Much to Michael’s protesting, Emmett tells him that David is his
boyfriend and you only need to look for the tell tale signs that give
it away: he gives you flowers, your mom invites him for dinner, and he
whisks you away for a romantic weekend together. Before Michael
blinked, all three happened. Debbie saw them having dinner at the diner
and found out that Michael is dating a doctor and promptly insisted he
comes for dinner. Then David gives Michael flowers on the big night
when he picks him up to go over to Deb’s house. After dinner, Michael
shows David his old bedroom and Doctor Dave asks him to go the country
for the weekend. He was speechless but Debbie was not as she bellowed
from the other room that he better say yes!

David takes Michael to the cabin he built and stumbles on a picture of
David with a woman… his wife. He explained to Michael how he thought he
could force himself to be straight, but denying who he really was ate
him up. How many of us have had similar experiences in our lives where
we tried to deny that part of who we are? There was a part of my life
in my later teens and early twenties where I tried to. I had many
excuses and rationalizations for being interested in men and forced
myself to be straight and imagine myself living the straight life with
wife, kids, and the trimmings. But it wasn’t me, and ultimately, after
much turmoil, I accepted that I was different. Yes, I want the same
things – family and trimmings, etc., but I’d rather a husband than a
wife!

I was a little surprised to find out that Jennifer had broken her
promise to Justin and told her husband that their son is gay. And as is
too often the case, dear old dad did not react well to the news. My own
dad died when I was very young so I can only surmise how he might have
reacted. As I have thought about it over the years, it usually comes up
to a very similar experience. Gay people were not even mentioned in my
house, but knowing he was a man’s man (no not that kind!) and his
opinion on people who were different (black people and foreigners in
particular) it really isn’t hard to imagine that it would not have gone
at all well.

Justin decided to get a nipple ring and as a result also began to be
harassed at school for being queer. I think we all know something about
this too. Although in my case, that would have involved kids actually
acknowledging I existed, which for the most part I was completely
ignored. There was a boy I knew in elementary school who even once
excitedly wanted me to be his desk partner in a room where the desks
were in pairs. I was happy that teacher agreed because we got along
really well. In middle school I didn’t see much of him because he
hooked up with a girl and they were a big item. But in high school, the
girl was gone and when he would run into me in the halls he moved in
very close and grabbed my chest and give me a squeeze. My drug of
choice was food and so I was overweight and had man boobs going on in
high school. I hated it. I hated him. I hated the experience of running
into him. I felt it to be abusive and harassing but how do you explain
this to a teacher, when they themselves were not that invested in the
emotional well being of the odd kids and kids that were not honor
students or jocks. Years later I don’t know if it was harassment,
teasing and his way of getting a cheap thrill at my expense, or if he
was in some way trying to tell me something else. Maybe he was queer
too? He was always a good kid and always nice to me before that and if
I were to have chosen, if circumstances might’ve been different, who
would’ve been a friend to cross the line from child to adulthood, it
would’ve been him. But he changed a lot during middle school so I was
never really sure what to make of it.

Interestingly, when I was looking at a photo of Gale Harold just after
‘Queer As Folk’ began, I racked my brain trying to figure out who the
hell he reminded me of… something with his hair… around the eyes…
eyebrows… the shape of his face… something. It wasn’t until I got a
call about the 100th anniversary of my elementary school when they were
trying to put together a list of classes that existed the last year the
school was open because the records were not intact. I had to
reconstruct my elementary school class from memory and got all of them
but one, whom I had a total mental block on. When the secretary called
me back to say they finally figured out who everybody was I asked who
the kid I couldn’t think of was. I was flabbergasted when I heard his
name. It was the boy that was a good friend and whom I sat next to in
elementary school, that later became my tormentor in high school.

Although I never got into a fistfight as Justin did, his dad put all
the blame back on him and slapped him around and decreed that it was
high time for Justin to go away to boarding school to learn some
discipline. Uh huh, oh sure that will work… sending him to a boys-only
boarding school!

Goldilocks Kinney was recuperating from a concussion he got in a hit
and run accident and as everyone was fussing over him with tea that was
too hot, ice that was too cold, and such, Justin realized it was his
father that rammed Brian’s ass… err… make that his car. Brian had
enough of the convalescing and turned it into a dance party just as
Michael and David rushed home early from their trip. Brian had ended a
phone call with Michael earlier that was sure to make him come running
home. But when they found out, that Brian was not at death’s door they
both walked out on him.

Then one night at Babylon, David approached Michael and Brain. Michael
thought the doctor came for him, but it was Brian that he dragged out
onto the dance floor and he called Brian on his game… that he keeps
Michael close, but not too close and yet just close enough to keep
Michael hoping that one day he’ll eventually fuck him. But Brian knows,
and now David does too, that that will never happen. As much as I don’t
care for David, I have to give him credit for having the balls to
confront Brian and tell him that he wants Michael, even more than Brian
doesn’t want him to have Michael.