Stories from a man who fails to meet media expectations of what it means to be gay:
white, frivolous, over sexed yet sexless, shrill, single, stylish, a clown, unimportant, et al.

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Hello little brother,

I am sure our dear sweet mother already filled you in on all of the weekend�s gory details, from Yvonne�s unfortunate choices in wedding dress (strapless & with that bosom?), to how no one, and I mean NO ONE ever mentioned race (does that count as progress or not? I cannot tell). More importantly, I�m sure she smothered you under a more than ample amount of guilt for not attending.

Truth is, it was a boring celebration of hetero love, so it was not so terrible that you could not be bothered to leave your ivy-covered tower for family obligations. Not to worry though, I was filled to bursting with apologizes on your behalf. Aunt Carol�s side of the family now think that you are busy hard at work writing a history text book stressing the importance of the African-American contribution to the good old U.S. of A. I know your degree is not in History and that you do not write text books, but it was a much more interesting excuse than the one you said to use. You couldn�t get out of an appointment to have your wisdom teeth pulled?

Brother mine�tsk tsk. Everyone would have instantly known it was a lie. Then in order to defend you, I would have had to explain that of course you wanted to be there, but that you didn�t want to bring Marcus along. Then in trying to explain why it mattered if your roommate came to the wedding or not, it would have come out that the two of you had an argument and had he attended, there was no way in hell that he was going to pretend to be anything but your lover, which would of course, have outed you to the entire family, or at least that side of the family. Well no, not with Auntie Bertha there. She would have made sure to let everyone within phoning distance know that Mama managed to produce not one, but two gay sons. Ah Bertha, if she weren�t family, I hate her just on principle.

How is Marcus doing by the way? Good I hope. You have a smart man there little brother. You really should listen to him. He is absolutely right you know. It is perfectly clear what is going on between the two of you. It may be perfectly reasonable to believe that a thirty year old unmarried man is straight, but when you consider that he is well educated, reasonably handsome, hasn�t had a girlfriend since high school, that he has had the same outrageously gorgeous male roommate for the past six years, and that they not only vacation together, but have bought a home together, then the conclusion seems blatantly obvious.

No one asked me directly, but Yvonne did say that it was a shame that that you and your roommate weren�t there. She wanted us all at her batchlerette party. I did not go, but I found out afterwards that they had not one, but two male strippers. While I must admit to some curiosity on how two male strippers would work together, I believe that the more important bit of information there is that people are making assumptions about you.

I know your reasons for not wanting to come out to everyone in the family, and I know you never take my advice, but do think about it. Do you remember Gwen�s little boy Martin? He�s 17 now; tall as a reed, and he and I were the only men who didn�t spend the entire time complaining about how the wedding was making us miss �the game.� Also April (cousin John�s youngest) did not seem entirely comfortable in her bride�s maid outfit and I think it was more than the dress being lime green and making her look ashy, but rather the fact that it was a dress. It would be nice if they had a little bit a variety in their choice for gay role model wouldn�t it?

Besides the fabulous not so former drag queen/artist uncle they have always known and adored, they could also have you with your successful career, committed relationship, and somewhat boring life. They can learn that it is ALL possible for them, and yes, I did just write �not so former drag queen.�

I am only sharing this because I know it will annoy you to no end, but Queen Bevah made a brief appearance in this quaint little square state college town of all places, and no, not at the wedding, so you can calm down a little. Could you imagine that though? Auntie Bertha and Uncle Richard would have heart attacks and keel over. Hmm, maybe I should have done exactly that, but anyway, back to Queen Bevah. The reason I came a couple of days early was not that I really wanted to spend extra time with our people, but because an old friend of mine lives out here.

I think Tony had already left New York when you visited Billy and me that summer before you started college, so I doubt you ever met him. He was Billy�s old roommate back in the day, and by roommate I mean regular old roomie, not yours and Marcus�s kind of roommate. The three of us had some fun times I tell you, but well, you already know how that ended. Tony was a side casualty of AIDS. He never got sick, but by the time the nineties came round, over half of his friends were dead, and he was convinced he was going to die as well. He couldn�t take the perpetual sorrow and anger anymore and left to go back home to Illinois.

I was in a similar state after Billy died which was why I eventually left the city as well, although I had much more sense than Tony did in becoming an expat. Going back home to Mom, Dad, apple pie, and Illinois? He barely lasted 6 months before he fled. After traveling around for a while, he eventually settled down in the very same Podunk town that I happened to find myself in for a family wedding.

We had a grand time catching up with each other�s lives, and sharing embarrassing Billy stories. Tony being the enterprising Queer force of nature that he is, owns one of the town�s gay bars. It would never have occurred to me that there would even be one, let alone three gay bars, but as Tony kept reminding me, his little town is actually a small city, and between two colleges, an army base, and two major interstate highways, he has just enough customers to keep from going broke. Like the town, his place is larger than I imaged, but other than that, exactly what you would expect, from the pool tables and dart machine in the back corner to the hunky, shirtless, corn fed and bred bartender standing guard behind the bar. It is sort of a dump, but a nice sort of a dump. Billy would have loved it.

Tony practically begged me to do Queen Bevah for old times sake, and I acquiesced, although not entirely. All of her things were buried in boxes in a closet back home, so while I did agree to perform, and even to use her name, her big ol� fat Styrofoam ass stayed home. Instead, I used an old dress of Tony�s and a few other odd bits and ends to create a non-attitude throwing, non-race threatening, non-republican bashing tribute to Judy Garland. I know, I know, me doing Judy, how pre-black power retro of me.

I do wish you had been there. I would have loved to have seen the scowl on your face. Anyway, I had fun, and most of the audience loved it. I could tell that the Beyonce listening, lily-white baby gays weren�t too thrilled with me taking away their dance floor (it doubles as the stage), but someone has to knock some sense of queer history into their pretty little heads.

Well, this letter has gone more than long enough. I�m sure you have better things to do, and I really do need to get ready. Surprise, but I have a date tonight. Wendy has made it a mission to set me up, and after months of telling her no it does matter if some man is hung like a horse, or that another looks like Denzil�s younger handsomer brother, because I absolutely refuse to go on a blind date, I finally said yes. I am meeting a man named Daniel tonight for coffee (I know, coffee how droll). According to Wendy, he is 46, witty, and not afraid of a man in a dress. Sounds like my kind of man.

With luck, I�ll have much more to share with you later. Give your better half a big smooch for me, and be well.

Love,
Your elder (and much better looking) brother.

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