Dad
Pride. Day 21
When I came out to my parents, I did so by telling my mother. She was visiting me at the house where I lived during college. When I told her, she teared up, and was swabbing her eyes when she said, “Oh, Shannon, your father and I have known you were gay for years.”
For his part, my father never let on that he knew. And although my father wears the quiet manly-man persona with style - mechanic, hard-working blue-collar provider for his family - there is not a trace of homophobia. Once I came out, he never treated me any differently than he had before. He still gives me a single arm wrap around pat on the back when I go to hug him. He still comes up and whispers stories about his day into my ear like I’m a co-conspiritor in espionage. More recently, when I call home, he’s begun to throw in an “I love you, son” just before he hangs up the phone.
My dad is a cool cat. He’s as soft-spoken and gentle as he is strong and forceful. He drove a bright yellow convertible corvette when he met my mother, while dating my aunt. Historical pictures of him reveal some serious style, from his beatnik inspired turtle-necked outfits in the 60's through to his bell-bottomed plaid pants and fleece-lined suede jackets in the early 70's. He was just as likely to wear a satin shirt while horseback riding as he was to wear his mechanics uniform to a nice restaurant. He worked his ass off to provide for us. His hands were, more often than not, packed with engine grease under his fingernails. He once found a bag of pot that I had stashed in the spare tire of my car. He handed it to me with a stern look and said “Don’t let your mother see that.” He would tell my brother, “If you ever get a girl pregnant, you’re gonna marry her.” I never got that speech. With me he would say as I was headed out on a Friday night, “If you ever get arrested for your hell-raisin’, don’t call me to come bail you out.” He knew his sons.
I got lucky. I have friends who still haven’t come out to their parents because of homophobic machismo fathers. My dad would say that those kind of guys are “dumb-asses.” Walking through the mall he may lean over and say something like “Watch this guy coming up, he’s an idiot. Don’t let him know that you’re gay.” Sometimes Dad will pull me aside to tell me an incredibly off-color gay joke, which are sometimes pretty funny. The first time he met my partner Brian, he pulled him into the living room and gave him a 40-minute dissertation on a problem he had been having with one of these “new-fangled” carburetors and how he managed to fix it.
I don’t know if I would say that I’m close to my father… we talk only about once a month and we both sometimes struggle to think of something to say before he puts my mother on the line. But I love him so much it hurts, and I can’t even write a blog post about him without swelling up with tears. But then there is that occasional phone call that goes on for an hour, with him rambling about some silly thing that happened with one of his buddies, and I’m so grateful to just sit and listen.
About 10 years ago, I started hearing stories from home about my Dad hanging out with this young 20-something girl. I was concerned at first that Dad was having a late mid-life crisis and had taken a young mistress. My mother would complain when I called, “Your father is off somewhere with that Darla girl.” I didn’t want to pry, but I was concerned.
“Darla,” it eventually turned out, was a young lesbian who had befriended my father. She worked at the auto-supply shop where my father would pick up parts for his garage. They had a friendly banter and she would deliver auto-parts to his shop. Darla would tell him about her romance troubles, using neutral pronouns. She would say things like, “I went out on a date last week, and I really like ‘this person’, but I’m not sure that ‘they’ like me. I’m not sure if I should call ‘them.’ After a year or so, Dad had enough and he told her, “Look, I know you like girls. It don’t matter to me. Stop it with that “they” crap.” They were instantly friends.
I met Darla once. I found her number on my Dad’s cell phone, and I called her up to see if she wanted to meet. My Dad had recently had a stroke, and I wanted to see if she had observed anything odd about him in his recovery. And also, if I’m being honest, I was more than just a little curious to meet the infamous Darla, who had been shrouded in mystery for years. We met at a Waffle House and she was lovely. A cute and charming baby-butch who did nothing but gush about how cool my dad was. I liked her instantly.
My dad always wanted a daughter, but life gave him two sons. Growing up, whenever we ran into family friends who had daughters, particularly if the little girls were dressed in cute girly dresses, my dad would coo over them and would talk afterwards about how darling so-and-so’s little girls were. When visiting, my dad would always make a special effort make the girls feel special, or as they got older, to help them learn how to check the oil in their cars, and give them advice on how to handle boys. I, having absolutely no interest in girls whatsoever, found this behavior to be just another one of my father’s odd eccentricities.
With Darla, Dad finally got the daughter he always wanted. When I call Dad, I sometimes ask about Darla, and I get long-winded stories about how Darla’s new girlfriend isn’t treating her right, or how Darla showed him how to cook a mean steak on the grill. These stories make me smile ear to ear, not just because my Dad is happy hanging with his new lesbian buddy, but because it’s just another example of how accepting, loving, and incredibly cool he remains to be.
To celebrate Pride Month, I am sharing daily posts about the celebrities, people, and experiences, that have shaped my own gay perspective. I am in no way speaking for the LGBT community at large nor making claims that my experiences are somehow unique. This is just the personal history of a 40-something gay man.
Read more of these stories here.
