reprising little boy sam

Liz Phair  
Only Son  
whitechocolatespaceegg  

As a child, I had dreams of Superman. I valued his morals and envied his strength. I thought the world of him. In many ways, he took the place of my father. I always abhorred the latter for not being strong enough, brave enough or even honest enough. He was never around for the big stuff. He was always out working. His politics paid for my education, the roof above my head and the food in my gut but in no way did it afford him my love. Money does not raise a child, a father does and I was determined that the greatest power in the universe was to be my new father.

My coming out to him was a sign, at least to me, of respect. I probably wanted to tell him first because on some level, I blamed him for how I turned out. Needless to say, he didn’t take it well. He called me names, even tried to hit me a few times. He would always stop right before his fist hit my face. He punched the walls, screaming in a voice I had never heard him use before and in a language that seemed of a different world. Resigned, he cursed the heavens for what happened to his only son. He looked at me with the eyes of an animal. I had never been so delighted and terrified at the same time.

My lover Grey greeted the problem with a response that was equal parts ambitious and arrogant. Elope, he said. Fuck him. Fuck them all. He put his lips around his middle finger. His spit glistened in the distant moonlight. With a child’s attention to detail, he raised his finger towards an imagined figure of my father and mouthed a subtle fuck you.

But not after I fuck you first, he added as he pulled me under the covers.

But there would be no need to run away. Days later, the fates decided to throw us a bone. I went to my father’s office one afternoon to talk to him. It was his sanctuary, his Fortress of Solitude if you must. Using the key that he kept hidden in one of the building’s many crevices, I unlocked the door to find him naked and in the arms of Luther, his childhood best friend and longtime business partner. I hid behind the door, quiet as a mouse, listening to him moan as another man took him from behind.

Now tell me, who’s the disgrace now?

That night, I stayed up to watch him creep into our house. It was past midnight when he finally came home.

Long night? I asked. He dismissed my statement and went up to his bedroom. Outside, a lonely dog was howling a lullaby. You know, you and I, we’re not so different. I added, right as he closed his bedroom door.

Superman was not the greatest power in the universe. Denial was stronger and like glue, it put together what the truth was trying to take apart.

Father, come out, I said to him, even though I knew he could not hear me. This cross is ours to bear now. There is no one left to blame.

Photo Credit: grapesfrappe
Original Post: continuing the straight path

59 comments

  1. omg! seriously?! or fictional lang to?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Ching! Yeah, it's fiction. I wrote some parts of it three years ago. Walang ganiyan in real life. lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. woah!!! napa-tumbling ako ng bongga, then i saw your tags. nice one. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. galing. like nimmy buti may tag sa ilalim. hehe

    the truth sometimes can really hurt and the fates has a funny/weird ways of showing them to us.

    off topic: is it somehow true that it's somehow genetic?

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Nimmy: Salamat sa pag-daan!

    @Ced: I heard about that. Like there's a gene or something. I dunno. Diba ikaw yung magdo-doktor? lol

    ReplyDelete
  7. lol, i'm not a geneticist though. pero one of my prof/consultant from Anatomy told us that there's a part in a brain that's different from heteros. :D

    ReplyDelete
  8. It could be true. I don't really know. Sa family naman it's pretty isolated. Posible din namang it's a number of other factors too right?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I knew this was fiction. But I also remembered that you hated your father [from what you've written before]. Hindi ka naman iconoclast? Joke!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hey Peter! It's not that I hate him. That's such a strong word. I guess everyone has their moments lang with their parents.

    Truth is, this was a challenging reprise for me because the original writer and I are too different. He's married with a daughter and I'm, well, I'm not that. I originally intended to include a disclaimer at the beginning of the post because I sensed that I had deviated a little too much but then I figured it might be a little too much. I had to make up a lot of stuff to fill in the disconnect between the original post and my own words. I guess hate or whatever would be a better word just seemed easier to do. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hmmm, I can imagine two daddies having some 'fun' ahaha.

    Nice entry, Nyl!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I was anticipating the DILF-related comments. lol Thanks for dropping by, Ronnie.

    ReplyDelete
  13. this is really simplifying something that is really too complex to simplify, but the saying go, the tamarind does not fall far from the tree. it is only the hope of being more compassionate than our parents with our shadow that we have any hope out. =)

    ReplyDelete
  14. good one, nyl! :P you had me on the edge of my seat. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. i was shitting my pants off for a while...until i realized this was fiction..fuck. hahaha.

    a good read as usual.

    and p.s. its not me. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. @LOF: That was my fear, initially as I was going into this. I didn't really know much about that kind of life and I just had to try to make associations with issues that I have.

    Is it tamarind? How cool is that?

    Compassion. I like that word.

    @Angelo: Thanks! :)

    @Herbs: Are you sure? You have a lot of similarities. lol

    ReplyDelete
  17. Nawindang ako. Akala ko totoo. Hahaha. Nicely done.

    http://ficklecattle.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  18. OMG!!!! Nyl, bottom kayo pareho ng Dad mo??????

    Hahahaha. I'm kidding.

    I know.... it's ficcctiioonnnnnnnnnnnnn


    Kane

    ReplyDelete
  19. @Fickle Cattle: Thanks for dropping by! :)

    @Kane: Adik you! Haha It's funny. He's right beside me as I type this. Thank God for poor vision.

    ReplyDelete
  20. when i was younger, i would tell gay activists: how is knowledge that homophobia = latent homosexuality supposed to make me feel better about parental and sibling homophobia? lol

    ReplyDelete
  21. It's not supposed to, I guess. But then again, this topic scares me shitless. It's why I had to master FB security settings early on. They say parents are innately supposed to accept their kids no matter what. But 1 out of 2 people'll tell you they just haven't met my parents yet. lol

    ReplyDelete
  22. they advise parents to accept their children because of 99% of people, children are a mirror image of their parents and therefore, it's advice on compassion and deepening of self-awareness. naturally, that only really works if the mirror image is NOT the parents' shadows. lol.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Unfortunately, I'm anything but their reflection. I suppose that's why I've had so many struggles with self-awareness and actualization. I suppose it's pretty safe to say that the fear of homophobia, that is the fear that those you love will despise you for who you are is akin to lack of acceptance towards ones' self?

    my language is so inflated. pardon me.

    ReplyDelete
  24. a mirror image of a parent's shadow has an apparent lack of correspondence to a parent's persona (which one is usually most familiar with)... and a child only stumbles upon in the shadows...

    ReplyDelete
  25. (addendum) "We think we are conscious but that is not true; we are conscious in the realm of the collective and we do not even know how little our individual consciousness is. It needs quite a search to find even fragments of consciousness that are personal." - Marie Louise von Franz

    ReplyDelete
  26. uhmm...i'm thinking how will I react if I have that kind of Dad.

    ReplyDelete
  27. @LOF: But despite being in my parents' shadows, people often say how I remind them of my dad or mom when they were younger. I guess the mirror and the shadows have quite a few things in common.

    @MJ: Ako din eh. I wouldn't know what to do.

    ReplyDelete
  28. kung ano ang puno, sya ang bunga. echoz!

    miss you friend.

    ReplyDelete
  29. i thought its your life story!ang galing sabi ko pa naman OMG his dad..gay!LOL

    ReplyDelete
  30. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  31. SALAMAT NAMAN AT FICTION----kala ko totoo. kasi disaster talaga. but, I guess some parts of it is true. Do you blame your father for the lack of father figure? If so, your claim is legitimate, nut I hope you forgive him for that. It's not easy to be a father.It's just not easy.

    ReplyDelete
  32. @Mike: Miss you too!

    @LOF: I think I need to really start thinking about that. Could make for a good post. :)

    @Mac: Thanks for dropping by. Sorry, di siya totoo. lol

    @Antonio: I guess that's something you're gonna learn real soon. I don't really blame him. There are a lot of factors naman. Siguro madali lang siyang scapegoat. haha

    ReplyDelete
  33. "I want to give my little Enchong everything I never had" really takes on fractal dimensions in unconscious ways.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Enchong as in Enchong Dee? Who wouldn't? lol If you saw Sayo Lamang, it was almost like I wanted to hug him and tell him everything'll be alright. lol

    ReplyDelete
  35. lol. "I want to give my little Caloy everything I never had"....

    ReplyDelete
  36. Please tell me your mom isn't a big lez. Hehehehe.

    Why is this shocking and subtle at the same time? Must be the...

    ...structure.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Father and Son. Nuff' said.

    ReplyDelete
  38. "even tried to hit me a few times." - double meaning?

    BTW, galing talaga sumulat.hehe Pwedeng selection sa lit subject ko to.haha

    ReplyDelete
  39. @LOF: Wait, now I'm really confused. Who's Caloy and what happened to Enchong?

    @Glentot: My mom isn't a big lez. There, happy? lol

    I haven't seen the S word in my comments section in like forever! Miss you, bitch.

    @Me: Hey! Welcome to my blog. Thanks for dropping by.

    @Drei: Welcome din! Or should I say welcome back?

    Thank you for your kind words. I am deeply humbled. :)

    ReplyDelete
  40. I was trying to help reinforce the point I was trying to make --- Enchong was too much of a distraction apparently =P

    ReplyDelete
  41. Dark and gripping.

    Pops, clearly, has bigger problems.

    This is some Gossip Girl shit. :D

    ReplyDelete
  42. ummm, excuse my language but holy fack!!!! holy fack!!! no way?! c'mon. is this true?

    and as an aside when you say 'I blamed him for how I turned out'.

    this, this breaks my heart. :(

    ReplyDelete
  43. @LOF: Haha but then any name is a distraction. That's why I rarely include names in my stories. haha actually, I think this is the first in a really, really long time.

    @James: Thanks! And I really like GG. I just stopped watching after the plotlines became too tangled. :)

    @That Girl: Oh hi! Welcome to my blog.

    It's fiction lang naman. But that line you quoted is somehow true. Yes, it breaks my heart as well.

    ReplyDelete
  44. A father fears two things the most: his own shadow and his own son.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Ooh Victor! You're back!

    I think if I understood the previous comments correctly, sometimes a son can be a shadow. Is that right, LOF? So it could be that a father only fears one thing. Malay mo. lol

    ReplyDelete
  46. children are tragically widely used receptacles for the "shadow" projections of parents...

    ReplyDelete
  47. and back to my last point that we got distracted from, it is precisely when parents try to "give" their children everything they hadn't where the shadow gets most firmly rooted unconsciously -- a father who is secretly gay may unconsciously give his son everything necessary to lead an openly gay life without for once being aware of what he is doing and then, when it all constellates, is enraged as though he didn't have a starring role in the whole thing

    ReplyDelete
  48. "- a father who is secretly gay may unconsciously give his son everything necessary to lead an openly gay life without for once being aware of what he is doing and then, when it all constellates, is enraged as though he didn't have a starring role in the whole thing"

    That's kinda sad. But I suppose it all works out in the end. Why should the son have to pay for the father's transgressions?

    ReplyDelete
  49. Why do sons pay for the father's transgressions?

    ReplyDelete
  50. Because the father distances himself in the end, despite the fact that he has empowered his son for the life he should live.

    ReplyDelete
  51. it is never a necessity to come out, just stay where you are comfortable the most.

    ReplyDelete
  52. @Carlo: But isn't it a form of a cage? I don't really know. I'm still pretty on the fence about this whole thing.

    ReplyDelete
  53. bakit fiction lang ito? hehe :) sayang naman. great post nyl. :D feeling ko mauubos kong basahin lahat ng posts mo today. sidetracked lahat ng mga pre-planned appointments. hehe :D

    ReplyDelete
  54. Wow naman, claudipoi! That's such a nice thing to say. haha Wag naman to the point na makaka-interfere sa buhay mo. Di naman aalis tong blog ko anytime soon eh. :)

    Thanks for all your support. At yes, sorry to disappoint pero super fiction to. :/

    ReplyDelete
  55. haha. okay lang, because i'm home-based. so when i want to take a breather from writing about mundane stuff, i can always come here. ang galing. hehe. fan mo na ako. haha :D

    ReplyDelete
  56. That's so sweet. :) Sige, go lang. Home based naman pala eh. haha I remember sa profile mo, you said ghost writer ka. Is that like content building, SEO ekek?

    ReplyDelete
  57. this was the last time I recall you talking about sex in a frank manner before i had my first real encounter with Death. how casual i was!

    ReplyDelete
  58. @LOF: I remember this story well. Yes, I felt I dealt with sex real frankly here. I guess I had my own dealings with death too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment