“You had sex with girls?” one kid asked indignantly.
“That’s right,” said Zack calmly—he was used to the indignation. “I liked
women and I was curious about sex. It seemed only natural to try combining
the two. I didn’t know any gay men. But it didn’t work. I only made people
unhappy, including myself. It’s something we all have to explore and discover
on our own. I told myself at the time that I was bisexual, which I’m not. But
there are real bisexuals out there.”
They always hated hearing that. They wanted people to be one way or the
other. They wanted to believe that once they made their choice, they would
never have to choose again.
“But now you have a boyfriend,” said Bill, happily changing from a subject
that made him uncomfortable to one he loved to talk about. “How long have
you been together?”
Zack told them. There were no gasps—they were too young to be sur-
prised. Or maybe they were too worried about the present to think about any
kind of long-term life. Zack was here as a role model, a promise of happiness,
an assurance that everything would be fine. Well, things were fine, although
real life was much messier than these kids were ready to hear.
He was glad that Daniel had broken off with Abbas. But he felt guilty, too,
since he was partly responsible—secretly responsible.
A girl raised her hand. She scrunched up her face to ask her question. “Uh,
how long had you known each other when you first went to bed together?”
“We did it the night we met.”
2 1 8
C h r i s t o p h e r B r a m
There was an uncomfortable tensing around the room.
They were so priggish. They thought sex was the dirtiest, guiltiest, most
important thing in the world.
Zack had talked on the phone with Elena today. Yes, she did ask Abbas to
take the kids to the studio on Sunday. No, she didn’t push or plead or lie. She
was ill, but Abbas gave in immediately. Which proved to her that he was ready
to end it. The quiet approach is often the best. You go to a door thinking
you’ll have to break it down, but first you knock and the door swings open: it
wasn’t locked, it wasn’t even closed. Ah, the Zen of the common cold.
A scowling boy in a classic backward baseball cap raised his hand. Zack
expected a follow-up question about meeting Daniel, but the boy said,
“Aren’t you angry you and your partner can’t get married?”
All they could think about was sex, but all they ever wanted to talk about
was marriage. Most of them didn’t even date yet.
“No, I’m not angry. Legal marriage was never an option for gay people
until recently. I’m used to being excluded. It is unfair—I don’t deny that. But
exclusion has made me question marriage. What is it? Why do we have it?
What does it mean? My partner and I have had to reinvent marriage for our-
selves. We’ve been making it up as we go along. But I think that’s true for
more couples, including straight couples, than most people realize.”
Zack had given this little speech a hundred times. He always believed it, al-
though on some days it felt more valid than others.
“But rules are a good thing!” the boy insisted. “They show us how to be-
have. If we could have marriage, we’d be better off. We wouldn’t always be—
fucking around!”
So his question was about sex, too. Of course. Zack wondered if the boy
were angry with himself for fucking around or with the idea that everybody
else was. He was a bony kid with bad skin, his hormones in full eruption; he
was away from home for the first time, and instead of enjoying his freedom, he
was lonely, horny, guilty.
“But lawful marriage doesn’t automatically make people monogamous,”
said Zack, carefully keeping to generalities. “Just look at the straight people
around you, including the fictional ones in movies and TV shows. They have
marriage and still get in trouble.”
E x i l e s i n A m e r i c a
2 1 9
“If they weren’t so selfish,” the boy righteously declared, “and didn’t go
running off wherever their gonads took them, they could stay in love, and
marriage would do what it’s supposed to.”
Zack suspected a recent divorce in the family—the boy’s father leaving for
another woman? Homosexuality wasn’t the problem here. But Zack couldn’t
explore that in front of the others.
“Sex isn’t always a bad thing,” he said gently. “Don’t think of sex as the
enemy. It’s part of being human. It’s a good way to let off steam. It’s a great
way to meet people. And it’s the best way to fall in love. I mean, the genitals