The Color Of Love | COMPLETED

04. Truth

The bartender still hadn't come out from the back. Perhaps he knew something odd was happening here and had no wish to be apart of it, or maybe he just didn't want to disturb us. 

Whatever the case, it was a good thing he was not around to witness James/Darius stand up angrily and smash his glass against the table. I flinched internally as the glass went flying, but managed to keep a calm exterior. 

"This is bullshit," Darius said. "What's your bag?" 

"My problem is that you don't understand, and you're prosecuting us for it!" I stood up, too, facing him. I stepped closer, my voice falling until it was deadly calm. "How can someone who is discriminated against not understand another person's struggles? How can you belittle our challenges because of yours? People like us have to stand together, Darius, 

His form wavered slightly, and he sat down. He picked at the pieces of glass on the table, brushing it away from the heart carving. 

"You have five minutes," Darius informed me in a low voice. "Then I'm leaving, regardless of whether I accept it or not."

"Okay," I slowly sat back down. "Okay." 

He watched me expectantly. 

I hesitated, my mind going blank. How was I supposed to convince a homophobic person that being gay was completely normal? That love was love, no matter what form it took? 

Then I remembered one of the very first things he had said before we had a real conversation. 

"But why do you announce it? Why do you flaunt it around if people hurt you for it?" 

The man in front of me wasn't as homophobic as he was disconcerted. He didn't understand why we would set ourselves up for a lifetime of pain if we could avoid it. His skin color invited bias from anyone who looked at him. 

"So you're telling me that you were born gay?" 

He didn't understand. Loving someone wasn't as simple as that. Love wasn't a conscious decision. It was more than just a rush of hormones. We didn't look at someone and decide to love them. And because love wasn't a decision, who we loved wasn't a decision either. 

But I needed him to understand why being gay was as apart of our identity as being short or our race and what hiding it would do to us. 

I took a shallow breath. "Okay. Imagine that there's a little boy. He has two loving, traditional parents. He's a great kid, even at only eight, and everyone adores him.

One day, he comes home from school with a doll. It's a really pretty doll, too. It has glassy eyes that move, a red dress made of real silk and little buttoned up shoes. The hair is glossy and golden and isn't painted on. The boy loves it. God, he loves it. It was the only prize left from the fair, and the teachers weren't sure if they should give it to him, but they did. 

He's still playing with his doll when his parents come home. He's eager to show his parents his prize, but before he can speak, his father slaps him. He's so hacked that he can barely get the words out. There's spit and screams flying everywhere, and this little boy is so scared that he clings harder to his doll. 

His father pulls the doll away from him, breaking it's head off, and throws it out. The mother tearfully insists that he was just bogarting the doll away from a little girl as a prank, but the father is still incensed. He can't believe any son of his would play with a girl's toy. 

Later, he calms down, but the event stays in the boy's mind, and this previously mellow, sweet boy is now scared and confused. He doesn't know why he can't play with his doll. He didn't know that as a boy, it's not something he should be playing with. All he knew was that he loved it, and that there was no reason for him not to be playing with it. 

But for now, he just decides to forget about it. He takes the broken doll head and puts it in the back of his wardrobe. It's a bummer, but he knows his dad hates it. 

Years later, he's a teenager. While his friends are off playing sports, he's in his school's choir. He loves to sing, and he's really good at it, too. But since he's not playing football, his friends call him names. They think he's a weakling. And even though singing is apart of him, he doesn't pursue it, because everyone else is against him. 

He takes all his music and puts it next to the broken doll head. If he doesn't think about it, it won't hurt him.

Eighty years later, the man is on his death bed. He is all alone, and he thinks about his life and what he has become. 

He looks inside. 

There is nothing real in him. He is filled with other people's expectations, achievements he did not want, and activities he never enjoyed. He is overcome with sadness when he realizes there is no more left of him in himself.

He longingly remembers the little wardrobe full of suppressed memories of what he loved. It had been secreted away inside himself for so long that he had forgotten it was there. With his last few breaths, he wonders what would have happened if he had just been himself despite society. 

He wonders if it wouldn't have killed him."

With a start, I realized that I was crying. I let another silver tear drop from my eyes as I take a shaky breath. Somehow, in explaining it to Darius, I had done the most important thing. I had come out to myself. 

"That's that," I whispered. "That's what it means to be gay." 

Love is love. He looked down at the little carving of the heart that had somehow become permanently etched in not only the wood, but also in our minds. 

He didn't say a word. I didn't know what his final decision was. 

He just stared at me, this black man with all the shades of grey flitting across his face, nodded slightly, and left the bar. 

I never saw him again. 

ooo

Definitions:

What's Your Bag: In '60s slang, your bag symbolizes your problems, the mysterious annoyance that's making you so obviously upset.

Square - a person who was decidedly not far out or groovy 

Dough - money 

Bogarting - keeping something to yourself

Mellow - carefree and relaxed 

 Hacked - meant you were righteously angry or aggravated.

Bummer -  depressed or disappointed