CHAPTER 11
Mark and Brad woke up the next morning, sticky but satisfied. They were both more relaxed and better rested than they had been in weeks. After they got up and took a shower together and got dressed, Brad and Mark watched the morning shows on television and ate a little breakfast. After a relaxing morning of watching television and just enjoying one another's company, the roommates heard a knock on the door. Brad peeped out the blinds and suddenly turned white. "Mark, there is a really old Buick out there. Its my father's. Lets just pretend we aren't here."
"We are going to have to answer the door, Brad. We can't hide from him forever."
"Are you sure?" Brad whispered.
"Brad, you know better. You want me to answer it?"
He went over to the door and answered it without waiting for a response from Brad. In front of him was a shaven and neatly dressed man who didn't even look like the same man he met the previous weekend. He appeared to be sober.
"Mr. Jones, what a surprise!" Mark said as politely as he could muster.
"Hey, Mark," he said quietly, as he looked at the floor. "Is Brad here?"
"I am right here. What in the hell do you want, bastard?"
"Brad!" Mark shouted.
"It's ok. I deserved that and more," the man said quietly to Mark.
"No, I am sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Brad said, thinking of what Mrs. Lee had told him just a couple nights ago.
"Brad, is there somewhere we can go and talk?"
"If we talk, it will be in front of Mark. He and I have no secrets. There is nothing you can say to me that you can't say in front of him," Brad said, glancing over at Mark. "We can talk right here if you want. Forgive me if I am not exactly excited to see you, but after the last time we met, I am sure you can understand my feelings about you."
"I know, and that is why I am here."
"I figured as much. You probably want to tell me to stop being gay, but it doesn't work like that. You can't just turn it off and on."
"Brad, I didn't come here to tell you that. I know very well that you can't turn it off and on. I came here to apologize to you both for the other day and for the past eighteen years."
Brad stared at him disbelievingly.
"I don't blame you if you throw me out and tell me you never want to see me again, but please don't. I have not had a drop to drink since I saw you a couple days ago. I want to tell you a story."
Brad continued staring silently. Mark broke the silence, "What sort of story, Mr. Jones?"
"Its kind of a long one, Mark."
"Why don't we all sit down," Mark said, sinking onto one end of the sofa, as Brad sat on the other end and his dad in the middle.
"First, I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart, Brad," Mr. Jones quietly said. "I know you probably think I don't have one, but I do. It breaks every time I think about how I have treated you and embarrassed you over the years." Mr. Jones took a deep breath while trying to hold back his tears. "It breaks into a million pieces when I think of how I treated you when you told me you are gay. I hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me one day."
Mr. Jones started to sob. This was a side of his dad that Brad had never seen. He was in shock. He had no idea how to deal with this.
"Brad, I want to tell you a story that you might want to hear. It is about me. Back when I was in high school, I did quite well. I graduated third in my class. I had scholarships all over the place. I went to college and graduated with honors, and I had lots of friends. If you believe it, I had a good job and a promising future. I got married to your mom and then you came along. I loved you from the minute your mom said she was pregnant. I still do, though I have done a really shitty job of expressing it to you."
Mr. Jones reached down and held Brad's hand. Brad didn't resist, and he could tell his dad was doing his best to fight back tears. "Brad, I had attained every goal I had ever had. I had the perfect life. The problem was that I was miserable. I had lived my life perfectly, but I was horribly unhappy with it. I began to drink a lot to escape the unhappiness. First it was a drink here and there, and then it progressed to more and more until it consumed me. Brad, this is not how I should have handled myself, but I just didn't know what to do." He was crying as he spoke.
"Mr. Jones, are you ok?" Mark asked.
"Yes, Mark, and thank you," he began to regain himself a little bit. "Suddenly, I found myself years later with nobody. My wife had left me, and my only son hated me. I didn't know what to do, so I drank more and more to dull the pain."
Brad finally broke his silence, "What were you so unhappy about? Did you hate me that bad?" he sobbed.
"No, Brad, actually it was just the opposite of that. Though you might not believe it, I loved you and still love you more than anything in this world."
"Not more than your liquor," Brad said with short sobbing breaths.
"Brad, I love you. I know you might not believe it, but as soon as you left the other day, I realized some things. I poured every ounce of alcohol out and haven't had a drink since. I don't remember a day that I didn't drink something since 1985. That is not something I am proud of, but it is a fact. It is a fact I regret."
"I regret it too," Brad said, beginning to get angry with his father again.
"Brad, you have every right to hate me, and I can see why you might think that I hated you, but there is more to this story. There is something you don't know. In fact, nobody but me knows it." He paused and took a deep breath. "The reason I was never able to be happy is because I am gay. There, I have said it. I don't believe it. I have never said that out loud before."
"Is this a trick? Are you trying to mess with my mind?" Brad asked.
"Brad, I think you know better," Mark said sternly. "If this is a trick, then he has tricked me."
"Thank you, Mark," Mr. Jones broke in. "Brad, I can assure you that this is not a trick. I am stone cold sober right now. I tried as hard as I could to be straight. I thought if I married your mom, that would cure me, but it didn't. Then I thought when we had you, that I could be straight then. Instead, I found myself trapped in a hell that I couldn't deal with. I turned to liquor. I began to drink in college, but as I progressed through life, I began to drink more and more to ease the pain I felt. I became abusive to your mom, and she dealt with it, but I still remember the time I hit you. She may not have told you this, but she knocked the hell out of me with a waffle iron. Of course, you know she took you and left after that. I gave her everything. The only thing I kept was that Buick out there."
He pointed out the window at his car. "I just didn't think I deserved to have anything. I want to apologize to you, Brad. I have never told you I am sorry for hitting you. I have regretted it every day since then, and not because your mom hit me, but because I love you, and I can't believe I would do that. I don't really expect you to forgive me for it, but do know I am sorry, and I really do love you more than you know."
"I don't even remember that, I don't think that is what you should worry about."
"I know Brad, and I am sorry for all the other too. After your mom left, I had several affairs with women after that to try to cure my condition, but none of them seemed to work. I just began to drink more and more to hide from my problems. I couldn't keep a job. I lived off of my brother who took pity on me, though was clearly disgusted with me. I do hope you understand how good your Uncle has been. I don't know if he would be as good if he knew what he was taking care of." Mr. Jones was crying again.
Mark put his arm around him and said, "It is ok, Mr. Jones. You don't have to go on if it is painful."
"Mark, I appreciate your concern, and it is painful, but I want Brad to hear this from me." He turned to Brad and continued, "I ran from my problems. I turned to liquor to numb the pain I felt. I even bought a pistol with the intent of killing myself, though I never used it because I was too much of a chicken. I just continued to drink because I found it easier to go through life with the stigma of a drunk than that of a gay man. I alienated myself from the only ones in my life who ever mattered to me by embarrassing them in public. I did this because I am a coward. Then, one day you walk back into my life and tell me that you are gay, and I get into a fistfight with you and tell you to go to hell because I wasn't having a fag son, because I was an idiot. This was the opportunity for me to make a change, and I fucked that up. I was wrong, and I hope that at some point you are able to forgive me for my stupidity."
Mr. Jones was sobbing by the time he got this far. "I am sorry, Brad. I am sorry for everything. You were right. I have been the worst possible role model my whole adult life."
Brad sat there dumbfounded for a minute, just absorbing the statements that his father had just made.
"I don't expect you to suddenly love me or even want to see me again, but I just wanted you to know that even though I have been a shitty excuse for a father, and my actions have been inexcusable, that I do love you, and I am proud of you for all of your accomplishments, even those I screwed up for you. I am especially proud of you for standing up and being what you are. I am proud of you both. You have done a lot more in your short years than I have in my whole life," Mr. Jones sobbed uncontrollably as he blurted out.
Brad reached over to his father and hugged him, "Its ok. I am shocked. I had no idea about any of this."
"After you guys left on Saturday, I sat on the floor where you left me for an hour and just thought about it. After I got myself together, I went around the house and poured every bottle of liquor out. I have not had anything to drink since then. I intend not to ever drink again. I am going to do what I should have done a long time ago. I am going to be honest with myself for the first time in over 25 years. I am gay. Did you know that you are the first people to ever hear that from me? I had never even heard it myself until I said it a minute ago," he cried.
"Dad, it is ok. I understand and I will forgive you. I know we aren't close, and I won't lie, I have a lot of pent up anger towards you. I have to work through that, but I do want to. I have spent a long time building up this anger and it is going to take me some time to work on it."
"That is more than I could ever have asked for. I have taken 20 years to screw everything up. You take as long as you want to. I appreciate the thought of forgiveness because I know I don't deserve it."
"Dad, a very wise person once told me that hate breeds hate, and the only way to stop it is to meet it with love. I still have a lot of anger, but I do love you. I always have. That's why it has been so hard all these years to see you doing what you did. I understand why now, but it was really hard all those years to think that I didn't have a dad who loved me. I could see all the other kids with their dads, and while I had my step-dad, I just never have been very close to him. I guess what I am trying to say is that I have missed you while you were gone."
Brad reached over and really hugged his dad for possibly the first time in his life.
"Thank you for not kicking me out just now. Thank you for listening. Most of all thanks for caring about me even when I didn't deserve it, and giving me a second chance."
"Dad, you need to thank Mark for this opportunity."
"Huh?"
"Well, first and foremost, Mark didn't know at the time that he did it, but he saved me from myself. I was planning to kill myself about a year ago, and he stepped into my life and saved me without knowing it. Also, he has taught me what it is to be loved, and also he made me go talk to you last week. I didn't want to go, and wasn't going to go except he made me." Brad turned to Mark, "I also wanted to tell you thank you, Mark. Thank you for everything."
"Mark, thank you for giving me this opportunity to meet my son, in all the ways you helped it to happen."
"I just went with my heart, and did what I thought was right. Most of that was blind luck, and what a lucky guy I am to have ended up with this guy," he said smiling at Brad.
They all had tears streaming down their faces.
"Whatever you did, and whatever made you do it, thank you. I will never forget it."
"So, what do we do from here?" Brad asked.
"I don't know. I think the ball is in your court. If you want me to just leave, I can."
"I don't really know what I want right now. I think I just need to digest what has just happened here."
"I think you and Mark need some time by yourselves. Why don't I just leave now and we can talk another time."
"I think that is a good idea, but don't go home yet. I am so confused, I don't really know what I want. Can you just come back in a few hours?"
"Brad, I know this is painful for you. Are you sure you want to see me again today?"
"Yes. I think if you go and eat lunch, and then maybe watch a movie or something, that will give me the time I need and I will feel better."
"Brad, you don't know how much this means to me. If you asked me to go to the moon and back this afternoon, I would find a way to do it. Thank you for giving me more of a chance than I ever deserved."
Well guys, I hope you liked this part of the story. I really enjoyed writing it. In the next part, Mark and Brad go back home for vacation and get to see how the people they grew up around react to their coming out.