Canal Dweller

The first words he said to me were ’Here he comes. The fucking faggot makes an appearance”. It was how my dad greeted me. I had become used to this kind of welcoming, unfortunately.

I don’t know why my dad had to speak to me like that. I knew what I was. I knew I was dirty and needed to be cleansed of my improper thoughts. Humiliation wasn’t the way to do it and every time he did, he weakened our bond and made me hate him a little more.

I pulled out the chair at the dining room table and took a seat, placing my rapidly cooling plate of bland chicken and broccoli in front of me. My elbow scraped along the table edge, cut rough by my dad when he had to make the thing fit in our new kitchen. He’d just used a hacksaw to trim off a few inches and then left it. The table edge remained ragged, and I’d lost count of how many gifted splinters I’d received.

“What you been up to today, David? Have you had a nice day?” asked my mum, sitting off to my right, scrolling through her tablet and asking the question absentmindedly.

“Not too bad, thanks, mum. I’ve just been, you know, getting along with things.” I didn’t like to give too much away, and besides, she wasn’t really listening.

“And what things would those be?” my dad asked, tilting his head back and swallowing a gulp of Stella. Mum was polite. Dad was actively seeking a way to twist the knife. He’d always had this personality inside him, but it wasn’t until I broke my news that it had gained free reign.

“Just stuff,” I said, avoiding his question as best as I could. If I were lucky, he’d take another swig of booze and leave me alone. He didn’t.

Instead, he leant forward, his eyes boring into mine and his lips twisting into a sarcastic sneer. “Wow! Stuff! We just love the level of detail, don’t we Cindy? Any other details, or do we have to drag them out of you?”

I breathed a sigh of surrender. “Look, I went to the therapy session and then I went to work. Work was just the same old shit as every day. Happy?”

He leant back in his chair, taking another draft, but missing his mouth. Suds bubbled out of the corners, dribbled down his chin and rolled down his stubbly neck onto his shirt. He immediately put the bottle down, cursing and wiped most of the liquid away with a stained sleeve. He seemed happier, and even if he wasn’t, the spillage has distracted him.

I was glad of the break. My family could be stomached in small portions only. Mum was OK, mostly indifferent to me, but she left me alone. Dad, on the other hand, enjoyed seeing me squirm. It was a punishment for my choices. I was a massive disappointment for him because he lived such a pious life and I lived sinfully. I was not a real man. I had a disease. It was an illness that plagued my soul, and would not kill me in this life. It would damn me eternally. It never used to be this way.

It all started when I was in my late teens. I’d always known that I was different, but I refused to accept it. I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to be like the men in movies, the ones who’d decimate an army of hired guns without breaking a sweat and then ride off into the sunset with the girl on his arm. It was the girl bit I had a problem with.

I can’t remember when I actually started to notice it, but I think it was during secondary school when the hormones kicked in. I began to want relationships. I was a good looking guy. Naturally athletic and toned, I’d achieved the look most guys wish for without doing anything to earn it. True, I enjoyed cycling, and I played a bit of rugby, but I was far from the roided up super athlete. Plenty of girls wanted me. At the time I didn’t notice them, but my friends were always amazed at the admiring looks I received. They were never from the people I wanted, however.

Of course, I tried dating them and even enjoyed it sometimes, but loneliness started creeping in. I wasn’t…me. I couldn’t explain it until I saw Brandon Harper, the new kid in school. Everything came together for me right then, I think, although it would still be a few years until I admitted to myself what I already knew.

I carried on living a lie with girlfriends. Each relationship started off well, but then, I’d get tired of putting on a charade, and they’d start to notice my level of effort had decreased. I didn’t mean to, I just couldn’t keep it up. It was like a New Year’s Resolution. For six weeks, you count your calories, hit the gym and make sure nothing but salad passes your lips. Then you go out to dinner and the steak smells so good you order the biggest one they have. You’ve started the slide downhill, and the resolution dies. It was the same with female relationships. I’d manage six weeks, and then I’d feel like I couldn’t keep it up any more and my efforts would wain. I never broke up with them. I didn’t have the guts for that. They’d always break up with me. I left many a tearful girl in the Manchester rain as they ended things and I walked away feeling more relief than sorrow.

When I saw Brandon, I knew there would have been no effort required. I never dated him. I never dated anyone until university, but I just knew, and for the first time, I could imagine actually living my life instead of watching others live their own.

Finally, I dared to admit that I might be...I can’t even say the word. No one could ever know!

But, after two years of university, I’d tenderly explored being myself, and there was a growing feeling that I should let others know who I was. They were all so liberal at University. I forgot whose family I was in.

When I decided to tell my friends, it was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. Some friends embraced me, others castigated me. It was the nature of the game, but each time I lost a friend, I’d feel a blade slide between the ribs and pierce my heart. I couldn’t help it, and there was a wall of resistance about whether I was doing the right thing.

The biggest test would be my parents. I thought mum would take the news well, were I to tell them, but my dad certainly wouldn’t. He was a profoundly religious man, even though his life was almost the opposite of how a Christian should live. In fact, it seemed the only part of the Bible he did care about was the ‘no man shall lie with another man’ part. He also partook of more than his fair share of communion wine.

Regardless, I finally worked up the courage to tell them who I was. I hoped my dad would see his son for the first time and his love would be so strong that he’d throw off his biblical shackles and embrace me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I sat them down in the living room, on the plush sofa. They held hands and waited for me to sit down as well. Dad, in his shirt and tie, carried a half-empty bottle of beer between his fingers nonchalantly, as if he was trying to work himself up to accept whatever was going to be said. Come to think of it, I can’t think of a time when dad didn’t have a bottle in his hand.

I sat on the leg rest in the middle of the room. They sat in silence, and I perched on this leather island in the centre of the living room. “Mum. Dad. I have something I want to tell you.” Maybe it wasn’t the best of starts. It sounded like I was breaking the news that I was dying of some terrible disease. Maybe I was?

I told them that I’d been feeling something for as long as I could remember and I loved them and I wanted them to know the real me. Then I said it. It was a mistake; a mistake I recognised immediately.

Neither of them said a word. My mum looked at her lap as if she was begging the sofa to swallow her and end the nightmare. I think she had tears in her eyes and every time I saw her mouth crease in a stifled sob, I felt my heart tear a little more.

I’m not sure, at the time, which reaction was worse. My mum’s sobbing or the look my father gave me. He fixed me with an icy stare, still holding onto mum’s hand with his left and his beer bottle with his right. After an interminable length of time, he sniffed once in disgust, shook away mum’s hand and stormed off.

Neither of them uttered a word to me.

I left the house, caught a cab to the train station and went straight back to university. I didn’t talk to them for a month. The ice thawed only when mum called to tell me, Aunty Jean had died.

Back at the kitchen table, dad finished his next beer and strode over to the fridge. He swayed slightly, but if you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t have noticed his inebriation. He opened the fridge door while looking at me. His fingers groped in the fridge, finding the beers with muscle memory formed through years of consistency. He knew exactly where they were in the refrigerator. He pulled one out and in one swift movement, he shut the door and brought the bottle down on the counter edge. The cap popped off and bounced between the counter and the fridge. He made no effort to retrieve it.

“You think the therapy’s working?” he asked me, praying that I’d say ‘yes’ and all his problems would be over.

I thought about humouring him and telling him that it was, but it was one of those occasions when I wanted to push him. Sometimes it happened, and I was up for a fight. Other times, my mood would be so low that I could barely stomach looking at him, let alone conversing with him. “I don’t know, dad. I’ll have to give it more time. I’m saying the prayer when I’m…you know…tempted,” I said.

“Well, that’s something I suppose,” dad said, hiccuping through the last word. I couldn’t tell whether he was sarcastic or not. “So kind of you to give your eternal soul a fighting chance,” he continued. It was sarcasm. “Sometimes, David, I don’t know why I bother. I don’t know why there’s only me that gives a damn about you and where you end up after God strikes you dead with ‘the disease’.” He believed his own bullshit.

“I’m not going to get any disease, dad, especially not the one you’re thinking of,” I said.

“You don’t have any say in whether you get it or not. You know as well as I do, God won’t let you live that lifestyle and not pay the price. For goodness’ sake, you’d have thought we’d failed you as parents the way you go about your life. Did we do something wrong?” he asked rhetorically. “Was there something else we could have done to show you God’s way?”

I shook my head but didn’t answer. The will to fight him was diminishing rapidly. It was the same old spiel, and I should have recognised that he was well past reason after so many beers. While he was ranting at me, I counted the glass carcasses lined up on the table. Eight. Eight bottles. After doing so, I tuned back into his vitriol.

“I didn’t think so. You may not care where you end up, but I sure as hell am not going to accept the abomination that you’re becoming.”

I’d had enough, and my outburst said so. “Alright dad, let’s change the subject shall we?” I could feel the frustration and the anger rising inside me. I never knew how to let it out, and if I didn’t walk away now, I’d be forced to swallow the bitter stone for the rest of the night. It would stop me sleeping.

“No! We can’t change the subject! We’re trying to help you, and all you can think about is...hairy arse!” He exploded the last words, lacking any basic knowledge of what he was saying. I didn’t think about...that at all. I did care about my eternal soul!

“Enough dad! I don’t want to talk about it!” The frustration was overflowing, and the anger was constricting my gut.

“Well, you’re going to talk about it, David. I’m going to make you a man in God’s eyes if it kills me! All the opportunities you’ve had. All the role models we’ve given you to try and set you straight, but oh no! You just want to...tickle some balls, don’t you?!” He’d got away with his first crass comment, and he was so pleased with it, he let loose with another.

“I hope it does!” I screamed; all control lost.

“Hope it does what, David?”

“I hope it does kill you!” I shouted, slamming my chair back from the table and flying to my feet. I upended my plate in doing so and started to storm away.

As I left, I heard him speaking a prayer to God so that I could hear. “Forgive him, Lord. My son knows not how to defeat the demon grasping his soul!”

I made it to my room just in time before the tears started to crash to the floor.