Music and Love

I watched him lean over the pool table.

I think my tongue was licking the backside of my teeth in anticipation of that glimmer of lower back that would occasionally show as his shirt gently lifted above his pant.

Disappointment. He didn't need to lean over all that far for this shot.

"I listen to Metal."

Oh. You must be the only one in town. - He has decent muscles on his forearms. Through his shirt his biceps are just barely noticeable; he doesn't have man boobs. Hell, could it be that this man has pectorals? This man is in good shape.

His name is Peter.

"Pretty much."

I don't imagine there are many metal shows in town that you make it out to. - My turn. I miss my shot. I'm really not good at this game, but its pretty much the only time you get to watch straight men bend over. See their asses fill the fullness of their pant.

I'm getting good at playing the straight game again these days. I can even play pool with some degree of ability. Wait a minute - did that thought just come to my mind? What have I allowed my world to turn me into; somebody who only keeps myself in a box? Damnit, I'm a mess...

"Nope. But I lived a couple of years in Edmonton. That was a good place." - He sipped his rum and coke. Me, my beer. He shot. Missed - told me something about metal music. Apparently he chooses not to listen to heavy metal music, something about how its not good enough - impossible to hear the lyrics, bad intentions focused on making lots of noise rather than making music. He sounds very particular.

Finger Eleven came on the radio.

"I've seen these guys live. They are really good." Oh, really? In this moment I decided he knew nothing about metal music. Maybe in this country-dominated town this is metal music, but this isn't metal music. He is very fortunate that he looks good - I judge harshly on music.

I'm very fortunate that I can keep my gaze quite well guarded. I pass him the cue. I think it is his turn again. We talk about how Canada Day tired both of us out.

He wears those jeans that you don't see out here very often. They aren't Wranglers. More like a baggy jean - but not so baggy to fall below the waste-line. There is a calculated utility to these jeans - he can wear them to work comfortably, without feeling the pressure to show off the full beauty of his leg as a rancher. I wonder what he does.

Does this man have some image problem? Wearing jeans like that - a t-shirt. He just doesn't quite fit in here. He even trims his beard. He leans over the pool table. Xbox underwear. I don't see much of a farmer's tan.

I can't allow myself to judge him by his undergarment fashion. Its frugal clothing - bought at WalMart. A money saver - no reason to be concerned with spending when buying work clothes for Val Marie. Who is going to see you other than the locals?

The way these pants fall of his body makes it seem like he has a really big dick. Not fair, and a total fib. I've seen pants like this before. I could wear my pants like that. Stop.

I turn to my team partner and we start talking about tattoo plans. I've got some ideas. She does too. Somebody probably thinks we're flirting. She probably thinks we're flirting - she is guarded. She has a boyfriend. I'm pretty damn sure I'm not flirting.

I'm starting to hope that she doesn't think I'm flirting, but that others in the bar do. There is a lot of pressure to be in a relationship in this town, even as a summer student. A lot of pressure to be straight in this town too. I'm not going to do either, but I'm very good at putting on a poker face. Years of training that has started to crumble back; a physical and mental landslide that makes every movement ache.

The conversation in the bar has shifted. I overhear something.

"Oh yeah! Brock has never had a girlfriend!"

My ears perk up. Stop. Don't imagine this. Stop.

This man's name is Peter. No doubt, he is a man. And, despite his pants, his gait is more attractive than that of a rancher who has had his legs spread around the shoulders of a horse for most of his life.

Stop.

Cows and their Wranglers.

He walked slowly, with that classic cowboy strut that you find so mesmerizing and masculine but is just awkward enough that you are certain it is the gait that develops from spending 20 years riding a horse and slowly twisting and turning the shape of your hip bones so that they can get a more secure grip on the quadruped’s back. It is just barely unattractive.

His shirt was striped. Opposing forces of deep purple and an ocean-spray of blue. A dress shirt that was sorely being misused as a work shirt. He rarely wears these shirts when he isn’t working – I could tell he was just coming into town quickly. In fact I’ve only ever seen him in t-shirts – the bane of the male body; they never display everything that is going on just quite as well as a dress shirt does.

The T-shirt is like the speaker at a protest that tells all the facts and nothing more. The Dress Shirt tells all the facts, makes you understand why their important, has a little bit of charm and a heavy dosage of sex, and makes you fall in love. (On a side note, I really should start wearing dress shirts more often).

His brow was still sweating. It’s been really hot outside for a couple of days.

The other nice thing about dress shirts is that they can be altered. Sometimes they can worn with a tie. Other times they can have the first button undone. Sometimes the second, or the third.

In this case, the third.

I saw hair on the chest of a man whom I only allowed myself to think of as a post-pubescent but hairless child. I judged him by his level of maturity – a poor standard as he is a stellar man, but the standard I have decided to use. Besides, he couldn’t grow facial hair if he really tried – how am I to imagine that he has hair on his chest? (How am I supposed to stop imagining where else he might have hair and the different mazes and shapes that the collected mass of each strand forms?)

He leaned in. I could feel my groin tingling with sensation. Stop.

“Hey. Is Carson in here?”

No, I haven’t seen him.

“Oh, that’s the truck that he usually drives out there.”

Oh, which one is that? – He pointed.

His name is Brock.

As he walked away his slightly deformed gait was all the more attractive – and yet, not free of criticism. (Besides, he could much more easily wrap his legs around me than he could around an 800 pound stallion.)

I need to find a man to dance with.

The Rural Municipality of Prison and other Townships

So Val Marie has put me in a position that I would wish upon nobody.

I love this town - I love my job. I love that every evening I get to see an incredible sunset, or I can go for a bike ride through a well-protected and advancing National Park. I can go for a hike through the park and discover new wildflowers, new terrain, and new wildlife. When you work for a park with over 15 endangered animal species and another 30 endangered plants, you always, always get the sense that you may just find something that has been seen for a very long time.

I've found cairns, arrowheads, dinosaur bones - things that have not been known of for many thousands or millions of years. This is just part of my job. A fantastical day at the office.

And yet...

I've not been able to sleep for the past couple of nights though. And there is no good reason to be offered except for an intense fear that has been a whispering memory for the past year but that choked the vitality out of my life in the twenty odd years that existed before that.

I am afraid of being myself in Val Marie. This stairway to heaven is creaking a bit too much - I'm uneasy here. I'm hiding in masks that I didn't know I had anymore.

The casual bigotry, homophobia, hatred that suffocates me is expressed in that most-vile of all weapons - humour. I am not the only victim; I should be thankful that I am not Metis or Indian. But it is very casual - just as I remember it being in high school.

De facto.

As though nothing else has ever existed, and nothing else has any reason to exist.

The place in which I find myself is a prison of open prairie. Its as though I was released from my fear, my hatred of the world, my refusal to be myself for a short period and then reminded of the reality of my environment. I've pushed myself back into my cell. Closed the door. Locked it - hidden the key in Regina.

I knew this was going to happen. I just had no idea it was going to hurt this much. I don't even remember what its like to talk about men. The vocabulary is lost.



Last night I texted a friend of mine in Halifax, asking her to remind me that it was ok to be gay. It surprised me that I was silently crying in my bed - courteous and selfish enough to not want to wake my ever-present roommates.

I am so alone.

Where the Iron Curtain Persists.

A European Union Human Rights Court that has been deliberating a case presented by a gay Austrian couple about the right to marriage being a fundamental right has presented its findings. And it isn't exactly looking all that good for European people who have a strange, though completely natural, attraction to people of the same sex.

Or, for simplicity's sake, people like myself.

The court decided that the right to marry is not a fundamental human right, and as a result, the refusal (I prefer the term failure, personally) to grant the right of marriage to same-sex couples is not recognized by the court as representative of a breach of equality rights legislation.

I'm sure that makes sense to somebody, somewhere. Apparently that somewhere being in Europe.

My immediate response to this is to consider how this is going to affect my own personal life. I do not hide my interest in living in Europe, including in those nations that refuse to grant same-sex unions any sort of official recognition. There is fascinating history there that should be read.

But instead I am going to look into how this may affect gay couples in Europe. In many parts of Europe (I believe six countries) same-sex couples can get married. In many other parts they can be granted a civil union recognized (seven other countries). Eleven member countries in the European Union refuse to offer any sort of recognition to them. For some reason, the same love is denied the same rights.

Europe is a fascinating continent though. There are parts of Europe that have been leaders in granting same-sex couples state recognition and state benefits. Other parts are still stuck in the past - caught in an era of pre-Stonewall Riot intensity in fighting the "maniacal spread of homosexuality" amongst the population.

This is most true in those nations that were once satellite states of the Soviet regime. Under the regime of most of the Soviet states (and the socialist in me is pained by this unfortunate reality), homosexuality was illegal. It never received the recognition of state officials, it was never given the chance for tolerance in society because people refused to come out of the closet - they refused to out themselves, to be shipped off, and to never be seen or heard from again.

It is no longer illegal to be homosexual in any of the European states. But, judging by the social reality, it might as well be.

I can recall the moment when I was granted the right to marry. As I've mentioned before, I walked around school with a silent and hidden grin inside - I was happy. Joyful even. For the first moment in my life, I saw the hint that I could have a future - there was hope. There was the acknowledgment that I could be myself, regardless of the hatred that I sensed in my environment - and that I could be myself for the rest of my life. Disregard the fact that I stayed in the closet for another 6 years. I was joyful for one day.

I must also note that society has responded to the granting of same-sex couples the right to marry very, very positively. There has been a shift - a tremor in the ground that has altered the foundation of society. Suddenly, after getting used to it a bit, after attending a ceremony or two celebrating the love shared between two men or two women, society accepts gay marriage - accepts homosexuality. Not totally. Maybe accept is even the wrong term - it is a helluva lot closer to tolerance. But it has been felt by myself and everybody else.

But the state took a step, with less than 50% of popular support, on my behalf - it took an enormous risk, and it changed Canada as a result. Thank God.

Perhaps Europe, and the European Union Human Rights Court would like to take a note about this. The fact is that consensus is not going to take place in my life - but by forcing society to change for the better of the minority, Canadians have learned to accept the gay community just that much more. I refuse to accept that Europe, even though the fight is harder, would be different.

Life's a Dance.

I wonder if they can feel it. That moment of hesitation just before you say yes. Can they sense the insincerity of the touch, the eyes - the words? Can they smell it in the air.

Is there something even more primitive than this that triggers the question?

Last night I went out for a night on the town. Not much of one, because Val Marie is a town of 100 people and because I worked this morning at 8 am and had to be ready to interact with really enthusiastic flower-lovers as we hiked through the park and I showed them the dozens of plants that are currently in bloom. But it was still a night on the town.

I drank two Coca- Colas. Which is a lot for me - and which is far better than two Pilsner - which is repeatedly the worst beer available in Saskatchewan. It really is an unfortunate drink - horse urine. Even worse when you watch people pay to consume it.

Anyways, there was a concert in Val Marie last night. An Irish Soul Singer named Stephen McGuire. It was relatively enjoyable - and there were certainly moments that hinted at a talent far greater than what he exhibited last night. He convinced me that owning a loop pedal is a good thing, and that minimalism can be infectious.

Last night involved dancing. Particularly the two step.

So I danced. The two step. With the only partner I have ever known - a woman. It was quite funny how it is that we danced; long story short, she was forced to ask me by means of humour and embarassment.

I had fun. We sang a long to My Girl by The Temptations together.

I enjoyed the irony.

And looked forward to the day when I would be two-stepping with a man instead.

Just add water.

Last night I went out fishing at the Val Marie Municipal Reservoir. Despite not catching anything than the occasional boulder with my hook, I had a blast. For four hours. Good fun with good people.

Tonight I went swimming at the same place – the Val Marie Municipal Reservoir. It was quite hot today, so a small group of young adults wanted to head down and cool off.

Now – anybody familiar with swimming at beaches (or in general) is familiar with the general routine. People meet, promenade to the beach, and then miraculously agree to take off almost all of their clothing in front of everybody else.

That happened tonight, and I happened to discover a God in Val Marie. His name is Jeff. His is a name that will likely be whispered in my dreams. The first thing in Val Marie that is in my age group and is worth looking at, and who, despite his country upbringing, is one helluva nice guy.

As one of the millions of people in the world inflicted with a challenge known to some as “four-eye-ism”, I had to take off my glasses and become essentially blind to objects more than 3 inches from my face. I still played the dangerous game of Frisbee in the lake with my friends – often taking peeks at this man and imagining just how the muscles on his body were twisted and warping as he maneuvered not-so-gracefully in the rock-laden shallow water.

After twenty three years of training, I have gotten to be quite adept not only at peeking at things that I likely shouldn’t be peeking at (in my sexual profession, you’ve got to take the chances you get), and even better at filling in the blurriness of my vision with incredible details.

Jeff was Adonis. The great Statue of David, prancing around with his shirt off only feet from me. Stunning.

My room-mate who came with me said that one of the girls who joined us (there was an even split of three and three), Danae, was an attractive woman. “Man, I just find Danae so hot!” I smiled and laughed. Honestly, I couldn’t deny it – Danae really is quite hot. I was wanting to say the same thing about Jeff.

But I’ll never get to be anything but straight in Val Marie. How boring.

He’s blonde. Has an incredible smile – has just enough attitude to be called personality.

And his hair is curly.

I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today. That I wouldn't be reminded of the way your pants wrap around your legs with the perfection of a painting; how your arms fill your sleeves. Your smile shines. I wasn't going to let myself remember your name. Or the way that the left edge of your upper lip curls into your mouth whenever you smile or say words from another language. How your nostrils flare when you laugh. You are a masterpiece.

I wasn't going to remember how you audibly grunt, lifting tool boxes into the truck's carriage - preparing to go and fix the fence.

I avoid making eye contact with you, even in these moments when all I have of your existence is the memory of your eyes. They are blue, or maybe a little green. They shine with a vitality that is completely enrapturing. I would hate to reveal my temptation that is aroused by your mere presence - I know people read my eyes really well.

I'd like you to know how to read my eyes.