I saw an old friend yesterday. I wish it had been a happier circumstance. He didn't recognize me at all when he saw me, even after I spoke to him. I had to repeat my name twice before he got it. He had changed a lot too. It's been almost a decade. He was polite but walked away, leaving me to speak with his wife.
It was always a complicated relationship because of these awful jokes he kept making. When I met him his marriage with his first wife was breaking up. She was an addict. The courts initially gave her custody of their two kids until she demonstrated that she was unfit.
He went to great lengths to get his kids and to make certain she wouldn't see them. One of them had become very sick in her care. He raised them alone for years. I respected him for the kind of father he was. That's the reason why I ignored the jokes.
He used to say terrible things about gays. He called us faggots and other things I won't repeat. He was not aware that I was homosexual and I never brought it up.
When his son got older, he said one of those awful jokes. His son, Eddie kept his face perfectly still and calm. Too still. He looked away at a moment when his control slipped, then looked back at his father, seemingly emotionless. In that moment I knew what was going to happen. I saw everything. I kept hoping I was wrong.
After that I decided I had to stop ignoring the jokes. I think the way I put it to him was, “You know, they say one in ten are gay, and many of them are brought up in very ordinary homes. Healthier ones than yours, with a mother and a father.”
I said that to him but he laughed me off. I raised the subject many times. Every time I did he liked me a little less. He finally asked me if I were gay, and I told him I was, but that wasn't the point. “Wouldn't it be ironic if your son grew up to hate you? Why can't you just stop saying those things?”
I remember that conversation vividly. It was the day he stopped being my friend. I never said that his son was gay, I just spoke as though he might be. It’s a terrible thing to out someone.
His new wife told me that they hadn't seen or heard from his son Eddie since he left for college, and the day he left they got into a violent fight. Bill's nose had been broken. Eddie had come out to his friends, and someone told Bill. I'm not sure what happened next, but it ended in violence.
I went back over everything I said to him. I wondered if I should have been more subtle, or if maybe I should have been angrier. Unfortunately, he wanted this ending so badly there were no words I could have used.
He's at least fifty pounds heavier now. I look pretty ragged, and he's in better clothes. I think he's aged much worse than I have though. I doubt I'll see him again.
If only it were enough to tell them, and let them know.