Piss Trigger

  
I worked in a group home for severely emotionally disturbed youth ages five to thirteen. I also lived there. It was a how I moved to San Francisco: an internship promising exciting and challenging work in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I had babysat, done a short stint in Minneapolis Unified School District, and worked for the YMCA. I thought the group home couldn't be too much different. I should have see the bronchitis and stomach flu I caught on the plane ride here for what they were: a portend of things to come.

I shared a room with another intern. He met his girlfriend, who also shared our room unofficially, while working there. They were your typical middle-class do-gooders: blond, white, East Coasters who would eventually become private school teachers or accountants or business people in suits. Their late night sex kept me awake a number of times. I never said anything, choosing instead to retaliate by masturbating as they came.

My roommate and I shared more than orgasms; we also shared responsibility for a room of four boys. I was their guardian Wednesday through Saturday. He parented them Saturday night to Tuesday. Our strict styles were complimentary and left little room for disruptive behavior, but they boys still managed an explosion or paroxysm or discharge at least once per shift. In the battle of nature versus nurture, their "supposed" nurture unleashed their animalistic nature. Our job was to redirect or contain their very nature so the boys could at least be open to nurturing. It tended to be sad and downhill thanks to the less-than-a-year cycles of interns that mirrored the youths' cycles of violence and distrust.

The thrown shit, perfectly aimed stream of piss, black eyes, wrestling youth to the ground or pinning them to a wall, padded room with a magnetic lock, waking up to screams of "Fuck you!" or "The Days of the Week" song, disclosures of sexual abuse from a seven-year-old took their toll on me. Conflict, on one level, became easier because it wasn't as bad or extreme as anything I experienced at work. A little normalization goes a very long way. It also unlocked triggers: the things I just wouldn't put up with outside the confines of the group home and the safety of a white padded cell. Piss was a trigger.

It started in a manner that I thought was innocent; later it turned out to be intentional. I can't recall how I met Jimmy, but he was the first boy I courted in San Francisco. I loved his smooth brown skin, deep chocolate eyes, and tempestuous temperament. He was familiarly dismissive, and I needed his attention. I believed I could crack his petrified persona. It was more a project than a relationship for both of us.

We went out one night to Hole in the Wall for cocktails and pinball. We both had a mutual admiration for The Twilight Zone machine even though we were horrible. It was my turn, and he left to wander the hallway-shaped and -sized bar. The flashing lights, beeps and whistles, and buzz from my Corona helped me forget the conflicts and problems at the group home. I had become bored with masturbating to the sounds of my roommates fucking. I didn't want to wake up to the sounds of chairs thrown at windows. I just wanted a good night's sleep. I was anticipating our night together at his apartment as we spooned and played with each other between stretches of restful sleep.

I was kicking ass at The Twilight Zone. The score increasing, my spirits raised. Then, a random guy approached the machine interrupting my game. Distracted, I hit the flipper button a moment too late and the pinball fell into the mechanical gutter along with my good mood.

"What the fuck!" I yelled at him. "Back off!"

He stood there wearing his denim and smug expression behind a facade of innocence. He apologized but didn't move. My friend returned laughing and smiling eager for his turn. I stepped aside and the uninvited guest touched my lower back. I spun around while slapping his hand away and screaming, "Fuck off!" He leaned in and whispered, "I want to piss on you."

Another "Fuck off!" was all I could muster.

Our guest never left our side. Jimmy laughed at each of his advances. I continued slapping hands away and screaming various versions of "Fuck off" or "Fuck you" or "Go fuck yourself". At one point, I pulled Jimmy aside and begged for his help in getting him to go away. Jimmy responded, "Chill out. It's only a bar. Where's he going to go?"

Our gamed ended and so did my time at Hole in the Wall. I gave up on a quiet night with Jimmy and resolved to smoke a joint and take a Benadryl for a hopefully uninterrupted night of sleep. Jimmy followed me outside. So did the asshole.

Jimmy pleaded with me to stay. I said no. The asshole unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick. "Will you stay if I piss all over you," he asked as he moved closer. I snapped and punched him. Besides my brother, I had never hit anyone. Sure, I had been in a number of fights, but I  was always on the receiving side. I felt powerful.

He immediately stumbled back shocked by the contact of my fist which didn't match my skinny legged royal blue silk pants. As he rubbed his cheek, he muttered, "God. I was only kidding. You're friend put me up to it."

Jimmy was laughing hysterically. I looked at him and proclaimed our relationship and friendship over. While there were many times before where he skirted the line or walked its wide edge, it now had been crossed. I was instinctively decisive and final. I loved that freedom.

I worked at the group home another few months until my internship ended. I had more shit thrown at me and more piss aimed in my direction. I broke up many fights. I even wrestled a young man to the ground in J-Town Peace Plaza. I never lost my temper.

Many years after leaving the group home, piss was no longer my trigger. I found that out one night while cruising a large muscular man who stood in shadows holding his crotch, eyes darting back and forth. He blended nicely into his background; you had to be looking to find him. I saw him and approached unsure of the risk but eager for release. He whispered what he wanted in my ear, and I giggled. I was intrigued and obliging. We walked behind the abandoned car wash on Sixth Street, and he pulled out his cock, bladder full. I put my face in his stream of warm salty piss. He smiled and got hard making it impossible to pee. He zipped back up.

We ended the evening in the bathroom of his hotel room at the Palace naked and wet. He was gentle and accommodating always asking permission for the kinkier things. I always said yes. I was safe. An orgasm or two and a shower later, we crawled back into bed and fell asleep spooning.

He gave me his number and asked to see me again, but we both knew we were travelers in the night. The morning and sun brought with it a different reality: I obliged to get over my piss trigger. Satisfied, I handed the slip of paper back to him and kissed him on the cheek. While I may have been the bottom in the bathroom, I was on top this morning.

"Sweetie, Last night was divine. Let's keep it at that," I said as I exited.

I've never been pissed on since.

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On Fire with the holy spirit

  
The Holy Spirit entered my body as they laid hands on me and screamed in tongues. We were in a hotel in Pensacola, Florida, here for a youth ministry retreat on Catholic evangelism. It was a growing movement, and they needed an army of Catholic soldiers ready to take to the streets preaching the word of God. Ours were souls most at risk for we were at that tender age, puberty, where the devil, or hormones, tempt at every corner. They were going to save us, and in return we'd save others.

We were a rag tag crew of mostly kids with which no one else played. We had a common identifier: outcast, nerd, geek, queer. The adults didn't fair much better. One leader was a large woman with short black hair. Looking at her, you knew she had gone through exactly what you had, the teasing and harassment, but she met the world with sparkly eyes and a smile. She was nice, and I wanted to be nice too. If she was here, obviously I was meant to be here. Looking back at the pictures, you'd think we were actually going to a queer camp. Only large steel crosses hung from our necks.

The bus made its journey southward stopping at Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa, and then Memphis to see Graceland. We prayed a lot, but I had yet to speak in tongues. Something kept blocking the release. They called it Satan; I called it sanity.

Along the way, I developed a deep affection for and connection to this community. It was easy to count myself among them because they understood the feeling of being queer. Sure it might not have referred to sexuality, but it did pertain to that unique experience of revelation that something about you truly is different. That moment is so profound. It moves you to another place from which you can never go back. Each and every one of us felt different in our homes and lives. Here, we were "normal". Or as normal a group of evangelical Catholic teens can be.

Our travels ended in Pensacola, and I still hadn't spoken in tongues. I was one of the rare ones, even among this motley crew. I was beginning to feel like an outsider, and so my mania set in. Jokes started spewing and obnoxiousness ensued. It actually fit right in. Evangelicals are nothing if not manic. In fact, speaking in tongues requires hysteria and frenzy in equal amounts. I was finally on my way towards revelation. All I needed to do was let go of rationality. My body chemistry would do the rest.

If you have never spoken in tongues or done drugs, it is hard to truly imagine what the experience is like. If you have done either, you've experienced the same thing. It is just that you got there a different way. I was in my early teenage years, and, thanks to my own conservatism, hadn't tried drugs yet, so I had nothing to compare it to. In the moment, it was blissfully divine.

I stood in the center of a small group of youth and adults. Each person placed one hand on me and raised the other towards heaven. Prayer started in English with one of the adults.

"Dearest God in heaven, our Lord and Savior. We are here today beseeching your blessing for your disciple Jason. He is your vessel, dear Jesus. He is open to your love and kindness. He is in awe of your might. He is here to serve, almighty Lord. Please bless him with the gift of the Holy Spirit. So he may experience all of Your greatness, power and might!"

As he prayed, the other surrounding me whispered their prayers with closed eyes and faces turned upwards. Their whispers were inaudible and intelligible, spoken in the language of the Holy Spirit. Each hand on my shoulder, head, arm, waist, back, or neck conducted heat and electricity. My body tingled and sparked. Something was coursing through me. I felt it in the tips of my toes and in that place behind the eyes. The place that opens your third eye.

The leader of this laying of hands burst out loudly in tongues and ignited the volume of the others. I was swimming amidst a whirlwind of indecipherable sounds and overwhelming emotion. All of our difference, otherness, and awkwardness made manifest. I was the eye of this hysterical storm, the walls of which were shrinking. More hands were laid on me. More electricity coursed through my body. More prayers were offered.

The tickle behind the eyes intensified to full-grade migraine complete with flashing white light. I was surrounded by clouds lost among the fog trying to find the sky and Son. The tongues were transformed into the song of the heavens, and I listened quietly. Peaking over the horizon was God. I found Him. I was saved. Tongues spilled from my mouth.

My body convulsed. I was caught. They laid me on the hotel room's bed. My face was flush red, and I was sweating profusely. Someone grabbed a wet towel from the bathroom and dabbed my forehead. I kept muttering unaware of what I said still staring at my Lord as He bestowed blessings, revelations, warnings. I awoke with a profound need to proselytize.

The next bit is a haze, but I ended up in the streets of Pensacola, Florida, preaching the word of God at the top of my lungs for all to hear. It was summer and dark, so it was late. I had no fear. God released that. It made me reckless. Luckily, there were few people on the street and most ignored me. Those that didn't thought I was a loon and made their feelings known. I didn't care. I was doing God's work.

I wandered the streets for an hour or two and snaked my way back to the hotel. I was on fire - the Holy Spirit in all corners of my body. I jumped in the pool wearing all of my clothes hoping to cool myself while screaming in tongues. Everyone greeted me with compassion and love and curiosity. I was no longer someone who wanted to be among them. I was someone in communion with them. We now all had a common experience to share. The seal broken, I spoke in tongues during every prayer and laying of hands.

I haven't spoken in tongues since that trip, but I've felt the fire of the holy spirit and communed with god. Something was unlocked during that trip: a desire to be myself including all the mania, frenzy, and hysteria that accompanies living a true existence. My truth may not be Catholic evangelism, but it does hold a deep reverence for existential experiences rooted in emotion. For it was that exact same feeling I had when I finally came out: a complete release of self.

It is why I am still coming out today.

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The Periwinkle Specter

  
She appeared a pale periwinkle specter sitting on the edge of my bed. She often visited when I felt alone or scared offering silence. Nothing ever happened or was said. Her mood was reflected in simple gestures and slight facial expressions. Sometimes she comforted; sometimes she condemned.

I saw her only briefly between seventh and ninth grade. After that, she was gone or lost to puberty. I never found her again even though I searched. She was there only for the transition from childhood dreams to mature nightmares. Rarely are those two things different. But a line does exist, and once crossed things change.

My sister told me she saw her too. She was four or five and perfectly described her dress layered with petticoats and the lace decorating her collar. I knew she saw her not only from the description; she too was alone an scared at times. I was hopeful that the specter's silence might space my sister some hurt.

I went home the Christmas of 2008 and tried to find my pale periwinkle friend. I wanted to thank her and let her know how things turned out: all okay.

I didn't find her. But I did sit at the end of my bed just listening to the silence and taking comfort in its perfectly absent embrace.

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A Repurposed Coke Bottle and a Few Close Friends

  
I didn't get intoxicated until a year and a half in to my two years of college. It's not that I didn't want to drink or do drugs. It's just that I was more concerned with church and acting and stealing things from stores, convenience and department. I just liked different highs like the kind you get from having the Holy Spirit invade your body and forcing you to speak in tongues. Sure, it seems like an odd way of escape, but it's no different than pull out good ol' Autumn Rose, taking a huge toke from her double-barreled water filtration system, and talking for hours about how the universe is connected. Both, in their essence, are existential. Both are intoxicating. Both are unreal.

It was holy weed from the land of California brought to us by a friend roaming from coast to coast selling joints and telling stories to ear money for his trip that sullied me. I was the only novice out of a handful of comrades sitting in my boyfriend's living room tripping out to Portishead or The Cardigans or some other mid-09's alterna-ish band. The traveller knocked on the door and the contemplative mood ignited momentarily just like a match being struck. He joined us on the couch and began rolling a joint. I was mesmerized by the deftness of his fingers and the gentle wafting green earth smell.

Everyone thought of me as straight-laced. The seminary didn't do much for dispelling that myth. In fact, it outright confirmed that I was dull and a bore, a person comfortable with rules and ritual. On one hand, that is somewhat true. I do have an internal need for order. But chaos and instinct guide my every action. Because of this perception, beers and joints normally passed me by. I didn't really care. My head was crazy enough without added intoxicants.

The joint was passed from lip to lip. My boyfriend looked at me, smiled, and blew a little smoke in my face. I inhaled tasting sage, tobacco, and clove. My foodie palate just beginning, I wanted to taste more. He passed it to me. I inhaled again.

The myths about not getting high the first time or newbies not inhaling deep enough or how weed made you batshit crazy all evaporated in that one long breath. Marijuana reached the bottom of my lungs, and I held it there. Slowly exhaling, a thin stream of smoke made its serpentine escape and danced in the air before finally disappearing. My eyes tickled, my head danced, and I eased back into the couch quiet and relaxed.

"This is what marijuana does? This?" I thought, and then I laughed a small laugh that I thought only I could here, but spilled out of my lips just like the smoke.

My friends started giggling at me, but I didn't care. I just added to their laughter until all of us couldn't remember what started it all. The joint still passed from lip to lip until it and our laughter was extinguished.

Then, our traveller stood up and announced he had one more surprise for us. He swiftly exited the house into the wintry snowy night and returned with a long glass contraption with chambers and flutes and spindly things. A dash of water added to the bottom, and it was set to take us somewhere else entirely. We marveled at its unique form and beauty. Such a thing could easily have had its place in a Chihuly exhibition.

The lighter hit the bowl igniting the tiny green leave as more smoke twirled upward mirroring the abstracted shapes my boyfriend had previously attempted to paint on his walls. I was no longer in his house. I , too, was a traveller riding my high to distant places, imagining California warmth, and a life less ordinary. I was a rebel uniting with comrades and planning some incursion that would never come to fruition. I closed my eyes and felt each fiber of the woven couch between my forefinger and thumb riding its long strands into the cotton of the cushions.

I enjoyed the mixture of enhanced reality and imagination. It was a needed release from the constant clatter of my unaltered hyperactive mind. I was able to ride a thought or an idea until I found another point it connect to. Then, I would explore that point, its edges and boundaries, until the curved circumference broke and unwound into another long line. Another point. Another line.

The glass contraption reached my lips; a lighter already lit; I inhaled again.

Our traveling guest told his tale of the bong. It was a gift or an art project or something of that nature. I don't recall. In a previous life, it was a Coke bottle. The logo stretched beyond recognition, he was the only one who knew for sure whether this tale was true.

The evening ended with a little making out, but not with the boyfriend rather his best friend. He walked in on us and laughed. He was thrilled to see not only my perceptions of drug use open up but also my concepts of relationships. It was that same evening I decided I wouldn't be monogamous. He encouraged a lot of my growth.

I can't recall how the evening ended. Such is the result of pot smoking, time, and distance. It's been fourteen years since that first puff, and rarely have I looked back on it. Now, recording this story, I am glad not only for that evening but also for my willingness to try something new. Risk doesn't come without failure or disappointment or even possibly violence. But risk does stretch one's thinking. That night, thanks to some weed, a repurposed Coke bottle, and a few close friends, I was stretched. And I'm still stretching today.

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Lost and Found in Limbo

  
We built forts out of worn-out couch cushions, synthetic pillows, thin cotton bed sheets, metallic folding chairs, the wooden bunk bed, whatever we could get our hands on. They were the places of imagination where war's only casualty was the fake death of a brother or friend and mansions were an eight feet by eight feet square that you couldn't even stand in. Anything could happen as long as you forgot who and where you were and had a sliver of creativity. Even the creativity could be forgiven, you could always play out classic stories or Saturday morning cartoons, if you knew how not to be you. There were dragons to slay, Princess Leia's to save, robbers to catch, COBRA to destroy, murders to solve, Carmen Sandiego to fin. The scared, manic boy was a fearless, reserved villain. The shy, quietly seething kid was a brave, calculating warrior. The high energy, laughing youngest was a secret weapon set to explode on either side. Worlds constantly transformed before your eyes making the infinite seem possible.

But we all knew that while the infinite might seem possible, it was in fact as imaginary as Transformers, and He-Man, and Scooby-Doo, and The Jetsons. There was no Krypton or Gotham or castle. It was just two chairs with a blanket hung between them and me dancing in my Batman underoos. And while our imaginations soared, it was bound by the limits of heterosexual masculinity. It was always a princess that needed saving, a war that needed waging, a clear division between right and wrong.

In the land of fancy, I couldn't be a fruit.

The dissonance between fancy and reality, villain and fruit grew until it became harder to distinguish one from the other. Forts transformed into hand-written plays casting me in the role of Jacob Wetterling and Jeffrey Dahmer. Batman underoos became invisible masks worn just as frequently but with much less zeal. High school was as foreign and faraway as Krypton. Manically happy and depressively sad looked exactly the same.

One wintry night, a few years later, when the snow fell in slow lulling rhythms, I could no longer tell whether they were snowflakes or ashes. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a familiarly unrecognizable face. I listened to the clatter in the hallways outside my dorm room, and I heard the whispers of sexuality telling secrets about someone that was supposedly me. I was lost in limbo.

Shortly thereafter, I came out and in doing so learned that reality and imagination are boundless and  blurry. The underoos, the masks, the forts, the plays are all reflections of self, real and perceived. Neither one more or less significant. They tell a story of truth. That was the gift of coming out: I no longer needed to leave limbo; rather, I needed to share its story.

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1-976-THERAPIST

  
I was sent to a counselor in the eighth grade to cure me of my homosexuality. Obviously, it didn't work. I am a happily queer man.

The signs were there for many years before -- my favorite sport (and the only one I played for an extended period of time) was gymnastics, I was in musical theater, my dad walked in on me playing with a boy's prick -- but were denied or not acknowledged. They were the types of things that just made me flamboyant or weird. My family was fine with weird. In fact, from old stories told by my dad and his mother, I'm positive my dad was also labeled weird in school. Being a fag was something else entirely.

It became too hard to deny when I was in the eighth grade because of a large telephone bill my grandma received. Grandma got me a job washing dishes a the Catholic retreat center at which she cooked. It was a weekend job, and my dad worked at the grocery store right next to it. When dad was working, it could sometimes be a couple of hours before I got a ride home. So I'd walk to grandma's for the afternoon. She often still had cooking duties, so I would sit in her apartment fiddling with the organ, flipping television channels, or raiding her fridge for a ham and Miracle Whip sandwich.

Her apartment was filled with bric-a-brac -- free calendars with birds from gas stations, glass candy dishes, needlepoint wall hangings, Reader's Digest, lace doilies -- and the flowery air of old people, a combination of rose and gardenia and lavender, permeated her home. It was filled with things that wouldn't entertain a thirteen year old boy raging with hormones and extremely horny.

One afternoon while walking to grandma's apartment, I picked up a copy of the alternative weekly paper -- the kind with the personals in the back -- hoping to pass the time masturbating in her bathroom. She was still at work, and I let myself in. I settled in by making something to eat and relaxing on the arm chair watching People's Court or The Jeffersons. I flipped through the paper lingering on the picture of half naked men (the escort page) and on the "men seeking men" and "women seeking men" personal ads. I got hard and stupid and noticed in between the pictures and the ads a 1-976 number for a gay chat line complete with a code for a free trial offer. The tingling sensation in my head urged me to pick up the phone and dial, justifying, "No one would ever know it is me as long as I hang up before the trial ends."

I took the telephone in to the bathroom -- I was smart enough to know I didn't want grandma walking in on me wanking -- slowly dialed, and listened to the instructions. I came five seconds later to the automated voice telling me to record my name. I hung up and was immediately addicted to anonymity and risk.

Picking up the paper for a new "free trial code", dialing the number, and whacking off in the bathroom passed many afternoons. I became so obsessive that I didn't notice that the free trial was over. I was lost among anonymous liberation and sexual fantasies.

One evening, I overheard my parents talking about a large phone bill grandma received. I know I would be outed if I didn't do something, so I started plotting and planning how to get out of it. Crazy ideas about calling grandma and pretending to be customer service from Man Chat ran through my head. Here's how I imagined it would go:

"Hello. Is Mrs. Wyman there," I'd ask in my best imitation of a man's voice.

"Yes, this is her. How can I help you?" She'd reply innocent and old.

"It seems that there has been a mix up on our end, and you have been inaccurately charged for calls placed to Man Chat."

"Really?"

"Yes. We will clear your account momentarily. It may take up to two months to show up on your phone bill. Please forgive us for any confusion or headache."

"Oh. Okay. Take care and have a nice day."

And she would accept it all as fact and hang up the phone. Then, I'd collect all my paychecks, pay the bill, and no one would be the wiser.

I never got the courage to make that call. Nor would my grandma have just accepted that explanation. She would want to know why the mistake happened in the first place. I probably could have thought of something, but I was afraid everyone would see through it and figure out it was me.

Even without that call, they did figure out it was me, and I was confronted. My parents were confused and crying. One of them called the number and found out what it actually was. They were not going to have a fag in the family. It was sinful and punishable by a fiery torment in hell. All of us were Catholic, and nothing was going to jeopardize that.

My parents found a counselor. They ushered me an ultimatum: see the counselor and stop being queer or get kicked out of the house. I was thirteen and opted for "stop being queer".

We drove to the therapist's in silence. I sat in the back of our paneled station wagon terrified and practicing my responses.

"No sir. This is just a phase. I am not attracted to men. I like tits. Yes, it will never happen again. Really, I don't like men. Well, yes...but only as friends. Girls. I like girls."

All three of us met the the counselor first. He told us he was recently on Oprah and was an excellent and trusted family therapist. My parents outlined the problem and what needed curing. He just listened, and then he told them he needed one-on-one time with me. They left the room, my mother crying, my dad silent.

Once the door closed behind them, the therapist looked at me with his brown eyes and messy hair and said, "Contrary to what your parents say, homosexuality is nothing to be cured."

I stared at him dumbfounded, mouth slightly open. Here was a chance to finally say it. I bordered on tears and the ultimatum reverberated through my head. I responded with waht I practiced in the car.

He excused me from his office with the diplomas and certificates and picture with Oprah and asked me to send in my parents. They exited five minutes later and we all hopped back into the rusted station wagon with the slightly flat tires.

I don't know what he said to them, but I wasn't kicked out or sent back. It was another five years before I had the nerve to say I was gay and another seven after that to finally admit to my family I was queer.

The second and third time around they were more prepared and accepted me for me. Time and distance are forces that change people, circumstances, and situations. Fortunately, my family changed in a manner that opened their hearts and minds. For that I am grateful.

My grandma forgave me for racking up the phone bill, and met my soon-to-be husband many years later. I'll never forget the way her eyes lit up when she met him. She smiled the way grandmothers smile when they know you've found "the one". She was in her wheelchair and asked me to sit by her. She grabbed my arm and looked at me.

"Jason. He sure is handsome. You've found a lovely and nice man. I love you, and I wish you all the love you deserve."

That was the last conversation I had with her before she died.

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Questions to Queer

 
I never asked to be queer, but it is through questions that I found it.

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