noizemagazine - Index

noizemagazine - Spring 2008 Issue # 55 - Index

take me five more years to get up enough
courage to follow suit.
My plan was to tell my parents on my next
visit back home to Staten Island. It was
customary for them to drive me back to
Manhattan after a visit. On this occasion,
I offered to drive myself. I didn't want the
news to startle my father into an accident.
As we passed over the Verrazano Bridge,
I locked the car doors so that neither parent
could escape. As we passed the first
of the two powder-blue towers, I looked
into the rear-view mirror as my old hometown
faded away. It was time. Without
pause, I calmly and succinctly revealed
to them that I was gay. There was a long
moment of silence. I could not bear to
look at my parents so I stared at the road
ahead of me. Breathless with anticipation
of their response, I felt a weight had been lifted. For better or for worse, I had
been freed from this guilt, and now it was in their hands and hearts, to make their
own peace with it.
My father was silent, which was not unusual. My mother and I talked calmly, which
was unusual, but all in all we were communicating. Looking back now, I know
that had I not been an adult, they might not have accepted my - “coming out”
- as easily as they did. That is not to say that they were happy. They were very
concerned and somewhat disappointed, but that was understandable. What did
these two Italian immigrants know about gays, other than the negative images
that had been reinforced by the media and their church? To my parents, being
My second adolescence was filled with the traditional rites of passage:
parties, drinking, and sex.
gay meant getting AIDS and burning in hell. I was their only son. I was supposed
to get married and have their grandchildren. How could I blame them for being
so disappointed? The remorse over not living up to my parents‘ expectations was
something I had to struggle with for years.
I was introduced to the gay party scene after I moved to Manhattan in my early
twenties. Initially, I went to gay bars just to be around other gay men. Eventually
I made friends and realized that there was a whole new set of governing rules by
which I had to learn to conduct myself. It was just like high school, all over again.
Coming out had pushed me into some kind of gay puberty, and I found myself
living through “gay adolescence.”
This second adolescence was filled with the traditional rites of passage: parties,
drinking, and sex. Suddenly, I was body conscious and had to join a gym. I wore
tight T-shirts to show off my new muscles and took my shirt off, without hesitation,
whenever we went dancing at clubs. I drank in crowded bars pressed up against
other men and then danced alongside them in clubs until dawn. Along with the
all excessiveness of the gay party scene came the realization that my subculture
knew no class division. The wealthy partied right alongside the poor, and as long
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