They say men don’t change, they reveal themselves. \u00a0 I suppose that’s possibly true of the man to himself. \u00a0 There are things within us we will never get over. \u00a0 For some of us, it’s a set of prejudices. \u00a0 For others, it’s matters of the heart. \u00a0 I am (I realize this) a sentimentalist. \u00a0 Once upon a time I thought it was just a little thing about me. \u00a0 But no…it’s not just a little thing. \u00a0 I have to be careful.<\/p>\n
I’m going through photos of friends from back in the day for posting in a Facebook album. \u00a0 \u00a0 And I am looking at one of a friend I haven’t spoken to in a long time. \u00a0 In it, he is smiling at something just off camera. \u00a0 It is a perfectly happy, carefree smile. \u00a0 The smile I used to see more of, once upon a time. \u00a0 It puts me into a dangerous state. \u00a0 I am remembering how much I liked him. \u00a0 I am remembering how well we got along together. \u00a0 Left shoe-right shoe. \u00a0 Peas in a pod. \u00a0 One starts the sentence, the other completes it. \u00a0 Just about as close as two guys can be and not be lovers.<\/p>\n
I stopped talking to him when he took that detour into Rush Limbaugh land. \u00a0 I was being more open about my sexual orientation, getting damn tired of always having to tread lightly around the prejudices of the people around me, the prejudices we’d all had drilled into us ever since we were kids. \u00a0 \u00a0 I was in my 40s, and beginning to realize I wasn’t going to have a life completely free of the closet, if I didn’t start living one now. \u00a0 My friends had enough time by then to get over it. \u00a0 But the more open I was, the more static I got from this particular one.<\/p>\n
So one day, I just gave up and stopped speaking to him. \u00a0 He would call from time to time, and I would not answer. \u00a0 Just leave me alone…<\/em><\/p>\n He is in very poor health these days. \u00a0 His situation is not good. \u00a0 He lives on disability, and his knack for trading. \u00a0 Cigarettes are slowly killing him. \u00a0 The last time I saw him, he was practically a skeleton of his former self. \u00a0 \u00a0 And I’m looking at this photograph, and his smile, and I’m wondering now what kind of asshole I’ve been all this time.<\/p>\n He’s your friend…he’s down on his luck…he may be dying…and you’re being a jerk Bruce Garrett…<\/em><\/p>\n So I call and hear his voice for the first time in a long while, and with that image of him from back in the 70s in mind I am almost in tears. \u00a0 Hey guy…how are you these days…everything okay…?<\/em> And we chat for a while, \u00a0 and…<\/p>\n …and it doesn’t take long for him to remind me why I stopped speaking to him.<\/p>\n He:<\/strong> (talking about the lady he’s been seeing…his on again off again girlfriend. \u00a0 He’s complaining about her sudden mood swings. \u00a0 One moment its all good, the next its Stressville…)<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> I know the feeling. \u00a0 I was down in Florida a couple weeks ago, and got a chance to see my high school crush for a while. \u00a0 He’s got a really nice place down there and he invited me…<\/p>\n He:<\/strong> (changing the subject) Did I tell you about the Smith & Wesson Airweight I got…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ah yes… \u00a0 I get to hear about your love life but don’t I dare tell you about mine. \u00a0 And it gets better…<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> So you have a computer again? \u00a0 You doing anything besides the eBay thing? \u00a0 Facebook?<\/p>\n He:<\/strong> Yeah I’m on Facebook…<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> (remembering) Oh…right… <\/strong><\/p>\n He:<\/strong> Yeah, and I defriended you because I didn’t want all that gay stuff showing up on my page. \u00a0 I didn’t want my other friends seeing it. \u00a0 You can be offended now for a couple minutes and then get over it…<\/p>\n Me:<\/strong> Ah…right. \u00a0 You’re still a little fuzzy about how all this stuff works aren’t you? \u00a0 Your friends see your wall, not your news page. \u00a0 The news page shows you stuff your friends are doing. \u00a0 Their notes and links and status messages don’t all show up on your wall unless you choose to share them. \u00a0 The news page you see when you sign in isn’t your wall. <\/strong><\/p>\n He:<\/strong> (changing the subject) I don’t do eBay anymore. \u00a0 I am on Gun Traders now…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n …and so on. \u00a0 Of course the problem wasn’t your friends might see All That Gay Stuff on your page, but that you kept seeing it. \u00a0 That was always the problem. \u00a0 If I have to get over anything I suppose it’s you guy. \u00a0 You will never get over my being gay will you? \u00a0 Never. \u00a0 Won’t happen.<\/p>\n Right. \u00a0 I have to keep that old photograph of you in its context whenever I look at it. \u00a0 That was a different time. \u00a0 A different universe practically. \u00a0 We were so close back then. \u00a0 Best friends practically. \u00a0 But you took a detour into Rush Limbaugh land and we can’t talk anymore. \u00a0 I suppose we’re not the only friends who have been separated by the culture war. \u00a0 But…really…it wasn’t Rush who got between us, it was your cheapshit prejudices. \u00a0 You want to think you like me as a friend, but you don’t like Me<\/em>. \u00a0 It was that name on the closet door you made a friend of. \u00a0 There is nothing behind that door anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They say men don’t change, they reveal themselves. \u00a0 I suppose that’s possibly true of the man to himself. \u00a0 There are things within us we will never get over. \u00a0 For some of us, it’s a set of prejudices. \u00a0 For others, it’s matters of the heart. \u00a0 I am (I realize this) a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[48,46,12],"class_list":["post-4520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-the-goshbait-fugue","tag-the-kultar-kampf","tag-the-struggle-for-our-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}