Fake It Till You Make It

A friend for whom I care very deeply, and who I'm fairly certain feels similarly about me told me that he wishes I could see myself the way he does. "If you walked into a room full of guys with a strut, just exuding confidence in yourself and showing not the slightest hint of insecurity, it doesn't matter what those guys looked like or how fit they were, they'd follow suit."

The concept of walking into any room, much less one filled with a congregation of pretty gays, with any measure of confidence in my own sex appeal is so foreign to me that merely conjuring that image in my mind makes me laugh and squirm uncomfortably. It's not within my makeup to be that person. There may be the odd subject or situation about which I feel sufficiently adept to speak up with authority when a chance presents itself, but to "strut" into a social setting pretending I was free of anxiety and self-doubt, beaming with contentedness in the way I looked, and confident that any guy in my line of sight would be lucky to spend a few hours in my bed is just preposterous from my perspective.

I've tried to explain to my friend how deeply, fundamentally programmed I am to self-deprecate, belittle, and make myself humble before others as if getting in front of the insults and judgement I anticipate everywhere I go will somehow diminish them before they land. From the earliest memories I can invoke from childhood, I was beaten and bloodied for not doing things right and not being perfect - for calling attention to myself and then not providing enough entertainment to excuse such a misstep. I learned never to try something new if I couldn't first study it backward and forward until I felt certain that I could attempt it without making a mistake. That early lesson has followed me through my entire life right up to this day, the mid-point between 40 and 50, causing me to have missed out on a host of experiences for fear of looking stupid.

"But who cares what guys like that think? Right? Who wants to hang around a bunch of shallow, hateful people anyway?", he asked. "You've got the looks, whether you believe it or not, the size and stature, the smarts, wit, and heart they only wish they had. Don't let their pettiness stop you from having your own fun and seeking out your own wants and needs."

That would make total sense were it not also true that I am just as shallow and judgmental and intolerant in some ways as the throngs of vapid queens you see wandering in packs like loud, obnoxious hyenas sloshing drunkenly from bar to bar on the weekends. I've been just as programmed by magazines and television as they have to prefer certain looks and body types for sex. I'm as turned off by someone who looks like me as they are, so pretending to be the better man would smack too much of hypocrisy for me to endure.

When you factor in the childhood abuse, both physical and psychological, that continued through much of high school, and combine it with the choking stench of anti-HIV stigma that accompanied my HIV diagnosis at the very doorstep of adulthood, you realize that there has been no part of my adult life that I've been free of one kind of shame or another. For decades I've been living my life as a sort of sexual pariah, lucky to get whatever is given to him, but shot down more times in a weekend than is normal. At no time have I felt myself worth the attention I so crave.

"I hate seeing a good friend continually get in his own way with a negative outlook and a pessimistic demeanor.", he told me. "Even if you could just fake that level of confidence and swagger for a few hours at a time, you'd eventually become that confident guy with the kickass swagger, because if you pretend long enough and consistently enough, eventually it stops being an act and just becomes who you are."

"If there's one thing I aspire to live as an example it's forthrightness. I have too great a talent for deceit. It was one of many tools I honed to survive my childhood. Now that I'm able to decide for myself what kind of man I want to be, I choose to be one who speaks the truth, no matter how bitter the taste that comes with it. I would prefer to suffer the taste than the incessant fear I'm being lied to, which is why I won't subject others to that awful feeling either."

I know there is a difference between being simply honest and well-mannered and being so much of both that one sort of becomes a walking caution sign for information overload. That is the zone I think I tend to inhabit most of the time. It's never my intention, of course, to make anyone feel uncomfortable. In fact, learning that my directness has indeed caused some men in the Pacific Northwest to feel awkward and uncomfortable came as a complete shock to me. I'd have assumed they would appreciate it as much as I do.

"I don't know, man.", my sweet, well-meaning friend admitted. "I just hate to see you so defeated all the time. I think you're amazing, and I want everyone else - yourself included - to see that, too."

"It'd probably be a lot easier for me to believe that about myself. . ." I paused, struggling with the right words to convey my meaning without sounding accusatory and pathetic. "I guess I just sometimes observe in you a kind of 'torn' feeling, where your better nature wants so badly to show me that perspective, but your more base nature has you scrolling through page after page of other better choices on the apps, and I just have to assume you're looking for something more fun to go do than to sit around listening to my endless loop of uncomfortable truths about myself and my prospective chances of having a happier life."

It's not the first time I've alluded to the fact that often, when he halfheartedly rubs his hand across my chest, his full focus appears to be zeroed in on the faceless torsos of the very men who have made me feel impossibly small and insignificant. Or worse, incredibly fat and unfuckable.

"I don't mean to sound like I'm wagging my finger at you for being a slut.", I backpedaled. "Gandalf knows I try to be a slut every chance I get, which isn't all that often anymore." (See how self-deprecation is woven into my vocabulary? I can't not do it!) "I'm just saying that for me to believe any of what you're saying, you have to convince me that you're not just being kind, that I'm enough to hold your attention by myself, without other guys in the room to play with, and without your fucking phone always aglow in your hand."

"No, no. Here's what's up. It's not like I'm even actively looking at these guys. It's a habit, almost. Like, a reflex. When the conversation gets close to being somewhat uncomfortable, I shut down, check out, and scroll through my phone aimlessly with some kind of muscle memory. Half the time I'm not even paying attention. It could just as easily be my email inbox as it could be one of the hookup apps. You know what I'm saying?"

"I think so. Yes. You're saying that touching me and talking about having sex with me puts you in such a state of unease that you retreat into a safe place deep inside your mind and look for anything you can find to distract you from the uncomfortable scene in which your body finds itself. Is that about right?"

He sighed in defeat, waving his hand dismissively at the challenge I'd lain down before him. "I know this game, and I'm not playing."

He wasn't wrong. And he chose right. Without meaning to, I'd forced him into a corner where his only choices were to offend the fuck out of me by agreeing with me or offend the fuck out of me by lying to me. He did neither. (This time.) I guess I'll keep him around as long as he'll stay while I try to break myself of this habitual fuckery. Sometimes friends use friends. It's human nature. I let myself be used so that I can feel something akin to being wanted or needed for a while. In a way, I suppose, I'm using him to provide that feeling. It's a win win situation. Maybe I'll roll with that as my mantra until I start to actually believe it.

Hold Me And Mean It

How long has it been since you last lay in bed with someone holding you? The kind of holding that is unscripted. Not requested or verbalized in any way, but done simply because the person lying next to you wanted to hold you? For me, it's been seventeen years.

Oh, there have been many nights when I've held someone I cared about close to me while they slept. I've been, as I too often am, that loving and generous giver of comfort and security, making them feel loved and wanted as they snored contentedly against my chest for hours. But the reverse doesn't seem to be in the cards for me anymore, or at least it hasn't been since shortly after the World Trade Towers fell.

Thinking back to the last time I felt that particular brand of intimacy, I'm shaken almost to tears by how alien the remembered sensation feels to me. In my mind, it's a memory not unlike the ones I have of my being small enough yet to still be picked up by my mom. It's that kind of wordless closeness I miss so badly now.

When I feel the absence of it most keenly, as I do in this moment, I am forced to accept more of those cruel truths in life that are less palatable than one would like them to be.

1. It's unlikely I'll ever feel that kind of reciprocal closeness with another man again in my life.
2. There's more life left ahead of me than I'm equipped to endure without it.

I've found that when the ache reaches an emotional boiling point, it's possible for me to coax it temporarily back down by fooling myself with a bit of paid-for intimacy. If the hurt gets bad enough, I will myself to believe for a few fleeting hours that some escort I've hired and given a short, simple list of things that I need from him actually cares for me, wants me, and isn't just giving a command performance that's been scripted and staged.

You might think that sounds pitiful; that I am a pitiable shell of a man whose circumstances are out of proportion to the generosity he displays, and there are plenty of nights when I, too, believe that to be the case. But pity isn't the same as caring, and being cared for is all that I want.

Let me find out that you pity me, and I'm wounded beyond measure. I'll withdraw, toughen up, and pull my raw hurt back inside just to spite you for your worthless pity. I'll retreat from emotion and harden my heart  to convince myself I'm not pitiable in the least - that I'm strong, and more stable, and completely immune to the kind of feelings I've confessed to here already. I'll recant. I'll deny it, and in doing so I'll become all the more fully a masterful study in sadness. Please don't pity me, my friend.

Rather, help me hold up that veil of delusion that helps me fill up that void for a time. Conspire with me to make believable the farces I purchase out of desperation. If you care, prop me up when you see reality begin once more to flood my eyes and push out the clouded illusion put there by some talented hooker at my request. That's more valuable than wasting pity on a truth that is too jagged to swallow.

I've often said that a sex worker saved my life. The truth is that sex workers save my life regularly. The first time was due to a professional lack of stigma against me for being HIV positive which brought to an end more than a decade of self-imposed celibacy save for one tragic attempt each year on my birthday. Now it's because they provide me with those illusory moments of feeling wanted, or conversely, treating me as poorly as I think I deserve and abusing me physically until one pain replaces another.

I'll work till the day I die just to fund those lifesaving nights, letting my mind give those gifts to my heart for the rest of my days. Being unable to do so -- well that would be a pity.

Brenda Gail

"Nobody in this whole great big world, no matter how far you go or how many people you meet, will ever love you as much as I do. You are my heart. I will always be proud of you. Nothing you say or do can change it."

Those are the words that stand out most clearly to me from the four-and-a-half hour cry-fest that was the conversation my Mom and I had the day I came out to her. In the years that followed, I certainly put that statement to the test as I ventured out into the world meeting all kinds of new people, learning who I was, and often dancing on the edge of a sword with no regard for my health or safety. None of it mattered to her. When I fell down, she was there to pick me up again, brush off the filth, and bandage whatever cuts and scrapes the world had given me.

Mom has always loved me so fiercely that I sometimes felt smothered by it. Her concern for me when it was clear I was in a bad situation felt stifling while my life managed to hold itself together, but so, so welcome each time the house of cards inevitably fell down around me. I suppose it's that way between lots of sons and their mothers, especially firstborn sons of very young mothers.

Even with so much love in her big, big heart for my little brother and me, Mom was never really able to love herself. We watched as she opened her heart, home, and bank account to undeserving men that treated her unkindly and took advantage of her need for love (or anything that passed for it) time after time after the passing of our step-father in the early 1990's. Her inherent generosity and kindness were repaid with theft, disloyalty, and emotional abuse. Over time, following some harsh truths from her sons, our mom flipped off the switch that had driven her out into the world in search of anyone who could give her the love she lacked for herself. Having almost recovered from a bankruptcy, she was injured at work and became physically unable to work, yet her case was contested by management and she had to fight for over a year through an attorney to get the surgery she needed to repair damage to her spine. By then, a number of other health issues had developed, she lost the house that she and my step-father built themselves from the ground up, and she quickly declined into a deep depression that prevented her from taking care of herself or her home.

Over the last the last ten years, I did my best to return the love she so readily gave to me when I was falling apart in my misspent youth. I frequently drove to visit her in Louisiana while I was living in Austin, TX so that I could get her to her doctors' appointments or meetings with her worker's compensation lawyer. I spent holidays with her when I could and sent her money and gifts when I couldn't be there in person. On more than one occasion, my brother and I took turns cleaning out the house she inherited from my grandmother, which she couldn't or wouldn't keep clean or uncluttered. She built around her a mess that I sometimes think represented what she felt she deserved to live in. Watching her give up on herself and growing more and more reclusive was heartbreaking for me, and I eventually moved back to Louisiana so that I could ensure that she was at least taking her medicine and keeping her appointments with the doctors for her chronic pain and her diabetes. But no matter how often I came to her and propped her back up, my mom no longer cared for herself and immediately fell back into the dark place she had resigned herself to.

For the last year, I stopped going to see my mom, telling my brother that it was too much, that I had tried in vain for too long, and that he needed to be more involved in trying to get her back on track. It had gotten to the point that I couldn't stay the night anymore for fear of my own health. Each time I left her, she would hug me hard and cry, and that left me an emotional wreck for days afterward. I eventually stopped going and started keeping in touch with her only by phone or text, while my little brother and his family took up the task of checking in on her and getting her through the last year's health crises.

My aunt, her sister, who lives next door to her, found Mom dead on her couch yesterday afternoon. Last night, I received the phone call from my sister-in-law letting me know that the one person in this great big world who would always love me - no matter what I said or did, no matter how little I sometimes deserved it, and no matter how poorly I often repaid it - was gone from me forever. I was her heart. I wish I had been able to love her enough for us both. I wish she had been able to be happy, and that she hadn't been made so afraid of the world that she closed herself off from its wonders or its possibilities. I wish that the defiant, adventurous spirit she nurtured in me had also remained within her so that she could have had the life she deserved. I wish that I could hit the rewind button and go back and change all the bad things that happened to her in her life. But most of all I wish I could hug her one more time and hear her tell me again how much she loves me and how proud of me she'll always be.

Rest in peace, Brenda Gail Hataway Murdock Prier. I love you.

Lessons To Be Learned

When I was born in June 1973, my parents were only 19 and 18 years old. Mom, the older of them by two weeks, began feeling labor pains on her 19th birthday, three days before I was delivered, and Dad would turn 19 just a week and a half later. If anyone reading this wants to make a movie of it, take this note: I was NOT the birthday present they wanted, but I was the best damned birthday present they were going to get! Be sure the actors know to look mildly disappointed but also miserably resigned to their fates. Got it? Okay.

Brenda and Rusty had “fallen in love” their senior year at Dry Prong High School, where they were each something of a local basketball star on their respective varsity teams. (Where those sport-inclined genes went is beyond me.) Somewhere between all that jumping and dribbling, somebody scored a real three-pointer, et voila - I was made! The sperm must have wriggled and gnawed and battered its way into that egg late in the fall of 1972 as Brenda was settling into her dormitory suite and beginning a very short-lived college career studying art at NSU. Once she could no longer hide the baby bump, they were rushed quickly but quietly into a family church wedding and then forced to start our dysfunctional little family in a tiny little house on a great big hill in the middle of Kisatchie National Forest.

"Rusty" Murdock

My dad took a job as a rookie police officer, which it turns out suited him pretty well. His temper and resentment of being trapped in a marriage with a kid served him well with the department, and between routinely beating my mother unconscious and narrowly beating charges of sexual misconduct with underage girls while on duty, he began his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Pineville Police Department. Spoiler Alert: Last I heard, he still works there. Like I said, the job suited him.

Melvin Alvin Hataway

One of my earliest memories is of being given a bath by my grandfather during a weekend visit when I was three. I clearly remember feeling apprehensive about being truthful when he discovered red, blistering welts all over my legs, buttocks, and back from a beating my dad had given me with a switch. He had warned me in no uncertain terms not to let my grandparents find out about it, and here I was, a wet, naked stool pigeon spilling my guts to my pappaw.

Pappaw dried me off, dressed me, and drove the fifteen miles or so to the Grant Parish Sheriff's Office for a meeting with my great uncle, his brother, Sheriff Pop Hataway. I was asked to retell the story and then they pulled down my pants and photographed the welts for evidence, and we all drove back to my parents' house. Uncle Pop, as I recall, had the good sense to keep Pappaw away as he brought me inside to confront my dad.

I remember the house being so dark and foreboding, even though it was still a fully bright mid-afternoon outside. Dad worked nights, so that meant he had to sleep during the day. Our house was to be kept cool, dark, and silent when he was sleeping, otherwise we paid the price for waking him.

2nd Street Home, Dry Prong, LA

My eyes stayed locked on the pattern in the atrocious red plaid carpet that extended from the front door into the sunken living room. It was red, I know it for a fact, though in such perpetual dimness, I don't know how anyone could have guessed its true color.

L.R. "Pop" Hataway

I listened, eyes down, hands clasped behind my back, to Uncle Pop tell my dad that he understood that kids sometimes got sassy and needed a good spanking so they'd learn to be better. But Dad would be better off, he went on, if he'd stick to using a hand or a belt rather than drawing blood with a switch. He warned Dad that if he had to come back out to discuss more bloody welts on my butt, it would be as the Sheriff and not as family.

The bright, yellow-orange sunlight from outside struck my down turned eyes and I looked up in time to watch the back of Uncle Pop sauntering out the door and through the yard to his car. In a slow, angular way, it was pinched back and pushed out by the closing door, my dad's anger radiating from the shadows as his hand left the door knob and went to his belt.

Did I mention that my dad and his two hippie brothers fancied themselves leather artisans who made big, gaudy, embellished leather belts and watch bands in their free time? Oh, yeah. They totally did. I wonder if Uncle “Here’s-My-Advice-About-How-To-Beat-Your-Kids” knew that when he made his recommendation that day. My dad's favorite belt was a thick, ugly, brown one adorned with little brass sea shells that punctuated his circumference every 6 inches with a glint of tarnished gold and sounded like a tire rolling over rumble strips on the shoulder of the road when he took it off.

Those shells didn't break the skin like a switch. But neither did they give him the immediate satisfaction of a kid well beaten. It took hours, sometimes a whole day for the enormous purple and green lumps to fully ripen on my skin after a belt beating. And often, that meant that a belt beating could last much longer than a whipping with a switch, because there was no blood to indicate when he'd done it properly. So, not long after that visit to Uncle Pop's office and having my first set of naked photos taken in front of several men I didn't know, we packed up and moved out of Uncle Pop's jurisdiction and into to Dad's. Switches were back on the menu.

Before I’d started kindergarten, I had been thoroughly trained in the art of switch selection. It was a sort of tortuous ritual my Dad had had me learn. I could always feel his glare on my back, watching and savoring my terror as I traversed the length of the back yard to select a worthy instrument of pain for him.

Not too wispy; not too thick. It needed to be roughly 4 feet long, slightly thicker than a pencil's width at its base, and it should be green and mature, but elastic enough to allow its end to wrap around my hips and thighs many, many times without splintering or breaking to pieces.

At age four, I knew to have it stripped of all its leaves by the time I handed it over to him. I also knew without being told that I was to turn around, pull down my pants, grab my ankles and be silent while he inspected the switch I'd selected for my own whipping. I knew that my silence was to be held onto for as long as I could, in order to show that I understood the specific reason for each punishment and had accepted my responsibility for what was happening to me. To cry out too soon only showed weakness and a failure to reflect appropriately on my errant actions. Not crying at all was seen as obstinance, and obstinate was not the same as contrite. Failure nor obstinance would do. I would be taught. He was teaching me. I would learn.

I was a remarkable learner, even before enrolling in school. By the time my kindergarten teacher, Miss Tynes, welcomed me into my very first classroom filled with other students, I was already a perfectionist and a devoted student. Being a fast learner afraid to make mistakes before the age of five served me well in school, but I can't say I can recommend the Rusty Murdock Head Start Program. It's not for everyone.