If It Gets Better, It Can’t Get Much Worse

Kevin Camp 

The first time I went to a gay bar I wanted to see the drag show. I climbed out a bedroom window and walked downhill, pausing at an agreed-upon stop sign where a college boy named James was waiting to pick me up. I was secretly in love with him. He fit all the boxes and categories I’d always wanted in a boyfriend: campy, theatrical, playful, gossipy.

It was an effort to stay up until 11 p.m. before the performance began and stay awake until 3 a.m. when the show concluded. We arrived well beforehand. The bartender felt it was necessary to check on me, to make sure what I was getting myself into before I trod one step further. “You know this is an alternative establishment, right?” I nodded that I knew exactly what would follow. But at that point, I didn’t have a clue about what would really befall me.

As I learned later, I was ratted out by James, who told his parents, who told mine. His penitence was little more than a plea bargain. It was a case of naming me to avoid being sent to one of those gay conversion therapy programs. The news spread fast.

My parents’ homophobia astonished me. I’d thought before that they were level-headed, patient people, pillars of restraint. The reverse was true when it came to my sexual orientation. My dad was furious. Mother cried for two days solid. She had plenty of gay friends, but somehow, I was not allowed to be like them. I think she was afraid that my so-called “lifestyle choice” would make for a life of misery. She saw, in her own fears, me beaten up, blackmailed, mocked, confused. Surely the straight path promised greater happiness. My parents considered sending me to a gay conversion program, too, but they believed in more draconian discipline. It was either shock treatments or one of those military academies, which would have been tortuous. They must have pleaded for help for me from every corner. As for the electroconvulsive therapy, I blame the conservative Christian minister who took charge of my care. My illness was, in his mind, clearly due to demonic possession and he had just the person in mind to cure me spiritually and physically.

His name was Dr. Michael Davies and he still actually thought (this was the early 90s, not the 70s) that electroshock therapy could be effective for this purpose. I’ve had a mistrust of doctors ever since then. The only thing the procedure accomplished was obliterating my short-term memory and concentration. I’ve still not gotten all of it back. But would I really want to remember all of it?

I remember being wheeled into an operating room filled with concerned faces in scrubs. I’ve had surgery since for a variety of other ailments. In those later procedures, like the time I had a medical implant inserted into my body, every doctor or nurse showed themselves to be the portrait of optimism, quiet efficiency, and restraint. Not here. Impaired as I was, I recognized pity and nervousness on the face of the medical professionals performing the procedure. Was this a breach of professionalism and ethics in their behavior towards me? It certainly didn’t make me feel any better.

Ten seconds is all I remember. A blip. Why do I recall that time and none of the others? Was it the first? The third? The fifth? There were many other shock treatments. Eight, if flawed memory serves.

The results of these procedures did not shock the gay out of me.

I was reduced to a zombie for six months. Prior to my full recovery, I didn’t talk, and barely communicated with anyone. But there was some silver lining. I was so mentally disrupted and confused that I didn’t have the ability to worry that the side effects would never go away. That’s the only way to manage such a strong disruption in a person’s whole being. But the homosexual thoughts remained. My parents were disappointed, but took bad counsel and put me through a fresh round of shocks.  

I was seventeen and would never have consented to this procedure if I was a legal adult. The doctor in charge of my case told my parents that I’d gotten in just under the wire. Rebellion would have served me well. I could have outright refused to undergo the shocks, but I had come to believe that there was some sort of malignancy present in myself, a severe problem in dire need of fixing. I had internalized that I had an illness, almost some kind of tumor that needed to be excised from the body.

When I got to college, I decided to come out completely. My timing was fortuitous. I skipped the AIDS epidemic altogether, which was good and bad. The paranoia had almost subsided completely, which lulled queer men my age into perhaps a false sense of security. A generation before me, they were burying people left and right.

You’d think the English department would grant one a degree of cover. Instead, writing workshop exposed me to homophobia in a way I had never directly experienced before. In two years of classwork, I wrote two or three explicitly homosexual poems. As a result of my honesty, a trusted professor and mentor no long felt comfortable sitting next to me while we were revising my latest draft during office hours. He insisted that an arbitrary amount of space be set between us, as if I was a sickness he didn’t want to contract himself. I certainly wasn’t attracted to him and failed to understand why an additional foot of separation made any difference. Another professor insisted on sitting across the table from me during seminar. I’d presented a book summation in class with gay themes and, once again, I was too ashamed to be outraged. I never received an apology from either of them. I was too freshly out of the closet to expect better treatment. Instead, I felt ashamed. Too humiliated to fully internalize my pain, I instead went numb.  

I began to attend the deceptively named Gay/Straight Student Alliance. What it should have been called was Gay People’s Hookup Point. I felt like a piece of meat, stared at lasciviously the minute I entered the room. This might have been an enticing notion to some, but to me it felt like exploitation. We were ostensibly here for support, not to fall in bed with each other. My second time there, an older man with a prominent lazy eye, who wasn’t even a student, tried to pick me up. I let him have his way with me because he was persistent, and persistence was something I understood.

I remember another night, one where my discomfort was at its highest, many years later. I’m standing in the A-frame of an old house with a ton of character and cob-webs. I have been invited by a co-worker. It’s a party I nearly avoided attending because events like these have a way of getting out of hand. Some voyeuristic party-goers show up with cameras. The building features multiple bedrooms with trundle beds in each room.  

The winter has been a rainy one. The chorus of wet umbrellas have deposited a pool of rain near the baseboards. I’m a little late to the party, but I can already hear the sounds of debauchery alongside a soundtrack of bad club music. I don’t understand the fondness of many for repetitive and loud noise like this. But I have learned that I am excellent company for someone hoping to cater to a fetish.

Usually it doesn’t bother me, being pigeonholed in such a fashion, but I’m feeling decidedly touchy tonight. The usual suspects are there: booze, pot, and large plastic bottles of Gatorade to help us stay hydrated during the orgy. I peek through the goings on in every room. Someone has thoughtfully taped pieces of paper on the wall next to every door, labeling the names of the participants and the acts underway.

The voice of my mother floods my mind.

How could you do something so filthy?

I hear the voice of a homophobic nurse from one of my hospital stays.

Hope you don’t get raped!

I leave before even setting foot in one of the many rooms, much like a fearful child at a sleepover. If I could, I would call for my parents to pick me up and take me to someplace safe and soothing, Instead, I go home to an empty one-bedroom apartment and read until I’m sleepy. And as I do, I reassure myself that I’ve done the right thing. An image comes to mind. It’s me as a boy, hiding underneath a mattress, not wanting to be seen or found.

Sometimes I dream of a man I once knew, a good friend and lover, supremely patient, considerate, and affectionate. He had immigrated from China some years before. His English was impeccable, but his game-playing skills were a little suspect. I mostly picked up the inexperienced ones, because in my mind, I believed that they wouldn’t be as judgmental. I didn’t want anyone who was the take-charge sort. I preferred the more passive ones.

I was his tutor, schooling him in the initial discomforts, the way that it had earlier been done for me. But he was out of touch with his feelings, perhaps doubting himself just has I had. When he drank, he showed a jealous streak. Once he made a point at a party of giving shoulder rubs to everyone who requested, except, of course, me. I could handle that, somehow. I had grown up in toxicity and I gave him free rein. I allowed him to sleep with anyone he wanted, provided he saw me as his primary partner.

Some years ago, I listened to two gay men give a talk. They were both raised by Christian fundamentalist parents and met at some church youth function. There, they became aware of an instant sexual attraction for each other. As time progressed, they’d be intimate together, then fall to their knees in prayer, begging for forgiveness for the unforgivable. This went on for years, until both of them recognized they had to break away from the church and stop living in denial. They were summarily cast aside by their parents and the only world they knew, but despite the challenge involved, they built a new life for themselves. I admired their effort, but wasn’t sure I could do the same. I needed my family and if some sleight-of-hand was required, I’d go along with it. I thought I could live in the straight world, but something always dragged me back. The straight life seemed so easy, if any of the after-school specials to which I was addicted to were roadmaps for success. I bought the propaganda because I wanted what they promised could be mine, if I just worked hard enough.

In time, several people went with me to the gay club, which, after nerves passed, became a home away from home. One of the things that I quickly experienced was having my butt deliberately poked with the end of a pool cue. It wasn’t funny in the least, but on some level it was confirmation that at least someone found me appealing.  

With me today was a lesbian friend, Stephanie, who took to the atmosphere, smoking silently in one dark corner. In time, she became a very popular drag king, but that’s another story altogether. One drag show and she was hooked. Drag became her life. And alongside what would become another lifelong passion, she successfully sniffed out the club’s resident drug dealer just as quickly.

Stephanie was blunt. “Go out there and find yourself a man!” She shoved me into the center of the dance floor. I’m not much of a dancer. I began instead by putting the moves on an older man with a shaved head who was leaning on the back bar. I rubbed his neck sensuously and curled my legs around his legs when seated at a table. I was convinced he was going to be my first bar conquest, and he kept putting off going home with me. Eventually, I gave up. The next time I saw him, he was dancing wildly on the floor, averting his gaze from me.

As a means of friendship, Stephanie got one of the bar’s resident shirtless heartthrobs to give me a lap dance. He was impossibly attractive, a real looker, but why would he be interested in me? I sat on the corner of the stage, too scared to move a muscle. He finished up in no more than two or three minutes before giving me a stiff little hug, scampering off to someplace else. The gesture was well-intentioned, but humiliating.

And then I saw Tess, a woman from one of my classes.

She was just as brusque as Stephanie. What about this place made other people so bold and put me so much out of my comfort zone? The first words out of her mouth came in the form of a question: “Why did you give up women?”

I denied that I ever had, but she was another one of the bisexual skeptics I had to take on from all directions. We had been close some time before, but nothing romantic ever came of it. She didn’t mean it hurtfully. I might have taken some offense if it came from any other source. I suppose she didn’t know better. There was still a mutual attraction present, but now she belonged to someone else.  

“I’m here with my husband. We’ve been members for a while now.” That was a new phenomenon for me—the straights here to take in the spectacle and bust a move. Who else would I encounter in this strange place?

Yes, I did sleep with women, too. Gay men always told me, without fail, that it was great that I was bi, as though that was some desired state they wished they had themselves. I’m afraid it’s not that easy, but I appreciate the commiseration. The most ideal partnership with me, regarding women, was if they were also bisexual. I was the sort of man that women who slept with women made an exception for, which was pleasing to the ego. It was confirmation of who I was, when I felt at odds with just about everything

The drag show finally commenced. One by one the queens danced to their pre-selected music. I was appreciative of the craft and the extra effort it took to be flawless on stage. A drag queen who went by the stage name of Georgina flashed me her backside in the middle of her routine. I certainly hadn’t foreseen something like that. I abandoned my shaved head man and moved on to more promising avenues.

“Georgina likes you,” Stephanie cooed. That much was true. Somewhere around 3:00 in the morning I made my way backstage. I was nervous. The club had no dressing room, so all the Queens had to share the same small bathroom in the back. I asked one of them where Georgina could be located.

She eventually appeared, half her makeup on, half her makeup make off, but with a smile on her face.

“Silly boy.” She mussed up the hair on my head the way parents sometimes do with their children. I appreciated the attention, but was honestly intimidated. I wanted to sleep with her, but I guessed that I was ten years younger than she. She hadn’t minded flashing me earlier in the night. Georgina confirmed for me that age mattered little to her.

“You’re cute. But before this goes anywhere else, you’ll need to talk to my partner.”

Always these caveats. Easy sex was only possible if you were great-looking. Otherwise, it often depended on how far you lowered your standards. I’d engaged in a few of these meaningless and ultimately unsatisfying hook-ups, but now I wanted more. I knew if something definitive emerged, I could probably kiss any relationship with most of my family goodbye. Sometimes, I suppose you have to know when to cut your losses.

 “I usually don’t go for anyone who isn’t old enough to rent a car by themselves. Too much drama,” Georgina continued.

I’d always considered myself fairly responsible, despite my youth. I was the kid who feigned contrition like a master. I could be very persuasive and charming when caught. But Georgina didn’t know any of this. I didn’t even know her real name. Nor did she know mine. Nor did we know each other’s ages, though I’m fairly sure she determined with practiced eye that I wasn’t underage and off-limits.

She stared at the bathroom mirror, removing layers of makeup, one swipe at a time. I observed how much this meant to her, to brave the reaction of the crowd, to go through step after step in a laborious process, to remove body hair in all sorts of out of the way places. Would I do the same? Probably not.

I understand a little what women go through, as I have been privy to some of the crassest, least imaginable pickup lines. One such man, rail thin, showing off his chest to the world, told me that crack makes you want to fuck. He then offered me some. I couldn’t help but laugh, even if it hurt his feelings.

I went to the trouble of contacting Georgina’s partner, to clear the air. He was standing up by the stage, smoking a cigarette.

“Let me guess,” he said, bemusedly. “Georgina wants a clean bill of health and my approval.”

He smiled. “Go on, take her, boy. I could care less.”

I was relieved but suddenly inquisitive. “How long have you been together?”

“Long enough,” he replied, exhaling smoke. He then turned his attention to the show going on in front of him.

Everyone always played so coy in my company. I suppose they were just messing with me, but the result was always confusion on my part. The club catered to a group of people who I rarely observed. It had its own rules, slang, and inside jokes.

I walked back to Georgina, half-scared, half-aroused. By now, he looked like an average man in street clothes. “I take it you passed,” he said coyly.

He grabbed me by the hand, imploring me to follow him. I had no idea where I was going. We hopped into his car and sped away.

“My apartment’s not far away,” Georgina reassured me.

I placed my hand on his knee, only to be playfully rejected.

“We’re not even there yet!” he laughed. “Wait!”

I’m a planner. I like to rehearse in my head what I’m going to do or so before any action takes place. I was thrown into a panic. Spontaneity is not my forte.

We ran up the stairs to the apartment. By now, my head was spinning. But then I recognized, as Georgina threw open the door, that we were not alone. A large and angry dog was ferociously barking at me. I had good reason to be scared. Within ten seconds, the dog tried to take a chunk out of my left calf. It drew blood, and as I was wearing shorts at the time, I didn’t have the protection long pants would have provided.

Georgina was a good nurse, but after the dog biting incident, I lost some of my enthusiasm. I lay down on a nearby couch while the dog was put in time out. But I figured that since I was here, I might as well make the most of it.

And from that point onward, I don’t remember much. Something physical was happening to me in real time, as I lay flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. When I was a child I made a game of convincing myself that gravity was reversed and that I was on top of the ceiling, peering downward. I was conscious of that much, but the largest part of me felt that I was floating on top of the ceiling, barely aware of what was really happening.

It also reminded me of going to the dentist when I was a boy. The laughing gas produced a similar reaction and the dentist imitated Donald Duck once the nitrous took effect. At first, I could never determine whether the cartoon voice was real or whether I was under the effects of a powerful drug.

I began to believe that I was being filmed. A camcorder was pointed straight down at me, supported by a tripod, balancing on the winding staircase that led to the second level of the house. My memories were fragmented alongside the live action. Where was I now? What was past? What was present?

In the past, I was naked too. I wondered if Georgina was filming me with a similar purpose, as one more conquest, determined to put my behavior up on the internet for the gratification of the anonymous. My image and live action would yet again be part of someone’s collection.

He’d been one of the rough kids who lived four houses down. I remember it was painted in dark green tones. I saw him months later at the ballpark. He smiled at me, as if nothing had ever transpired. I remembered his mustache. Since then, I have hated men with mustaches.

Georgina finished up with me and then suddenly my brain and body were back in sync.

“You were a thousand miles away, honey.” His body hovered over my own, his chest heaving from exertion. I had enjoyed myself to an extent, as much as I ever could.

On the way home, he spoke kindly to me. “The same thing happened to me. It was my grandfather.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. Some know what to look for.”

It was a shame he was taken. But in an instant, I knew I’d gained a friend. From then on, I was welcome behind stage with each of the other drag queens. They never minded sharing their problems with me and were sympathetic when I had concerns of my own.

I’ve discovered what being happy is supposed to be. The Queens have become my family and my new home is with them, drag night or not. I think of myself as a success story.