Not all my stories are the kind you can laugh about. This one is a short story that I didn't realize at the time was going to be a story. It took me a little while after this encounter to realize what had happened..
This takes place before I saw Charlie in his drag outfit. This is the story about how I found out he was gay.
Now, the thing about Charlie is that he wasn't hiding that he was gay. He was fairly flamboyant, but I didn't want to make assumptions about anyone so I wasn't convinced he was gay despite the clues. One day I was home by myself when the doorbell rang. I go to answer it and there was a girl there, about our age, holding a notebook. Here's the conversation and my thoughts at the time as best I remember them.
"Is Charlie here?" she asks.
"No, I don't think so."
"Well, I'm doing a story and I wanted to interview him."
"Really? What about?"
"He's the secretary of the LGBT Union. Did you know that?"
Here's what I realized later- I noticed at this point that she got a weird expression on her face, like she was getting ready to share a dirty secret with me that I was going to be chocked about. She was ready to talk to me about my reaction to this as she dropped her bomb. I know I pissed her off with what I did next:
"No, I didn't. Do you want to leave a message?" with no reaction other than a sincere desire to take a message.
Her attempt at eliciting a reaction totally missed me until I thought about it later. It didn't bother me at all, especially since I'd had suspicions. At this point she said "No", and walked off. I still smile today that I prevented her from getting what she was obviously after, a chance to do some gay bashing. I don't know if she ever got to interview Charlie, but I hope not.
No comments:
Post a Comment