mutiny, i promise you

I went to see Keith after work on Friday. Not because I missed him or I was ready to see him, but because I wanted to scare the hell out of him.

We didn't use a condom. It was stupid, I know, I'm a teenage AIDS activist and I feel like a fraud and a traitor and everything else. I don't have an excuse. I got lucky. I was mad at myself and I went to take it out on him. I wanted to just show up like something from a soap opera or a movie. I was just going to wait for him and say, "I'm not pregnant," and storm off.

That didn't happen. When I stormed off it was because he told me he had a date. I don't know what he did before we met, but it was probably the first one he had since he moved here from L.A. and I was mad and hurt and jealous. He wasn't supposed to have plans on a Friday night - not plans that didn't involve me, anyway. I think I realized I missed him then, even if I didn't understand that until I had my third or fourth shot of tequila in Eric's basement.

I drove back to Keith's. I remember talking and I remember telling him I hadn't smoked any pot, but I don't remember if that was true. I woke up on his couch with a hangover and a bad mood, so I picked a fight with him while he tried to feed my coffee, Tylenol, and Eggo waffles.

All of which I threw up.

Somehow, that fixed things.

I like dissonance. It makes for a better story in the retelling. It's almost fun to say, "I was wearing a dress the night I finally came out."

Almost. Maybe it would be more fun if I hadn't been wearing the motorcycle boots and the leather jacket. Maybe it would be more fun if I hadn't been the one going through it.

It was Friday, two days before my birthday, and it was my back-up plan, my revised resolution from that night I chickened out. I had to be out to someone by my birthday. Keith was the easy choice on the last day of December and he was the easy choice that weekend. The thought of telling him was equal parts exciting and terrifying. It felt like drinking too much coffee.

I didn't tell him until after dinner. We were in the car and I used it as an excuse not to look at him when I finally said, "I'm gay." My voice cracked and faded when I said it, and the sentence felt open like a question.

I was driving, but I don't remember how we ended up parked on the shoulder. I just remember the ache in my side as I leaned across the bucket seats and the gearshift and hugged Keith, which turned into sobbing against his chest. I thought if I held on and cried long enough, he would forget what I just told him. I didn't want his reaction. I knew it would be bad and I didn't think I could take it.

But he started laughing. The son of a bitch started laughing. I didn't recognize the sound at first and when I did, I couldn't understand why he would be laughing. But then he said, "That's it? That's what's been wrong all night?"

I think I must have stopped breathing at some point in the last four months and not started again until I heard him say that. It felt so good just to inhale that I started laughing. I have never felt relief like that before - but that doesn't make me look forward to doing it again even though I know I have to.

I made my New Year's resolution, grabbed my keys, and got in the car before I could change my mind. It was warm outside but bone cold in the green machine, a dry, still cold leftover from a week of nights in the driveway. I pulled my sweater over my hands, swatted at the fuzzy dice Keith gave me for Christmas, and smacked the lever for the heater. I drove to Keith's with the heat on and the windows down, the steering wheel slipping under my sweater-covered hands as the dice dangled from my mirror.

Their fur is matted and worn and the white string is dingy and discolored. Keith says they're "the real thing" from the 50s, whatever that means, and that fighter pilots in World War II used to keep actual non-fuzzy dice in the cockpits of their planes for luck. I'm not sure how that works or why Keith thought I needed luck, but the dice are the same frog green as the green machine and I like them a lot more than I'll ever let Keith know. I haven't had them a week yet but I think the green machine would look naked without them.

I gave them another good thwack when I pulled into Keith's driveway, hoping for some of that World War II-era luck with keeping my resolution. I didn't think I needed it; I wasn't having a single doubt as I strode up to the porch and rang his bell six times before knocking out Shave and a Haircut on his door. I was almost bouncing on my toes I was so excited to tell him.

But then he opened the door and as soon as the possibility was staring me in the face, my stomach dropped down to my knees and I felt lightheaded. My mouth went dry and I dropped my keys. "Drinking already?", he joked as I picked them up. "Well, it is New Year's," I said. I twirled the key ring around my finger to prove I wasn't a total klutz before I stuffed them in my pocket.

I don't think I spent more than an hour at Keith's. I told him I was just killing time before a party and I thought I'd say happy New Year to him - I didn't say one thing about my resolution. I left without telling him I think I might be gay.

It was still December 31, 1989, five hours away from 1990. I told myself it didn't count.

Separate, separate, s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e. One day I'll spell it right.

I asked Keith to read over my essays for my college applications. There were six of them - two for each school - so I figured he'd get them back to me in a week or so. Instead he read them right there at the diner. It is surprisingly easy to make a late dinner feel like a trip to the principal's office. (Not that I've been to the principal's office... in the last three days.)

It's not fun to have someone read something of yours while you're sitting there watching, especially not when it's a personal essay. They're not just judging how you write, they're judging you and what you've done. It's why I didn't ask my parents or my teachers to read it. It would have been less nervewracking to have them read it for grammar, but the thought of letting any of them that far into my head was too much. So I let Keith read it - I never feel like he's judging me, at least not like most adults. But most of his job is writing, so that was intimidating, watching every little twitch of his pen and wondering what was wrong.

When he handed the papers back to me, I put them right in my backpack. "You're not going to look at them?" he asked. I said something about how the school week was over and I'd look at them Monday when I was back in school mode, but really I just didn't want to worry about how I'd react with him watching me.

But I went home that night instead of going back to his place. I didn't have a curfew, but it seemed like a good way to get back on my parents' good side after being gone all those days. It was maybe 3:30 when I took the papers out and read over what he wrote. I didn't realize how nervous I was until I got halfway through the third one and was grinning so hard from relief that I was crying.

When I was done, I got out the phone book so I could call him, even though it was 4:15. "Spell 'separate,'" was the first thing he said to me, and we both laughed as I tripped over As and Es. I got in bed while we were talking and fell asleep while he told me about working at his college radio station.

I guess that explains the dreams.