Confusion and uncertainty was what I came to know as I tried to juggle and process these feelings I had with my innate ability to see the unseen and interact to some degree in what seemed like a one way street. I saw them, the others from the invisible realm they controlled everything else. I had no power, I had no way to escape or manipulate the situations in which we seemed to meet and clash. I knew that I had been told my faith would see me through any tough situation and since I went to church three times a week and I prayed often, attended several modes of bible study as well as went door to door to preach the "good news" or even woke up two hours earlier on school days and preached at the local Brentwood train station. I knew that had to account for something, I mean God was the reader of hearts was he not? I must have been defective, something was wrong with me. I was not good enough. This is what I learned.
The unseen encounters did not go away. It was a part of who I was. My friends had come to know this about me and most ignored it while others were intrigued by it. I was simply trying to get by being normal as possible.
My mother often reminded me that she too was hip to the notion of the unseen world and that which became visible at times in this one. Let me delve into the sensitive subject of my spiritual gifts and their parallel with my sexuality.
Part of my understanding of myself extended into other areas of my life, that shaded augmented understanding that included the awareness of my "differences". I was still living at home in my late teens and I was not comfortable to discuss my sexuality with anyone I lived with. My parents were severely homo phobic. Puerto Ricans of a certain age and time where gays were seen as problematic as drug dealers, prostitutes and other stigmatized groups. I played the game, I was friends with the most beautiful of girls, I made out with a few, I had sex with some when their straight boyfriends left for the night. I connected to women intimately, they were always holders of safe space for me to just be and likewise I provided the same safe haven for them. Even if that was physically it was an honor to be allowed into the safest place they could offer, their body. However, I always felt off ... I couldn't put my finger on it but something was always missing in the sexual exchange. Sure we both got off, sure we both had inflated egos as we got each other to climax. Something never felt right, it was sexual and highly charged but it was plutonic at most. I might as well gave just made them a sandwhich and enjoyed the notion of them enjoying its consumption. I longed to explore my sexuality, to kiss the boy to perhaps interact intimately the way I was with my lady friends. This will however be discussed in another essay.
When I was 17 years old (or so) I had started volunteering at a local LGBT community Center in Bay Shore. I met this whit boy named Michael. He was Italian, he was short, he had thick ass glasses but decent frames, he was cocky in the weirdest way that blended with a street edge that both annoyed me and attracted be thoroughly. One night after my volunteer shift was over he asked to hang out with me. After cleaning up the youth center we had went to the local diner, and spent time walking the main street of Bay Shore. Some where in our play fighting banter he leaned in real close and kissed me. It was my first kiss with a boy. His lips were much softer than I thought they would be he acted like it was no big thing. Something he needed to do and get off his chest or out of his system. For me I was mesmerized and elated, someone wanted to kiss me. ME? I remembered everything about that moment, what cars were parked, what color his shirt was, what he smelled like.. This I lived on, a brief memory of something wonderful I shared with a boy I thought was attractive and actually found me attractive. For once I wasn't the fat kid who was chill to hang out with and laugh, I was actually attractive to some one. This was semi short lived as I got home that evening and my mother was up in her vata (house coat). She was sitting in the kitchen sipping tea and reading something. When I walked through the door, she looked at me shrewdly and put down her reading material. She said to me, " David you need to be careful in these streets late at night. I had a 'dream' that some white boy was all up in your face. He had thick glasses a red shirt and you were out in the street and I couldn't tell if he was up in your face to fight you or something else.."
MY jaw dropped! I stammered briefly but laughed her off and told her she was crazy and funny, that I knew how to take care of my self if I needed to. I walked up to my room to be paranoid. My mother was in East Brentwood I was all the way in central Bayshore and no way she would be out the house spying on me or anything, especially since she didn't drive. This was another one of her clear and concise visions, she either saw what me and Michael were actually doing or it was not as clear as she admitted to receiving the vision.
In my sexual exploration I had hid many things, sex toys, detailed notes some may have wrote me and I kept... my mother would find these things and be upset because I was harboring "immoral things" under their roof. What she did not realize in her anger was something she admitted to while lost in emotion, "THEY kept telling me.." and then the sentence would end in "To look in your third draw behind your underwear" or "in your closet behind the shoes you keep in the back". Whoever "THEY" were, they were mighty talkative and nosey as hell. I knew better than to question her in these moments and most times I could not or did not want to bring up whatever incurred her wrath.
Once I was in Mount Vernon hanging out with a fellow band mate and friends, and it was late. Hours where parents slept and their semi grown children tip toed quietly getting dressed or allowing guest in to use the bathroom as we made our way out to hang. My friends and I went to his cousins house and we waited in the dark entry way of what would have been the living room. The light shone from his room which was several feet away and only slightly illuminated the room in which we stood. My friend excused himself to use the restroom, I was left alone waiting in the living room while the cousin was changing in his room. That is when this old lady short in stature, with white cropped hair, red wool knit cardigan and blue jeans walked through the living room past me and into the lit hall way. In mid stride she turned her head my way making eye contact with me but never said a word to me. When my friend and his cousin had come back to the living room I turned to the cousin and said, " Yo, I think we woke your moms or someone." He looked puzzled. With a face that showed confusion he responded, "What moms? What are you talking about?" I was now battling my own confusion, I know what I saw. So I said, "Yo, the short old lady in the red sweater and blur jeans that just walked through here a few minutes before and walked into that room next to yours. I think we woke her or something." He visibly blanched a bit. He turned on the living room light and said, " No woman lives here other than my folks." He grabbed a pic that rested in the corner and handed it to me, it was a picture of a little white old woman that was wearing that red cardigan and smiling. Justified and satisfied I looked at him and said, "Yes this is her. She just walked through here and gave me this look. What you mean she don't live here and you giving me her pic." He took back the pic and placed it back, and looked at me a bit haunted when he responded, "That was my grandmother she used to live here, but she died a few months back." That was enough for all of us we decided to leave the apartment that now felt spooky. We never talked about it again.
My mother and I was very close. I mean I was the baby, I was left home more with my mother than my siblings who were so higher up in age that they were hardly around if they even lived with us. In several moments in which we talked very little about the paranormal we would breeze by some interesting conversations. She would tell me about the world she came from which was riddled with spiritualism and Santeria. She has run ins with spirits and the people that worked with them. She would get upset and fearful all at once when mentioning them. She would continue to tell me how the Devil and his demons would often come and bother people who were right with God. The more right you are with God the more these things bother you was the advice I was often given. I would try to pry as to why she had dreams and why she could predict so many things so accurately and she would dodge alluding to the fact these things still bothered her up until this day and told her things every now and then. So that what she thought "THEY" were... demons bothering her with information she would or should not have been privy to. The best example of this I could share in which we both experienced things together. We had got invited to a funeral by a cousin of mine. He was her brothers son and he had lost his wife/Girlfriend. My mother, father and myself stepped into the funeral home for the wake and instantaneously the room felt foggy and heavy. I can only describe it as atmospherically thick, dense where it took effort to just breathe let alone walk through the midst of it. Our heads were both light and we were dizzy and at one point reached out and grabbed each others hands at the same time. She looked at me and me at her and I asked, "Do you feel that?" She nodded and she tried to shake it off both mentally and physically. It did not let up until we got outside shortly afterwards and left. Asking her about it while waiting outside as my dad brought the car around, she just hushed me and told me something bad was there and those who could sense it were effected by it.
Between being gay and being able to see, feel or interact with these things my perception of anything remotely spiritual or my relationship with God all I knew was that I was plagued. Different. Bothered. I could not quite figure it out but all my senses and flags flared up. This could not be right. On one hand it didn't feel right but on some level it sounded like it could be correct. This was all the start to soul searching that was much needed. Who were these "THey" for me? Why was I being plagued? If going to church all these times and the name of God being muttered around me didn't clear the air then perhaps these weren't the demonic forces my mother said they were. Perhaps there was more to this story. It was time to consider differently.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
The unseen part II #52essays2017 week 3
Having shared a bit of my experiences with the unseen and the unknown, I knew to fully tackle the subject matter I would have to break up the many experienced into two pieces. This is essentially a piece about young helplessness and introduction to faith and fear. It took a while to get there but you can see the various struggles as I navigated through the feelings having a connection to the unknown and unseen.
This second piece leaves me at a state of innocence and naivete where I am still too young to focus on what was actually happening to me and reacting on pure instinct alone. My parents knew that a small two bedroom apartment was not ideal for four growing children so with much determination and several hours of overtime my father was able to start looking at houses in Long Island. They decided upon a house in Brentwood, Long Island. I was about five years old or so and it was summer. I could not tell you the joy as I looked around the yard and stood under a tall pine that stood proud and tall on one side of the yard and a medium sized evergreen on the other. There were about three bright yellow flowered forsythia bushes that lined the driveway, and rhododendron bushes that hugged the house budding magenta and white flowers. The smell of lily of the valley that were planted by the main stoop. Grass everywhere, green and crab grew without end. The back yard was big as well and empty with some birch trees and hibiscus flowers growing randomly along the fence that separated our property from the neighbors. There was a small deck outside that extended 3/4 from the back sliding glass door and was rickety and worn. Wild grapes grew along the fence and deck and jutting from the small corner between the deck and the fence that separated the front yard from the back, was a mulberry tree.
The house was a double ranch and had a kitchen, a dining room and living room, a master bedroom, a standard bedroom and a bathroom all on the first floor. Up stairs the Attic was turned into two bedrooms one with a crawl space that acted as a closet and the other with a standard closet. This house also had a full basement the length and width of the hole house, this is where the washer machine and dryer were and more storage space.
This was our new home. This was that safe space. My parents got acquainted with the local Jehovah witnesses and located the then nearest congregation which was on Beaverdam rd off of route 111/ Islip ave. We were warmly welcomed and everything was cake. This all felt surreal and new and I was too young to appreciate anything other than the new spacious home and my ability to have my own space and bed and the option to play in a yard. Sounds fantastic, right? Yeah, more like Phantasmic.
I was sleeping in one of the upstairs rooms and the closet door/crawl space would often creak and open. This was an attic and so although freaked out sometimes in the night with that sort of movement and sounds, I could always fall back on the wind which my parents always explained was the reasoning. This I could rationalize to some degree and find rest as needed. What I could not rationalize was the cold darkness that seemed to come alive at night and the sleep paralysis I would experience that rendered me useless and fright filled. I would often find myself aware of my surroundings could see wherever my eyes roamed and sometimes even see me laying in the bed freaking out as though another part of my consciousness was viewing me from atop. That's right folks, I was floating above myself looking at my self. Where they do that at? Apparently my room.
Having my wits about me I tried to utilize the remedy my parents had instilled in me, this was prayer. Praying to Jehovah that would stop demons, which is what I was told were responsible for all these supernatural events. James chapter 2 verses 19 "For there is one God, the very demons know this and tremble at the sound of the name." Sometimes, some very rare times it worked. I would call upon the name which blurted out in an incoherent mumble and sometimes the feeling would recede and I would be able to move. Other times it did nothing but further amuse the very thing responsible for holding me down, I knew this because sometimes I would here a guttural unnatural laughter that mocked my attempt to call on anything.
This is where I realized that God may not have been there for me. May not have been what I thought he was in regards to these things. This was a lot to ponder and mentally marinate as a young child.
The basement. That horrible, horrible place of which nightmares are born and horror movies are fashioned after. That basement I still shudder when I think about it. See my mother believed if I was high enough to reach knobs and tell colors from whites, I could do laundry. She would have be bring down the basket full of dirty clothes separate and start loads. This was fine, it was going down those stairs and feeling the ominous presence of things moving but unseen. Often while I was pouring detergent into the cap, or placing clothes in the dryer I would sense movement from the corner of my eye only to see the tail end of some ones garment as they turned the corner of now empty doorway. Or that peripheral vision where you could clearly see the image of someone you could identify key characteristics of, but when you turned your full attention to they would be gone. Particularly the skinny white man with long stringy shoulder length brown hair, porn-stache and gray quarter fur coat with brown fitted bell bottoms. Yes that man who watched me as I did laundry and practically leered at me only to dissipate before my eyes leaving me wondering if I ever saw him in the first place. Then there was the clothes hanging in storage moving and swaying on the line where no wind or breeze could be felt as if someone moved amongst them. The sound of feet pitter pattering around you and box lids moving, with no one you could catch with the naked eye.
Throughout the years with turn around in the house hold as siblings moved out and moved on I was able to switch bedrooms. This was a room previously occupied by my sister. This room always had a heavy feeling, while there I wanted to seclude myself from everyone. Doodle on paper, listen to music but not leave the confines of that space. This room was were constant apparitions would visit me. The old man in white robes and flowing beard, reminiscent of the character Saruman the white of Lord of the Rings. He would smile in the corner and extend a hand towards me as he came to my bedside, in greeting or just to touch I could not tell you as everything in me crawled up a wall and I screamed, cried, and prayed for him to go away. Sometimes in his place would be this little pale skinned girl with the blondest of hair and the frailest of looks. She would sit there looking innocent and yet wise beyond the years of any child I would consider a peer. There was the hunched over dwarf like man with rotten and snaggled teeth who would twirl his long beard around his finger and snicker as he stared at me. There was an instant these entities woke me up to the sound of screaming, I could tell it was my mother. She cried for help and screamed in agony, I got out of my bed to inspect and follow the source of sound only to find that my room no longer had a door I was surrounded by only four white walls.
Oh I was not the only one, my mother would often have insane nightmares of which she would wake up screaming and fighting the air. She would often scream in the middle of the night where she would describe a big man standing in the closet with the face of a rottweiler or large dog black dog. My mother once left the house anxious as we left for church one night. MY father asked her what was wrong and she said she had a disturbing dream early in the day that loud rock music was playing and three white men were rummaging through the house. Cabinets were open and things smashed and littering the floor. She couldn't shake the feeling but we went to church anyway. When we got home after that service, the neighbor flagged us down as we pulled into our driveway. Mr. Nixon, the neighbor across the street, had stopped a burglary in action at our home. He heard loud rock music and saw three white men who parked an unfamiliar van by our house and who walked into our back yard where they stood for awhile. He pulled out his firearm and followed their route around back and found they had broken in to the house and were throwing things about looking for valuables. He pointed his firearm and chased them out of the house. So as my mother had dreamt, this all came to pass.
My parents could not relay any further insight into what the super natural occurrences or strange events that transpired exactly were. They could only classify it as demonic and pray it away or ignore it, as if acknowledging it gave it some power. I could not help but acknowledge it, it was happening to me on an almost constant. I knew that God had it in for me, whoever this Jehovah was he might have needed a hearing aid or maybe I needed to do some extra activities in the kingdom hall so that he would respond to my prayers and pleas for help. So, I began to delve into this strange relationship with this supreme being who I couldn't see who had the power to stop the entities I sometimes saw or who effected me most but who wouldn't always show up when called. How's that for a toxic relationship with the Divine? Fear and faith and the fight as they coexisted in the same space. Until part III my peoples, this will continue.
This second piece leaves me at a state of innocence and naivete where I am still too young to focus on what was actually happening to me and reacting on pure instinct alone. My parents knew that a small two bedroom apartment was not ideal for four growing children so with much determination and several hours of overtime my father was able to start looking at houses in Long Island. They decided upon a house in Brentwood, Long Island. I was about five years old or so and it was summer. I could not tell you the joy as I looked around the yard and stood under a tall pine that stood proud and tall on one side of the yard and a medium sized evergreen on the other. There were about three bright yellow flowered forsythia bushes that lined the driveway, and rhododendron bushes that hugged the house budding magenta and white flowers. The smell of lily of the valley that were planted by the main stoop. Grass everywhere, green and crab grew without end. The back yard was big as well and empty with some birch trees and hibiscus flowers growing randomly along the fence that separated our property from the neighbors. There was a small deck outside that extended 3/4 from the back sliding glass door and was rickety and worn. Wild grapes grew along the fence and deck and jutting from the small corner between the deck and the fence that separated the front yard from the back, was a mulberry tree.
The house was a double ranch and had a kitchen, a dining room and living room, a master bedroom, a standard bedroom and a bathroom all on the first floor. Up stairs the Attic was turned into two bedrooms one with a crawl space that acted as a closet and the other with a standard closet. This house also had a full basement the length and width of the hole house, this is where the washer machine and dryer were and more storage space.
This was our new home. This was that safe space. My parents got acquainted with the local Jehovah witnesses and located the then nearest congregation which was on Beaverdam rd off of route 111/ Islip ave. We were warmly welcomed and everything was cake. This all felt surreal and new and I was too young to appreciate anything other than the new spacious home and my ability to have my own space and bed and the option to play in a yard. Sounds fantastic, right? Yeah, more like Phantasmic.
I was sleeping in one of the upstairs rooms and the closet door/crawl space would often creak and open. This was an attic and so although freaked out sometimes in the night with that sort of movement and sounds, I could always fall back on the wind which my parents always explained was the reasoning. This I could rationalize to some degree and find rest as needed. What I could not rationalize was the cold darkness that seemed to come alive at night and the sleep paralysis I would experience that rendered me useless and fright filled. I would often find myself aware of my surroundings could see wherever my eyes roamed and sometimes even see me laying in the bed freaking out as though another part of my consciousness was viewing me from atop. That's right folks, I was floating above myself looking at my self. Where they do that at? Apparently my room.
Having my wits about me I tried to utilize the remedy my parents had instilled in me, this was prayer. Praying to Jehovah that would stop demons, which is what I was told were responsible for all these supernatural events. James chapter 2 verses 19 "For there is one God, the very demons know this and tremble at the sound of the name." Sometimes, some very rare times it worked. I would call upon the name which blurted out in an incoherent mumble and sometimes the feeling would recede and I would be able to move. Other times it did nothing but further amuse the very thing responsible for holding me down, I knew this because sometimes I would here a guttural unnatural laughter that mocked my attempt to call on anything.
This is where I realized that God may not have been there for me. May not have been what I thought he was in regards to these things. This was a lot to ponder and mentally marinate as a young child.
The basement. That horrible, horrible place of which nightmares are born and horror movies are fashioned after. That basement I still shudder when I think about it. See my mother believed if I was high enough to reach knobs and tell colors from whites, I could do laundry. She would have be bring down the basket full of dirty clothes separate and start loads. This was fine, it was going down those stairs and feeling the ominous presence of things moving but unseen. Often while I was pouring detergent into the cap, or placing clothes in the dryer I would sense movement from the corner of my eye only to see the tail end of some ones garment as they turned the corner of now empty doorway. Or that peripheral vision where you could clearly see the image of someone you could identify key characteristics of, but when you turned your full attention to they would be gone. Particularly the skinny white man with long stringy shoulder length brown hair, porn-stache and gray quarter fur coat with brown fitted bell bottoms. Yes that man who watched me as I did laundry and practically leered at me only to dissipate before my eyes leaving me wondering if I ever saw him in the first place. Then there was the clothes hanging in storage moving and swaying on the line where no wind or breeze could be felt as if someone moved amongst them. The sound of feet pitter pattering around you and box lids moving, with no one you could catch with the naked eye.
Throughout the years with turn around in the house hold as siblings moved out and moved on I was able to switch bedrooms. This was a room previously occupied by my sister. This room always had a heavy feeling, while there I wanted to seclude myself from everyone. Doodle on paper, listen to music but not leave the confines of that space. This room was were constant apparitions would visit me. The old man in white robes and flowing beard, reminiscent of the character Saruman the white of Lord of the Rings. He would smile in the corner and extend a hand towards me as he came to my bedside, in greeting or just to touch I could not tell you as everything in me crawled up a wall and I screamed, cried, and prayed for him to go away. Sometimes in his place would be this little pale skinned girl with the blondest of hair and the frailest of looks. She would sit there looking innocent and yet wise beyond the years of any child I would consider a peer. There was the hunched over dwarf like man with rotten and snaggled teeth who would twirl his long beard around his finger and snicker as he stared at me. There was an instant these entities woke me up to the sound of screaming, I could tell it was my mother. She cried for help and screamed in agony, I got out of my bed to inspect and follow the source of sound only to find that my room no longer had a door I was surrounded by only four white walls.
Oh I was not the only one, my mother would often have insane nightmares of which she would wake up screaming and fighting the air. She would often scream in the middle of the night where she would describe a big man standing in the closet with the face of a rottweiler or large dog black dog. My mother once left the house anxious as we left for church one night. MY father asked her what was wrong and she said she had a disturbing dream early in the day that loud rock music was playing and three white men were rummaging through the house. Cabinets were open and things smashed and littering the floor. She couldn't shake the feeling but we went to church anyway. When we got home after that service, the neighbor flagged us down as we pulled into our driveway. Mr. Nixon, the neighbor across the street, had stopped a burglary in action at our home. He heard loud rock music and saw three white men who parked an unfamiliar van by our house and who walked into our back yard where they stood for awhile. He pulled out his firearm and followed their route around back and found they had broken in to the house and were throwing things about looking for valuables. He pointed his firearm and chased them out of the house. So as my mother had dreamt, this all came to pass.
My parents could not relay any further insight into what the super natural occurrences or strange events that transpired exactly were. They could only classify it as demonic and pray it away or ignore it, as if acknowledging it gave it some power. I could not help but acknowledge it, it was happening to me on an almost constant. I knew that God had it in for me, whoever this Jehovah was he might have needed a hearing aid or maybe I needed to do some extra activities in the kingdom hall so that he would respond to my prayers and pleas for help. So, I began to delve into this strange relationship with this supreme being who I couldn't see who had the power to stop the entities I sometimes saw or who effected me most but who wouldn't always show up when called. How's that for a toxic relationship with the Divine? Fear and faith and the fight as they coexisted in the same space. Until part III my peoples, this will continue.
Monday, January 9, 2017
To see the unseen Part 1 #52essays2017 week 2
Paranormal activity. This was the theme of more horror movies, some TV shows, and even some ghost hunting shows. People going out of their way to substantiate their experiences of the "other worldly." I believe it links to a part of ourselves that fears and is in awe of the unknown. I think back to the ancestors who saw the night sky and limited glow of moonlight to illuminate their darkness. The awareness there were things beyond the flicker of the fire light that may or may not be predatory. Things that may have been corporeal or ethereal but either way, real.
Lately within the least 10 years or so I have the seen the very repetitious trend in cinematography. People, places, and things being haunted by some malevolent being and trying to survive the encounter if not the whole movie. I often joke, "Paranormal activity? Yall better stop playing! I grew up in paranormal activity." Allow me to explain I promise this should not be too scary, well for some.
My earliest memories of seeing what others could what others wouldn't rather than couldn't was four years old. At this time we were a family of 6 living in a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom in Astoria Queens near Ditmars. I can recall the lay out of our home even from 4 years old. Front door you entered was a small highway with a bathroom and master bedroom to the left of the door and the other bedroom to the immediate right across the hall. Further right past the bedroom was the living room and kitchen. My brothers slept in the bedroom right to across from the door in bunk beds, my sister and I slept on the pull out couch bed. I can remember vividly breaking my leg when my eldest brother, Eric let me down from his shoulders and on to the slate stone steps. I remember my leg facing dangling abnormally from my knee down. I remember being rushed into the gold Pontiac grand a my father drove and the many hard stops and near accidents as I was rushed to the ER. I remember the moments when I was at the local kingdom hall my parents attended that had a bight mural painted of a paradise scene on the wall heading to the bathroom. Why was I headed to the bathroom in some of these memories? Well I was an active little bad ass who didn't listen and I would be escorted to the bathroom for that Pow Pow... ask any Puerto Rican what pow pow is and you they will fill you in on that. I say all this to really give you an idea of how vivid some of my memories from old were, in hopes to lend credence to what I am sharing as my experiences.
First thing I remember was the movie Troll coming out in theatres, I believe 1986 or so. I was a very verbose young lad and I spoke and reasoned fairly well. I wanted to go to the movies so bad having all this energy and wanting to leave the confines of our apartment so I requested of my mother that I wanted to see this movie. She tried to dissuade me with warning that I would have nightmares and she did not want to contribute to that. I begged and pleaded and convinced her that I was old enough and I really wanted to see this movie. She gave in. WHY LORD, WHY DID SHE GIVE IN? That lil creature scared the Buh-Jesus out of me. So much so that night I could not sleep, I felt so uneasy about the dark living room with only the light from the street lamp shining through the window pain and into the living room amongst my mothers tall lush house plants. What I saw then would stick with me forever, hence my abhorrence for all things troll like to this very day. Amongst my mothers plants, I saw movement. This was not the flitter of something scurrying across the leaves. This was something behind the bush-like plants that shook all the foliage. I then saw a small brown and hairy hand creep out with an oily sheen and claws, pull back some of the foliage only to unveil a troll like creature whose facial features were illuminated by the street light glow. This was the ugliest creepiest things I ever seen in my 4 years I was mortified and transfixed. Every instinct in me screamed to run and to hide, but fear froze me in my place and I took in the creatures snaggled sharp teeth and its grotesque and elongated nose and pointed elf -like ears. He smiled at me, but this was a mirthless smile devoid of any joy. This was malevolence incarnate, it was a smug sinister smile which promised by demise and discomfort. The troll moved closer to my sister who lay sleeping next to me, facing me in her deep slumber. The creature began to slowly and gently pet her hair as it continued looking into my eyes smiling its gruesome smile. It then grabbed her hair and yanked. My sister woke up with a scream, the spell was broken I threw the blankets over my head and hid. My sister was irate blaming me for waking her up and pulling he hair. I began crying, I tried to convince her I could not have pulled her hair from the opposite side of her without having reached over her or gotten out of bed to stand behind her. She was so angry and nothing I said would or could make sense to her. I was reported later to my mother and reprimanded but this was my first encounter with the unseen. No one believed I saw what I saw, this was a product of my imagination. No it wasn't.
That same apartment, my bothers were out and so were my parents. I was left in the care of my sister who was old enough to watch me. She had took notice of the time and while on the phone talking to her friend had started to run my bath. She called me in the bathroom but me sensing a lack of any true authority decided to mess with her. I ran into the bathroom and got naked only to psyche her out and run away from her last minute out of the bathroom and back out into the living room where our pull out bed was already awaiting us. My sister who remained in the bathroom yelling for me, while balancing the phone on her shoulder pressed to her ear and feeling the water for the best temperature, had left her chanclas (slippers)by the bed side and her vata (night gown) folded on the bed right above that. This was normal for her, as she was quite orderly. What was not normal was her vata was standing straight up as if the air around it formed a body that now wore the flowing material. The vata stood straight up inhabited and adorning some unseen entity and if this was not enough to make me yelp the chanclas started to walk towards me as the vata moved in tandem. Something in the vata was walking towards me, something I could not even see... I yelped, shrieked, Mariah Carey'd whatever you need to call it and ran back into the bathroom where I jumped my little brown ass into the tub with such gusto. I shocked the shit out of my sister, she asked me what was wrong but I refused to talk to her about it. No one would believe me anyway.
Thirst encounter in that same apartment, I had been put to bed and this really meant I was restless and it was time to put my ass down somewhere so my parent and family could get things done without me running around and having to be watched so thoroughly. I sat in bed trying to get tired, but found my eyes just focused on the room and every little detail I could. The light from the kitchen was on and so this was not the limited light provided by outside street lamps and/or moonlight. This particular evening my attention was bought to the living room window that led to the fire escape. On the fire escape was some movement. This was a man in a trench coat and fedora. I could see no specifics of what he wore or the color of his clothes. This was a shadow with the shape of someone with the silhouette of which most pronounced was the long coat and the hat. The man was ascending the stairs slowly and stopped by my window to turn in my direction briefly, and then continuing his next few steps to continue his ascent. I screamed and pointed, "The man on the fire escape. There is a man climbing, looking at me through the window!" My father ran out the our front door and up the last flight upstairs that led up to the roof to see what pervert or creeper was up there. He found no one. NO one on the rooftop or the fire escape. He came downstairs baffled thought I was lying or making fun to keep myself occupied, but my mother consoled me and my father popped in Mannequin. I loved this movie and I watched Kim Cattrall and the fabulous Hollywood, played by Meshach Taylor transform and light up the screen. This was how I eventually calmed my nerves and fell asleep.
My mother later corroborated the apartment in Astoria felt off. She said she first new something was up because about a week before she had a vivid dream of climbing these slate stairs up a few stories and stopping in front of this door. She described the dream to my father and told him she would know our next living space when she saw it. The last look for apartments on that day and my mother said she saw those slate stairs and all her hairs on her body stood up. She followed and counted the steps and stories only to know when her and the land lord would stop, and in front of which door. She had already dreamed this place. She further decided to tell me of the weird happenings she experienced there. Our Chihuahua, pebbles would wake up from a deep sleep only to start growling at the door. The growling would in turn wake up my mother and she would see the door handle of the room, turning. This would be ok or less spooky if everyone in the apartment wasn't already asleep. She would get up to yank open the door and face whoever might have been trying... only to find dead air there. The dog continued its growl sensing something that could only be felt and not seen. My mother would pray out loud to Jehovah her God and tell whatever was there it had no power there and had to go... sometimes this worked and sometimes this didn't. The other memorable account was when my mother was in bed one Saturday morning and heard me giggling and saw me run past her bedroom and into the bathroom. She said she remembered my red shirt and the heard the door of the bathroom close rather forcefully. She was up at this point but laid in bet a bit longer waiting for me to come out the bathroom and maybe even enter her room and stay with her a bit. She said she waited a while and nothing, she got up and went to the bathroom and knocked. No one answered, and so she turned the knob and pushed the door open only to find the bathroom empty. This confused her, she went to check on me and I was fast asleep on the pull out with a blue shirt on.
As you can see early on in my life my interactions with the spirit realm were too frequent for my taste, I didn't know it then but my mother was experiencing the same experiences. She would tell me to ignore these instances and to pray them away. This was the only way she knew how to deal with the unseen, or allowed herself to acknowledge their existence as it pertained to her and her home. She tried to pass this method on to me, however this did not work for me. Oh but that is a whole other essay of how I began to further experience and see the unseen. Expect a part II next week, I promise it gets a little worse before it gets better.
Lately within the least 10 years or so I have the seen the very repetitious trend in cinematography. People, places, and things being haunted by some malevolent being and trying to survive the encounter if not the whole movie. I often joke, "Paranormal activity? Yall better stop playing! I grew up in paranormal activity." Allow me to explain I promise this should not be too scary, well for some.
My earliest memories of seeing what others could what others wouldn't rather than couldn't was four years old. At this time we were a family of 6 living in a 2 bedroom apartment with one bathroom in Astoria Queens near Ditmars. I can recall the lay out of our home even from 4 years old. Front door you entered was a small highway with a bathroom and master bedroom to the left of the door and the other bedroom to the immediate right across the hall. Further right past the bedroom was the living room and kitchen. My brothers slept in the bedroom right to across from the door in bunk beds, my sister and I slept on the pull out couch bed. I can remember vividly breaking my leg when my eldest brother, Eric let me down from his shoulders and on to the slate stone steps. I remember my leg facing dangling abnormally from my knee down. I remember being rushed into the gold Pontiac grand a my father drove and the many hard stops and near accidents as I was rushed to the ER. I remember the moments when I was at the local kingdom hall my parents attended that had a bight mural painted of a paradise scene on the wall heading to the bathroom. Why was I headed to the bathroom in some of these memories? Well I was an active little bad ass who didn't listen and I would be escorted to the bathroom for that Pow Pow... ask any Puerto Rican what pow pow is and you they will fill you in on that. I say all this to really give you an idea of how vivid some of my memories from old were, in hopes to lend credence to what I am sharing as my experiences.
First thing I remember was the movie Troll coming out in theatres, I believe 1986 or so. I was a very verbose young lad and I spoke and reasoned fairly well. I wanted to go to the movies so bad having all this energy and wanting to leave the confines of our apartment so I requested of my mother that I wanted to see this movie. She tried to dissuade me with warning that I would have nightmares and she did not want to contribute to that. I begged and pleaded and convinced her that I was old enough and I really wanted to see this movie. She gave in. WHY LORD, WHY DID SHE GIVE IN? That lil creature scared the Buh-Jesus out of me. So much so that night I could not sleep, I felt so uneasy about the dark living room with only the light from the street lamp shining through the window pain and into the living room amongst my mothers tall lush house plants. What I saw then would stick with me forever, hence my abhorrence for all things troll like to this very day. Amongst my mothers plants, I saw movement. This was not the flitter of something scurrying across the leaves. This was something behind the bush-like plants that shook all the foliage. I then saw a small brown and hairy hand creep out with an oily sheen and claws, pull back some of the foliage only to unveil a troll like creature whose facial features were illuminated by the street light glow. This was the ugliest creepiest things I ever seen in my 4 years I was mortified and transfixed. Every instinct in me screamed to run and to hide, but fear froze me in my place and I took in the creatures snaggled sharp teeth and its grotesque and elongated nose and pointed elf -like ears. He smiled at me, but this was a mirthless smile devoid of any joy. This was malevolence incarnate, it was a smug sinister smile which promised by demise and discomfort. The troll moved closer to my sister who lay sleeping next to me, facing me in her deep slumber. The creature began to slowly and gently pet her hair as it continued looking into my eyes smiling its gruesome smile. It then grabbed her hair and yanked. My sister woke up with a scream, the spell was broken I threw the blankets over my head and hid. My sister was irate blaming me for waking her up and pulling he hair. I began crying, I tried to convince her I could not have pulled her hair from the opposite side of her without having reached over her or gotten out of bed to stand behind her. She was so angry and nothing I said would or could make sense to her. I was reported later to my mother and reprimanded but this was my first encounter with the unseen. No one believed I saw what I saw, this was a product of my imagination. No it wasn't.
That same apartment, my bothers were out and so were my parents. I was left in the care of my sister who was old enough to watch me. She had took notice of the time and while on the phone talking to her friend had started to run my bath. She called me in the bathroom but me sensing a lack of any true authority decided to mess with her. I ran into the bathroom and got naked only to psyche her out and run away from her last minute out of the bathroom and back out into the living room where our pull out bed was already awaiting us. My sister who remained in the bathroom yelling for me, while balancing the phone on her shoulder pressed to her ear and feeling the water for the best temperature, had left her chanclas (slippers)by the bed side and her vata (night gown) folded on the bed right above that. This was normal for her, as she was quite orderly. What was not normal was her vata was standing straight up as if the air around it formed a body that now wore the flowing material. The vata stood straight up inhabited and adorning some unseen entity and if this was not enough to make me yelp the chanclas started to walk towards me as the vata moved in tandem. Something in the vata was walking towards me, something I could not even see... I yelped, shrieked, Mariah Carey'd whatever you need to call it and ran back into the bathroom where I jumped my little brown ass into the tub with such gusto. I shocked the shit out of my sister, she asked me what was wrong but I refused to talk to her about it. No one would believe me anyway.
Thirst encounter in that same apartment, I had been put to bed and this really meant I was restless and it was time to put my ass down somewhere so my parent and family could get things done without me running around and having to be watched so thoroughly. I sat in bed trying to get tired, but found my eyes just focused on the room and every little detail I could. The light from the kitchen was on and so this was not the limited light provided by outside street lamps and/or moonlight. This particular evening my attention was bought to the living room window that led to the fire escape. On the fire escape was some movement. This was a man in a trench coat and fedora. I could see no specifics of what he wore or the color of his clothes. This was a shadow with the shape of someone with the silhouette of which most pronounced was the long coat and the hat. The man was ascending the stairs slowly and stopped by my window to turn in my direction briefly, and then continuing his next few steps to continue his ascent. I screamed and pointed, "The man on the fire escape. There is a man climbing, looking at me through the window!" My father ran out the our front door and up the last flight upstairs that led up to the roof to see what pervert or creeper was up there. He found no one. NO one on the rooftop or the fire escape. He came downstairs baffled thought I was lying or making fun to keep myself occupied, but my mother consoled me and my father popped in Mannequin. I loved this movie and I watched Kim Cattrall and the fabulous Hollywood, played by Meshach Taylor transform and light up the screen. This was how I eventually calmed my nerves and fell asleep.
My mother later corroborated the apartment in Astoria felt off. She said she first new something was up because about a week before she had a vivid dream of climbing these slate stairs up a few stories and stopping in front of this door. She described the dream to my father and told him she would know our next living space when she saw it. The last look for apartments on that day and my mother said she saw those slate stairs and all her hairs on her body stood up. She followed and counted the steps and stories only to know when her and the land lord would stop, and in front of which door. She had already dreamed this place. She further decided to tell me of the weird happenings she experienced there. Our Chihuahua, pebbles would wake up from a deep sleep only to start growling at the door. The growling would in turn wake up my mother and she would see the door handle of the room, turning. This would be ok or less spooky if everyone in the apartment wasn't already asleep. She would get up to yank open the door and face whoever might have been trying... only to find dead air there. The dog continued its growl sensing something that could only be felt and not seen. My mother would pray out loud to Jehovah her God and tell whatever was there it had no power there and had to go... sometimes this worked and sometimes this didn't. The other memorable account was when my mother was in bed one Saturday morning and heard me giggling and saw me run past her bedroom and into the bathroom. She said she remembered my red shirt and the heard the door of the bathroom close rather forcefully. She was up at this point but laid in bet a bit longer waiting for me to come out the bathroom and maybe even enter her room and stay with her a bit. She said she waited a while and nothing, she got up and went to the bathroom and knocked. No one answered, and so she turned the knob and pushed the door open only to find the bathroom empty. This confused her, she went to check on me and I was fast asleep on the pull out with a blue shirt on.
As you can see early on in my life my interactions with the spirit realm were too frequent for my taste, I didn't know it then but my mother was experiencing the same experiences. She would tell me to ignore these instances and to pray them away. This was the only way she knew how to deal with the unseen, or allowed herself to acknowledge their existence as it pertained to her and her home. She tried to pass this method on to me, however this did not work for me. Oh but that is a whole other essay of how I began to further experience and see the unseen. Expect a part II next week, I promise it gets a little worse before it gets better.
Monday, January 2, 2017
I remember #52essays2017 week 1
It is so funny how life continues forward in its momentum and we can give so much power to a memory that it literally robs us of our present and possible future. I have had some memories lately that have robbed my of breath as I realized the impact they have had on me. I look now at the very notion of toxic masculinity as it applied to me indirectly. This is how poisonous this stuff is. Forget cyanide, forget lead, forget mercury or any other product you have to child proof or wash thoroughly after use. Masculinity and how it tends to be viewed is some of the most noxious material we can encounter in this world. Allow me to recount my first encounters with this harmful substance.
I remember being a child, free and authentically myself in every way despite the natural mode of development. It wasn't until I was in elementary that I realized others around me did not see me as whole or complete. I have always been drawn to girls/women for as long as I can remember. I unintentionally felt comfort in small circles of girls my age and their conversation than I did my male peers. I had zero interest in playing whiffle ball, touch foot ball, hoops, or any other activity involving running with balls and sticks just to prove how well one can compete and move amongst their peers. I much more preferred playing drawing squares on concrete and black top and play hopscotch. I had no problem turning the rope in double dutch playfully feigning indignation at anyone who would dare try and label me "Double handed." I was a pro at playing various hand games and rhymes like Numbers, Miss Mary Mack, Down Down Baby Down Down the Rollercoaster and such.. This was art. It was rhythm, and music, it was interactive without having to be competitive. You were not ridiculed for not performing well, it was teasing laughter devoid of any real malice.
This apparent joy with my female peers was a threat to the likes of my Mother, Father, Brothers and I was swiftly punished for this type of interaction. I remember my mother calling me into the house and sitting me down. Anger written all over her face as her eyebrows arched in that particular way we still joke about. Malificent eye brows, these things arched with a magic of their own. The spell they casted? Fear. My mother began to question and interrogate me as to whom I played with at school. She called over Herby, the young boy she baby sat who although was in one grade lower than mine attended my school and decided to tell my mother I was not playing with the other boys. She began to tell me how wrong I was. How little boys like me didn't play "girls games," that boys like me had to play ball and with my fellow male peers. She warned me that if she heard that I was playing with these girls during recess that I would get hit when I got home. I had not been warned about getting hit for anything unless it was something I was explained was bad and would hurt me. So this struck me as odd, as my young mind tried to grasp how playing with my friends Christina, Vanessa, Chrissy, Fran and Alexis could possibly be wrong.
I instinctually ran to my "girls" at recess only to stop dead in my tracks and remember my mothers warning. I walked over to the boys and tried to find interest as they threw balls through hoops and simultaneously dribbled this ball while running. Something that seemed intimidating and would require more hand to hand coordination that I could muster. Running and bouncing a ball in place? Sorcery I say!
Well to be honest I was not well received. These boys had already singled me out as not one of them. I was chubby and made no attempt to play with them before, why was in their midst now expecting to be embraced and or included. I heard the first insults as I could not perform as well as they did. I missed my the safety of my female friends.
I attempted to nurture back those relationships and see if I could keep an eye out for Herby, that maybe I could sneak in games with my girl friends.. Some were ready to take me back within minutes. Others, they must have got the memo from my mother or the other boys. There was no longer a place for me there, I was allowed to play but with a stern encouraging verbal nudge that I should go play with the other boys.
How did I become messed up so quick? What just happened? Were we not having fun days before? I made up my mind it was not worth feeling unwanted. I took to music and art rather quickly. These activities didn't require anyone else but me. I had a knack for doodling cartoon figures, something I picked up from my father who always sketched cartoons on everything from inlays of my children books or my cast when I broke my leg at 4 years old. Imaging my excitement as the entire cast of Fraggle Rock was drawn on my cast.Similarly my brother would sketch amazing pics of eagles and wolves and lions with a pencil. Drawing must be ok and a safe thing to do. Music was also everywhere around me. My Father had tapes he recorded at Coney Island when karaoke tapes could be recorded for fun. I can still hear his resonant baritone and sweet tenor as he sang, "Under the Broad walk. Out of the sun, We'll be having some fun." He collected vinyls that he kept in treasure chest also known as milk crates. These vinyls were our every Saturday morning soundtrack to our chores when he happened to be home and not working. These were the smooth sounds of the Delphonics, Stylistics, Dells, Temptations, The Moments, Teena Marie and Rick James, Ohio Players, OJ's, Labelle, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. My Sister like my father collected many tapes and the newest CD's. She would write and sing music in her room, she would lip synch to the likes of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Debbie Gibson, Brenda K Starr, EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Soul II Soul, Delight and other popular late 80's/early 90's artists. I could perform safely in my room and lip synch to, or try my vocals at that one song that moved me so much. Music easily trumped my desire to draw. In fact from the music I was introduced to I really loved EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Patti Labelle, Angela Winbush and Lisa Fisher. I would attempt all those high notes and to my surprise I could hit some of them and I actually sounded ok. While I was not as good as the artist I attempted to imitate I was certainly not bad.
I remember once being forced to mow the lawn, which I hated and still do hate the smell of grass which instantly reminds me of forced chores. That damn lawn mower was so loud I felt like I could sing boldly and no one would be able to hear me. Apparently not having learned how science worked, my father and brother ridiculed me for singing like a woman. They reminded me I was not a woman and singing high was unnecessary. I was told only a few men could even sing that high and it was not the norm. I was in elementary I had none of this "bass" in my voive, and singing low was not an option, but I guess these stratospheric high notes were not the "boy thing" to do. UGH, I guess I was messing up again. Doing the wrong things one more time to my parents and siblings chagrin.
Noticing that my comforts lied heavily into female peers, and female singers I remember the first time I was in my room drawing and listening to music and my father opened my bedroom door and told me to get dressed and come out side. I knew not what he wanted nor was he willing to volunteer any info on why, but I knew that I had to. I met him outside to find he had pulled our weighted portable basket ball hoop and forced me to play him. He got so frustrated because I couldn't dribble and run and I remember in a tone of exasperation he snatched the basketball from me and reprimanded me, "Stop dribbling like a faggot! Its like this, DAMN!". I flinched at his words and tone. Faggot I heard before, this was the word my mother spit out with disgust when Ricky Lake and Jenny Jones shows came on and these gay men were talking about fashion or dramatic love relationships. I was equated to that person of disgust in that moment. I was the less desirable, less than person or thing that could be called that word."
This pushed me to try to play with the boys at school and some of the boys from church... I was not going to pretend to dribble so my skill to be BIG and tall, block as many shots I can and guard the hell out of anyone I was assigned to guard to lessen their chance at scoring. I felt so embarrassed and so under the microscope. I had no desire to play these kind of games. Can I please go back to my room and draw my fave Xman, Storm? Can I please go and throw on Envogue's Born To Sing track number 9 & 10?
This awkward abuse transferred to my gym teacher as I moved into middle school. Her name was Miss Brown, she took every attempt to let me know in front of the whole class how unathletic I am. I was chubby and out of shape, I was incapable of doing anything with the ball worthwhile. She pushed this point home when one day when teaching us how to run and dribble the basketball, I in my usual ill coordination kicked the ball away from my grasp and half way across the gym. Out rang the words of the worse rhetorical question, "Whats wrong with you? Dribbling that ball like a faggot!" The boys and the girls laughed at me, I was already sweaty and out of breath. Having developed body issues from realizing I didn't look like other boys. They were lean and muscular or with minor body fat. I on the other hand always packed a little extra. These words stung as they mirrored my fathers dissatisfaction with me at our own basketball session we had prior. She cemented her disdain of me by throwing that ball into my face and into my right eye. She convinced the whole class through intimidation that she was "Passing the ball to me and I was not fast enough, or athletic enough to catch it." However, she never taught us passing at that point and I surely was not expecting it. The insult or the ball toss.
Quickly I knew more of what was wrong with me than what was right with me. I was only comfortable with male peers when I could observe them from a safe distance. This was also when I realized I watched them with a certain attention and intent that strangely made me feel flush. I hated them and was intrigued by them. They were smelly boys that repulsed me and yet I sniffed when they walked by trying to inhale their masculine scent which I was strangely attracted to. I avoided the changing in the locker room opting for the bathroom stall instead. I however, took every opportunity to catch glimpses of my peers male forms as I passed them on the way to my bathroom stall/changing room.
I then started to think, maybe I was made wrong?! Maybe I was supposed to be a girl. Girls were not as intense and foolish as the boys were. They certainly were not as disgusting. Their fashion sense was cool and although smaller or more fitted def attracted other boys... could I ever attract anyone? If I wasn't part of the boys club really, was I perhaps part of the Girls? Parents declared no pretty early on, so I discounted that. All I was sure of was I was different and I was not the "norm" I was not fine as I was, I had to be this other "son."
This had me an angry young male in a world of other aggressive young males. What I determined pretty early on as early as 4th grade was that if anyone hit me I had ton hit them back. In fact my mother instilled in me the fear of God. The threat was if I came home and she found out that someone hit me and I didn't hit them back, the moment I came home she would beat the hell outta me. This sunk in, I had to fight. Finally something I can use my chubbiness and height for. I would fight anyone that attempted to get physically harmful or maybe even verbally. If a girl hit me thinking a boy couldn't hit her back I quickly showed her I was wasn't that boy. SLAP! If a boy called me a faggot or tried to mush/push me... BAM! Punch them right in the face or a good ol fashioned body slam. This earned me quite the reputation in school. I was the jolly chubby gay kid but who would fight instantly and relatively well. Most left me alone.
This anger, this attitude effected everything as I entered the hyper feminine yet misogynistic gay scene in which there was even harder criteria to just be. You couldn't just simply be gay there were sub groups and the more you associated with your feminine side and or took a "feminine role" of receiving another male, you were the butt end of a joke or specific smirk and look. The triggers as other gay men would refer to me as "girl" and I would become irate. I was not one of the girls, school yard proved that. Parents said I couldn't even play or interact with them like that. I was a boy, at least I wanted you to believe that because if I was anything less than what was expected of me it was confirmation of my inferiority as a masculine anything. I already wasn't one of the boys but dammit if you would point that out or make me feel that any more than I made myself feel that way.
I laugh now as I realized I had been fighting for respect my whole life. Can you imagine? I was fighting to be this false idea of who I was supposed to be. I believed the story written for me by people who were not me. It took me a long time to just release the weight of the pretenses. I can be called girl and be honored that someone felt comfortable enough to refer to me as such. I didn't have to be upset at that because I loved girls, I loved women, I loved the feminine. Always have, childhood inclinations proved that. I just had to embrace me, I had to define me by allowing myself to be myself. I realized I was being poisoned and geared to resent the safety of feminine circles and concepts that I believe males severely need. Femininity is he medicine to male misogyny. So much to learn from our sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and such. That though is an entirely other essay.
I remember being a child, free and authentically myself in every way despite the natural mode of development. It wasn't until I was in elementary that I realized others around me did not see me as whole or complete. I have always been drawn to girls/women for as long as I can remember. I unintentionally felt comfort in small circles of girls my age and their conversation than I did my male peers. I had zero interest in playing whiffle ball, touch foot ball, hoops, or any other activity involving running with balls and sticks just to prove how well one can compete and move amongst their peers. I much more preferred playing drawing squares on concrete and black top and play hopscotch. I had no problem turning the rope in double dutch playfully feigning indignation at anyone who would dare try and label me "Double handed." I was a pro at playing various hand games and rhymes like Numbers, Miss Mary Mack, Down Down Baby Down Down the Rollercoaster and such.. This was art. It was rhythm, and music, it was interactive without having to be competitive. You were not ridiculed for not performing well, it was teasing laughter devoid of any real malice.
This apparent joy with my female peers was a threat to the likes of my Mother, Father, Brothers and I was swiftly punished for this type of interaction. I remember my mother calling me into the house and sitting me down. Anger written all over her face as her eyebrows arched in that particular way we still joke about. Malificent eye brows, these things arched with a magic of their own. The spell they casted? Fear. My mother began to question and interrogate me as to whom I played with at school. She called over Herby, the young boy she baby sat who although was in one grade lower than mine attended my school and decided to tell my mother I was not playing with the other boys. She began to tell me how wrong I was. How little boys like me didn't play "girls games," that boys like me had to play ball and with my fellow male peers. She warned me that if she heard that I was playing with these girls during recess that I would get hit when I got home. I had not been warned about getting hit for anything unless it was something I was explained was bad and would hurt me. So this struck me as odd, as my young mind tried to grasp how playing with my friends Christina, Vanessa, Chrissy, Fran and Alexis could possibly be wrong.
I instinctually ran to my "girls" at recess only to stop dead in my tracks and remember my mothers warning. I walked over to the boys and tried to find interest as they threw balls through hoops and simultaneously dribbled this ball while running. Something that seemed intimidating and would require more hand to hand coordination that I could muster. Running and bouncing a ball in place? Sorcery I say!
Well to be honest I was not well received. These boys had already singled me out as not one of them. I was chubby and made no attempt to play with them before, why was in their midst now expecting to be embraced and or included. I heard the first insults as I could not perform as well as they did. I missed my the safety of my female friends.
I attempted to nurture back those relationships and see if I could keep an eye out for Herby, that maybe I could sneak in games with my girl friends.. Some were ready to take me back within minutes. Others, they must have got the memo from my mother or the other boys. There was no longer a place for me there, I was allowed to play but with a stern encouraging verbal nudge that I should go play with the other boys.
How did I become messed up so quick? What just happened? Were we not having fun days before? I made up my mind it was not worth feeling unwanted. I took to music and art rather quickly. These activities didn't require anyone else but me. I had a knack for doodling cartoon figures, something I picked up from my father who always sketched cartoons on everything from inlays of my children books or my cast when I broke my leg at 4 years old. Imaging my excitement as the entire cast of Fraggle Rock was drawn on my cast.Similarly my brother would sketch amazing pics of eagles and wolves and lions with a pencil. Drawing must be ok and a safe thing to do. Music was also everywhere around me. My Father had tapes he recorded at Coney Island when karaoke tapes could be recorded for fun. I can still hear his resonant baritone and sweet tenor as he sang, "Under the Broad walk. Out of the sun, We'll be having some fun." He collected vinyls that he kept in treasure chest also known as milk crates. These vinyls were our every Saturday morning soundtrack to our chores when he happened to be home and not working. These were the smooth sounds of the Delphonics, Stylistics, Dells, Temptations, The Moments, Teena Marie and Rick James, Ohio Players, OJ's, Labelle, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. My Sister like my father collected many tapes and the newest CD's. She would write and sing music in her room, she would lip synch to the likes of Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, Debbie Gibson, Brenda K Starr, EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Soul II Soul, Delight and other popular late 80's/early 90's artists. I could perform safely in my room and lip synch to, or try my vocals at that one song that moved me so much. Music easily trumped my desire to draw. In fact from the music I was introduced to I really loved EnVogue, Mariah Carey, Patti Labelle, Angela Winbush and Lisa Fisher. I would attempt all those high notes and to my surprise I could hit some of them and I actually sounded ok. While I was not as good as the artist I attempted to imitate I was certainly not bad.
I remember once being forced to mow the lawn, which I hated and still do hate the smell of grass which instantly reminds me of forced chores. That damn lawn mower was so loud I felt like I could sing boldly and no one would be able to hear me. Apparently not having learned how science worked, my father and brother ridiculed me for singing like a woman. They reminded me I was not a woman and singing high was unnecessary. I was told only a few men could even sing that high and it was not the norm. I was in elementary I had none of this "bass" in my voive, and singing low was not an option, but I guess these stratospheric high notes were not the "boy thing" to do. UGH, I guess I was messing up again. Doing the wrong things one more time to my parents and siblings chagrin.
Noticing that my comforts lied heavily into female peers, and female singers I remember the first time I was in my room drawing and listening to music and my father opened my bedroom door and told me to get dressed and come out side. I knew not what he wanted nor was he willing to volunteer any info on why, but I knew that I had to. I met him outside to find he had pulled our weighted portable basket ball hoop and forced me to play him. He got so frustrated because I couldn't dribble and run and I remember in a tone of exasperation he snatched the basketball from me and reprimanded me, "Stop dribbling like a faggot! Its like this, DAMN!". I flinched at his words and tone. Faggot I heard before, this was the word my mother spit out with disgust when Ricky Lake and Jenny Jones shows came on and these gay men were talking about fashion or dramatic love relationships. I was equated to that person of disgust in that moment. I was the less desirable, less than person or thing that could be called that word."
This pushed me to try to play with the boys at school and some of the boys from church... I was not going to pretend to dribble so my skill to be BIG and tall, block as many shots I can and guard the hell out of anyone I was assigned to guard to lessen their chance at scoring. I felt so embarrassed and so under the microscope. I had no desire to play these kind of games. Can I please go back to my room and draw my fave Xman, Storm? Can I please go and throw on Envogue's Born To Sing track number 9 & 10?
This awkward abuse transferred to my gym teacher as I moved into middle school. Her name was Miss Brown, she took every attempt to let me know in front of the whole class how unathletic I am. I was chubby and out of shape, I was incapable of doing anything with the ball worthwhile. She pushed this point home when one day when teaching us how to run and dribble the basketball, I in my usual ill coordination kicked the ball away from my grasp and half way across the gym. Out rang the words of the worse rhetorical question, "Whats wrong with you? Dribbling that ball like a faggot!" The boys and the girls laughed at me, I was already sweaty and out of breath. Having developed body issues from realizing I didn't look like other boys. They were lean and muscular or with minor body fat. I on the other hand always packed a little extra. These words stung as they mirrored my fathers dissatisfaction with me at our own basketball session we had prior. She cemented her disdain of me by throwing that ball into my face and into my right eye. She convinced the whole class through intimidation that she was "Passing the ball to me and I was not fast enough, or athletic enough to catch it." However, she never taught us passing at that point and I surely was not expecting it. The insult or the ball toss.
Quickly I knew more of what was wrong with me than what was right with me. I was only comfortable with male peers when I could observe them from a safe distance. This was also when I realized I watched them with a certain attention and intent that strangely made me feel flush. I hated them and was intrigued by them. They were smelly boys that repulsed me and yet I sniffed when they walked by trying to inhale their masculine scent which I was strangely attracted to. I avoided the changing in the locker room opting for the bathroom stall instead. I however, took every opportunity to catch glimpses of my peers male forms as I passed them on the way to my bathroom stall/changing room.
I then started to think, maybe I was made wrong?! Maybe I was supposed to be a girl. Girls were not as intense and foolish as the boys were. They certainly were not as disgusting. Their fashion sense was cool and although smaller or more fitted def attracted other boys... could I ever attract anyone? If I wasn't part of the boys club really, was I perhaps part of the Girls? Parents declared no pretty early on, so I discounted that. All I was sure of was I was different and I was not the "norm" I was not fine as I was, I had to be this other "son."
This had me an angry young male in a world of other aggressive young males. What I determined pretty early on as early as 4th grade was that if anyone hit me I had ton hit them back. In fact my mother instilled in me the fear of God. The threat was if I came home and she found out that someone hit me and I didn't hit them back, the moment I came home she would beat the hell outta me. This sunk in, I had to fight. Finally something I can use my chubbiness and height for. I would fight anyone that attempted to get physically harmful or maybe even verbally. If a girl hit me thinking a boy couldn't hit her back I quickly showed her I was wasn't that boy. SLAP! If a boy called me a faggot or tried to mush/push me... BAM! Punch them right in the face or a good ol fashioned body slam. This earned me quite the reputation in school. I was the jolly chubby gay kid but who would fight instantly and relatively well. Most left me alone.
This anger, this attitude effected everything as I entered the hyper feminine yet misogynistic gay scene in which there was even harder criteria to just be. You couldn't just simply be gay there were sub groups and the more you associated with your feminine side and or took a "feminine role" of receiving another male, you were the butt end of a joke or specific smirk and look. The triggers as other gay men would refer to me as "girl" and I would become irate. I was not one of the girls, school yard proved that. Parents said I couldn't even play or interact with them like that. I was a boy, at least I wanted you to believe that because if I was anything less than what was expected of me it was confirmation of my inferiority as a masculine anything. I already wasn't one of the boys but dammit if you would point that out or make me feel that any more than I made myself feel that way.
I laugh now as I realized I had been fighting for respect my whole life. Can you imagine? I was fighting to be this false idea of who I was supposed to be. I believed the story written for me by people who were not me. It took me a long time to just release the weight of the pretenses. I can be called girl and be honored that someone felt comfortable enough to refer to me as such. I didn't have to be upset at that because I loved girls, I loved women, I loved the feminine. Always have, childhood inclinations proved that. I just had to embrace me, I had to define me by allowing myself to be myself. I realized I was being poisoned and geared to resent the safety of feminine circles and concepts that I believe males severely need. Femininity is he medicine to male misogyny. So much to learn from our sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and such. That though is an entirely other essay.
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