Derek

Posted by A.E. Storm on Sep 2, 2010 in The Climacteric | 0 comments

‘Tommy,” my mother started in that patronizing tone she had developed into perfection. “It’s just such a shame.” (‘That you’re gay!’) “You’d make such a great father.” (‘But now you won’t!’)

That’s how my mother had reacted to my coming out 18 years ago … oh, except for this initial question that she felt needed an answer: “Did somebody talk you into it?”

“No, of course not!” I replied, aghast. (‘Yes! This guy, that I have no attraction to by the way, asked me to be gay so I could be ridiculed, discriminated against, laughed at and possibly beaten to a pulp! So, yes mom, I was recruited!’)

Now, don’t get me wrong, my mother is a gem … perhaps cloudy and not of the smoothest cut, but a gem nonetheless. I have always loved and appreciated my mother, and now that she’s pushing 70 years old — mostly because her side of the family has a history of Alzheimer’s, among other ailments — I am driven to tell her that there’s a very good possibly that I have a son.

A son named Derek, 19. An October baby, if memory serves.

Obviously this doesn’t make me a father since I don’t know with absolute certainty, nor have I seen the boy since just a few months after his birth. But my friends were convinced … maybe still are convinced; they all said he was a spitting image. I couldn’t see it or wouldn’t — I mean he was a platinum blond, blue-eyed boy with kind of goofy looking ears — but what? That’s such a rarity?

However, I can’t argue the fact that the timing was suspicious — looking back, it’s almost like a plot on General Hospital.

I was about to turn 21 and I was still a virgin — in terms of both sexes. I ran with the heterosexual crowd … because society had talked me into it, because my community had recruited me. And I was bound and determined to lose my virginity before my 21st birthday, so I went with a girl, first.

I had met her at my workplace; we were both CNAs on the night shift. I asked her on a date — it had gone smoothly, but innocently — and we started innocently hanging out more and more. One night, after only a few weeks, a date we were on had ended awkwardly. We were at a house party and we had drank too many Seagram’s wine coolers. I knew I had had only a few more days, so I was anxious to get my willy wet — well, as much as a straight-deficient, gay 20-year-old virgin who’s about to have sex with a girl could be anxious. We found a vacant bedroom and I preceded to make a fool of myself; I removed her shirt without incident, but the bra was a mighty adversary — even when I found a pair of scissors. Finally, she told me, with intense conviction, just to leave it on.

Needless to say, I was thankful she had removed her own pants — they were button fly jeans, mind you!

Eventually, like an eternity, I had finally found my way into her. The act of screwing had felt weird; I felt, and probably looked like, a baby seal milking its mother. So, as much as a straight-deficient, gay 20-year-old virgin who’s having sex with a girl can get anxious, I had an orgasm so ultra-embarrassingly fast that I couldn’t pull completely out in time.

I’m not sure if, at that exact moment, she knew that it had happened, but I have learned over the years that women have an uncanny intuition. She had probably thought to herself, after ordering me off her, “Dammit, that kind of pleasure deserves a baby! And with a gay guy.”

So, inevitably we had broken up a week later without any further embarrassing  “baby seal milking” incidents. But because we had continued to work together, we sort of became friends. One night after our shift, she asked me out for a drink. I accepted. Over a couple of weak Screwdrivers she told me that she was pregnant. Talk about ‘deer-in-headlights.’ Well, for a gay guy it’s more like ‘penis-size-in-spotlight.’ However, she was fast to say the baby was not mine.

Once my girl friends had explained ‘gestation period’ to me, it seemed well within the realm of possibility that the baby was actually mine. So, though the mother-to-be continued to deny it, and because she never talked about, nor ended up marrying the “father,” I insisted on helping her out. After she had learned she was going to have a boy, I went gay-bonkers on clothes and toy shopping for the little tyke. Then when Derek was born, I’d gladly go see him time-to-time; I’d take him and his mother out to dinner and to the zoo. It seemed so surreal.

But then I came out of the closet because, at the same time that I was leading pseudo-”normal” heterosexual life, I was also having sex with guys. It somehow lead to seeing less and less of Derek and his mother, who one day finally quit her CNA job. That’s as far back as I remember, I don’t know exactly how we lost touch.

I wish we hadn’t. They had been great times! Times I miss, so much so that about 10 years ago, I seriously considered adopting a child. But that’s a story for another time.

I know in my heart it doesn’t matter if the truth is that Derek isn’t mine, I just wish that I had continued watching him grow up; to have nurtured him; to have been his baseball-catching buddy; to have been his bike-riding safety net; to be his friend. Maybe my mother could also have witnessed some of my fathership.