\'d never said anything disparaging about gays and had sent money in to the Matthew Sheppard Foundation because, it was, \"just terrible what happen to that beautiful boy.\"

Suzzy made him promise to think hard about if his mother would want him to keep lying to her for the rest of their lives, or deal with the fact that grandchildren were pretty far out of her grasp. She did have a good point. His mother wasn\'t the type who\'d kick him out or stop speaking to him. She was more the type to drag him down to see Father O\'Brian so he could talk about the right path and resisting temptations of the flesh. And, it would hurt her more to find out that he\'d lied to her for years while he built a life with someone she thought was just his friend than him being honest with her now would.

It took him until the end of August. He tried to tell himself that waiting for the first tuition check to Kansas State to clear was not part of it, but maybe it was a little part. He was packing for the trip and his mother kept showing up with some new essential he needed to fit into his suitcases or she\'d worry about him having enough sweaters or underwear or toilet paper. It was reassuringly annoying that she was so anxious about him leaving. It made his fears about college seem silly. His fears about telling her he was gay, on the other hand, were making it hard to breathe. She came back into his room again and he was expecting the kitchen sink.

\"Joey, sweetie,\" she always called him that, even when she was yelling at him to clean up his plate or his room or his language, \"Joey Sweetie, I want you to take these with you, too.\" She held out a plastic bag with the name of the pharmacy in town on it and a small box inside it. He took it from her.

\"Mom, you already gave me that great big first-aid kit. What else could I need?\" Then he looked in the bag. Shit. It was condoms. \"Oh, uh thanks,\" he muttered.

\"I know you probably don\'t want to talk to me about,\" she lowered her voice to a whisper, as if the neighbors might hear, \"sex,\" she continued closer to her regular volume, \"but, your father\'s not here, so I\'m what you get. Do you have any questions?\"

\"Questions?\" Shit, it was now or never. \"Not really any questions, but,\" he took a deep breath, \"but there is something we should talk about.\"

\"Okay, Joey Sweetie, what do you want t-\"

\"I\'m gay,\" it popped out of him of its own accord.

\"Oh.\" She sat on his bed.

\"Mom, you okay? I\'m sorry I didn\'t mean to say it so bluntly. I just . . .\" He didn\'t know how to finish that sentence, so he didn\'t. He just sat down on the bed beside her.

\"I know; you were nervous. You always blurt when you\'re nervous dear. I\'m used to it,\" she told him.

\"No I don\'t.\"

\"Yes, Joey Sweetie, you do. That\'s all right; it just means you\'ll always be honest. It\'s a good thing. Honesty is a good thing.\" She repeated. She seemed to be trying to reassure herself of the rightness of the ninth commandment.

\"Mom, are you all right with this? I know I never gave any indication before.\"

\"Joey Sweetie, I love you.\" She stopped and blew her nose. She was going to cry. God, why didn\'t he just keep his mouth shut? Why didn\'t he just lie to her? Why didn\'t he just like girls? If there had been a girl there right then he\'d have kissed her, just to keep his mom from crying. \"Joey Sweetie, I love you, no matter what. You were honest, so I\'ll be honest too. I\'m not happy about this. It\'s a hard life you\'ve chosen.\"

\"Mom, I didn’t choose, I\'ve always been this-\"

\"Joey Sweetie,\" she interrupted fiercely, \"I\'m not talking about choosing. I\'m talking about dying. There are people out there who\'d kill you just for, just for loving someone they don\'t approve of, and then there\'s AIDs and other diseases and- Oh sweetie, I just don\'t want you to face all that.\" She broke into tears and melted onto his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, relieved that her upset was about wanting him safe and whole and not about him being different. She still loved him. Even though her crying was awful, he was relieved.

Suzzy called that night to give him her number at Harvard and he told her the whole story. Then she told him about how she\'d chickened out on her plan to tell her parents right before boarding her plane that morning. \"God, Joey, I can\'t believe you\'re braver than I am,\" she\'d said before hanging up. Brave? He didn\'t feel brave, he kind of felt like a heel, selfishly making his mother cry about something he\'d never even done yet.

Things were okay in the morning. His mother made him a really big breakfast, as if he might not see food for days. Then, they packed the car and set off. They didn\'t talk much. She let him pick the radio station, so he picked easy listening instead of the rockabilly he liked just to make her more comfortable. She kept looking over at him as if she was going to say something either profound or shocking, but she never said it, whatever it was.

Once they got to campus, they let the tasks of finding his dorm and getting him settled distract them. Then they were hugging goodbye and she was crying again, which wasn\'t nearly as bad as it had been the day before because at least half of those tears were just because he was her little baby all grown up and leaving home.

\"Make me a promise, Joey Sweetie. Promise me you\'ll be careful.\" And, he knew that she was talking about him being gay just by the tone of her voice.

\"Mom, of course I will.\"

\"No, I\'m not just talking about AIDs. Although, you had just better be careful about that, I will not outlive you, young man, do I make myself clear?\"

\"Yes, ma\'am. I promise.\"

\"That\'s a good boy, but that\'s not the promise I\'m looking for. I need you to be careful with your heart. You\'re young and trusting, you always have been trusting, and a body can get carried away with things. Just try to make sure you take your time. Make sure he\'s special. Make sure he\'s a good man.\"

\"I promise Mom,\" he told her and then they were both crying, which would have been bad two days earlier, but he was gay now, he could cry all he wanted.