Lack of Huevos (PART I)

Jot@s Anónim@s:
Anonymous

There’s no worse feeling in the world than making your parents cry. To know that you are the reason for their discontent is to know betrayal and heartbreak at the same time. That’s what happened a couple of weeks ago when I came out to my father.

I’d been dwelling over it night and day during that week. To confess something that in my heart I felt that he already knew. The morning of my coming out, my sister approached me with the subject.

"I think it’s time you tell dad," she said.

Her freshly plucked eyebrows caught my attention and it was the only thing I could seem to focus on. Or maybe it was that I wanted to shift my attention on anything but my sexuality.

"He’s gone a long way since his drinking days and therapy is doing him good," she continued as she struggled to look for my lost thoughts.

She is right, I thought. My father is no longer the man who would disappear on the weekends in one of his alcohol-fueled binge parties. He is no longer the man who struck me down for my lack of masculinity. He is what you call a sober person.

Though I’ve long forgiven the man who would carry a round leather flask, I’ve yet to find the man who I can call my friend.

In my heart, I just knew it was time.

There is no book on how to prepare your coming out to your parents, let alone your Mexican dad. Maybe there is a Chicken Soup for the Ashamed Mexican Son Who Won’t Come Out To His Father Due To His Lack of Huevos, but I’ve been too obsessed with David Sedaris lately to read anything else.

I worked late that night, so my father came by my job to pick me up. I tried to make conversation to open some sort of dialogue between us. I asked if he was hungry. He only nodded. I tried the almost rainy weather, the family back in Mexico, my old shoes, and even President Barack Obama. It was useless. I only managed to get a few words from him.

It was right around the corner from my house that I opened with "I have something to tell you."
As we parked in the driveway and both of us were silent, the rain started pouring in the most cliché way possible. And then it was just the two of us. Inside his car. With the pouring rain outside. I cannot make this shit up.

"Just say whatever you have to say," he said.

He wouldn’t look at me. The both of us were staring at the white garage door in front of us. The cracked wood from the garage door created some sort of nifty design, nearing a piece of masterpiece artwork. The kind of artwork that you just don’t understand but cannot take your eyes away from because you don’t want to accept the fact that you don’t know shit about art.

"Look dad, I think you know what I want to say and I just don’t know how to say it," I said, looking him in the right side of his face.

He knew what I was talking about. The tears began to pour from his eyes. It was as though he was competing with the tears coming from the sky. His were tears of sadness and disappointment.

"I assure you that I wish I wasn’t gay." ¶

Look for 'Part II' in the next issue.