Date: 20 July 1993 From: era@csn.org (Ed Arnold) Subject: Defining the "Real Man" X-Copyright: Copyright (c) 1992 by Edward R. Arnold. This material may be freely copied and distributed for noncommercial purposes provided that this notice remains intact. Commercial use of this material requires prior written permission from the author. X-Disclaimer: THIS MATERIAL DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF CITIZENS PROJECT. IT IS PROVIDED SOLELY AS A SERVICE TO OUR PARTICIPANTS. The following is a (true) story I wrote in 1991, which was subsequently published in _Dream Network Journal_ in 1992, with a photograph of my daughter. You, the gentle reader, may have noticed that the people who belong to Colorado for Family Values believe that "God Hates Fags", given that they did display that slogan during a CFV rally, which was later broadcast on TV. It's perfectly obvious to me that they are wrong, and this story is one of the experiences that proves it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DEFINING THE "REAL MAN": A HETEROSEXUAL RESPONDS TO AIDS by Edward R. Arnold It turned out to be a clear August day, better than I had expected. I had made arrangements with Sean to go hiking this particular day, up near one of our neighboring mountain communities. On two previous occasions, we had gotten together for a quick lunch and supper, and a brief exploration of each other's personalities. This had come about as the result of an article which he wrote in a newsletter about my volunteer activities, and the fact that he has a little sister with mental retardation. He had also agreed to do some editing/writing for an organization that does advocacy work for persons with disabilities, at my request. Obviously, our interests were related, though I had no idea even in early July, of what sort of crisis lay ahead of me. In a previous note to him about my New York trip, I had laid bare to him the parallels between my life, and the movies "My Left Foot" and "Gaby." In this note, I had also asked him to play a therapy role for me: to listen to the story of a tragedy, made all the more so by the fact that it was preventable. That tragedy involves my daughter, a little girl nearly eight years old who is a legally-blind, non-verbal quadriplegic. That would not happen on this particular August day; I told him almost nothing about the details of that dreadful morning nearly eight years before, in spite of the fact that he and I were together for more than three hours on a beautiful August morning that turned strange. Friday August 16 dawned clear for a change. The icky, wet, yucky weather we had been having, most uncharacteristic for this area, went away. The wetness had contributed to a proliferation of wildflowers, which would usually have been burned to death by this time of year. I got up early and ground through the routine of feeding my daughter yet one more time, yet one more time on that pile of perhaps 10,000 hours that have been lavished on her. While I was doing this, I kept thinking: how am I going to tell Sean about The Dream? I had had The Dream over a month before, and awoke with a sudden, wide-eyed start from it. It was too awful to be true, certainly it could not be true! I did not want to face another tragedy in my life, but I knew deep inside that I was not a coward. I thought of my friends Paul and Joe, who had nursed their ill children through one crisis after another, only to have them die still children. No, I must face this one too, I must wrench myself free of my selfishness as I had already done. I arrived at Sean's house about 9:25 a.m., feeling edgy and disconcerted. When I reached the front door, there was a whirring of a machine running and no response to my knock, so I let myself in the open front door. Sean soon appeared with his characteristic smile, and produced a book of Far Side cartoons for me to chuckle over. He was wearing ankle-high boots, cut-off jeans, and a red pull-over; he looked just a little thinner than I remember him. A little bit later in the day, I would tell him I had lost 15 pounds, which was true; perhaps I thought, deep inside, that this would make him feel a little better. We exchanged small talk about the beautiful flower and vegetable gardens around his house, which he attributed to his room-mate Brendan. Brendan was not there, and I did not inquire about him, having not met him. When we were about to leave, I looked him in the eye and asked, "Are you ready to play the therapist today?" I had asked him to listen to the story of my daughter's birth because the guilt and pain of the event was still very much with me, always would be, and needed to see the light of day. (I had considered the possibility of psychotherapy, but had decided to turn to him first because I knew that he knew something about psychology.) He gave me a happy smile and said "yes" in response to the question. Little did I know he would finish this therapy session by nearly removing the gray matter from my head, in an unexpected way which no therapist could have done. We stuffed his large pack into the trunk of my old Toyota, since he was planning on going on a camping trip after our hike, and drove off into the morning sunshine. Our conversation began immediately, as though our previous visit of over a month ago had never stopped. I began to tell him about the typically male things, particularly the anger and rage that had filled my soul for so long. I was able to tell him about my murder dream and fantasy. However, I was soon "stuck" on an important matter; as I began to talk around the periphery of this matter, I could feel the emotions begin to take hold, and my throat started trembling. I told Sean that I just could not continue at that particular time. I was not ready to start crying, and certainly not while driving. At that point, I had not even determined whether it would be possible for me to cry in front of Sean. We finally drove out of town and up the canyon, progressing towards one of the mountain towns. We continued to talk on the many matters of interest to me, but I was careful to work around the periphery of difficult subjects when I could feel emotions taking hold. We also discussed some of the leading social issues that had caught my eye recently: the Nazi anti-semitic computer games which are being passed around Europe, esp. Austria, and Hugh Gallagher's book on the destruction of disabled people in Nazi Germany. Never have I felt quite this sensation of friendship and easy-flowing talk around a male, as I did talking to Sean as we drove up the mountain, with the anemic Toyota laboring in the light mountain air. We soon reached our destination, and stopped so Sean could pick up a cup of coffee and make a phone call to check on the location of where I would need to leave him later in the day. We then proceeded into the mountain reservoir parking lot, where we were finally able to stretch our legs. I threw my small pack, with water, strawberries, and cinnamon rolls in it, over my shoulder. We set off down the trail towards the east end of the lake. It was a beautiful but windy day, with flowers along the trail. As we progressed, we got a little deeper into the heart of the subjects bothering me, but sitting down at a table was not productive. The wind was too strong and cold for this to work. We soon reached the end of this section of trail, and Sean did not want to hike on ground through which a trail had not been cut, having broken his toe a few weeks before; so we turned around and went back the way we came, to the other end of the lake. He told me what he would like to do with his life, that he would eventually like to go back for a doctorate, and I instantly felt relief from The Dream, as though to prove that what I had dreamt about could not be in the picture if he really were considering a doctorate. We gradually hiked around the pump station/aerating pool, crossing a little bridge to another section of trail located close to the town. We seemed to be making a little more psychic progress, though I still felt "stuck" and apprehensive of what I would have to say to him. Finally we reached a picnic table in a shaded area. Clearly, it was now or never. "Sean, let's stop here." "OK." We sat down and began talking again. Naturally, I was back into anger and the poor job I had done of dealing with it. I could talk around the periphery of the core issues of having wished my daughter had died in her early years, and now having such intense, spiritually-driven love for her that I could not believe I had ever been that selfish. I hinted at this by explaining to him how often it is, that what we call "parental love" is a sham, an assumption of something that often isn't there, which hides the real ravages inflicted upon children. After all, I should know; I had had the gall to tell my own son when he was 4 and had cried, that he was being a baby and had better grow up. Finally, I could hold it no longer. With a level gaze I said to him, "Sean, I had a strange dream. This is not intended to be an insult to you, and I don't suppose it's true anyway, but this dream has had such a hold on me that I must tell you about it. I dreamt about you on the night following our meeting. In the dream, we were sitting somewhere having a pleasant conversation. All of a sudden, you changed the subject to AIDS, and then blurted out that you are HIV+. My response to you, in the dream, was to wrap my arms around you and hug you; then you put your head on my shoulder and began to cry." There, it was out. Perhaps he'll tell me I'm an ass and no, he's not one of those "faggots". Sean just smiled and said, "Yes, it's true." My tears began to flow almost immediately. While he sat there smiling at me in the sunshine as though nothing were really wrong, my face and insides scrunched up. As Sean began to see what was happening, he protested, "But I was going to tell you!"; but I knew that, having already seen the future. There was nothing he (or I) could do now to stop it; the torrent of emotion that had been building for over seven years, which had already revealed itself on a few previous occasions, broke like a dam in a ten-point quake. I told him I just couldn't believe it, then went into a paroxysm of sobbing; it was frighteningly intense! Finally, I just couldn't take it. NOT ONE MORE SECOND OF BEING AN EMOTIONAL CRIPPLE AS I HAVE BEEN FOR ALL MY LIFE, AS i HAD BEEN BROUGHT UP TO BE!! I told Sean to move over to my side of the table, and asked him if he minded if I would hug him, and of course he didn't. I put my hand on his breast, feeling self-conscious about the thought of placing my hand in a place which is so intimate to women, but realizing that it really was, and always should be, intimate to men too, because (just like a woman) I love to have my nipples caressed by my mate in the heat of passion. I cried, and bawled, and my emotions raged against the condition of man. I, the married het, had to tell him to kiss me on the ear, which he did. I told him that I had not had any kind of physical relationship with a man before, with the exception of hugging - primarily, my father and my son. (My son doesn't hug me anymore except under pointed suggestion; that is something I have already started to work on.) He told me in that offhand way of his that I had probably just concluded on my own that he was HIV+, and that's why I had had the dream. Perhaps so, but the fact was that I am totally ignorant of HIV and its effects, other than what I may have read in newspapers and magazines. If there were recognizable signals, then perhaps I disregarded them because I did not want to believe it. At the root of all of this was the fact that I believe I am a fair person: never, never conclude someone is something simply on the basis of a few scattered facts; never conclude that it is impossible for a man like Christy Brown to have written "Down All the Days"; never conclude that someone is homosexual on the basis of minimal evidence, although the thought that Sean might be gay had consciously entered my mind once, simply because he had never mentioned being married. This dream was truly Grace (though not in the sense of "ignorance is bliss"), and another indication (along with another recent anticipatory experience having to do with death) that there really is something spiritual inside me, crippled though it may be. Finally we were at the core of the matter, just the two of us in the brilliant mountain sunshine. I told him precisely how I had once wished my daughter had died, and how I now felt this intense love for her that was totally the reverse of my previous stance, that has become an overwhelming sense of spirituality, even when she is crying, and her back is arched in pain, and she is furiously kicking the skinny little legs which will never develop. As I held him even tighter, I sobbed, "She is a very precious person ... and you are a very precious person to me now, too." Our souls WERE together, as simply as though someone had opened a lunch-box. It was all there for him to see, even the dreadful dream I had had about sexual self-mutilation after my daughter's birth. And, I was able to tell him that my sexual side had finally become integrated with my spiritual side, and that is how sex is for me now, when I make love to my mate, just as surely as he must to his: a communing of souls that is a blessed release from my daughter's problems, and the other problems of the world. I can now tell her I love her without that previous sensation I used to have, that it was something I really didn't want to do. Of course, he did tell me that that's exactly how it is for him now. He has been passionately in love with a few men, exactly the same thing I have experienced with a woman, with a plumbing difference. Perhaps only one of those affairs was enough to infect him with the dreaded HIV, but that was all it took. Now, his reality of life is being a bit tired, and taking it easy on his body, and taking AZT until someone can come up with something a little better. If they don't, I will have to attend his funeral, and I will have to howl and cry against the bitterness of it because that's all I will be able to do, just as I had to attend the funerals of two little girls this spring, neither of whom had lived more than a decade, both of whom had lived all their lives in pain. In the meantime, I must find a way to love him with all my heart, for people who are disabled, or who have chronic/deadly diseases, have become the place where I find God. Nowhere else; not in any book, and not in any church. So now I have done it. Although I have never shared sexual love with a man, I love a man, a person so important to me that I will never escape his spiritual grip in my lifetime, though he is likely to be gone before I in spite of the fact that I am fourteen years his senior. If that happens, my daughter will become a life-long, mute reminder of his soul, for they are now one and the same to me, blameless. He told me had sensed before, when talking to me, that I had been having trouble with my maleness. Yes, indeed. Anger had caused me to abuse my daughter when she was young, mostly verbally but even some physically, too. I had, lock stock and barrel, bought into the patriarchal vision of what the male should be. I had resisted the "female" nurturing side within me when my daughter so badly needed it, because I believed that Real Males did not do that sort of thing, that it was the duty of women, or the legendary "Somebody Else." I had even once, when I was young, had feelings of love for another boy but (of course) never told him how I felt, because Real Men don't do those sorts of things, either. Just ten weeks before the fateful meeting with Sean, I had had the privilege of attending a seminar at which Rabbi Harold Kushner spoke. It was now obvious that what Rabbi Kushner had had to say then, was exactly right. When we give ourselves to others in trouble, when we reveal our thoughts, love, and concern for them, we reach the highest possible point of our lives, one so blindingly real that it puts the established churches to shame for their pettiness. However, I know that seemingly trite statement is one which cannot be understood by people who have not been in the kinds of situations which Sean and I are experiencing. Both of us strongly identify with the words written by Viktor Frankl in 1945: "Only the man inside knows." We parted much too quickly, since he had to be somewhere else. The high lasted much too long from this experience; no LSD, no coke, just a tiny bit of caffeine and all the rest came from above. I slept only about an hour on the night following this meeting, and only a few hours on each of the following nights for almost two weeks. My distress was palpable; it brought my mate to tears on several occasions, and my work to a virtual standstill. So, now I am a Real Man. Real Men take care of quadriplegics, and people with mental retardation, and people with MS, and also ... people with HIV. Real Men (and boys) don't tell "retard" and "fag" jokes, not because they're "politically-correct", but because they have not bought into the social lies which they are taught, or more likely, learn in the vacuum of parental concern that seems to be the lot of many of today's children. Real Men understand that a subtle message of hate and discrimination can be delivered under the guise of humor, as Andrew Dice Clay has so well demonstrated. Most of all, they sit down in the middle of chaos and tell other people about it. I now must write the poem I have been promising myself that I would write, about seeing God in my daughter's eyes. Curiously, that is the same thing I see in Sean's eyes, in addition to the striking beauty of his pale-blue irises. **** A recent popular TV series that has stimulated the interest of America in disabilities is one named "Life Goes On." This series deals with the (relatively) minor problems of a young man who has a mild case of Down's Syndrome. As I thought about Sean in the days following our meeting, I became very angry about this title for its trivialization of our ability to forget. Why DO we forget? Because we rationalize, a word with a delicate double meaning. While feeding my daughter one morning following the meeting with Sean, I listened to Jane Pauley interview Sam Keen, one of the so-called "men's movement" gurus. He was expounding his point of view, about how men deny the role of emotion in their lives, even when it is (as I had learned so very well, in a courtroom) at the very root of decisions which we claim to have made "rationally." (Indeed, so-called "rationality" is often nothing more than emotion to which has been added a liberal dose of pomposity, as I have observed on countless occasions in dealing with members of the American medical and legal establishments.) I knew I had been having some serious problems in dealing with a particular individual with whom I occasionally have to deal on topics of disability advocacy. This individual had once made the statement in a meeting, "I had a sister with Downs, and she's dead, so that makes me one of two people in this room who is not emotionally involved. Therefore, I have a better perspective." Now I know exactly how to deal with people like this, and I no longer feel I must be ashamed of it. I had always been the easy-going person, having even been known at one time to my friends as "Easy Ed", but now that spark of righteous anger to speak up for what is right is within me. Sean has helped give me a precious gift. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Author Ed Arnold lives with Jacqueline, Jaymison, and Johanna (the pretty quad) in Colorado. By day, he assumes the dispassionate manner of the technologist to earn a living as a system programmer/administrator. After hours, he assumes his more important role of disability rights activist, participating on a number of boards and committees, and serving as president of a local chapter of a national organization which advocates for persons with developmental disabilities. He is also Sean's friend.