Ok, So Me and My Mullet Like Flannel
“Daddy, is it wrong to be gay?”
Long pause. “Well, the Bible says it’s wrong.”
“Oh. Ok.”
I’m eight years old, in second grade, and my daddy knows everything. I shouldn’t tell him that I like girls, and have four girlfriends, and that today I told my friends I am gay. Maybe I don’t really know what it means. And my dad says the Bible says it’s wrong, he MUST be right. Right?
Staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars illuminating the ceiling above my bed in an ominous green hue, I begin pondering the secret I promised myself I’d never think about, never acknowledge, because to acknowledge it is to make it real. I’m 18, what do I know about reality?
Earlier in the evening I caught Ellen accepting some award. I usually change the channel real fast whenever she’s on, can’t let anyone think I’m like her, you know, a lesbian. But tonight I didn’t change the channel. And when she spoke it felt as if she was speaking directly to me. “To all the young girls out there, whatever YOU are feeling, it’s normal. YOU are normal.” She knows my secret. Tears are forming in my eyes without my permission. In this moment, life has become overwhelmingly real.
Lying in bed, looking at these damn stars, I know my life is about to change. I want more than anything to just close my eyes, fall fast asleep, and make reality vanish into that suffocating green hue. But sleep isn’t coming, and reality is barreling toward me like a pissed off mullet-rockin’, fanny pack-wearing, combat-boot-ass-kickin’, dyke.
Again, I’m crying, lesbians don’t cry, maybe I’m not one! Maybe I’m too sensitive to be a lesbian. Lesbians are tough, and mean, and they drive trucks, and wear flannel! I am certainly none of those things! (Although I do like trucks, and flannel is comfortable.) But I like women, love women, ALL women. Their shapes, their smells, long hair, short hair, skinny, round, short, tall, black, white. Hot damn, bring on the women! (And we’re exhaling.) As soon as I can admit that simple truth to myself I can confidently face the world as a flannel-wearing lesbian. With these cheap, stick-on, glow-in-the-dark stars as my audience, I speak. “I’m gay.”
(At that point in my gayness I couldn’t actually say the word “lesbian.” Come on, I wasn’t THAT gay yet.)
I’ve said it out loud to myself, to the stars, to emptiness;
I am now a bona fide homosexual, right? What does that mean exactly? I’m getting
out of bed to research “being gay” on the internet, just to make sure I am one.
I don’t really know what I’m going to find, not this! I type “gay” in all the
search engines I can find and all I get is porn. I’m looking for validation,
not “XXX hot girl on girl action.” Maybe there is some sort of questionnaire
that will tell me I’m gay. “If you answered mostly A’s you are straight, if
you answered mostly B’s you are gay, if you answered mostly C’s your problems
are bigger than being gay, seek professional help.”
It has taken six months for me to tell someone else, and the anticipation is slowly killing me. The two sadly unknowing people, victims, whatever, will be my sister and my best friend. I’ve decided to make them my “first,” like a first kiss or a first sexual partner, and all the terrifying expectation that comes along with that role. I think they will understand, and accept, this truth about me, maybe they’ve already guessed. I mean I’ve never had a boyfriend (gross), and I’m pretty freakin’ butch, so it should be obvious, right?
Ok, it’s time to do this, to flee the closet and publicly announce my lesbianism. I rip the covers off in a decisive manner; I am seriously about to do this! Hesitation, I slowly pull the covers back over me. “Just do it Casey!” Covers off again, one foot on the floor, second foot on the floor, now I’m opening my bedroom door and walking down the stairs. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit”. What am I about to do?
I find them outside smoking cigarettes. “Hey guys, whatch’all doin’?”
“Just chillin’, smokin’.”
“Cool.” Pause, hesitation, lesbians are tough! “So I have something to tell you guys.” Silence. Tough! “I…I’m…I’m gay.”
Seconds that feel like years are slipping away into the stunned silence of their faces. I can fix my truck, buy fanny-packs of all colors, stock my closet full of flannels, and grow my dyke mullet real nice and long waiting for their response! Finally, one of them asks, “How long have you known?”
I pause to reflect on the question. “Second grade, so since I was 8.”
Upon learning the ill fate of her strangely masculine sibling,
my sister’s eyes well with tears. What the hell is SHE crying for? I’m the one
about to face a lifetime of inequality, not to mention flannel and an impending
mullet. But in her tears of shock/pride/confusion she says, “I love you so much
K, and I promise to help you find girls to date! We can go out and meet them
together!”
I am now a 25-year-old lesbian (see, I can say it. Lesbian!), and I’m still waiting for my sister to get me that date. Any day now I expect to see a line of beautiful women outside my front door, all courtesy of my loving sister.
I still tell people I’ve known I was a lesbian since second grade. The usual response I get is a widening of the eyes, revealing every tiny shocked red vein in the whites of their eyes, jaws hitting the floor like lead anvils (imagine Wile E. Coyote being stunned by the Roadrunner), and then an awkward silence. No one really knows what to say to that, so I P.S. it with a just-kidding-isn’t-the-scary-lesbian-funny chuckle, and say, “But I actually acknowledged it and said it out loud at 18.” An 18-year-old lesbian is easier to accept than an 8-year-old lesbian.
I’ve been out for nearly seven years, and while it’s more acceptable to be gay today than it was in 1987, I still can’t walk down the street holding hands with a woman without enduring society’s stares. Maybe they’re staring at my mullet. I’d rather live through mullet-shock than the stare of eyes trying to impose their lifestyle, their beliefs, on me. I never allow myself to forget the Matthew Shepard’s and Brandon Teena’s of this world; that is my reality now. You have to ask yourself why anyone would choose to be gay, and then ask yourself if it really is a choice. My choice is to be out, not to be gay. Yes, the flannel is comfortable, and trucks are fun to drive, but really, why would anyone choose to rock a mullet?