Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2000 07:59:00 -0000
From: Brian B <freestylecheese@hotmail.com>
Subject: Calling Into The Mist 3
Authors Note: Well, here you guys have the 3rd section of Calling into the
Mist. In this section, two new characters are kinda introduced, and one
will end up playing a large role in the story. I am trying to do well, and
I really like this chapter, and I hope you do to. Also, I would like to
thank Brian the author of "Tylers Dance" for two things, first for writing
a beautiful story, and I would suggest you all read it, it is in this
section on Nifty, but also for recommending the book Density of Souls by
Christopher Rice to me. It was that novel that has now become not only my
favorite story, but lit the fire for me to write this story much quicker
that I would of otherwise. But remember what I said, I love e-mail, and I
would really appreciate just a note to say that you read my story, so my
e-mail address is freestylecheese@hotmail.com so you should really e-mail
me. It always brightens my day and I find email waiting for me because
someone e- mailed me at freestylecheese@hotmail.com so you really should
e-mail me. I just wanted to say that when I get suggestions and comments at
freestylecheese@hotmail.com I always respond to them, and make sure that I
say something to everyone who e-mails me. So please please please email me
at freestylecheese@hotmail.com Have a great day, and thanks to everyone who
e-mailed me thus far. Sorry this is so long.
Disclaimer: Please don't be offended by this story, but if you are your
skin ain't very thick. I also hope that you all like the story, and all the
players are over 18. Keep it real, and e-mail me at
freestylecheese@hotmail.com in order to give me comments or even just to
chat.
It's a good thing that life is not only the facts, but also the
emotions, and the feelings of everyone, because in the end, what are the
facts? The facts about me read like a bio sheet, not a life, but sometimes
I feel as if that bio sheet is all I am. My name is Dominik, I am 18 years
old, I am a senior in high school, I am 6 feet tall. Those are facts, but
they aren't who I am, but why does it feel like that is all I am; a one-
dimensional facade of human, not anything more than that. A society which
doesn't allow me to discover who I am, a society that creates a situation
that forces me to lie, and do whatever necessary to avoid the instant
isolation that would come from being anything more than the facts, from
being me. The year 2000 has brought with it the call for acceptance, the
call to end fear, the call to create acceptance, and who knows, maybe that
cheap shit works in other countries, in places far away from me. All I know
is that it hasn't worked here, the appearance of Danny, a gay man on MTV's
the Real World, warranted nothing but disgust for his "personal" choices
from those around me, while I watch the show as a semi-acceptable show that
also includes a gay individual, leaving me to try to milk my acceptance
from a TV character, my only comfort is that at least he is as
one-dimensional as me.
~~~~~
Saturday morning, six-thirty, as Kyle's alarm clock began to blare
into his room. Kyle rolled out of bed, and by force of habit managed to get
himself over to his alarm and turn it off with minimal effort. Kyle could
never figure out what desire made him punish himself by only allowing six
hours of sleep on a weekend, but Kyle knew it was all the best. As he
slipped into a pair of gray sweats, he slipped on his extra pair of
glasses, not feeling like getting his contacts on just to go jogging.
Kyle slipped quietly through the glass door leading out onto his
back porch, even though no one was around to wake up, and the neighbors
certainly wouldn't hear anything, regardless Kyle still felt required to be
polite, and to be quite. The morning was just beginning, and Kyle felt at
one with the world as he began to walk through his back yard, and then up
onto the trail leading into the forest, and eventually up the mountain that
lay behind his house. As Kyle began to jog on the trail he thought, his
jogs always being the best time for Kyle to think. The first thing that
came into his mind was of course last night, the study session with Dom,
Kyle immediately thought of the papers sitting on his desk, waiting to be
edited as Kyle jogged the morning away. Those papers would of course get
edited, when Kyle woke up at six-thirty in the morning it wasn't as if he
had anything better to do. But with the thought of papers that needed to be
graded, Kyle also thought of the author of the papers, Dominik. The boy was
what Kyle wanted, needed, but couldn't have. The constraints that bound
Kyle's hands were more than he could overcome; Kyle wasn't allowed to be
gay, it didn't fit with his parents image of him, and it didn't fit with
Kyle's image of him. Kyle knew that if he was gay, he couldn't be what he
had to be, flawless. Someone, somewhere would overtake him, leaving Kyle as
unremarkable as he should be, as imperfect as he was, and that wasn't an
option, but the fact that Kyle kept thinking of Dom was a weakness, an
imperfection, and one that just couldn't be allowed, so Kyle decided that
he wouldn't notice how cute Dom was anymore, or how much he just wanted to
stare. Kyle was the perfect senior, and he couldn't afford to be gay.
Regardless of the fact that usually by this time in the morning the
air had usually cleared, the Mist still hung heavy in the air as Kyle ran
into his backyard. The run had made Kyle feel invigorated and alive, and at
the same time he had a fear hanging heavily in his chest. His fear was not
the kind of fear that the perfect senior should have, the fear that someone
would discover what Kyle had known for quite sometime, that he was gay; so
Kyle had decided that his only option was to no longer be gay. As Kyle had
ran, he had thought, and as he thought, he knew deep in his heart that the
only way for him to escape from the utter humiliation that would come with
everyone discovering he was gay was to attempt to destroy everything about
himself that was gay. He slipped into his house with a single-minded goal,
in several hours he would no longer be gay.
Kyle started by running up into his room and turning on his
computer. While he awaited its reboot he went over to his closet and pulled
out his collages of men, and XY magazines he had hastily concealed within
it. As he began to shred the posters into unrecognizable strips Kyle felt
the oddest sensation of relief, no one would ever see these but him, and he
didn't even have to risk someone seeing them anymore. He threw them into a
trash bag, along with the XY's, and took it all into his Kitchen, leaving
it sitting next to his trashcan. Next, he ran back into his room and looked
at his computer briefly, before sitting down and deleting the AOL IM
service he used to chat with other gay teenagers. After finishing that he
opened AOL, going into his account, and deleting all of his screen names
but the main one, the only one he had never used to talk to other gays. As
he methodically worked his way through the computer destroying any physical
reminder of the "gay aspect" of himself he felt both relived that no one
would ever find his files, but also a growing knot of tension because he
was eliminating his channels that allowed him to feel. He destroyed
everything that wasn't as straight as could be. His electronic journal he
deleted, the poetry that he wrote was also deleted, stories that he wrote,
and also those that he read over and over again suffered the same fate as
his poetry. After he was satisfied that every single gay aspect of his
computer was gone Kyle began to find it hard to breathe, he had never felt
as alone as he felt at the exact moment. No one was there for him; there
was no one who he could talk to. Kyle had never been able to talk to anyone
about his personal life before, and that meant that there was no one who
would morn the passing away of this Kyle, and the re-birth of an entirely
new Kyle, one that was as close to perfect as he could possible be. So,
with nothing else to do, Kyle moved downstairs to begin his preperations,
and final clean up for the party that night.
~~~~~
As Dominik woke up that morning he felt relived. As he had driven
home from Kyle's house the night before he had realized something. As he
spent time with Kyle, he didn't feel dirty, he didn't feel attacked, all he
felt was that he really liked Kyle. The more he thought about it, the more
Dom felt like he understood the poem in Christopher Rice's novel Density of
Souls:
"Fear cannot touch me . . .
It can only taunt me,
it cannot take me,
just tell me where to go . . .
I can either follow,
or stay in my bed . . .
I can hold onto the
things that I know . . .
The dead stay dead,
they cannot walk.
The shadows are darkness.
And darkness can't talk."
To Dom, the answer to this poem was to apply it to his life, to
accept that fear can't lead him, nor should it. As Dom had driven home he
knew that everyone had to be what he or she were and so as Dom was laying
in his bed, he began to form his own plan. No longer would he be limited by
what everyone else said about him, he wouldn't allow his fear of homophobic
shadows to keep him from acting and being who he was any longer, and with
that he started his computer, and sat down to compose a newspaper article.
<><><><>
1 out of 10, 10%, these numbers according to many studies on the
issue are the number of gay individuals in our society. While shocking too
many these numbers are researched, and widely accepted.
But what does this mean to you. Well, I don't know, but I can tell
you what it means to me. Lets start of by discussing this year's senior
class; we have 302 students in the senior class. 172 of these students are
male, so according to the study that means that out of the senior class
that is graduating this year, about 17 students will be gay. But then
again, lets extend that, because we are only talking about gay males, what
about the homosexual females, we can't be sexist. So, if there are 302
students in the senior class, about 30 who walk up to the stage will be
gay. Now however, I am being to focused on the senior class. I don't know
the numbers in any classes but this years seniors, except that every year
classes grow in size, but for this test let us pretend like every class is
302 students, making 1,208 students in this school, so about 121 of your
friends, your study buddies, and the people you pass in the hall daily are
gay. Tomorrow, I want to suggest a simple activity for you to try. On
Monday, as you stand by your locker, count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, GAY,
for each student you pass, remember that one of 10 is gay, and if you are
that 10th, remember that you aren't as alone as you think you are.
But none of this answers my original question, what does this
mean. I guess what this means is that when I am walking up to the
graduation platform this spring 16 of my friends will be walking with me in
heart, even if they don't accept their diploma as who they actually are. On
Monday, as I walk through the hallways, 120 of my closest friends, only
neither I nor them know each other as friends, will be walking that hallway
together. So what I am basically trying to tell you is that I am that 10th,
and I am not alone as those of you who hate me now would think.
So tomorrow as you walk the halls remember that every 10th person
is gay, and every 10th person I urge you to no longer feel fear of being
who you are, so stand with me. And finally remember that this is as hard
for me to say as it will be for some of you to read, but it's the truth,
and it is what must be accepted.
-Dominik
<><><><>
Dom had written his article, and on Monday he would be out to the
entire school, but he printed 3 copies, and as he began to get ready to go
off for the day, he knew exactly where each copy was going.
Dom pulled back into Kyle's neighborhood, because it was about time
for him to meet up with Kyle. He quickly reviewed what he had done today
with a small smirk on his face. First, he had called his friend Kati, and
was spending the night over at her house, Dom had told her what he was
going to announce over the phone, and Kati had been nothing but
supportive. Then, Dom had put one copy of his article in an envelope for
his parents saying that he would be back on Sunday to talk to them. The
second copy of the note had been hand delivered to Mrs. Brown to be printed
in the newspaper on Monday. That was the first time that Dom had seen
anyone's reaction to his announcement, and he hoped that everyone would
react like Mrs. Brown. She had read the article, and with a small look of
surprise, Mrs. Brown had embraced Dom and said, "I am so proud of you
Dominik. If you ever need a place to hang out during the day remember that
my room is always available." Dom had talked to Mrs. Brown for several
hours and he felt very good about that reaction. That did still leave the
last copy of the article, and he knew what to do with it. He was taking it
with him to Kyle's house, and would ask him to edit it for him.
As Dom pulled up to Kyle's house he saw Kyle clearly through the
windows. As he walked up to the door he could see Kyle moving through the
house to open the door just as Dom walked up to it. Kyle invited Dom in,
and they walked up to Kyle's room to get the papers that Kyle had edited
for Dom. When they got up to the room, Dom noticed that Kyle must have been
cleaning because there was a white bag sitting next to Kyle's trash can,
but Dom didn't pay much attention to that, instead he handed the article to
Kyle, and asked him to read it really quickly.
As Dom watched Kyle read the article he saw surprise as Kyle
started it, and then it grew into anger, and as Kyle finished the article
it dropped from his hands, and Dom saw a look he never expected to see on
Kyle's face. Kyle's normally beautiful features where twisted into a
picture of pure anger and hate as he drew his arm back and punched Dom in
the stomach. "You fucking fag," Kyle screamed at Dom as Dom doubled over in
pain, "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE" he screamed as he shoved Dom backwards. Dom
tripped over the white bag that was sitting by the trashcan, and fell, but
this didn't stop Kyle. He kept screaming hateful and vitriolic phrases at
Dom, and all Dom wanted to do was to get out of this house. To get away
from the enraged God that Kyle had become.
As Dom fled from the house, he ran to his car, and quickly drove it
to the only place he knew where to go, Kati's house. As he pulled up he was
sobbing, and Kati ran out the door to meet him. But upon her seeing
Dominik's sobbing she quickly brought Dom into and embrace, and told him it
would all be alright, and that he just needed to calm down and tell her
what happened, but all Dom could hear were Kyle's words echoing in his
head, "you fucking fag".
Kati finally managed to get Dom calmed down, and to tell her what
happened. As he related the events that transpired at Kyle's house, Kati
got an angry look in her eyes. "Don't believe what that rich bastard tells
you, he is just a fucking prick, and he doesn't matter anyway. You, Dom,
are worth 100 Kyle's, and don't you forget it." And so it was with Kati's
reassuring words that he fell asleep, and in his dreams Kyle and Kati
fought one for Dom, and one against him; in the end Kati, with her
reassuring words a presence won the battle, and Dom finally settled down
and slept peacefully.
So there you have it, the newest part of my story. Please e-mail me with
comments at freestylecheese@hotmail.com