Neon Pink Spray Paint

I miss pronouns. And people may ask why I miss them and how I can miss them, but it’s simple. Being gay at BYU, pronouns fly out the window and ambiguity takes its place. He took me on a date may seem like nothing, but something about saying he can make all the difference. But when I was dating Curtis, all my roommates swore that I dated a 6’4”, 27 year old, film major comedienne because I would not identify him as what he was… a boy.

Curtis came and went, and I’ve kept it single since. But my roommates would never let Curtis go. It could have been the anonymousness of it all, maybe the whole situation was too much akin to a whodunit, but they would keep bringing him up, trying to find out who this cougar was and what she looked like. I would brush them off and play aloof, hoping that they would never find out because then I would be getting the boot from BYU with extreme prejudice. But then one day, Curtis fell back into some old habits, and rumors flew that he had been admitted to a loony bin in California. My girls were out of town who knew about him, and so I had to keep it to myself and I felt like if I did not tell somebody, this secret would atrophy in me and rot.

So one day, on the way to the store, my roommate Remington tagged along because he was sans a truck and sans motivation to walk the three blocks to get the last thing he was sans… food. He mentioned that somebody should be put in a sanitarium, and then there was no stopping my secret. I had to talk to Rem. “Remember the person that I dated? Well, I just heard that that person was put into a loony bin. It’s funny that you mentioned putting somebody in a sanitarium because that’s right where Cur… the person that I once dated, is.” He rolled his eyes and looked at me, “I don’t care who you dated. It’s not like I know them or would even care.”

Well, I guess this was my time to see if he really didn’t care. So nonchalantly I said, “Do you really want to know the name of who I dated? I dated somebody named Curtis,” his eyebrow rose, “Now do you see why I don’t tell anyone who I was dating?” I waited for him to say something, but it was silent in my truck. And finally he said, “Yeah. If I dated a girl named Curtis, I wouldn’t tell anybody either.” Now my eyebrow had rose, but my lips were pursed and I’m sure that utter confusion registered across my face. “Really Rem?”

We arrived at the store and didn’t speak another word. He grabbed his cart, I grabbed mine, we reconvened at the truck, and we sat in silence on the way home. This was after eight months of living with Rem, and it took another two months before he actually grasped the concept of my homosexuality. I didn’t get kicked out of BYU, but I still find myself catching on pronouns when I speak. It’s almost as if I am cursing, but I have hope that one day, I’ll be able to say he took me on a date.

Saying, “Today will be the first day of the rest of my life,” and actually making today the first day of the rest of my life, doesn’t really seem to match up. But I said it, last night, and I am hell-bent on reinventing myself.

Mostly this has been inspired by my roommate Remington, whom last night told me that I am lame because: I sit around, watch TV, don’t have a job, and am boring. I pray that he doesn’t actually hold me as boring, but I’ve felt it developing for a while now, especially because Remington is hanging around with Johnnie. Johnnie, a roommate of years past, was a good friend of mine, and Remington, Johnnie, and I were near inseparable. We would hang around, go find girls to hang out with, and dink about until late in the night, but then he moved out and Remington and I had to become friends without Johnnie. This worked well enough until they started hanging around again, but this time, I wasn’t invited.

The worst part about my relationship with Johnnie and Remington is that I have become nothing but a novelty act to them, and whomever they decide to hang out with. To them, I am nothing but, “Our gay roommate,” and they feel the need to tell everybody this fact. I actually despise that they call me that, especially because I don’t really like gay people.

It’s not that I hate every gay person on this planet, but I do hate people who are obsessed with their sexuality. Everything is gay, gay, gay, gay, GAY! Unfortunately enough, I used to be one of these people, and so now that I have evolved from that stage, I realize how annoying it is. I guess the best way to describe my hatred would be to give a verbal comic. It’s a single frame with two hippopotamuses at a watering hole. One of the hippos has a word bubble that says, “I’m a HIIIIIIPPPPPOOOOOOO!” and the other hippo says, “God, I hope all hippos die.”

It’s a bit humorous that Johnnie and Rem feel that it is ok to tell everyone about my sexual preferences because a year ago, when they found out, they were going to report me to BYU honor code offices and have me kicked out of school. But somewhere along the way, they decided that they liked having me around, and I took care of them because they cannot live without having a responsible person to make sure they don’t fuck up too bad and keep them out of trouble. But now, I am the butt of every joke and every story. I am made out to be nothing but this cloud of confetti and rainbows, which I pray that I’m not.

Last night, after Johnnie had told me that he had a big discussion about me with a bunch of people in his class, I found him curled up in my bed. This ignited something in my brain and I beat up Johnnie. I punched him til’ he had the wind knocked out of him. He still wouldn’t budge from my bed, and so I grabbed his ankle and tried to rip him from my sheets. To my dismay, he had grabbed on to the frame of my bed, and when I pulled, the bed frame came apart into thirty different pieces. My bed came crashing to the ground, smashing my luggage that I had stored underneath my bed and leaving my room a mess.

I had to leave (leave being an understatement) and so I put on my coat and prepared myself to walk about Provo until I didn’t have the desire to commit homicide. “Snakers! Aren’t you gonna go find girls with us?” If I am so gay that they can only describe me as a homo, why in Hell would I ever want to go out and look for girls? I slammed the door behind me, but because our door has warped from this winter’s snow, the door just bounced back open. Either I had to save my pride, or save my electric bill… so I walked back and grappled with the door until it was closed.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I seem to end up at a Plasma Donation center. Mostly because I am jobless and if I have any desire to eat, I must sell my body. For months the routine was clockwork: Park at the wig shop, walk to the plasma center, read a book, have my blood sucked out of me. It could take anywhere from an hour to four, but I couldn’t care less. I had nothing better to do with my time and would most likely end up taking a nap on my couch after consuming an entire jar of peanut butter.

One Tuesday, I went along with my biweekly routine. I had parked at the wiggery when the owner came out to give me a lecture of how I wasn’t allowed to park there. “I’m sorry. Is there a sign or something that is posted because I just didn’t know?” I could tell that she was extremely upset because her wig had started to move about her head whenever she would give me a shameful nod. Finally she noticed the hairpiece flopping around, adjusted it, and told me, “You know, I have elderly customers that can’t walk far distances and you are taking their parking spaces. You are not allowed to park here, and the plasma center has been told that they need to inform their donators that they can’t park here. You parking here is like parking in a handicapped spot and you should be ashamed!” I am not one who likes an argument, or confrontation for that matter, and so I moved my truck three spots down from her shop and gave a polite wave when I passed by her window. The wig woman didn’t appreciate it though because she was busy applying adhesive to her wig and I could see her bald head for what it was: Spiteful.

I went into the plasma center and asked about the wig woman. Most of the phlebotomists told me that she was crazy and that she is not allowed to shoo away people from parking in front of her shop. One in particular was very disturbed by the wig woman’s actions. “She is just pissed off because we bought her old store and made her move so we could expand. She is a bitter, nasty, old woman…” she walked away still speaking about why this old woman was so upset but I couldn’t follow and listen because I had a needle in my arm, keeping me to my lounging chair. “…And I just looked at her and walked away! She needs to up her meds! Oh, I just asked and you are allowed to park there, so I expect that you park there when you come on Thursday.” I really was clueless to why this phlebotomist was so upset at this geriatric, but I had been given a command by my phlebotomist and it is best not to make one’s phlebotomist mad.

Thursday came and I found parking at the wiggery again. I knew that if I could make it indoors before she saw me, I would not have to deal with her. I parked, locked my door, and scurried off, but as I had passed her window, she saw me. I couldn’t help but smile and wave. I prayed that she wouldn’t recognize me, but she did. I could see a scowl develop on her face and she started to tromp towards the door to put me in my place (which ironically, her wig never seems to be in its place). I panicked, and I ran. Bursting into the plasma center I screamed out, “The wig woman! She’s after me!” The other donators looked away from the movie to see who made the ruckus, but within a second of seeing that it was me, they all turned back to stare at the TV.

I waited for her to come in and chew me out in a crowd of people, but she never came. Was she waiting outside the door for me? Or could he possibly be keying my truck? My worst fear was that she would glue last season’s wigs across the body of my truck. If she put wigs across my truck, I would have to take the bus home, mostly because of my fear of hair that is sans a scalp. But when I left, nothing. She sat at the window, looking for customers, and the only vehicle near her shop was mine. I had no other choice but to gird up my loins, walk into her shop, and say, “I’d like to try on some wigs.”

12:00
Always, the nights that I need to get some good sleep, I hear it, but I only hear it when I am actually under my blankets. A constant squeak that happens every thirty seconds, and it has to be something metallic and swinging. This is all I know about this alien noise, other than I can’t sleep when I hear it. Listening to the noise, I put together every image of what it can be in my mind. Swinging and metallic… It could be some sort of hanging sign. Or we do have a park across the street. If I can hear a squeaky swing 50 feet away, I’m probably half rabbit. Whatever it is, I can’t sleep, and I’ve been trying to sleep for much too long now. So I’m going to solve it.

12:30
Undeniably, I must look like a mental patient. My pajama bottoms are extremely thin, and I have a jacket on but no shirt. Also, I am wearing an ushanka and some moccasins that have been spray painted green. If that is not the poster image for mental illness, I have no clue what is. The biggest issue is getting out of the door, I have opened the door several times and can’t seem to make myself actually exit my apartment and immerse myself in the frigid, night air. I just open the door, stand in the doorway for a few moments, close the door, and then shiver with my hands out in front clasping a can of WD-40. So I decide it would be better to go back to bed and just hope that I can fall asleep.

1:15
I’m back up. This time I have managed to wrangle on a shirt along with the aforementioned greasing uniform. I tried my hardest to just fall asleep, but that squeak would appear in my dreams and wake me up, which then would lead me to bitter anger (which is not conducive to sleeping either). This time I am going to actually grease whatever it is that is causing my angst, and nothing is going to stop me.

1:35
Returning from outside, my brain feels like it may have frozen. My processing abilities are definitely impaired, and I am not certain that I have actually solved the squeaking. But I believe that I have exhausted myself so much that when I lay down, I will most definitely fall into a coma of some sort. I went 100 feet in each direction of my apartment and have greased: three sets of swings, five swinging signs, a screen door, several mailboxes, and a jettisoned fan that was near the dumpster. My entire can of grease is empty, which should attest to how frantic I was while greasing the world, but I feel like I can sleep in peace now.

1:45
I’m already back in the uniform, and I was wrong about being so tired that I would fall into a coma. The squeak still exists and I’m at the point now that I am about to kill somebody if I can’t fix the squeak. This time, I don’t have any more grease, so the plan is for me to kick the squeak out of whatever I find that makes noise.

1:50
If my toes aren’t broken, it will be a miracle. I wandered right outside my apartment and listened for the squeak. I wandered about like a deaf person until I came across a meter of some sort (but I can’t seem to identify what type of meter it is [but that isn’t much of a surprise]). I started out gently by just grabbing the meter to see if it would stop. No dice. I rubbed some snow on all the joints. No dice. At this point, I was desperate, so I shook the meter like a baby, hoping that it would develop brain damage and shut up. No dice. It was definitely a resilient meter, so I kicked it. I kicked it over and over again until it finally gave up the ghost. Finally, silence. It could have been cold induced madness, but for a moment… euphoria.

I have taken to cooking since my departure from home. I love making all sorts of goodies, from chutney to caramel, I’ve made it. So when my friend asked me to help her make compote, of course I was down for the challenge. It seemed simple enough and sounded fancy, so we went off to the store to pick up some rhubarb and port wine.

We tracked through the aisles of the local grocery store looking for any trace of alcohol to no avail. We could find beer, but besides that, the only alcohol we could find was Listerine. I knew people who had cooked with wine before, so I decided to give a friend a call, but unfortunately enough for me, my phone decided to break, leaving me to yell into the receiver and the speaker working for every other word. “YOU KNOW, LIKE A LIQUOR STORE! WHAT? UTAH ONLY SELLS ALCOHOL AT STATE LIQUOR STORES? WELL WHERE IS ONE? WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR A THING YOU ARE SAYING AND I JUST NEED SOME BOOZE! YOU KNOW WHAT, MY PHONE IS BROKEN, AND CAN SOMEBODY ELSE CALL YOU AND GET DIRECTIONS?” By that time, the entire store had stopped their last minute, Saturday-night-before-the-Sabbath shopping and just stared, mouth agape, like cows in a pasture. “What? I just need some booze! Is that too much to ask?”

So we left to go to the state liquor store when I look at my truck’s clock. 11:34. It was time to beat the clock because there was no way that liquor stores would be open on a Sunday in Utah, so we rocketed down the street to find said boozery. Now that I think about it, driving to find booze may be worse than driving under the influence. In a panic, and at 11:40, my friend who needed the wine suggested we go to Wal-Mart. “Wal-Mart always sells alcohol; it’s like their main source of income!” So I raced to the local Wal-Mart, but I had no time to park, so I pushed my friend out of the truck so she could race in and buy the wine before midnight and I would park.

I get into the store and try to find my friend by calling her, but because my phone was broken, I had to resort to putting my phone on speakerphone and walk about like I was on a reality T.V. show. We reconvened by the candy, where she informed me that Wal-Mart does not sell alcohol. I looked at my watch. 12:02. Defeated, we grabbed a bottle of grape juice and decided to make compote the Mormon way.

Sometimes things happen that make you stop for a second and question what the hell you are doing and why you are there. This moment came to me after a movement: a bowel movement. Crowding into a girls bathroom and watching your professor fish a parasitic worm out of a toilet was my moment. Is this my life to come? Why the hell am I here and what the hell am I doing?

Time froze in that bathroom and I reviewed my time here at BYU. I came to last February, where I wore a shirt with a rainbow and an umbrella on it. Of course the reaction of my fellow peers was one of disgust, but one fellow student’s reaction trumped all reactions. He wore a “Yes on Prop 8!” shirt, and felt that my shirt with a rainbow challenged his political views. So the first thing he did when he saw me was yell out, “Faggot!” And in turn, I responded with a resounding, “Bigot!”

After a class of getting the stink eye and being called Queer every time I went to the back of the lab, I couldn’t take his idiocy one more second. So I tromped to his table and asked, “Are you from California?” He answered with some speech about how he was born and raised in Utah,”… you know, Zion.” I stopped for a second, looked to the ceiling and asked, “So why are you wearing a Prop 8 shirt? Get your own politics.” Walking away I had to call him an ass through a whisper because I didn’t need to get kicked out of BYU for cursing.

Later that day, we had a devotional from the highest up Catholic in the United States who spoke about Catholics and Mormons working together to defeat gay marriage. I was the only one in the building who did not stand and clap him offstage and I could feel that everyone was looking at my rainbow shirt. I wanted to get out as fast as I could, and while walking across campus, the guy with the Prop 8 shirt saw me and yelled out, “Queer! Hope you listened to the devotional today!” I glared over and yelled out, “You pompous bastard!” and then he started to approach me. I knew a fight was a brewing and I wasn’t going to be the loser. I dropped my bag and prepared for him to give the first punch, but instead he just marched up to me, took his gigantic cup of PowerAde and threw it on my shirt. All I could do was scream out, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

The campus police wouldn’t do a thing. They told me that I was overreacting and there was nothing they could do. They suggested maybe going to the Honor Code Office, but I couldn’t hold it together for one more moment, so I went to the highest floor of the building I had most classes in and cried in the bathroom for an hour.

I snapped back to reality in the girls bathroom, fishing out the worm, and realized that this was where I cried last February (in the men’s bathroom though). I had to brace myself back then, and now I had to brace myself because I was the student who was tasked to hold the jar with formaldehyde for the worm.

My shoes cause senseless ruckuses across campus. I will saunter away to class or the library, and at least 35% of the people who pass by me will take a glancing peak at my shoes. Another 10% will actually whisper to their walking buddies and laugh about my shoes, and a good 5% will either laugh or tell me I look like an idiot. And besides all the brouhaha, I refuse to get rid of my shoes.

From that statement, one might think that I am either wearing some gaudy high heels or maybe clown shoes; but no, I wear a pair of shoes I bought at Wal-Mart. Now when I bought them, they were white… and today they are neon pink. But they’ve been pink for months, and I have gotten poor reviews since. I find the shoes to be very symbolic of whom I am as a person, and the may serve as a cautionary notice to anybody who comes in contact. I am not your average BYU student. I am not conservative, I do not want to get married and have loads of children, and I do not believe that the Mormon ideal of life is the life I want for myself.

So on the first day of class, I had my entire Parasitology class glaring at my shoes. It makes me laugh that people think they are so discreet and that I have no idea that they are staring. Sometimes, I find it fun to clear my throat and announce to the class that it is impolite to stare. If somebody has sat down next to me and has failed to see my shoes, they get up and move as soon as they catch a glance. It’s better that they move because of my shoes than for them to move because I complain when religion gets mixed into our science courses [I hate when my science courses feel the need to mix in religion. If I wanted to sit in a class and hear about how Jesus wins and evolution is only a theory, I would go to church].

So as I walk across campus, I revel in the gawking stares of the passerby. Because if somebody can’t fathom how I can wear neon colored shoes, then they can’t fathom how I don’t live like every other BYU students, and they definitely can’t fathom how much better life is when you don’t fit in with the crowd.