The Dream

I waited in the bushes until these thugs came by and started taunting it – my sculpture. Well, it was not really a sculpture. It was two stuffed but realistic dummies I had fashioned. They were entangled with each other and seemingly kissing on a bench. And they were dressed as two men.

The taunters had bats and knives and wore scarves about their faces. Perhaps they were the same ones who had brutally murdered that poor young man in another park a week or two ago.

I’d been practicing. I took aim and fired. I got them all. Each fucking one of the miserable lot. It felt good, very good.

Then I woke up. I’ve had that dream, or a variation of it, many times. I seem to carry it around with me. My therapist said it was unresolved anger. You can say that again. Unresolved, and lurking in the recesses of my mind for most of the last 50 years.

And it is the 21^st century. It shouldn’t still be this way; at least not in the western world. I realize many places in the world are still living as if it were the dark ages. They have never progressed, or if they once did, they quickly regressed into old superstitions, and phobias.

But I am thinking that we also got stuck here in the west too. There are still lots of old thoughts drifting around, resurfacing. There are still lots of phobias. They find places to ferment and develop into hate.

We use religion and education subliminally, and sometimes overtly, to brainwash our children to be heterosexual. We nickname our boys “Butch” and our little girls “Princess”. We dress the boys in blue jeans and the girl’s in pink frocks. We encourage the girls to play with dolls and the boys to play baseball.

We don’t let children find their own comfort zones. We impose them. It may not be as pervasive as it once was, but it persists. Society is, perhaps unwittingly, the big bully.

So, it is true: I do have a lot of unresolved anger. And I know it is not good for me to carry it around inside of me. I try to dissolve it or at least to learn how to live with it as one can sometimes learn how to live with chronic pain. The hope that even small advances in tolerance give to me is a balm. But I know that there are always those who stand opposed.

I am told there is healing in telling one’s story. So herein lies a tale.

****

One of my earliest memories comes from when I was four or five years old. I know this because I know the relatively short period of time we were living in the particular house. It was a very English home of the early 1900s. It was perched on a sizeable piece of property and sat back from the road on a small incline. There were tall yew trees on either side of a circular drive and a woods on the hill behind. There was a kitchen garden and numerous perennial flower beds. Closer to the road there was a small garage and, next to it, a wooded area. I used to play in those woods alone – lost in a child’s delightful, imaginary world. I can still smell the moss and bracken of springtime.

The bus stopped just at the edge of the woods before the garage. It was a red double decker. I waited for it. I remember the driver getting out and chasing me into the woods. I wasn’t afraid. He would catch me and tickle me. It’s what I wanted. I remember laughing at this joyful play. I do not remember much more however. I don’t know if this was a single occurrence or whether it happened more than once. I know I loved the game. The memory of it is always pleasing to me. I remember it with a feeling of being whole. I am sure that at four or five years old I did not see it this way. But I experienced it in this way.

****

Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, people still went to church – and back then our world was largely white and Christian. Every Sunday people dressed up, men, women, and children. The women wore hats, often with small veils. And they wore gloves. The men and boys were in suits and ties. Their shoes highly polished. The dressing was the real ritual of the day. Going to church was more of a social thing to my recollection, than it was a religious thing. Certainly it was not spiritual.

I remember the sermons. Well not exactly the content; but the tenor of them. They were long rambling things. The priest droned on and on. The congregation got drowsy and fidgety. Some even went to sleep. There was a lot of nodding, but not in an agreement sort of way. It was enough to drive people away; and, in time, it did.

However, for several years, from about the age of seven to eleven years, I was in the choir. I loved wearing the cassock and surplus. I must have had a good soprano voice back then because I eventually became head boy chorister. Apart from the robes, I liked the drama and the music.

Regardless, I was a boy and I did tend to fool around a bit during choir practice. The choirmaster nicknamed me “Poopsie”. I am not sure why. Perhaps it was a term of affection, but I didn’t like it. It made me feel small – smaller than I already was.

Anyway, one time when we were practising this Anthem for the Sunday service, the choirmaster was fussing over the clarity of this one note we sopranos were supposed to be singing. It was a very high one. Now, the practices were long, and fastidious. They occurred mid-week in the evening after a long child’s day. I must have not been paying attention to his instruction. Perhaps I was even fooling around.

He obviously caught me at my distraction. He was visibly irritated, even angry with me. I guess he wanted to make an example of me. He said in a loud and “how-dare-you” voice: “Poopsie! Sing the note I just played.” I hadn’t heard it. At least, I thought I hadn’t. But I just closed my eyes and reached inside myself, opened my mouth and my vocal cords, and sang that high C as clear, as rich, as pure as can be. He was shocked. I think the entire choir was. And he didn’t know what to say. I am sure he was amazed. I was too. But I got this very self-satisfied look on my face – a “so-there” look. After this, he treated me with more respect. After this, I did not fool around so much during choir practice.

****

In church, everything seemed both, subtly and not so subtly, about being a good husband, an obedient wife and a well-behaved son or daughter. It was all about family. Everything seemed to be saying I should find myself a pretty little girlfriend, eventually marry and have kids. I was maybe twelve years old.

Well, the choirmaster had two daughters. One was blonde and pretty. The other had more character and was almost tomboyish. She had short brown hair and a lovely mischievous twinkle in her eye. She was cute.

One day I got up the courage to ask her out on a “date”. I had never had a “date” with a girl before. I asked her to go skating at a wonderful public rink not too far from the church and our home. It had great music over crackly loud speakers. I had been there many times before with one or more of my brothers. Even though I was not a great skater, I loved that this rhythmical music made me feel like I was dancing on air.

Now my date lived nowhere near us, which meant my father had to be our chauffeur. How uncool was that, even then. We picked her up at their suburban home. And at the park, we skated awkwardly together around and around the rink. There were difficult silences. We did not know what one was supposed to say to one another on a date. We took a break for some hot chocolate. Maybe I even held her hand. But I am sure we did not have a pre-pubescent kiss.

This was our first and last date, although I think we stayed friends for a while afterwards – at least until my voice started to break and I quit the choir. I never was able to mend that broken voice, no matter how hard I would try.

****

Public School sent out the same message as did the church. I was a rolly polly little boy, until I was twelve. I got picked on a lot. I didn’t have many friends. My mother knew I was having a hard time at school. I was not like her other kids who were all lanky and athletic – and tough. No one would bully them. If they did, they would live to regret it.

I was always the last kid to be picked for a team during gym class. It didn’t matter what the game was. That ordeal of waiting to be picked, wanting to be picked was dreadful. I hated it. Therefore I hated the games and I hated the other kids and I hated the teacher who put me through the humiliation.

My mum had been something of a tomboy herself as a child. She would try to teach me how to throw and catch a ball. If you had seen her out there in the backyard with this round little guy tossing the ball again and again, you would have laughed. But eventually I got the knack of it.

And she would get my older brothers to teach me how to fight. They were fighters – champion schoolboy boxers. Tough. Really tough. But I never did get the hang of boxing. What I did learn, however, was how to use my weight in a fight, or in a game. I got to be good at that. I broke one bully’s shoulder in a game of British Bulldog. The trouble was that when he cried, I did not feel very good. I felt terrible in fact.

****

Maybe my young body wasn’t the greatest. But I was smart. I liked the learning part of school. In grade four I was the class monitor. I even helped the teacher arrange the class dances. Yes, we actually moved the desks to one side and learned how to dance.

In grade five, I was chosen to be the president of the Red Cross. My teacher would drive me downtown to the Red Cross office during lunch break to pick up 8mm films for class. We drove in her Austin. She drove fast. I loved that.

I only remember one of these films. It was about puberty. Even then I knew it was a dreadful film. It was all about pimples et cetera. It was the closest we ever got to sex education.

And then there was St. Valentine’s day. While most days many of the kids went home for lunch, we all brought sandwiches to school for lunch that day. It was a party. We got to give out cards to all the people we wanted to. This was another horrible event for those who got few if any cards.

I made my cards out to Nancy, and Patricia and Valerie. I even made one out for Ritchie. But I never gave it to him. I wanted to; but something in me said it was not a good idea. So I kept the card and eventually tore it up into little pieces. I didn’t want anyone to find it. I had written it in a moment of frivolity. I knew it was wrong. At the time, I didn’t know how I knew that. I do now however. It was all that subtle teaching at school and at church. The television was also a tool for subliminal messaging. No boy ever gives a valentine’s card to another boy. It’s not because they have to say it is wrong. It is because they never say it is all right.

****

Well, I survived Public School just fine. In fact, I was Valedictorian at our grade 8 graduation. I had learned public speaking well at that school: all the memory work, the poetry recitations, the oral presentations we had to make in front of the class. I had excelled at all of this. Even the bullies had backed away or matured. And of course, I had made a concerted effort, with my mother’s help, to lose weight. At 13 years of age, I had slimmed right down and felt wonderful.

So when I went off to boarding school at the age of 14 for five years of high school, I went with full confidence and self-esteem. Of course there were the usual jitters of being sent away from home for such long periods of time. My parents had cleverly introduced me to the concept by sending me away to summer camp for a month each of the past three summers. Whether this had been an intentional aspect of their benevolence or not, I do not know. But it had worked.

Now the camp my brothers and I were sent to was small. There were only sixty campers – all boys. It was on a lovely large lake nestled in the woods. They had everything: riding, sailing, archery, riflery, crafts, nature hikes and swimming and canoeing. Of all of them, I loved swimming and canoeing the best. I could have spent all of my time at these two endeavours if they’d have let me. I got all the badges. I think that some of the older boys were annoyed that I managed the mile swim across the lake and back so early on. And I know there were those who were incensed that one so small had won the “good camper” award for my work during our longer canoe trips. But I had paddled hard, carried heavy loads on the portages and I worked hard at making and breaking camp. I had to show people I was as good or better than them, even if I did bear this unnamed burden – something I could not identify, but which I knew could do me harm.

It was as if I carried around this tally sheet all the time with GOOD on one side of the dividing column and BAD on the other. As long as I could rack up enough on the GOOD side of the ledger, maybe it would not be so terrible if they discovered whatever that lurking bad thing was.

****

So yes, off to boarding school at age 14. Many kids went much earlier. But I am glad for the public school years in retrospect. And I would love my years at boarding school too.

Despite what some people think and others will tell you about life at a boys’ boarding school, I experienced no “hanky panky” with either other boys or with teachers. I was oblivious to things sexual. Although my memory is that the education was fairly decent, sex education was not on the curriculum.

Of course, there was a lot of talk about girlfriends back at home. And some of the older boys had dates with some of the younger women who worked in the dining hall. I also had a girlfriend. One had to. But she lived conveniently far away. In fact, I had not met her in person. She was not imaginary. No, she existed. She had been my pen pal since I was aged 12 and she was 9. In each of our minds, however, we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Our communications were very frequent. They even were not only romantic but could be expressed in the most passionate of terms. Although I did not recognize this at the time, it was all so safe. This was a comfortable and comforting relationship for one who was so sexually naïve.

I worked hard at school. I joined the drama club, the art club, the debating club. I played squash, soccer, football and cricket. But I excelled at gymnastics and rowing. These last two sports consumed my passion and my sexual energy.

Academically, I achieved honours year after year. I won most of the top academic awards and graduated head of the class. I was even chosen as best all round student. I was certainly racking up those points on the GOOD side of life’s ledger.

****

I don’t recall ever hearing the word “homosexual” in my entire adolescence. Even at the age of 18, after my first summer experience when I was working away from home at a resort, I am sure I had to look the word up in a dictionary.

My “coming out” was not a smooth one. Once I knew the word, and knew the often venomous and always demeaning response it elicited, I would slam the door on that closet again – and again. I would be in my mid-twenties when the door finally came crashing open once and for all.

After that first wonderful sexual experience I returned to school for my final year of high school. I wrote many poems during the period of my adolescence. One that I wrote that autumn tells of my shame and fear concerning that summer’s awakening. It was a desperate apology. Many years later I would read another poem written by a man at a similar age about a similar awakening. That poem was by Oscar Wilde. Although his is by far the better poem, they both express much the same angst.

****

After university, one by one, my school chums were getting married (and divorced), settling down and having babies. Meanwhile, I was running off to Europe, India and Africa. Without fully being aware, I was hiding from the peer pressure and the societal pressure to join my friends in marital bliss.

During those years of running and hiding I had kept a diary. It was an honest one, a detailed one, except for one telling and repetitious lie. When I had expressed feelings for a man that I had met, I always wrote “woman”. In doing so, I was living the imposed shame inside of myself. I so desperately wanted to express the truth.

However, life can sometimes take one by surprise in a very simple and endearing way. At the age of 25 I was living far away from and out of touch with those I had grown up with. There I was unknown. I did not have to be that person they thought I was.

I was still running from myself, however, when I met a doubly closeted but very kind man. He was a cloistered Benedictine monk. However, he was on sabbatical from his brotherhood. We became close. Our times together were intimate and joyful. But, even as he struggled with his own homosexuality, he awakened and encourages and honoured mine. Although he would soon retreat back into his cloister, he said I must open my door wide and run back out into the world – to discover myself, to be true to myself. To do this, then, I needed to return to a larger city where I would meet others like myself and come to understand that I was not a pariah. He brought me to understand that I was a bright, caring young man with much to offer the world.

To this day I find it ironic: I had come to hate the church – any church, any religion – and yet it was a deeply religious man, one who struggled in anguish himself, who had given me the courage and the permission to set myself free.

****

The freedom that had been granted to me was a freedom I had chosen. It was not one that society offered to me. It was one I seized.

Although to myself I was no longer a pariah, to the social masses I still was. But little did I know that because of this I had taken a path that I had not anticipated. One that would be much more fulfilling than social norms would have offered.

Let me digress.

When I had started university, I had my eyes set on a career in the diplomatic corps. I thought I would be good at it. And I thought it would offer me the kind of life I would love. I was enrolled in a programme that would take me to that career goal. But the more I struggled with those damned persistent inner feelings, the more I realized I would have been a sitting duck in that profession. It was after all, 1971.

It is funny how things go. After being in the college’s theatre production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream, I decided that theatre would be a better and safer fit. I had loved the experience and was good at it.

Although I passed that first year programme with honours, I transferred to another college with a notable Fine Arts programme. I loved it. And there were people there like me! I was in heaven.

A decade later, I was your stereotypical struggling artist. No instant fame for me. No fame at all. I grew tired of auditions that led nowhere, or to bit parts in big productions. I was tired of waiting on tables to make ends meet and tired of living in rundown apartments with others like myself. While this might be fine at the age of 30, it would not be fine at 40 or 50. Not for me at least.

I had gotten the odd contract job in the social service sector during this time period. I had worked with street people, with the disabled, with youth involved in the criminal justice system. All of these had been short term positions filling in time and earning enough to pay the rent. But I was starting to think that maybe a career in social work was an option. I was getting ready for a career change anyway. I was planning on going back to school.

Then all hell broke loose in my new comfortable community. The police storm troopers raided a number of quiet gay bathhouses arresting hundreds in humiliating fashion. The community was terrified; but soon the fear turned to anger. Lawyers with a social justice and human rights conscience came together to challenge this brutal and excessive police action and the criminal justice system that had allowed it.

I had been out of town at the time. I returned home immediately and volunteered with the legal defence team. It was my road to Damascus. I decided then that I would become a lawyer. And I did.

****

I dedicated myself then to work for change. I became an activist. These are despised almost as much as homosexuals. I marched with others in protest. I spoke at rallies. And I confronted the police and politicians. I was heckled, insulted and laughed at by these honourable middle-aged men. The mainstream media was no less abusive. But I did not care. I was angry and determined. And I had discovered a wonderful community of likeminded people to bolster my resolve, my pride and my spirits. Rising up, resisting: these felt good.

It was during this period of transition from actor to activist that I met the man who would be my life partner, my best friend and staunchest supporter. Together we forged a loving and lasting relationship without the aid of the church or of society. Together we worked for change, not only by action but by example.

And slowly, ever so slowly, change came about. It was not easy or logical how it happened. It took a community emboldened by despair and death to come together and to demand recognition.

One by one, our friends and acquaintances were getting sick and dying on us and on the world. These were the ones I had danced with, partied with, protested with, loved and cherished. What a loss, not only for myself and my partner and others who loved them, but for the world.

But out of this came a community united and strong. It gave us a voice. If the politicians would not listen, in time the courts would. In time … in time. Too late for so many.

I grew to pity their ignorance. If they remained so closeminded on this one issue, how many other issues had they turned their backs on. What ongoing harm were they doing to others, to the world, to generations to come. I had little respect for the politicians.

And even the courts’ esteem suffered in my mind. When as a fresh lawyer I was granted the supposed honour of working as a law clerk for some high court judges, I soon discovered that there was a less than honourable side to the justice system.

There was an early constitutional challenge before the court concerning the denial of provincial benefits to a female couple of the same sex. Two of the judges, once they retreated behind closed doors, were like vulgar high school students making jokes about the women who were advancing their claim. One of these learned men said, within earshot of me, that he would be the laughing stock of his neighbourhood if he found in favour of the women’s claim.

At that moment I lost my respect not only for these judges, but also for the institution of the courts. How many other decisions were being made on this base reasoning. It was 1987. It would still be years before a yet higher court would rule differently.

****

So, there have been ups and downs in my journey. There have been highs and lows. The dream has periodically reappeared to unsettle my nighttime slumber. Although the plot is not always the same, the theme is. Sometimes the tormentors were gangs of thugs, sometimes they were politicians or judges, and sometimes they have been clerics of different faiths. In my dreams, at least I get even with them. In my dreams.

I worked for thirty years as a lawyer for social justice. Even that choice was made for me by a caution from one closeted corporate lawyer: “You won’t get ahead here if they know you are homosexual. You can never be one of the boys here”.

And I never wanted to be one of those boys. So, I turned my back on Bay Street and I worked to advance the rights of marginalized people, with people who shared my drive for social justice. I worked to restore the dignity of those who have been marginalized for any reason by churches, governments, and by society in general.

For every gain, there were so many losses. When I retired, I wondered if I and my colleagues had accomplished anything. We had of course; but whether these will be lasting achievements remains to be seen. Justice is like a pendulum not a balancing scale. It swings. It is so easy for rights hard won to slip away.

****

So I have now told my story. Well one of them anyway. I have put it down on paper. I have come to realize that the obstacles put in my way have forced me to forge a path of my own, rather than to blindly accept the one that was laid out for me. And the journey on this path has been a rich one, shared with the most wonderful people. I have had to question my very being. And the answers have come in the life I have lived. There is no longer any shame. For quite some time, there has no longer been a need in me to apologize for who I am. I no longer care about that tally sheet.

I am resolved that I shall continue to have my dream. In a world of virtual reality, where face to face contact is fast fading away, we too easily become pawns for those who would mislead us.

I shall continue to do my part. But I shall do it in different ways now. That way is through theatre and writing. But I am approaching my eighth decade. Younger people must take up the torch of justice for people and care for this planet and the forms of life on it if they want to live in a world that embraces tolerance, respect, co-operation and compassion.

**