Funny Guy

I found out about my Dad three days before Christmas, 1990. I was 14 years old. Mom and I were living with my 80-year-old Great Uncle, the king of political incorrectness, the kind of man who asks my best friend if she was “one of those pork-a-rinos.” For those of you who don’t speak racist old man, that translates to Puerto Rican. So with his trademark sensitivity, my Uncle said to me:

“Your Dad’s funny.”

It was an interesting choice of words. My Dad was anything but funny. My parents were divorced so I only saw him on the occasional, and much dreaded, Daddy Weekend. It was like volunteering to be kidnapped by a total stranger for an afternoon. It entailed excruciating conversation like: “How’s school?” “You gotta boyfriend? I bet you gotta boyfriend.” It included going to great places like the zoo or the amusement park with a crabby, distant, 40-year-old man as your companion. Or going to his new house, with his new family, where I would proceed to pick up his new phone and ask his old wife to pick me up.

I hardly knew the man but I did know enough to say, with absolute certainty, that he wasn’t a “funny” guy. He’s the man who whacked me across the head for puking in his El Camino when I had the flu. His favorite word was motherfuckingsonuvabitch. He was crude. He was moody and prone to tantrums. He caused scenes. He was a 5-year-old in a department store, except fatter. There was nothing funny about it.

I waited for more details, some clarification. So I looked up confused and my Uncle helped me along by shaking his frail, and quite obviously limp wrist, in my face.

“He’s a little light in the loafers. You know, a funny boy.”

My mom glared at him.

“Your dad is... gay,” she said, sort of forced and winded like she was putting down a heavy box.

Oh. That kind of funny. Gay funny. Wow. Dad. Gay.

In my mind, gay men were these mythical creatures, like unicorns. I always wanted to see one. A Gay Man. A Gayman. I had only heard about them in hushed conversation. But it all seemed too wonderful to be true. “They” were uncommonly sweet and funny and kind. They loved show tunes and clothes and glitter. They were thin and muscular and tan. They made the best girlfriends.

They were not fat, southern bastards.

Here I had this great opportunity to have a relationship with a gay man and of course, my Dad had to ruin it by being so un-gay. I was crushed. I was not a cool teen. I was classified as more of a Dork-a-saurus Rex. A gay dad could have scored me loads of cool, mysterious points. But I didn’t even want to tell anyone because my dad was so not fabulous. I could see it now.

“Did you march with your Dad in the gay pride parade this weekend?”

“No, but we did get kicked out of a K-Mart when he threw a box of Hostess Cupcakes at a cashier.”

How unfair. If I had to have a gay dad, couldn’t he at least be gay? Super gay? My Mother rubbed my back, certain I was confused and feeling betrayed, like she had felt when she found out 14 years before.

My mom grew up in rural Indiana and had no idea what gay was. Yeah, she knew that homosexuals existed, but much like my unicorn theory, no-one ever saw one in broad daylight. So when my Dad confessed that his boy’s night out with his buddy Tom was a little more than cocktails, she was shocked. She never suspected. So, 7 months pregnant with me and with my 6-year-old sister as her only companion, she gave him the boot. But his secret kept my Mom on edge for the rest of her life. How could she sleep next to someone for years and never really know him?

My Mom patted my head, certain I was heartbroken. She had felt compelled to tell me now because my Dad had just informed her that he was HIV positive. Of course my mother wasn’t at risk, because they had been divorced for a while, but it was the early nineties and we didn’t know that much about “The Hiv.” My mother was afraid. She felt that I should know, even though the Daddy Weekends had tapered off years before due to lack of interest, on both sides. Still, she didn’t want him to die without me ever knowing him.

But knowing his sexual preference and the state of his health did little to help me know this stranger. Aside from feeling a little bummed that my Dad was such a disappointing queer, I was fine. I really didn’t know the man and I really didn’t give a fuck who he fucked. It just didn’t matter to me. And while I was sorry he was sick, I can’t honestly say I felt anymore for him than I would hearing the same about a guy on the news. That instant but brief sadness that fades at commercial break.

Still, I looked up and saw Mom’s concerned expression and my elderly uncle’s sympathetic face. “Poor kid has a fairy for a Daddy,” his cloudy blue cataracted-eyes said. And I knew I couldn’t let this opportunity slip through my fingertips. I put on my most pathetic face and said:

“Does this mean I can open one of my Christmas presents early?”