Chapter 1- Lemon
Humans had racial issues and tension, but so did furs. Monkeys, rats, possums, and even big cats were furs that had some negative connotations or stereotypes. Monkeys were supposedly care free and lazy. For some reason people thought rats were thieves. Possums, like myself, were seen as dirty and uncivilized. And everyone saw big cats as dangerous threats because of their “fangs and claws”, but somehow no one would ever bat an eye at wolves. Most of the negative views that people had of us more exotic furs were created by humans unable to see us without thinking of the ferals that came before us. Humans might have become the minority population as years went by, but the paranoid and insensitive views they once had were still very much around.
My name is Leon. Leon Lemon.
I grew up in a town of trailer parks. There were little to no sidewalks, and most of the roads were dirt, mud, or gravel. All of the buildings were so old the colors were faded from them. I lived with my mom in a small house by the woods just outside of the main part of town. My parents had been separated since I was born, but my dad lived close by. He stayed in a trailer on the other side of “Tico River” which ran through the woods next to me and my mom’s house. I was an only child and lacked any real friends, so I spent a lot of time with my parents.
My high school was a shit show. The teachers seemed drunk, the principal didn’t care about anyone, and my being gay didn’t help anything. My home town was very country, and I think it’s safe to say country towns and gay people don’t go well together. I was already a possum, so being gay would not have made school easy. But I graduated high school. I managed to keep my secret for 18 long years and It was finally time for me to move on to the next phase of my life. The only problem I had was figuring out what my next phase should be. I was a smart kid, so I got into plenty of colleges. But I was also smart enough to know I could never afford school. My mom was already struggling to keep us in a house, and my dad was still paying for his trailer.
My only real option was to get a job or .... well my mom wasn’t about to let me sleep all day, so a job was my only option.
No one tells you life is mundane or boring, it’s something you just figure out on your own. In high school events were planed every other week, you’d get to see your friends in class, basically stuff was always going on. Even at my crap school with no friends I managed to find myself in something every now and then. After graduation I got a job at the local mall, it didn’t have a fancy name it was just “The Mall”. My life sank into this deep grey. For a long time I thought that was the end of my story until I got my first cell phone. That’s right! With my first job came my first paycheck, small as it might have been. I had money to spend that didn’t come from my parents, and the first thing I bought was a cell phone. It wasn’t fancy, as far as smart phones go it was a 5th grader living in a college world. But I loved that phone.
The Internet was a special thing. Growing up I always had to use my mom’s laptop to use the Internet, but for the first time ever I had the Web in my hands.
Mom hated my phone, she thought it was a waste of money. She said the town was so small I could yell from anywhere and she’d hear me. But I didn’t get a phone just to call people. I’ll let you put this together, I was 18 years old, never had access to the Internet outside my mom’s view, and I was a closeted gay. What do you think I was doing? Yes, I watched porn, so much porn. I’m ashamed of how much porn I watched daily, but I didn’t have school anymore. I didn’t have friends, or anywhere to go. My parents still had no idea I was gay by the way. There is nothing wrong with cross dressing, having a higher voice, or saying “slay” a lot, but I didn’t do any of that stuff. I was undetectable, I liked guys but aside from that I was just any other guy. There was nothing flamboyant or suspicions about me outside the fact that I never had a girlfriend before. My parents being in the dark is a very important fact to keep in mind because of what happened next.
Eventually porn got old. It was a good 5 or 6 months I’d been out of high school. I’d had my phone for about 3 months, and on the 4th month I discovered dating apps. I didn’t necessarily discover them because I always knew they were there, but for the first time I tried one out for myself. I waited so long to try online dating. I lived in a country town and I wasn’t out to anyone. I assumed there weren’t other gay people in town, but if there were, I would have to be sneaky if I ever wanted to see them and not out myself. To my surprise, there seemed to be a good number of people around me that were viable options. But I wasn’t out yet. I couldn’t put a picture of myself up on a dating app for just anyone to see. What if someone knew me? But then I realized if I somehow managed to convince someone to meet me without them seeing my face first there was a chance they wouldn’t be OK with my being a possum. So I looked for an app that was made for the more “exotic” furs, and I found one. It was an app where everyone was either a monkey, rat, possum, big cat, or really just any furs with bad reputations and stereotypes. There weren’t as many people on that app as the first, but it was something I could work with. And that is where my story begins, that is when I entered the app formally known as “Strange Fruit”.
