The Journey: The Dark Father
I'm going to skip over the time I spent traveling, after having left San Francisco, partly because I've already written quite a bit about that before (I can just repost some of it). I might merely state that during that year and a half, I "met" Nuit in New Mexico and engaged in several nights of adoration of her, and then I "met" the Baron Samedi at the Voodoo Museum in New Orleans. Those are, perhaps, the most significant spiritual/magickal experiences of that time period.
-----------------------
I moved to Seattle in late 1998...November, I think, after having visited for six months and then moving on. Mark Hunter offered me his living room floor to stay. This was a mixed blessing. While it did, indeed, give me the foothold I needed to become stable in Seattle, I was also somewhat at his mercy and he was one of those Alpha Males who enjoy my presence as long as I acquiesce to them and who, while talking empty talk about encouraging me to evolve and develop, actually block it by their own actions. Hunter had a lot of similarities to Jordan. Differences: Hunter, having a black belt in Jujitsu, was a more physically powerful person and did not have a drinking problem (although I suspect he did have a coke problem at one point). Jordan is more honest about his bisexuality. I say MORE honest. That doesn't mean totally honest. Jordan admitted to "tendencies". Hunter was, for the entire time I knew him, totally in the closet. Hunter was also more conniving than Jordan. Nevertheless, both of these men were tall and had strong personalities and a lot of presence. Both had some understanding of themselves as an Alpha and seemed to think everyone was supposed to bow down to them. Both bullied people around occasionally and were easily threatened and irritated by anyone who didn't want to put up with their bullying. Both of these guys treated ME like the girlfriend they wished they'd had, even though neither would have sex with me. Both had major control issues. And I think I had both of them in my life because I was very attracted to a "dominant big brother" type of guy and so I attracted them.
This is important to emphasize because I am no longer interested in this dynamic and am focusing on a different kind of male friendship.
Soon after I got set up in Seattle, I started checking out the various bathhouses. On one occasion, I went to Club Z. I checked into a room, went up to my room and undressed, put on my towel and headed back down to the shower area to get all wet and clean for some play. On my way there, I saw an older black man sitting on the bench and undressing at the lockers. He was of the large, beefy muscle type of body. Our eyes met and I could tell he was into me since he watched me walk into the showers. I think I gave him a smile and I thought, "Yeah! He looks like fun!" Despite the obvious, wolfish lust, he also had kind, loving eyes. I remember that.
I took my shower and went back up to my room and hung out with the door open. I saw a couple other guys I was interested in...both of them black, by the way. But I was kind of having this "first glance, first chance" mentality. That is, I saw this beefy man first and so I was more interested in getting fucked by him.
He showed up in my doorway and asked politely if I wanted some company. I smiled and invited him in and we got going. It was a FANTASTIC fuck!! We both came twice. Cumming twice is very rare for me. He had a big cock and the BIGGEST balls I have ever seen on a man. It is like holding a softball in your hand. I am not exaggerating. They are HUGE! He also had that natural talent for sex that most black men have. I don't know how to describe it but...they go for what they want without inhibition. And with tops in particular, they take control of the sex, having it their way, but with plenty of seduction...not like a boor, although they can be that aggressive mandingo if you make it clear that you want that. I really don't meet very many white men who can fuck like this, who can seduce and control and make it all happen so naturally and confidently. It's one of the reasons I love having sex with black men.
In fact, while I'm on that subject, I'll mention that I also like the fact that they are aggressive in cruising, yet usually respectful. They let you know they like you and if you aren't into it, they back off and cruise someone else. They DO NOT STAND for mixed signals. Their attitude about sex is very much "Either shit or get off the pot." Stop wasting time and make up your mind. Latinos are similar in approach, but with more variation. White men tend to play way too many games, due to uptight Euro attitudes about sex and various insecurities. Asians are aggressive but in a disrespectful way. They look at you and grin like God has commanded that you will be theirs. A lot of inappropriate grabbing and groping and they don't take no for an answer unless you damned near scream it at them to the point of embarrassing them. They kiss sloppily and have no sense of artfulness about the movements of sex. And yes, most of them do have small dicks. I generally don't get into an Asian unless he's thin and pretty and has a nice ass and I want to fuck it. Asians do make good bottoms.
Of course, dumpy, old trolls who are desperate for anything are the main exception to all these patterns, regardless of their race.
After it was done and we were satiated, we got to know each other. His name was Roscoe. I seem to recall that after he left my room, I just got dressed and left. Got what I wanted. Didn't need to get anymore.
I saw him a couple more times at Club Z and we fucked again and it was always great. Then one time I saw him and we got mixed signals. I thought he was done with me and wanting someone else. He apparently thought I was done with him. Then we saw each other again and were interested again and so fucked again.
I didn't see him for a few months, until one day I was walking up Pike street in a pair of leather shorts and he was leaning against his car, smoking. I stopped and talked, then we got into his car, drove to the Arboretum and had sex again. This time we exchanged phone numbers and became fuckbuddies officially.
---------
In my last year of San Francisco, I had bought this really cool, ceramic Darth Vader mug, because Darth Vader was my all time favorite villain (and still is). I think I kept that mug with me on my travels and still had it in Seattle.
When I moved out of Hunter's apartment and into a rooming house, right smack in the middle of UW's frat boy neighborhood, the room I rented had a couple of shelves. This was the kind where you had long metal strips going vertically, with slots in them, and you positioned these thin metal arms into the slots according to where you wanted them, and then laid a board across the arms. Not the most stable sort of shelves but...they did okay. I took off the bottom shelf and made the top one into a fool's altar.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, well, you probably know what an altar is: a flat surface set aside as a space to be considered sacred or spiritual and you put objects that have specific spiritual value to you upon it. A fool's altar is the exact opposite: you set aside a space that you put all kinds of things that have no particular value at all, except that they're fun or pretty. Fool's altars typically have a lot of toys or action figures on them, as well as Mardi Gras beads, or various trinkets and baubles. My friend Purple Mark is interesting in that his entire apartment is one great big fool's altar. Toys and curiosities everywhere!!
I never put the Darth Vader mug on the fool's altar, but at one point in my life, I had it sitting on a drawing table just below it.
My mother had gotten a letter from my father, commanding her to command me to write to him and communicate. She wrote back saying, "I can tell him whatever you want but he's his own person and he'll do as he pleases."
I was getting tired of my dad using the same old tactic every two or three years to get in touch with me: bullying or manipulating. Never any sentiment of love or of just wanting to know how his son was doing. Always the righteous preacher demanding what was due to him. The last time I had rebuked him, he went straight to my grandparents (on my MOTHER'S side...these are HIS ex-inlaws by some 15 years) and told them I was gay. He did this knowing they were fanatical Baptists. He did this knowing it would piss me off. He did NOT stop to think that, at this point in time, my grandparents were VERY old and, being told that their only grandson was homosexual...hurt them. They had no fire to get angry or righteous or even fearful. It just broke their hearts and made them cry. I consider that an act of cruelty. He had no business visiting his ex-inlaws just to poison them with news about something they had no control over and make them sad like that.
So this was a point where I was just fulminating with hate for this man. I actually HAD been trying to let my feelings go...because that was the "right" thing to do, or so it seemed imposed upon me.
I "settled" it. Once and for all. I just sat on my bed and decided, there was no way around it. I hated him and I would never stop hating him. He was a man to be hated. No way around it. That's just the way it was. Sometimes life just works out that way.
I felt no joy in this. To the contrary, it was grim and ugly and I felt cursed. Why oh why couldn't I have had a decent father? A man with some sense, some love and compassion, not this...this THING. This horrid, powertripping shithead. And he wasn't even very smart. No, truthfully, my dad is rather stupid. Ignorant bigot. Uses God to justify every nasty thing he does. Dishonest and irresponsible. I had to be stuck with this lousy piece of garbage for a father. It just seemed so unfair and pissed me off so much. All I could do was resign myself to the situation. I hated him. That was it. Nothing more could be said, except God help him if I ever saw him in person cuz I would assault him and probably kill him, I was so full of rage.
I decided to shift my attention to something else, since dwelling on the situation didn't do any good. The fool's altar had gotten dusty, which meant it had gone too long without any attention. So I decided I would clear everything off, dust the shelf and then set it up again, with different positions. That's what makes fool's altars fun...rearranging.
I made a mistake. I should have removed items from each side, moving towards the middle. Instead, without thinking, I just started taking all the items off of one side. This shelf was just a board sitting on those two thin, metal arms. It became imbalanced. The weight of the toys at the other end caused the board to flip up like a see-saw, the toys all slid down on to the floor and the board itself tumbled down...right on top of my Darth Vader mug...and smashed it to pieces.
For some reason, that mug was the only thing that mattered. I loved that mug. I got my early morning coffee in that mug. I would get up, carry it with me to my favorite coffeehouse and have it filled up. I invented Oreo cookie "cereal" in that mug.
I had always known that the name "Darth Vader" was Norse for "dark father" but it wasn't until then that I made a connection between destroying the mug and my hate for my own father. Still, even making that connection, I wasn't entirely sure what it meant...only that there was some relationship that I didn't understand. I was overwhelmed with grief, because I had smashed my mug but also because...there was something going on here that I didn't understand.
----------------
I answered a personal ad in The Stranger. This guy wanted to dominate a bottom, fuck him really rough and he had a big dick and decent stats. We met. He was this short, Jewish man with a mustache, named Marv.
We had sex twice. First time, he tied me up and it was fun. Second time was not so fun.
But the important thing about Marv was a conversation I had. He had done the Body Electric workshop, which is basically aimed at helping people to become more intimate. It was originally designed specifically for gay men, but then they expanded it for men in general, and then they opened up mixed gender workshops, for straights and bisexuals, and I think now they even have women's workshops.
Marv was an older man who had only come out of the closet a few years prior to our meeting, after having divorced his wife and realizing he was gay. He was telling me about how sad the scene of gay men made him, with so much hate and judgment, so much dysfunction.
He told me something that hit me so hard, so deep into my soul, and he said it so casually, so unaware of my own situation, that I still find myself in some disbelief.
"If you don't forgive your same sex parent for whatever they've done to you, and whatever they are, it will cripple your relations with others of the same sex for the rest of your life."
I don't know if he even noticed how raw I was in that instant, but I asked how one does that. How does one forgive like that?
"Forgiveness just means you release yourself, and them, from your anger. You don't have to tell them you forgive them. That may not even be appropriate. You just have to let the anger go in your own heart."
We parted ways and I went home. I thought long and hard about what was going on. I thought about that mug. I started crying so hard. The only other time I've cried that hard was when I got HIV (which was later).
I didn't want to spend the rest of my life hating gay men. I wanted love and intimacy and romance and good sex that developed and got better and better as we got to know each other.
I realized I HAD to forgive my father...for all of it. I say "realized." Yes...REALIZED. This was a deep realization. Marv was absolutely correct. I had to forgive for the sake of my own sanity and happiness. If I did not forgive my father, I would not forgive other gay men for being the flawed human beings they are and I would be forever judgmental, cynical, emotionally crippled and ultimately miserable.
It didn't happen all at once. I had to go back and read some parts from my Robert Anton Wilson books, about how we interpret reality. But I can say...and some do not believe me but...eh...whatever, I got through this in about a week or maybe two. It is amazing what you can do when you realize how important it is that you do it.
---------------
A couple weeks later, I was at SunCoast Video, browsing around. That store typically has all kinds of collectibles, in addition to actual videos and DVDs.
I saw a Darth Vader mug in a box. Exactly like the one I had smashed...except this mug was SILVER.
I bought it and gushed about how great it was to have found it.
The guy behind the counter told me that THAT was the last one of those mugs and that it had been accidentally pushed so far back, it had actually FALLEN down behind the stock shelf and had stayed there for a couple years, totally unnoticed and collected dust...until they recently had been clearing stuff out and cleaning the stock room and found it wedged back there. All their other mugs had long since been sold during a re-release of the trilogy with the digital make-over.
I walked out of that store in a trance state. I held that box so close to me, like a precious jewel. I understood the connection. And I really did make peace with all of that anger.
And something else happened too. Roscoe became more important in my life after that. No longer just a fuckbuddy. I seem to recall he was in the middle of breaking up with his partner, since they no longer had sex and were like strangers to each other and that was difficult because they had cars and the house in both of their names so breaking up was a long, drawn out affair. I think that got finalized about the same time (although I may be wrong). This was around late 1999.
Roscoe is now my best friend and nobody knows me better than he does. He's totally accepted me for what I am, faults and all. He was there for me when I tested HIV+. And, besides a friend, he has been a spiritual mentor and...yes, a father figure. The kind of father I always wanted. Loving and wise, understanding, yet not enabling. He asks me hard questions. He confronts me. He calls me on my bullshit. But he also knows how to be honest WITH empathy. Other people claim to "tell the truth." He knows better than that. He knows we are all interpreting and that NONE of us knows THE truth objectively. So he speaks HIS truth and reminds me to speak mine.
And, of course he has his flaws too. There have been a couple occasions where he said something I thought was just downright stupid, or gave advice I flat out didn't agree with. But he's been right more often than wrong, helpful more often than hindrance.
And he's black. A big black man with a deep voice. He could impersonate Darth Vader easily. I am sort of left bewildered at how the synchronicity unraveled.
I still haven't seen my viological (um...I think I'll keep that Freudian typo) father and I don't think I ever will. I don't trust him to behave himself and not try to manipulate me. And I don't think that means my forgiveness is inauthentic. When someone behaves a certain way that hurts you, you let time heal the wounds, but you also learn the lesson. He lives in a different world than I do and our two realities are incompatible. I'm a little saddened by that.
But I created a character in Quimby House...a mighty lion, like Aslan from the Narnia series. He has qualities of Roscoe, who is a Leo, by the way. But the character's name is "Godfrey"...my family name, as passed on through my father's bloodline. My own father is a Cancer/Leo cusp, having been born on the 22nd of July. I also know more about him. I know he was treated poorly by his father and that part of why he wanted to have me back in his life, and convert me to a heterosexual, is because grandfather looks down upon him, thinks he's a failure, and he wants to show me off as an accomplishment. This is entirely consistent with my father's behavior: using one person as a tool to either hurt another or to gain some kind of leverage. He used me to hurt my mother after the divorce. He used my maternal grandparents to hurt me. But this is the way he was raised. This is the way that side of my family operates. They use and manipulate each other in an unending, vicious circle of power struggles. This is Southern Baptist religion and Texan blood we're talking about, and my grandfather despises black people. There's a lot of ugly, dirty secrets and silent hostilities embedded in that whole side of my family and I could not survive as I am within it. My dad married a black woman and sired a son to her after my mother divorced him. He did that mostly to spite my grandparents. I'm sure my grandfather cannot stand that one of his grandsons is a faggot and the other is half negro. I suppose it probably backfired on him later on, as he tried to win favor from them and was refused. With him not being very bright, I'm sure most, if not all of his chess moves checkmated him time and time again.
So...I feel no anger, just a touch of sadness. I can't be part of their world and they can't be part of mine. Their world is all about conformity, repression, humiliation, codependence and just downright gross hate and discontent. Each individual within that web is a confused human being, probably reacting to the others, rather than making willful choices. But the larger picture is that of tyranny and enslavement on the small scale. I just hope I'm not the only one who got away from it.
-----------------------
I moved to Seattle in late 1998...November, I think, after having visited for six months and then moving on. Mark Hunter offered me his living room floor to stay. This was a mixed blessing. While it did, indeed, give me the foothold I needed to become stable in Seattle, I was also somewhat at his mercy and he was one of those Alpha Males who enjoy my presence as long as I acquiesce to them and who, while talking empty talk about encouraging me to evolve and develop, actually block it by their own actions. Hunter had a lot of similarities to Jordan. Differences: Hunter, having a black belt in Jujitsu, was a more physically powerful person and did not have a drinking problem (although I suspect he did have a coke problem at one point). Jordan is more honest about his bisexuality. I say MORE honest. That doesn't mean totally honest. Jordan admitted to "tendencies". Hunter was, for the entire time I knew him, totally in the closet. Hunter was also more conniving than Jordan. Nevertheless, both of these men were tall and had strong personalities and a lot of presence. Both had some understanding of themselves as an Alpha and seemed to think everyone was supposed to bow down to them. Both bullied people around occasionally and were easily threatened and irritated by anyone who didn't want to put up with their bullying. Both of these guys treated ME like the girlfriend they wished they'd had, even though neither would have sex with me. Both had major control issues. And I think I had both of them in my life because I was very attracted to a "dominant big brother" type of guy and so I attracted them.
This is important to emphasize because I am no longer interested in this dynamic and am focusing on a different kind of male friendship.
Soon after I got set up in Seattle, I started checking out the various bathhouses. On one occasion, I went to Club Z. I checked into a room, went up to my room and undressed, put on my towel and headed back down to the shower area to get all wet and clean for some play. On my way there, I saw an older black man sitting on the bench and undressing at the lockers. He was of the large, beefy muscle type of body. Our eyes met and I could tell he was into me since he watched me walk into the showers. I think I gave him a smile and I thought, "Yeah! He looks like fun!" Despite the obvious, wolfish lust, he also had kind, loving eyes. I remember that.
I took my shower and went back up to my room and hung out with the door open. I saw a couple other guys I was interested in...both of them black, by the way. But I was kind of having this "first glance, first chance" mentality. That is, I saw this beefy man first and so I was more interested in getting fucked by him.
He showed up in my doorway and asked politely if I wanted some company. I smiled and invited him in and we got going. It was a FANTASTIC fuck!! We both came twice. Cumming twice is very rare for me. He had a big cock and the BIGGEST balls I have ever seen on a man. It is like holding a softball in your hand. I am not exaggerating. They are HUGE! He also had that natural talent for sex that most black men have. I don't know how to describe it but...they go for what they want without inhibition. And with tops in particular, they take control of the sex, having it their way, but with plenty of seduction...not like a boor, although they can be that aggressive mandingo if you make it clear that you want that. I really don't meet very many white men who can fuck like this, who can seduce and control and make it all happen so naturally and confidently. It's one of the reasons I love having sex with black men.
In fact, while I'm on that subject, I'll mention that I also like the fact that they are aggressive in cruising, yet usually respectful. They let you know they like you and if you aren't into it, they back off and cruise someone else. They DO NOT STAND for mixed signals. Their attitude about sex is very much "Either shit or get off the pot." Stop wasting time and make up your mind. Latinos are similar in approach, but with more variation. White men tend to play way too many games, due to uptight Euro attitudes about sex and various insecurities. Asians are aggressive but in a disrespectful way. They look at you and grin like God has commanded that you will be theirs. A lot of inappropriate grabbing and groping and they don't take no for an answer unless you damned near scream it at them to the point of embarrassing them. They kiss sloppily and have no sense of artfulness about the movements of sex. And yes, most of them do have small dicks. I generally don't get into an Asian unless he's thin and pretty and has a nice ass and I want to fuck it. Asians do make good bottoms.
Of course, dumpy, old trolls who are desperate for anything are the main exception to all these patterns, regardless of their race.
After it was done and we were satiated, we got to know each other. His name was Roscoe. I seem to recall that after he left my room, I just got dressed and left. Got what I wanted. Didn't need to get anymore.
I saw him a couple more times at Club Z and we fucked again and it was always great. Then one time I saw him and we got mixed signals. I thought he was done with me and wanting someone else. He apparently thought I was done with him. Then we saw each other again and were interested again and so fucked again.
I didn't see him for a few months, until one day I was walking up Pike street in a pair of leather shorts and he was leaning against his car, smoking. I stopped and talked, then we got into his car, drove to the Arboretum and had sex again. This time we exchanged phone numbers and became fuckbuddies officially.
---------
In my last year of San Francisco, I had bought this really cool, ceramic Darth Vader mug, because Darth Vader was my all time favorite villain (and still is). I think I kept that mug with me on my travels and still had it in Seattle.
When I moved out of Hunter's apartment and into a rooming house, right smack in the middle of UW's frat boy neighborhood, the room I rented had a couple of shelves. This was the kind where you had long metal strips going vertically, with slots in them, and you positioned these thin metal arms into the slots according to where you wanted them, and then laid a board across the arms. Not the most stable sort of shelves but...they did okay. I took off the bottom shelf and made the top one into a fool's altar.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, well, you probably know what an altar is: a flat surface set aside as a space to be considered sacred or spiritual and you put objects that have specific spiritual value to you upon it. A fool's altar is the exact opposite: you set aside a space that you put all kinds of things that have no particular value at all, except that they're fun or pretty. Fool's altars typically have a lot of toys or action figures on them, as well as Mardi Gras beads, or various trinkets and baubles. My friend Purple Mark is interesting in that his entire apartment is one great big fool's altar. Toys and curiosities everywhere!!
I never put the Darth Vader mug on the fool's altar, but at one point in my life, I had it sitting on a drawing table just below it.
My mother had gotten a letter from my father, commanding her to command me to write to him and communicate. She wrote back saying, "I can tell him whatever you want but he's his own person and he'll do as he pleases."
I was getting tired of my dad using the same old tactic every two or three years to get in touch with me: bullying or manipulating. Never any sentiment of love or of just wanting to know how his son was doing. Always the righteous preacher demanding what was due to him. The last time I had rebuked him, he went straight to my grandparents (on my MOTHER'S side...these are HIS ex-inlaws by some 15 years) and told them I was gay. He did this knowing they were fanatical Baptists. He did this knowing it would piss me off. He did NOT stop to think that, at this point in time, my grandparents were VERY old and, being told that their only grandson was homosexual...hurt them. They had no fire to get angry or righteous or even fearful. It just broke their hearts and made them cry. I consider that an act of cruelty. He had no business visiting his ex-inlaws just to poison them with news about something they had no control over and make them sad like that.
So this was a point where I was just fulminating with hate for this man. I actually HAD been trying to let my feelings go...because that was the "right" thing to do, or so it seemed imposed upon me.
I "settled" it. Once and for all. I just sat on my bed and decided, there was no way around it. I hated him and I would never stop hating him. He was a man to be hated. No way around it. That's just the way it was. Sometimes life just works out that way.
I felt no joy in this. To the contrary, it was grim and ugly and I felt cursed. Why oh why couldn't I have had a decent father? A man with some sense, some love and compassion, not this...this THING. This horrid, powertripping shithead. And he wasn't even very smart. No, truthfully, my dad is rather stupid. Ignorant bigot. Uses God to justify every nasty thing he does. Dishonest and irresponsible. I had to be stuck with this lousy piece of garbage for a father. It just seemed so unfair and pissed me off so much. All I could do was resign myself to the situation. I hated him. That was it. Nothing more could be said, except God help him if I ever saw him in person cuz I would assault him and probably kill him, I was so full of rage.
I decided to shift my attention to something else, since dwelling on the situation didn't do any good. The fool's altar had gotten dusty, which meant it had gone too long without any attention. So I decided I would clear everything off, dust the shelf and then set it up again, with different positions. That's what makes fool's altars fun...rearranging.
I made a mistake. I should have removed items from each side, moving towards the middle. Instead, without thinking, I just started taking all the items off of one side. This shelf was just a board sitting on those two thin, metal arms. It became imbalanced. The weight of the toys at the other end caused the board to flip up like a see-saw, the toys all slid down on to the floor and the board itself tumbled down...right on top of my Darth Vader mug...and smashed it to pieces.
For some reason, that mug was the only thing that mattered. I loved that mug. I got my early morning coffee in that mug. I would get up, carry it with me to my favorite coffeehouse and have it filled up. I invented Oreo cookie "cereal" in that mug.
I had always known that the name "Darth Vader" was Norse for "dark father" but it wasn't until then that I made a connection between destroying the mug and my hate for my own father. Still, even making that connection, I wasn't entirely sure what it meant...only that there was some relationship that I didn't understand. I was overwhelmed with grief, because I had smashed my mug but also because...there was something going on here that I didn't understand.
----------------
I answered a personal ad in The Stranger. This guy wanted to dominate a bottom, fuck him really rough and he had a big dick and decent stats. We met. He was this short, Jewish man with a mustache, named Marv.
We had sex twice. First time, he tied me up and it was fun. Second time was not so fun.
But the important thing about Marv was a conversation I had. He had done the Body Electric workshop, which is basically aimed at helping people to become more intimate. It was originally designed specifically for gay men, but then they expanded it for men in general, and then they opened up mixed gender workshops, for straights and bisexuals, and I think now they even have women's workshops.
Marv was an older man who had only come out of the closet a few years prior to our meeting, after having divorced his wife and realizing he was gay. He was telling me about how sad the scene of gay men made him, with so much hate and judgment, so much dysfunction.
He told me something that hit me so hard, so deep into my soul, and he said it so casually, so unaware of my own situation, that I still find myself in some disbelief.
"If you don't forgive your same sex parent for whatever they've done to you, and whatever they are, it will cripple your relations with others of the same sex for the rest of your life."
I don't know if he even noticed how raw I was in that instant, but I asked how one does that. How does one forgive like that?
"Forgiveness just means you release yourself, and them, from your anger. You don't have to tell them you forgive them. That may not even be appropriate. You just have to let the anger go in your own heart."
We parted ways and I went home. I thought long and hard about what was going on. I thought about that mug. I started crying so hard. The only other time I've cried that hard was when I got HIV (which was later).
I didn't want to spend the rest of my life hating gay men. I wanted love and intimacy and romance and good sex that developed and got better and better as we got to know each other.
I realized I HAD to forgive my father...for all of it. I say "realized." Yes...REALIZED. This was a deep realization. Marv was absolutely correct. I had to forgive for the sake of my own sanity and happiness. If I did not forgive my father, I would not forgive other gay men for being the flawed human beings they are and I would be forever judgmental, cynical, emotionally crippled and ultimately miserable.
It didn't happen all at once. I had to go back and read some parts from my Robert Anton Wilson books, about how we interpret reality. But I can say...and some do not believe me but...eh...whatever, I got through this in about a week or maybe two. It is amazing what you can do when you realize how important it is that you do it.
---------------
A couple weeks later, I was at SunCoast Video, browsing around. That store typically has all kinds of collectibles, in addition to actual videos and DVDs.
I saw a Darth Vader mug in a box. Exactly like the one I had smashed...except this mug was SILVER.
I bought it and gushed about how great it was to have found it.
The guy behind the counter told me that THAT was the last one of those mugs and that it had been accidentally pushed so far back, it had actually FALLEN down behind the stock shelf and had stayed there for a couple years, totally unnoticed and collected dust...until they recently had been clearing stuff out and cleaning the stock room and found it wedged back there. All their other mugs had long since been sold during a re-release of the trilogy with the digital make-over.
I walked out of that store in a trance state. I held that box so close to me, like a precious jewel. I understood the connection. And I really did make peace with all of that anger.
And something else happened too. Roscoe became more important in my life after that. No longer just a fuckbuddy. I seem to recall he was in the middle of breaking up with his partner, since they no longer had sex and were like strangers to each other and that was difficult because they had cars and the house in both of their names so breaking up was a long, drawn out affair. I think that got finalized about the same time (although I may be wrong). This was around late 1999.
Roscoe is now my best friend and nobody knows me better than he does. He's totally accepted me for what I am, faults and all. He was there for me when I tested HIV+. And, besides a friend, he has been a spiritual mentor and...yes, a father figure. The kind of father I always wanted. Loving and wise, understanding, yet not enabling. He asks me hard questions. He confronts me. He calls me on my bullshit. But he also knows how to be honest WITH empathy. Other people claim to "tell the truth." He knows better than that. He knows we are all interpreting and that NONE of us knows THE truth objectively. So he speaks HIS truth and reminds me to speak mine.
And, of course he has his flaws too. There have been a couple occasions where he said something I thought was just downright stupid, or gave advice I flat out didn't agree with. But he's been right more often than wrong, helpful more often than hindrance.
And he's black. A big black man with a deep voice. He could impersonate Darth Vader easily. I am sort of left bewildered at how the synchronicity unraveled.
I still haven't seen my viological (um...I think I'll keep that Freudian typo) father and I don't think I ever will. I don't trust him to behave himself and not try to manipulate me. And I don't think that means my forgiveness is inauthentic. When someone behaves a certain way that hurts you, you let time heal the wounds, but you also learn the lesson. He lives in a different world than I do and our two realities are incompatible. I'm a little saddened by that.
But I created a character in Quimby House...a mighty lion, like Aslan from the Narnia series. He has qualities of Roscoe, who is a Leo, by the way. But the character's name is "Godfrey"...my family name, as passed on through my father's bloodline. My own father is a Cancer/Leo cusp, having been born on the 22nd of July. I also know more about him. I know he was treated poorly by his father and that part of why he wanted to have me back in his life, and convert me to a heterosexual, is because grandfather looks down upon him, thinks he's a failure, and he wants to show me off as an accomplishment. This is entirely consistent with my father's behavior: using one person as a tool to either hurt another or to gain some kind of leverage. He used me to hurt my mother after the divorce. He used my maternal grandparents to hurt me. But this is the way he was raised. This is the way that side of my family operates. They use and manipulate each other in an unending, vicious circle of power struggles. This is Southern Baptist religion and Texan blood we're talking about, and my grandfather despises black people. There's a lot of ugly, dirty secrets and silent hostilities embedded in that whole side of my family and I could not survive as I am within it. My dad married a black woman and sired a son to her after my mother divorced him. He did that mostly to spite my grandparents. I'm sure my grandfather cannot stand that one of his grandsons is a faggot and the other is half negro. I suppose it probably backfired on him later on, as he tried to win favor from them and was refused. With him not being very bright, I'm sure most, if not all of his chess moves checkmated him time and time again.
So...I feel no anger, just a touch of sadness. I can't be part of their world and they can't be part of mine. Their world is all about conformity, repression, humiliation, codependence and just downright gross hate and discontent. Each individual within that web is a confused human being, probably reacting to the others, rather than making willful choices. But the larger picture is that of tyranny and enslavement on the small scale. I just hope I'm not the only one who got away from it.