A true story of one summer many years ago and three friends... Hope to hear back from one of them.
Summer Days
Brett, Mike, and I... in the sweltering heat of the summer had discovered a bond that none of us realized existed. Mike called it a friendship. Brett called it fraternal, and I called it coincidence. Coincidence that we were all living in the same town that summer, coincidence that we were all in the same fraternity, and coincidence that we were all gay. But in all fairness Mike and Brett were a lot of fun to be around, always joking and planning, making light of serious matters and taking many things too seriously, embarking on adventures daily. It was a kind of madness that I learned to live with in those months, slipping into a wonderland that really was no wonderland at all and leaving reality to those who were sane enough to deal with it.
So we muddled through dragging ourselves to summer classes every morning and studying most afternoons, stuck in the blazing heat of the city with temperatures rarely sinking below ninety-five degrees, sweating it out, racing hearts in a race whose outcome was inevitable. Old farmers and almanacs would remember it as the year the crops wilted. Natives would recall the stagnating air that strangled the breath from the city, squeezing outsiders away, coiling around us, and hissing through overheated cars that would dot the highway daily. And me, well I'd forget not a detail of the plot that had been woven for us, directing us into non-direction. On cue we had moved obediently, actors forced to play roles that had long grown stale.
Leading us like children Mike instigated quite a bit of our tomfoolery. He'd allowed himself to fully immerse in this world of secrecy sealing himself so surely into a nightmare existence that neither Brett nor I, nor even God could save him. And so we did the only thing that we could --- we followed. We followed him into a world where physical attraction was the name of the game and where personalities came as quickly as they would surely leave. We had been admitted to a circus, free of charge, our only obligation being to paint our faces as jolly clowns who pretend always to be happy, never revealing and yet very transparent. It all made me very sad. Brett noticed I think and would often ask me what was wrong. I'd just laugh it off telling him to find me a new personality, new colors, and a fresh soul. Underneath it all I just felt blue.
And like wild animals we lived in hiding, fearing each second that somebody would put everything together, praying that our families would be spared the humiliation, wishing that the fraternity could escape any kind of smear campaign. We realized fully the stigma we carried, worse than the plague though not deadly, never ending. The search for the ultimate in masculinity enveloped us and suddenly the one night stands had become very important, and finding some small element of satisfaction had become all encompassing. But at least with three of us it had seemed less twisted even though we still had to repeat assurances to one another often that we were really only a "little crazy".
As the summer came to an end I tried to figure out where I was and where we'd been. Every answer that came to mind was tilted and uneven, nothing would focus. I'd left reality to those who were strong enough to deal with it but had never figured out how to return. Mike was leaving, Brett was distant at the prospect, school was ending for the summer, and I was just hanging there. I didn't want to say goodbye to Mike nor did I really want to go back to normal. Brett apologized again and again for letting me fall into this hideousness so completely, for failing the fraternity, and for loving Mike. I apologized for being weaker than he was. But I assured him that fate had decreed that these chains of events would occur. It was the beginning of the end. Fate had set the trap for all of us, and we'd been foolish.
And so we laughed, about the risk, the fun, the roaming, the failures, and the finality. But before we parted company all the usual promises were made: to write, keep in touch, to call, and to remember. As Brett and I pulled away from Mike's apartment that night we watched him walk up the steps and disappear. Yes, remembering would be easy for we would never see him again.
It wasn't the first time fate would step in greedily to take control of my life nor would it be the last. And in only a year I'd go away to Law school leaving Brett forever. But that summer I shared with two others a bond that in actuality could never be broken. For never will I completely forget the importance of our shared happiness and despair. A shadow of blue cast across the moon the other night told the whole story, for it would remember always three friends, and a special summer ended long ago.