I Hate Everyone, Except You(37)
RENéE: How does it feel to be the first gay man running for president?
ME: I’m pretty sure a couple of gays have run or maybe even been president. I’m just the first to admit it. That being said, it feels fine. I could do without the e-mails telling me God hates me.
RENéE: Does that happen?
ME: I’ll get one tweet a month or one Facebook message where some asshole is quoting Leviticus to me and telling me I’m going to burn in hell. I don’t believe in hell, so I’m not too worried about it. It’s like someone saying to me, “You’re gonna go to Wally World.” Um, no, that’s from a movie, dipshit.
RENéE: Does religion not play a big role in your life?
ME: It doesn’t. I don’t really see the point, to be honest. I can have a relationship with God without all the middlemen. If I shut my eyes and say, “Hey, God, thanks for all the good stuff around me,” what difference does it make if I’m in a church or on the subway? Did you know I’m kind of obsessed with the New York City subway system? There are few things in life that make me as happy as seeing an Arab, some Hasidic Jews, assorted blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, gays, and European tourists peacefully coexisting on an uptown express train in the middle of the afternoon.
RENéE: When did you realize you were gay?
ME: Hmm. I can’t point to any moment in particular. But I do remember not feeling quote-unquote “normal,” whatever that means. Just less aggressive, drawn more to the beautiful things in life. I remember being around seven years old and throwing rocks in our suburban neighborhood. That’s what kids, boys especially, did back then, roam around looking for things to do and throw. The rule was be home before it gets dark. Can you imagine telling your child that now? You’d be shamed out of suburbia. But it was a different world. The entire neighborhood was the playground, with mothers everywhere keeping eyes on kids who were not necessarily their own. At one point—it must have been early summer, because I wore jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, I remember it clearly—I found myself atop a mound of dirt. Which seemed substantial to me at the time, but may have only been a few feet high. The boys were throwing rocks into a nearby bush, and so I picked up some rocks and began to do the same. “Why are we throwing rocks into that bush?” I asked one of the other kids. “Because there’s a rabbit in there,” he said. Horrified, I dropped the rocks I held in my hand and ran down the dirt mound and stood in front of the bush. I threw my hands in the air, waved them the way one might surrender to opposing forces, and yelled, “Stop! You might hurt the rabb—” when a rock hit me so hard over the right eye that I fell back into the bush and blacked out.
When I came to, maybe five minutes later, my eye was filled with blood. I closed it and looked to the mound of dirt, where a half-dozen boys had been standing, and saw that it was now empty. It was the first time I had ever felt profoundly alone, deserted. I rose to my feet, my head aching and my stomach wobbly, and heard the pack of boys yelling. They were coming my way with my mother in tow. “Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Kelly,” they yelled. Because she was Mrs. Kelly then. “Clint’s eyeball’s hanging out.” And I had an image of myself as a deformed monster, my beautiful blue eyes, which even complete strangers complimented me and my mother on, were ruined forever. Terri grabbed me by the shoulders and looked at my face. “Is my eyeball hanging out?” I asked. “No,” she said, “but you’ve got a bad cut. I’m taking you to the emergency room.” “I was trying to save a rabbit,” I said. She was holding my arm as we walked through the neighbors’ backyards to our house. “Well, now you’re going to the hospital,” she said.
I didn’t know if she was mad, inconvenienced, or frightened. Maybe a combination of all three, plus some emotions I wasn’t yet aware of. Anyway, that was probably when I realized I wasn’t like the other boys. But of course it wasn’t sexual back then. I don’t think I was sexually attracted to men until high school. Not that I acted upon it. That didn’t happen until college in Boston.
RENéE: Do you think the country is ready for a gay president?
ME: Hell no. [laughs]
RENéE: What’s so funny?
ME: It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? The country would go apoplectic. People talk about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Damon and I are completely monogamous, but a heterosexual couple can swing every weekend, and somehow their marriage is more sacred in the eyes of God than mine. I’ve got a real problem with Chinese restaurant–style religion. “I’ll make two choices from Leviticus and three from Deuteronomy, and ignore the rest because they inconvenience me.”
RENéE: That probably won’t endear you to a substantial portion of the American electorate.
ME: Probably not.
RENéE: So what do you think your chances of winning are?
ME: I’d calculate them to be somewhere in the neighborhood of zero. But if I really thought I’d win, I wouldn’t run. That job’s gotta suck. I’d like to go to bed now if that’s OK with you.
RENéE: Sweet dreams, Mr. President.
YOU YOUNG, ME RESTLESS
The bare masts of sailboats rock back and forth in Biscayne Bay like metronomes keeping different tempos. The sky is clear, thank God, except for a few puffy clouds to the south. It’s been raining for days, making me grumpy as hell. I’m hopeful my foul mood will lift today, but I’m not placing any bets; it’s only eight o’clock in the morning. From my seat at the table—Damon usually sits to my left, but he’s not here now—I look directly out the sliding glass doors of our terrace into the tops of palm trees. Sometimes an iguana riding the fronds will stare back at me, but not today. To my right is an unobstructed view of the water and, across the bay, the cranes that relieve the enormous flat-decked cargo ships of their burdens in the port of Miami.