Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:19:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Smith <gaymormonwriter@yahoo.com>
Subject: Behind The Silver Screen Chapter 13  high school

Behind The Silver Screen
Chapter Thirteen

Eric sat up and turned away from the screen, towards me. "What is it,
Mike. What do you want to tell me?"

I knew this was going to be difficult, not being too sure of myself, and I
said, "I have to admit that I haven't heard of Mozart before."

Eric looked over at me in disbelief and cracked up laughing.

"I see I will have to enlighten you about the composer."

"Okay. I'd like that, but what about the music from this movie? Do you like
it as much as I do?"

"I've been listening to it. It seems to fit with what's going on in the
movie," Eric said.

"I saw this movie when it came out in 1972. I am a big John Wayne fan. I
love Elmer Bernstein when he scores one of Wayne's movies. I fell in love
with the music from TRUE GRIT and THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER. When I read that
John Williams scored this movie, THE COWBOYS, I was disappointed it wasn't
Bernstein. Bernstein's scores are usually big and brassy. I knew Williams
had been Oscar nominated for THE REIVERS, and I eventually grew to love
Williams' score. I have been trying to find the album for it. I collect
soundtrack albums, Eric. I must have over a hundred in my collection."

"I will just start by listening to your collection. Maybe I can distinguish
some similarities to classical music." Eric looked at me with a very
content and impressed look and said, "You do realize, Mike, that more than
likely, these film composers all studied the classics. The influence here
is really strong."

Then he looked thoughtfully at me and said, "Someday I am hoping to have a
big collection of classics."

"I am sure you won't have a problem starting your collection," I said. "I
will take you by a record store so you can start."

Eric looked at me with disbelieving eyes, not sure I was serious or not.

"I'm serious," I said. He just nodded his head.

At the conclusion of the movie I started my car and headed towards Eric's
house. The ride back to his house was in silence.

I had debated all night whether to tell Eric about Jay. As much as I wanted
to before returning to his house, I just couldn't do it. I parked the car
and turned it off.

"I had a good time with you tonight, Mike," Eric said.

"I did too. I still have some things to think about," I said, hoping to
sound positive. Eric nodded his understanding.

"Are you working anywhere this summer?" I asked.

"No, I haven't looked."

"Okay."

He turned towards me and took my hand. "When can I see you again, Mike?"

"In a couple of days. I'll call. I promise."

"Okay, Mike." He said and leaned over to kiss me. The kiss was soft and
brief.

After I watched him go in the house, I drove over to Ben's. I wasn't sure
he would be up, but when I saw the living room lights on I got out of the
car and knocked on the door. Ben answered with Mikey in his arms.

"Out kind of late, aren't you, Mike?" he asked with a mischievous grin.

"I'm sorry, Ben. I hoped you were still up. I needed to talk to you."

"Come in. I'm up with Mikey so Debbie can get some sleep."

"Don't you have to get up early for work?"

"Yeah.  But Deb is feeling pretty bad with her tonsils again. I will
probably call in. How was your date with Eric?" Ben asked returning to the
rocker.

"I hadn't considered it a date, but I guess it was. It was nice," I said,
sitting on the couch.

"What did you do?"

"I took Eric to the cemetery. I encouraged him to talk to Mike. At first he
wasn't too sure of himself. He considered the possibilities and with some
reluctance he did speak to him. It was good for him. I realized what it
feels like for you when we go there."

"Oh, yeah," he said looking at me with soft, understanding eyes.

Ben looked comfortable rocking Mikey. I sensed he loved being a father. I
knew I would never know what that would be like.

"Is Mikey restless or hungry?" I asked.

 "A little of both I guess." Ben got up and walked over to me. "Here. You
hold him while I go check on Deb. With you he might just fall asleep."

Ben left Mikey in my arms then headed upstairs. I laid him down on my legs
with his head at my knees. I took his little hands in mine. He looked up at
me and just smiled. I love it when Mikey smiles. He looks so much like Ben
with those big blue eyes and those ears that stick out some.

"You know, little guy, you look so much like your Dad. Yeah, you do," I
said, talking out loud to a six-month-old baby who had no clue what I'm
talking about. Mikey kicked his legs up and giggled. Why? I have no idea.

"You're lucky to have your Dad and your Mom, buddy. Your Dad is something
else. Someday you'll know what I mean. He's my best friend. He's been there
for me ever since our senior year in high school. He's in my heart, little
guy. Do you know what I mean?  He and I share everything with each other."

Mikey just smiled. I suspected he liked the sound of my voice.

"Here's my heart," I said, pointing at mine. "You're in my heart.  YES, YOU
ARE. You are in good company, too. Your Mom and Dad and your other Uncle
Mike are there. Someday, I hope to tell you about him."

"You got a heart, too. It's right here," I said, touching his chest.
"Mikey, your heart is incredibly flexible. It can grow with love and it can
let people in who are very special. I know you will have many people in
your heart. I want to watch you grow up and be happy with those who will
find their way there."

I put Mikey against my shoulder so I could hold him tight while I laid down
on the couch.  It felt good to hold Mikey like this. We had bonded and
somehow, I gave Ben credit for that. I sensed that Mikey could feel Ben's
affection for me and mine for Ben.

"Mikey, its not like opening a door and pushing someone into your
heart. It's how that person works their way in without your realizing that
it has happened. Then, suddenly you know they're there and a warm, wondrous
feeling comes from your heart when you think about that person, whether
they are near or far. It's how it is with your other Uncle Mike. He will
always be in my heart. It's how it is with your Dad. Mikey, you have no
idea what he means to me. He's been in my heart a long time."

I thought back trying to remember the exact moment I felt Ben in my heart
and I couldn't pinpoint it exactly.

"And, you, my little guy. You worked your magic on me. I just want to love
you and protect you. Your Dad gave me a great gift by sharing you with
me. You are so blessed and loved by your Mom and Dad. I feel blessed, too,
by being in your life. I know you will find out that you can talk to your
Dad about anything. Your Dad does that with me. I never had that with
mine."

I always felt slighted in life by not being able to talk to own father.

"Mikey, have you gone asleep, little guy?"

Mikey was sound asleep. I felt in awe that he could fall asleep in my
arms. I know he loves me, even though he doesn't really know what that is
yet. I bent down and kissed his little head.

"I love you, little guy." I said. When I got up and walked around the wall
to the stairs to take Mikey to his bed, I saw Ben sitting on the steps
about half way up. He was wiping his eyes.

"How long have you been sitting there?" I asked.

Neither of us moved.

"Awhile," he said. "I couldn't help myself. It sounded so nice hearing you
talk to Mikey like that."

"How much did you hear?"

"A lot," Ben said patting the step he was sitting on. I went and sat down
next to him with Mikey. Ben looked a little pensive, and I knew something
was on his mind.

"Aren't you tired of being gay, Mike?"

I wasn't expecting Ben to ask that question and said, "What do you mean,
Ben?"

"It's done nothing but bring you sadness and grief." He turned to me with
concern in his eyes and asked, "Is it worth it, Mike?"

I thought about that for a moment

"I know you're right, Ben. Life has brought me much sadness and grief with
Jay and even more with Mike. But that can happen to anyone. No matter what,
it still doesn't mater that I'm gay. It's not about what I am. It's about
who I am," I said shaking my head. "I don't know why. It isn't like I just
woke up one day and decided that I wanted to have sex with other guys. This
just seems so natural to me.  I don't know anything else. I don't
understand anything else."

"Look at Mikey, Mike."

I did. He looked so peaceful asleep in my arms.

"Mike, don't you ever want that someday? To be a father of your own
children?"

Again I knew he was right. I did want children of my own, but they probably
weren't in the cards. Mikey was going to be the closet thing I would ever
have to having my own children.

"Ben, yes, that would great if I were perfectly straight and I could be
sexual with a woman. But I can't. It's not going to happen," I said with
some resignation.

"Have you tried, Mike?" Ben said, almost sounding desperate for me.

"In my way I tried. I looked at those Playboy magazines in private and
couldn't get hard. I'm not like you Ben. I can't do it. I can't get hard
for a girl. Not even a whimper. I look at guys like you look at girls," I
said taking his hand. "When we jacked off together, you looked at the boobs
of the girl, while I was watching your hand and what you were doing with
it. "

Ben looked away from me. I think he might have been a little embarrassed
judging by the color of his face. I was just being honest with him.

I suspected he wasn't finished with the subject. He wasn't.

"I had to do some research one night when we were at Sinclair. I got bored
one night and I did some reading on homosexuality." He turned to me,
releasing my hand; his arm went around my shoulder. "Mike, experts claim
that homosexuality is a mental illness."

"I'm not sick, Ben," I said with some indignation. "How could you even
consider that?"

"It's what I read, Mike," he said still persisting with his point. "Mike,
haven't you ever wondered why just about all the guys we saw in the showers
were circumcised?"

"Yeah," I said, wondering what that had to do with being gay.

"I read that since early in the century, some experts believed that
circumcision would eliminate masturbation and homosexuality. These were the
same people who believed that homosexuals were deviants and that jacking
off with another guy could lead to same-sex attraction, and therefore to
homosexuality."

I shook my head not sure I believed what he was saying.

"They thought that by cutting the foreskin off and making it too difficult
to masturbate, they could prevent guys from taking the path to deviancy,
that mutilating a baby was a safeguard against homosexuality."

"Well, Ben, both those theories are proven wrong just by us. We never had
any trouble jacking off, and it didn't make you gay."

"Don't you see Mike? It doesn't matter whether the theory was wrong or
not. People are afraid of homosexuals. They don't know what they are and
don't care to find out. Remember when we were in elementary school when
kids would pick on other kids saying they had `cooties'?  We didn't know
what `cooties' were; we just didn't want them. It's the same with
homosexuals. It's like homosexuals have something like `cooties'. Straight
people don't want to be around gays, because they're afraid their `cooties'
might be contagious."

"Are you afraid of me, Ben."

"No, I'm not. But I am afraid for you."

I sat there, holding Mikey, taking in everything he said. It was making
some sense to me.

"Times will change someday, Ben?" I said, only half believing it.

"Mike, how long did it take before we had Civil Rights for everyone?"

"Too long, Ben."

"Exactly."

I looked down at the sleeping baby. I hoped the world would be more
understanding by the time Mikey was my age.

"Are you afraid of explaining all of this to Mikey someday?"

Ben began nodding his head and said, "Yeah, that has crossed my mind. But
Mike, it's just so sad to me. I can just imagine your life one of constant
sadness and disappointments. I don't want that for you."

I laid my head against his shoulder. I was sitting with the two most
important men in my life. I felt content that I had these two guys who
cared about me in their own unique ways.

"Why didn't you make any moves on me, Mike?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

I was surprised that it took him this long to ask.

"Honestly, I thought about it several times. But something told me that you
were too precious to me to take a chance and ruin our friendship. I am glad
that I never did."

We sat there quietly for a few minutes.

"Are you comfortable like that holding Mikey?" Ben asked.

"Oh yeah," I said. "I love this."

"Good. Well, now that I got all of that out of my system, what did you want
to talk about?"

"I'm somewhat confused about Eric and Jay. I just want some advice."

Ben nodded his head and asked, "So, what's the problem with Eric?"

"I couldn't tell Eric about Jay. I well I did, but it was about our time in
high school."

"You're afraid to tell him?"

"I was and still am," I said. "I never told you what happen with Jay, did
I?"

"I never felt like I had the whole story."

"I told you that Jay and I would jack off together. I didn't tell you that
the last time we did I went down on him."

"Oh really?" he asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.

"Yeah. He later told me that he liked it and wanted to do it to me but he
said it scared him and knew if he did, he would be like me. He wanted to
stay straight."

"That explains a lot." Ben said. "Are you sure Eric's gay, Mike?"

"I asked him the right questions, he gave me the right answers. He looks at
guys sexually, like I do. He has no interest in girls. I wanted to be
sure."

"But you have some hesitation about Eric?" he asked.

"Yeah, I do. I don't know if it feels right. He reminds me so much of Mike,
his eyes, his smile and even his kisses."

"You freaked out when he kissed you?"

"Yeah."

"Mike, it's just a kiss. A simple expression of affection that connects two
people."

Without warning, Ben pulled my face to his. He planted his lips on mine and
kissed me, with a sense of purpose. I was shocked. I was beginning to enjoy
the kiss when he pulled away.

"See? It's just a kiss. You're the first guy I ever kissed on the lips," he
said with raised eyebrows. "And the last."

I brought my fingers to my lips. His kiss was still fresh on my mind and I
won't ever be forgotten.

"I am sure we will both remember that kiss, for different reasons. But the
point is, it's just a kiss and if you keep thinking that Eric is too much
like his brother, you're aren't being fair to him or yourself."

I began to understand his point.

Ben was quiet for a few moments. "I want you to remember, despite what I am
about to tell you, that I love you. You're my best friend and I care about
you."

 "I know, Ben," I said with some apprehension.

"I think it's time, Mike, for you to come to terms with your life. Face
some realities and take control of your life."

"Ben? Why would you say that?" I asked, with great concern and
surprise. It's been a conversation of surprises. Even with his kiss.

"I am being your friend, Mike," he said. "It's time you let go of
Mike. Mike died in 1970. This is 1974. You knew Mike for less than a year
and you have spent four years grieving over him and what you had with
him. It's time to get over it, Mike. It's no longer healthy."

"Ben, what are you doing?" I asked. I trusted Ben and if anyone else had
said that to me I might've gotten angry.

"I am trying to get through to you. You may feel like you can move on with
either Eric or Jay, but you have to let go of Mike first. I am not saying
you have to forget him, but you have to accept the reality that what you
had with Mike is long over. And if you think that if he would have come
back when his tour was over like he was when he left, you would be
wrong. He wouldn't be the same, Mike. Your relationship would probably not
return to what it was when he left."

"Why, Ben?" I asked.

"The reality of it, Mike, is that most of the soldiers who came home from
that war were emotionally damaged. Even though Mike was killed two weeks
after arriving in Vietnam, his letters to his mother revealed that he was
changing. I read those letters, Mike."

"I never saw any of Betty's letters, Ben."

"No, Betty wasn't going to show those to you," he said.

 "When you met Mike, seeing him for the first time, what did you see?" Ben
asked.

"A kind hearted, sweet, innocent caring guy."

"Exactly. What do you think they taught him in boot camp?"

"I don't know. I hadn't thought about it."

"To kill, Mike. They gave him a gun and taught how to kill another human
being."

I never thought about that. Never really wanted to.

"Mike couldn't hurt anyone," I said trying to defend him.

"Exactly. But war changes a man. We all grew up being told it was wrong to
hurt anyone else. The Marines gave him a gun and told him it was okay to
shoot another man and they paid him to do it. That was the soldier he
became, doing his duty to protect us. Mike struggled with that concept and
when he killed someone the first week he was there, it made him sick. He
hated himself for it."

Oh my God, Mike. I thought.

"This is true, isn't it, Ben?" I said, not sure I liked the implications
here.

"Mike, did you read those last few letters you got from him after he was
killed?"

"No. They're in the box," I said, knowing they were safely out of the way,
tucked quietly intact with the rest of his things.

"I can only imagine what he wrote, Mike," he said. "He wouldn't have been
the same guy you knew if he had come back. Some of the veterans are
suffering from severe `Delayed Stress Syndrome'. It messes some of them up
pretty good. You might have lost Mike anyway."

I didn't like what Ben was telling me. I struggled to understand. Sadly, I
began to accept that what he was saying was true.

"Since he died, you have lived in the memories of what you had with
Mike. Stop living those memories and create new ones with someone else. You
and I will never forget him, but we both have to live our lives. I have a
life here with Debbie and Mikey. You're in my life, too. I want you to be
happy, whether it's with Eric or Jay or someone else. I may have trouble
understanding what makes you homosexual, but I know you better than anyone
else. I'm not afraid to learn more about it."

Ben pulled me in and hugged me. With my free arm I hugged him, too.

"You're in my heart, too," Ben said in my ear. That warm feeling flooded
me. Ben's still my rock.

"Now, there are a couple more things I going to say to you about Jay and
Eric before putting Mikey and me to bed. I'm not sure I trust Jay, even
more now that you described what happened between you two. He was such a
player with the girls in our senior in high school.  I saw him with a
different girl about every two weeks. The stories that went around about
him were probably true that once he got one, he dropped her and moved on to
the next one."

Apparently Jay was trying to push his own homosexual feelings as far away
as he could by proving to himself and others what a stud he was.

"He might do that with you. My advice to you is that you belong with
Eric. He needs someone he can trust and he trusts you. But remember one
thing, when you met Mike, he was emotionally and affectionately
starved. Eric is the same way, but not as bad.  I trust you to be sensitive
to his needs and make the right decisions about Eric and Jay"

I beginning to realize that I had only one choice in the matter.

"I am also worried about you working the strike. You know I work at
Frigidaire and I am in the union. I've heard the stories about how far a
union will go to discourage scabs from crossing the picket lines. Have you
been threatened yet?"

"Yeah, I guess in a way. Nothing blatant, though I was followed one night
back to Dayton, but I lost them."

"Mike, my advice to you is to get out of that job. Find something else. I
don't want you getting hurt that way either," he said, yawning. "That's
it. I got nothing else to say. I'm going to bed."

I handed Mikey over to him and said, "Ben?"

"Yeah?"

I looked him in the eyes, I pulled his forehead to mine and said, "You know
how I feel about you and nothing will ever change that. I appreciate that
you cared enough to share with me your concern and that you can show me
affection without thinking you might catch something."

He chuckled and said, "I love you, too, Mike."

I kissed his forehead and kissed Mikey and went home with a lot to think
about.



*******************************


Eric and I left the Dayton Mall after seeing "Jaws". Eric was driving so I
got in on the passenger side and buckled up.

"I'm sure that music will be a tough one to beat at the Oscars next year,"
I said as Eric started the car.

"You and your movie music, Mike," He said shaking his head. "Don't get me
wrong...completely. I do like some of it. Not sure about that one though."

"What? You don't think that wasn't the best score of 1975 so far? It made
the movie more fun."

"I know. I guess I liked it. The way it started out at the
beginning. Haunting as the camera passed through the water, searching for
its prey. Like a heart, beating in anticipation and then increasing its
momentum as it approached the girl, like every heterosexual being on this
earth," Eric said with sarcasm.

I saw the smirk on his face and I laughed hard at that analogy.

"What? You're disappointed it wasn't a nice looking, young guy in a skimpy
bathing suit, with a big bulge, so your heart beat would have increased?" I
asked, still laughing at him.

"Yeah. I am."

"I thought you were happy with my bulge."

"I am," he said. "I may be in a monogamous relationship with you, but I
didn't agree not to fantasize about other guys. Besides, weren't we talking
about the music?"

"I thought we were."

"The music was actually great. You should buy the album so we can have sex
while it plays," Eric said sarcastically taking the `on ramp' to I 75.

I thought that would be an interesting idea. Playing the John Williams
score to "Jaws" and screwing our brains out. I was seriously imagining
which sex act to do to each movement of the score. I liked it. Despite
Eric's obvious joke, I was definitely going to make that happen. I wondered
if he was going to drive by a K Mart.


The end of Chapter 13