Kerlak Enterprises - Reading Room

Small-Town Gay by Elizabeth Newman

   The seed for this book was sown with a single question I posed to my friend over a decade ago when, at age 28, he said out loud for the very first time in his life, "I’m gay."
   "But how did you ever survive?" was my response.
   My friend was the All-American, blond giant the beloved hometown basketball and tennis champion who was kind to everyone he encountered, but still managed to be cool. He was student body president and the prom king. He was the ultimate Southern small-town boy who was now in the big city, completing a graduate degree in social work to accompany his business degree, so that he could plan and direct nursing home care.
   However, I have not told you the full story; my question was not my fi rst reaction to my friend’s revelation. My friend had a reputation for outrageous teasing. I recall one time when he strode purposely up to me in our graduate school lounge, and whispered, I have something important to tell you. I had never seen him with such serious countenance, and as I braced myself for bad news, he leaned in close to my ear.
   "You is crazy!" He screamed and did an exaggerated hip-hop dance. As usual, the tension that had been in the room we were studying for our comprehensive exams at the time dissipated, and some of the students who truly could hip-hop, turned on the radio and got up to join him. In fact, we all joined him, clapping and feeling the joy that he could so often bring into any situation. So, on that cold Memphis night, when he leaned in close, his arm around me as he walked me to my car, and he whispered, "I have to tell you something," I was not falling for it. I must preface that just prior to this moment, he and I had attended one of the first screenings of Tom Hanks’ Philadelphia because we were completing a project for our "Oppression" class, and by strange kismet, when the hat containing project topic slips was passed to us, our group had drawn "Discrimination Toward Lesbians and Gays" as our issue to present to the class. And, as usual, with his typical irreverence and anything but politically correct manner, my friend read out our topic with an effeminate lisp and affected a stroll, placing his arms akimbo.
   So, on that cold night, when he revealed his long-held secret to me, I began playfully punching him and choking on cold air and laughter. But then I looked up at his face, and for the fi rst time ever, I saw tears in his eyes. I can still feel the horrible shame and panic I felt when I realized that my friend had just spoken the truth for the fi rst time in his life, and here I was, laughing.
   I hugged him close, and we went back inside. He told me that I was the only one in the world he had ever told and he did not intend for anyone else ever to know. He had been raised in a very conservative Christian church, in a very small, rural Southern town. He admitted that during his childhood, the only people whom he suspected were gay in his hometown had been a fl orist, a hairdresser, and a funeral director, and that he could in no way relate to the flamboyant ways in which they lived. Through an athletic scholarship, he attended a very small, fundamentalist Christian college, so he had been even farther back in the closet there. His plan had been to remain celibate and silent, but he just could not do that anymore.
   "But how did you ever survive?" I asked him. He began to tell me about how he had masked his desires by trying to excel in everything he did. He had to be the best friend, athlete, son, grandson, and employee. He hoped that by doing the best he could and by working hard to help everyone he met that he might stand a chance of still being accepted if his secret were ever discovered.
   "I thought that I was the only one like me," he said about his childhood.
   I was the only one who knew his secret for about a year; then, gradually, as he began to meet friends I had known from undergraduate college who were professionals and gay, he began to tell others.
   Recently, he and I were discussing how far he has come: He is currently nationally ranked in the Gay Lesbian Tennis Alliance and has many friends from all over the world. He is an active fund-raiser for children and adults who have AIDS, and, of course, he is still the big, gangly man whom his friends and family always loved.
   Many times over the past decade, he and I have discussed how his being raised in a small town gave him many of the qualities people love about him, but he had always known that it was most certainly a given that he would have to leave his small town in order to have a relationship openly and find community.
   Just a few years ago, I began to see gay couples I knew from my days of teaching in New England start leaving the big cities and settling in smaller towns to begin raising families. I was amazed at their courage and resolve; they would be pioneers. They would most certainly meet opposition, I thought, in isolated suburban or rural life.
   My friend and I started to wonder how other people who were gay and were either raised in small towns or were now living in them were coping. I put out a call for manuscripts, and just as the fi rst essays were reaching our post box, what seemed to be a miracle appeared via CNN. Gay couples were racing to San Francisco and Massachusetts and were being allowed to marry!
   I watched these couples on TV - pairs of men or women, some holding children to whom they had given birth or had adopted - racing across the country to these larger, more progressive cities, so hopeful, eager to make the commitment that heterosexual couples often take for granted. I wondered how many of them would have to return to hometowns that would never accept or acknowledge the marriage or civil union licenses they now possessed. I wondered...
   Then, last month, I saw a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would have restricted the term "marriage" to mean exclusively a union between a man and a woman fail because so many people, gay and straight, objected and voiced their objections to their representatives. The contributors to this anthology have stood up in different ways - some on the front lines; some simply by surviving and living to tell about it now. I am grateful to them for sharing their stories. I admire them all for their courage to share their truths. My hope is that their stories will reach others who need to hear them.
   I am a therapist who practices in a small, rural community in the South. One of the problems that troubles me most these days is the high rate of suicide and suicide attempts among teenagers and young adults. Those of us in the field know that a significant number of these adolescents and young adults attempt to end their lives because they are struggling with defining and/or accepting their sexuality.
   This book is by no means a substitute for real talk or counseling by responsible, professionally-trained and caring adults, but I do hope that these stories reach anyone who feels as isolated as my friend did, and who is challenged by the questions: Can I be what I am and be accepted? Can I keep trying for another day, another month, another year, until I can find a place or a supportive community where I can feel comfortable? Can I be patient enough with myself to understand that sexuality is not always clearly defined - and could evolve throughout my lifetime - and that I might have to struggle before I create a life that is the ideal for me? And, most importantly, Will I value my life enough not to end it even though I don’t completely know or understand the answers right now?
   On a lighter note, I hope that those readers who have themselves journeyed through the joys and perils of small-town living will enjoy and relate to these stories, and they will share them with others.
   Lastly, I am pleased and honored to have been (sometimes) the first reader of some of these talented authors’ manuscripts. I thank Kerlak Publishing for giving these authors a chance to share their stories.
   The authors made this book. I only asked the question.

Elizabeth Newman,
Memphis, Tennessee, 3 August 2004
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