They're
preaching traditional family values, but their traditional family
seems to be an amalgam of Father Knows Best, Donna Reed,
and the Beaver. Those families were make-believe, repressed,
and boring. "Traditional" seems to mean 1950s.
So here's a story about real family values.
In
the late 60s, my brother Dale dropped out of his senior year
at the University of Missouri, where he was an almost straight-A
art student. He came home to St. Louis and came out of the closet.
It freaked the family.
As
I remember it, our stepmother—who is ignorant at best—became
more abusive than usual. She lectured. She ranted and raved.
Dale tried to explain that, for the first time in his life,
he felt good about himself. She sent him to a psychiatrist to
be cured. She decided "it" was contagious and refused
to wash his clothes with theirs. She inspected his mode of dress
every morning before he went to work.
Finally
Dale got fed up. He left home. Forever. I mean, he disappeared.
That was January, 1969.
No
one heard a word from him. Not a letter, not a post card, not
a phone call. When I moved to California, my father said, "Now
you can find your brother."
"Do
you have any idea how many people live in California?"
I replied. "Hire a detective." When they came to visit
five years later, they searched every face at Disneyland, hoping
they'd see Dale. "If he wanted to be found," I said,
"he'd be found." What I didn't say was that he obviously
didn't want to be found and that I didn't blame him. Nevertheless,
when I became a volunteer at the AIDS Services Foundation, I
put out the word in the gay community that I had a brother,
alive or dead. But no one had ever heard of him.
Not
a clue, not a sign, not a hint for 23 years. My son grew up
making jokes about his "phantom uncle." When I spoke
to our 95-year-old grandmother a month before she died, she
was still asking about Dale.
On
June 8 [1992], I was awakened by the phone at 2 a.m. "This
is your long-lost brother." We talked for two hours,
half-crying, half-giggling. We said as much as we could think
of, but it wasn't nearly enough. Did I remember how I'd beat
him up every time he hid the notebook I wrote my stories in?
Did he remember the tissue paper collage he gave me, the wire
sculpture? Did I remember how we used to ride our bikes to the
little creek? Did he remember how we always finished our Christmas
books before New Years?
Dale
has been living in a small town up north. He's been happily
"married" to a man named Tim for 18 years. I have
two brothers now. They're both HIV-negative.
By
8 a.m., I had phoned my Aunt Ruth in St. Louis. "Dale called,"
I said. "Here's his phone number." I called my son.
"Your phantom uncle is alive and well." I called Dale
and Tim that evening. "Send photos. I'm sending stuff to
you."
By
the time I spoke to them again Sunday night, they'd heard from
aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant relatives, and Dale had
spoken to our father.
How
had he found me? Tim said Dale had been talking about me for
years, but they didn't know I'd left Missouri. Directory Assistance
was no help, but they'd finally found our father's oldest brother,
who gave them our father's phone number in Florida, and our
stepmother was actually polite and gave them my phone number.
"That's great," I said, "but don't phone me again
at two in the morning."
We're
pen-pals now. We've sent photos back and forth. My son has spoken
to his uncle. They share a common experience: Dale was an Eagle
Scout, Charles a reluctant Tenderfoot. Dale drew me a goddess
on the back of a Safeway bag. "Is she the goddess of safe
ways?" I asked. "She's the goddess of fruits,"
Tim said. Twenty-three years is a lot to catch up on, but we've
got time to do it. This is the truth about family values.
