"But Mom, what about Dad was saying in the car? "
"Ahw, hun..." she paused and started to shake her head. "They're not right about this." she continued, "They mean well but they're not right. "
She held me, and pet my hair, and moved me slowly back and forth. I didn't say anything else. In the dampness of our calmed embrace, I sniffled into her shoulder, and felt like it might be alright.
I woke the next morning as on any other Morning After, needing to retrace exactly what had happened, and exactly where I'd been left. Seeing my mother for the first time that morning brought me clear back to the moment. It was certain that we shared a secret, that we had already agreed to a mission of life-or-death.
Where we were changed everything- It was the first time either of us had ever broken the rules; It was the first secret my mother and I had ever had from my father, the first time we had consciously, jointly disobeyed our pastor. We would have disobeyed anyone- what we were doing just felt so right. My mom was the one quick to point out that we were acting in the spirit of how the true Jesus acted while he was on Earth. He did what he knew in his heart God wanted, even when religious convention said otherwise.
It's comforting to know that other churches have followed suit since that difficult and frightening day. I feel that this acceptance (in many ways pioneered for the church by Heinrich Sioux) was inevitably destined to be recognized as the moral imperative. Any church's avoidance of this just baffles me; to dismiss Hetracil because it isn't mentioned in the bible is akin to shunning automobiles - and then not getting your family to church as a result. I'll always be at one with Heindrich's notion that Hetracil therapy is the Christian imperative for homosexuals, regardless of how we may disagree on *how* an individual must arrive at that decision.
I'm getting ahead of myself - Suffice it to say that even in the absence of any support, my mother took me to the doctor's office because we believed in what we were doing. It was the homosexuality itself that felt outside of god's favor - not me as a human being, nor any sin I had committed against god. We had the opportunity to remove the homosexuality, and we took it.
Just like penicillin - The doctor prescribed the pills and the Duane Reade man sold them. In the cab ride home, I stuck my nose into the bottle, and it smelled like a new video game. As soon as I got home, I dumped the bottle out onto our kitchen table. The pills were shiny, glossy little ovals, and I swallowed my first one in our kitchen over a bowl of corn chex.
For the first few days, I wasn't conscious of feeling any different. Not knowing what to expect, I tested myself rigorously with ivory soap, but kept getting the same disappointing results.
My mother had to check my progress on the sly; since it was a weekend and my father was at home, she had to keep waiting until he was in the bathroom or busy watching football. I had nothing to tell her when she asked - neither of us had any idea what to expect.
On Monday morning, the third day without feeling any effect, my frustration turned to paranoia. What if Hetracil was just a placebo, whose supposed effects were promised only to lure me into the admission of homosexuality? What if it was all a scheme on behalf of the church, designed to identify sinners in its midst?
My father left for work early, and so when my mother and I were able to speak freely, I asked her what she thought might be taking so long.
Again, mom was there to help- she assured me that it took time - that the only thing to do was go back to school, and trust that eventually the pills would start to work.
She was right of course - Hetracil did kick in, but it took almost two weeks of hopeful uncertainty for it to happen. I had two moments of clarity associates with the pill's effects - two moments at which I knew that I had really changed.
The first one occurred during the second week of therapy: I was at school, walking into my class corridor. As usual, it was filled with A- List kids milling about waiting for class to begin. I felt the standard knot in my stomach at the prospect of having to walk past all of them to get to my locker, but when I actually began my normal walk of shame, there was a palpable difference. My steps were lighter, and there was a fluid ease and comfort to my physical movements. My body was noticeably easier for me to control: It did what I told it to, and nothing more - none of the spastic bendiness or flailing that Davis had made me conscious of. I hadn't firmly realized how much effort I was exerting just to get my limbs to stop flapping around and behave normally. Something had been fixed that I didn't even know was broken- just felt like the first time I put my eyeglasses on when I was ten years old.
To describe the remarkable physical feeling of having one’s movements normalized: It is comparable to the experience of having a car’s alignment repaired after many years of perpetual slackened drifting. One acquires a newfound feeling, not only of control, but of relief and wonder of time-wasted; disbelief that you actually tolerated the skewed mode of control and endured it for so long.
As of that moment, my life became remarkably easier. It was clear that a change was underway, and the hopefulness and relief that it brought me literally gave me something to live for. As soon as this first change opened the faucet, I started to notice the pill's effects come flowing through one after another. The physical changes were small, subtle, and almost too numerous to isolate, but together they combined and solidified my body. For example, I had control over my arms and hands in the way that I had always imagined one should - When I held my arms out, pointing or in gesture, my hands looked to me like they could belong to any other kid- my wrists no longer bent limply, involuntarily, spastically forward. My speaking voice and intonations changed! My voice just transposed itself into a more comfortable register. It didn’t crack and drop like during traditional pubescent vocal development, it just gradually sounded fuller and richer, even to my own ears.
What I noticed most was the comfort of speaking- Again, I had to exert less effort in order to speak, and the sound of my voice no longer caused me to feel embarrassed. It was my mother who jubilantly pointed out that my subtle lisped-s speech patterns had gone, and only then I did I realize that she was right- they had just faded away without my realizing. In retrospect, the bulk of this development took place on a subconscious level- I was never conscious of speaking differently, just of an unprecedented confidence and comfort while communicating. I had grown accustomed to having to exert effort to not appear spastic- I never realized how much difficulty - how much I hated my body.
The second moment of clarity came with the effect I wanted most - the change I was most anticipating. It took the longest to arrive- nearly 8 weeks after taking my first pill. I was studying for midterms in my High-School library when an A-List girl from our graduating class walked past my desk. The weather was warm for the end of March, and she was wearing a skirt and tank-top. Her chest was pressing tightly against her top and held up her black bra underneath. I can still see her bending over to drink from the metal water fountain next to the book-detectors at the exit of the library. As she
opened her mouth, I saw her tongue-ring through the water she was about to drink from, and felt a wave of energy pass through my knees and abdomen. I had a surging instinct to chase her down and wrap my legs around her thighs - to
stuff the entire surface area of her breasts into my mouth until I choked.
