Casey Parks - Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery

(2002)

A FEW MONTHS AFTER my pastor asked God to kill me, my mom ran to the bathroom, and I ran after her. She shut the door before I reached it. I knocked, but she didnt answer. The rest of our family was in the dining room, eating spareribs at my grandmas good table, or maybe, by then, they were listening to hear what Id say to my mother. I pushed the bathroom door open. My mom was sitting on the toilet, bent over, crying into her hands. It was a small bathroom, only as wide as my wingspan, and my mom was heavy enough that she often told people with some mix of pride and horror that doctors considered her morbidly obese. I stepped around her, squeezed myself into a space between the toilet and the tub, then I touched her back. She spoke without looking at me.

I could lose my job, she said, half whispering, half crying. My mom answered phones at a church for nine dollars an hour, and my dad sprayed bugs for less than that. They had no savings account, no reserve to cover whatever my love life cost them. I knew my mom was right: One disapproving preacher could bankrupt our family.

Mom, I said. Im not going to be gay anymore.

I had kissed only one girl one time. Her name was Ellen. Wed been listening to Pink Floyd and drinking Jones soda in the dark when Ellen leaned toward me. My twin-sized dorm bed felt like a gulf Id never cross, but then the song crackled, my heart beat triple speed, and the space between us disappeared. Her lips had been so much softer than a boys. Wed kissed for just a moment, not even the length of the chorus, but those few seconds felt like a revelation I wasnt sure I could forget. I told my mom I was gay a few weeks later, in church, on Easter Sunday. I did not tell her about the kiss.

In the bathroom, my mom cried so hard her body shook, and I racked my mind for ways to fix myself. It was 2002, the summer after my freshman year of college, and I was stuck in West Monroe, Louisiana, until at least August. I wouldnt see Ellen all summer. She lived in Jackson, Mississippi, a few miles away from the private liberal arts college I was attending on scholarship. Maybe that break was long enough, I told myself. Maybe if I didnt see Ellen, maybe if I kissed the right guy, I would feel straight again. I thought, suddenly, of the tall teenage boy who worked alongside me Friday nights at Blockbuster Video.

Mom, I said. Im going to date Richard from Blockbuster. Hes six foot five, like Aidan in Sex and the City.

My moms nose started to run, so I pulled a few squares of toilet paper off the roll and handed them to her. I wished I could tell her about that transformative kiss. I had told my mom about every kiss since I was fourteen, when an exchange student from Mexico smashed his lips against my teeth during the homecoming dance. Id come home late and beaming, and my mother had driven me straight to Waffle House, even though it was after midnight and my hair spray had stopped working. Id described everythinghis cologne, the way his spit had overwhelmed me, the moment hed whispered, I love you. My mom ordered a second plate of cheese-covered hash browns and asked me what song had been playing. I told her it was Love of a Lifetime, then she slow-danced with her fork toward the jukebox to see if the Waffle House had it. Id told my mom about every other boy Id kissedsix in the four years sincebut watching her sob in my grandmas bathroom that Fourth of July, I knew I would never tell her about the Jones soda or the Pink Floyd song. I would never tell her about the girl whose lips I imagined every night while I fell asleep.

My mom cried without words or sounds, and I told her about Richards car. It was a beat-up sedan, and his head touched the top of the sagging roof. His hands were big, and his Blockbuster uniform was so short it showed his torso. My mom listened, but she didnt say anything. I sat on the side of the bathtub. I knew she thought Satan had claimed me. Shed told the president of my college and any professor whose phone number she could find on the schools website that I would spend eternity in Hell. Shed even persuaded a campus security guard to barge into my room periodically to make sure I wasnt doing anything gay. Aside from that one kiss, I was never doing anything gay, but it didnt matter. Just a few nights earlier, shed told me that thinking of me made her want to throw up.

Mom?

I wanted to tell my mother that I didnt want to lose her, not forever, not for the summer, but when she looked up, I saw that her mascara had run black rivers down her face, and I lost my will. Shed forced me to wear mascara in middle school, but Id never learned to put it on myself, so I didnt wear it anymore. I knew she would reapply hers before we left the bathroomshe believed in makeup the way she believed in Godand I considered asking her to put some on me, too. Maybe then, I thought, shed love me again.

The bathroom door banged open before I could ask. My grandma stood in the entryway, wearing black slacks and a lime-green V-neck T-shirt. She threw her hands up, exasperated, then she jigsawed her way into a spot near the sink.

Rhonda Jean, she said, jabbing a finger at my mother. Life is a buffet. Some people eat hot dogs, and some people eat fish. She likes women, and you need to get the fuck over it.

Now come eat, she said, then let herself back out.

I waited a minute, stunned. Some people eat fish? I swallowed hard. I asked my mom if I could do anything, but she didnt answer. Instead, she pulled a stream of toilet paper from the roll and used it to wipe away the ruined mascara. Neither of us mentioned my grandmas speech. My mom threw the paper into the little trash can under the sink, then she looked at me from the toilet.

Can you get my makeup bag?

THE REST OF THE day passed in a blur. I ate banana pudding alone in the carport. I read