The adults in the room were not amused at all by his song or his lack of awareness. Daniel thinks they believed he chose it on purpose to dishonor their sacred day. He felt like a cad. Thank God Joel had perspective and humor even at thirteen. As Daniel was being ushered from the room, Joel got a chance to whisper in his ear—“I loved it, man. You just gotta know Cat Stevens is Jew repellant.”
I couldn’t stop laughing. At that moment, that was the funniest story I’d ever heard. I didn’t know if I could hear the sound track to Harold and Maude the same way ever again. Daniel said he was afraid that he too would be Jew repellent, that all his Jewish friends from school would never speak to him again. It didn’t happen, but he always felt a deep sense of shame for how clueless he was to the ways of the world.
I asked him then if he thought that was the incident that made him struggle in society, that ultimately led him to be a part of our illustrious social skills class.
“Oh, that such a single and innocent faux pas was the thing that derailed my ‘peace train’ from the tracks of life. Oh no, I kept making moves in the very wrong direction. It was like my life was being driven by a sadistic conductor who couldn’t wait until I jumped the track. My demise was pretty much inevitable,” he said. His eyes looked a little red at this point, like eyes do after a long cry. I wondered how mine looked.
Daniel kept talking. “I’m sure you know, Danielle, even though you’ve never said anything, I’m just sure you know: I’m gay.”
I did know. I really did know. It had never really come up in conversation before or settled deep in my consciousness, but it was something I knew. I just didn’t care at all. It’s something to recognize that such a big thing about a person’s identity had slipped my focus. I loved Daniel. I just knew I didn’t love him in that way, and I guess I was so grateful because “that way” had shattered me. Daniel glued me back together. However he was going to be was fine with me. I loved our friendship, the thing it was, so the kind of love it was didn’t matter to me. I was just grateful. I tried to tell Daniel all that I just wrote here, but it didn’t come out that smoothly. I was a little loopy in my delivery. I ended my explanation to him with, “Wow, does this mean I’m finally somebody’s fag hag?”
Daniel laughed and then added so charmingly, “No, my dear, you are my first fruit fly!”
Jew repellent, fruit fly, it was such an unplanned combination of insect imagery that I was filled with hilarity. I did a huge spit-take of the diet Coke I was drinking all over Daniel’s down comforter, and we laughed until I nearly pissed myself. I am just so excited to be Daniel’s fruit fly. It’s so much better than being some straight guy’s bitch! I said that out loud and we laughed some more.
Daniel said it is not being gay that destined his life to derail. He’s fine with being gay. I said he was lucky because I wasn’t so happy with being heterosexual—it wasn’t doing me any favors! The problem with him is that he is forever falling in love with the straightest men on the planet—twisted Fate, was his phrase.
I was really lucky I could hide my feelings for Jacob because it is a dangerous world when this kind of love takes over. In class, Daniel would stare at Pete the quarterback, Perfect Pete the quarterback, Precious Pete the quarterback, delicious Pop-Tart Pete the quarterback. (I think we might have been really stoned by this point because there were more names given—Pet Pete the quarterback, Prowling Pete the quarterback, Pumped Pete the quarterback.)
Anyway, Pete was a magnet for Daniel’s eyes in school. Sometimes it was literally minutes before Daniel realized he was staring at beautiful Pete. Staring at Pete too often is what got Daniel shoved up against the locker and a bloody nose. Daniel doesn’t even blame Pete for doing that. “I was, like, stalking him with my eyes.”
We each took another hit of pot. I think that was the third hit. Daniel kept going right after the deliberate exhale. (I think we did a really good job of