I mentioned a little while ago a
str8 friend who
hadn’t realised I was gay, or at least liked bedding boys . . .An odd thing happened last night. I’d gone round after a panic phone call to have a go at resurrecting his Mac laptop. He was suffering badly from email and
internet withdrawal . . .Though in some ways, as you'll see, that might not have been such a bad thing to withdraw from.
It took quite a while. Admittedly, it might have taken a bit less time if we
hadn’t shared a bottle and a half of red wine between us while I was taking it apart . . .Anyway, just after midnight I wanted to go home. (My damaged spine—the thing that makes me lame—has been hurting badly this week, and I
hadn’t taken any painkillers with me.) Then, on the steps, he did something he’s never done before: hugged me really close and tight and stroked me.
It was actually a shock. As you know, I’m half Italian, so hugs and things are kind of normal for me, but I’
ve always thought of him as sort of too ‘English-reserved’ for that. And, of course, I’
ve had to learn to be a bit restrained with the touching and hugging in England . . .
As it happens, he’s not really the type I go for, but I nearly kissed him . . .just thought better of it in time. I made that mistake once before. It’s not wise to end up in bed with a
str8 boy who’s a friend and wants to experiment a bit, I found out. At least that time it
wasn’t, it all got pretty awkward afterwards—and no, I’m a sweet gentle boy, honest, I
didn’t rape him!—so I’
ve never wanted to risk that again.
I wondered if I’d inadvertently touched off that slightly feminine gay substrata that’s actually inside quite a few
str8 boys. I mean, he had stripped off his sweatshirt in front of me (it was a warm night), and I have to admit I thought he had quite a nice chest . . . And I was just wearing a white sweatshirt and white shorts, because I
couldn’t be bothered to change just for a short walk round the corner to his flat. It showed off quite a bit of tan, which he was rather jealous of.
But then again. Maybe it was just a release of emotion. He’s just been going through a weird trauma I’
ve been talking him through over the last few weeks. It turned out we had something odd in common.
I
wasn’t going to tell you this (it’s why I cried into my Teddy Bear when I was little) but my Italian dad left us before I was old enough to know him, and I’
ve never heard of him since. And my mum died without ever telling me anything about him—I’d had to give up trying to find out by the time I was 11—and
didn’t leave anything of him even. Unless he’s the guy in one single lone photo I found afterwards that I’d never known about. The hair, eyes and eyebrows looked kind of familiar somehow. So did the ears. I’d always wondered
about that. My mum’s ears were a completely different shape to mine.
His father also did a runner. But now, thanks to a cousin he’d never really known and all this
internet genealogy and tracing stuff, he’s suddenly been found. Complete with another family, who he’d also deserted. There’s a good deal weirder stuff than that, as well. Because I’d happened to mention being brought up without a dad a bit before, he thought I’d have an idea how to deal with it all. After all, I’
ve always wondered what would happen if my dad suddenly reappeared and what I would do. I’d never realised until now how easy it might be for someone to turn over lots of genealogical stones that might be a lot better left unturned.
I decided when
left home to try to start a completely new and different life, and if my dad ever did turn up again, I’d really only want to have one short conversation with him, and it would run like this: “You could have done this before. We never moved until I was 18. So where the fuck were you all those years when I was growing up? You
didn’t give a toss for me then, so why should I give a fuck for you now?”
Of course, I’d be bound to be curious. I
think I would like to know what I might have inherited from him. But I 'm not certain I’d necessarily want to find out. Suppose all I inherited from him was the shittier side of me? Is that where my ‘Italian temper” that’s got me into trouble before now, comes from? My mum never lost her temper with me, even when I made her cry.
And there are one or two other traits I don’t want to tell you about, and I’
ve tried to suppress, that I don’t think came from her either. If he turned out to have all the bad side of me, I
definitely wouldn’t want to know him. Because I
wouldn’t want to know anyone
like him. And I could never forgive him for all the fantasies I grew up with during all those tearful nights about my missing dad. Even if he did turn out to be an Italian Count after all . . .
So maybe that was why my friend hugged me so hard, and maybe why I’d better not be tempted to kiss him next time . . .It’s so difficult, all this. Like him, I’
ve carefully avoided even looking. And neither of us can really understand why the people who have gone and unearthed all this history interfered without even asking before they landed him with the whole lot in one go. After all, they
wouldn’t have been so eager to land us with the entire life history of a complete stranger unannounced, would they? And for both of us, that’s what our fathers are.
I must admit, it’s rather unnerved me. I thought, after I left home and my mum died, I’d made myself pretty untraceable, but it looks as though, thanks to the
internet, I might not be. So, if you don’t mind, I’m staying as anonymous as I can around here, I’ll do my damnedest not to let my real name slip (though some people now know my Italian ‘pet name’ confound it, though I will tell you I'd always rather wished I was '
Raffaele', but I'm not) and I’m not going to be showing my face.
And to anybody who might think they know who I really am, and think they might like to try finding my dad for me, you’d better not. Like I said, he could have done that for himself, but he
hasn’t. So I don’t wanna know. And anybody who does try it is going to get a real outburst of Italian temper from me.
