Authors Note: Well, here you guys have the 3rd section of Calling into the Mist. In this section, two new characters are kinda introduced, and one will end up playing a large role in the story. I am trying to do well, and I really like this chapter, and I hope you do to. Also, I would like to thank Brian the author of "Tylers Dance" for two things, first for writing a beautiful story, and I would suggest you all read it, it is in this section on Nifty, but also for recommending the book Density of Souls by Christopher Rice to me. It was that novel that has now become not only my favorite story, but lit the fire for me to write this story much quicker that I would of otherwise. But remember what I said, I love e-mail, and I would really appreciate just a note to say that you read my story, so my e-mail address is freestylecheese@hotmail.com so you should really e-mail me. It always brightens my day and I find email waiting for me because someone e- mailed me at freestylecheese@hotmail.com so you really should e-mail me. I just wanted to say that when I get suggestions and comments at freestylecheese@hotmail.com I always respond to them, and make sure that I say something to everyone who e-mails me. So please please please email me at freestylecheese@hotmail.com Have a great day, and thanks to everyone who e-mailed me thus far. Sorry this is so long.
Disclaimer: Please don't be offended by this story, but if you are your skin ain't very thick. I also hope that you all like the story, and all the players are over 18. Keep it real, and e-mail me at freestylecheese@hotmail.com in order to give me comments or even just to chat.
It's a good thing that life is not only the facts, but also the emotions, and the feelings of everyone, because in the end, what are the facts? The facts about me read like a bio sheet, not a life, but sometimes I feel as if that bio sheet is all I am. My name is Dominik, I am 18 years old, I am a senior in high school, I am 6 feet tall. Those are facts, but they aren't who I am, but why does it feel like that is all I am; a one- dimensional facade of human, not anything more than that. A society which doesn't allow me to discover who I am, a society that creates a situation that forces me to lie, and do whatever necessary to avoid the instant isolation that would come from being anything more than the facts, from being me. The year 2000 has brought with it the call for acceptance, the call to end fear, the call to create acceptance, and who knows, maybe that cheap shit works in other countries, in places far away from me. All I know is that it hasn't worked here, the appearance of Danny, a gay man on MTV's the Real World, warranted nothing but disgust for his "personal" choices from those around me, while I watch the show as a semi-acceptable show that also includes a gay individual, leaving me to try to milk my acceptance from a TV character, my only comfort is that at least he is as one-dimensional as me.
Saturday morning, six-thirty, as Kyle's alarm clock began to blare into his room. Kyle rolled out of bed, and by force of habit managed to get himself over to his alarm and turn it off with minimal effort. Kyle could never figure out what desire made him punish himself by only allowing six hours of sleep on a weekend, but Kyle knew it was all the best. As he slipped into a pair of gray sweats, he slipped on his extra pair of glasses, not feeling like getting his contacts on just to go jogging. Kyle slipped quietly through the glass door leading out onto his back porch, even though no one was around to wake up, and the neighbors certainly wouldn't hear anything, regardless Kyle still felt required to be polite, and to be quite. The morning was just beginning, and Kyle felt at one with the world as he began to walk through his back yard, and then up onto the trail leading into the forest, and eventually up the mountain that lay behind his house. As Kyle began to jog on the trail he thought, his jogs always being the best time for Kyle to think. The first thing that came into his mind was of course last night, the study session with Dom, Kyle immediately thought of the papers sitting on his desk, waiting to be edited as Kyle jogged the morning away. Those papers would of course get edited, when Kyle woke up at six-thirty in the morning it wasn't as if he had anything better to do. But with the thought of papers that needed to be graded, Kyle also thought of the author of the papers, Dominik. The boy was what Kyle wanted, needed, but couldn't have. The constraints that bound Kyle's hands were more than he could overcome; Kyle wasn't allowed to be gay, it didn't fit with his parents image of him, and it didn't fit with Kyle's image of him. Kyle knew that if he was gay, he couldn't be what he had to be, flawless. Someone, somewhere would overtake him, leaving Kyle as unremarkable as he should be, as imperfect as he was, and that wasn't an option, but the fact that Kyle kept thinking of Dom was a weakness, an imperfection, and one that just couldn't be allowed, so Kyle decided that he wouldn't notice how cute Dom was anymore, or how much he just wanted to stare. Kyle was the perfect senior, and he couldn't afford to be gay. Regardless of the fact that usually by this time in the morning the air had usually cleared, the Mist still hung heavy in the air as Kyle ran into his backyard. The run had made Kyle feel invigorated and alive, and at the same time he had a fear hanging heavily in his chest. His fear was not the kind of fear that the perfect senior should have, the fear that someone would discover what Kyle had known for quite sometime, that he was gay; so Kyle had decided that his only option was to no longer be gay. As Kyle had ran, he had thought, and as he thought, he knew deep in his heart that the only way for him to escape from the utter humiliation that would come with everyone discovering he was gay was to attempt to destroy everything about himself that was gay. He slipped into his house with a single-minded goal, in several hours he would no longer be gay. Kyle started by running up into his room and turning on his computer. While he awaited its reboot he went over to his closet and pulled out his collages of men, and XY magazines he had hastily concealed within it. As he began to shred the posters into unrecognizable strips Kyle felt the oddest sensation of relief, no one would ever see these but him, and he didn't even have to risk someone seeing them anymore. He threw them into a trash bag, along with the XY's, and took it all into his Kitchen, leaving it sitting next to his trashcan. Next, he ran back into his room and looked at his computer briefly, before sitting down and deleting the AOL IM service he used to chat with other gay teenagers. After finishing that he opened AOL, going into his account, and deleting all of his screen names but the main one, the only one he had never used to talk to other gays. As he methodically worked his way through the computer destroying any physical reminder of the "gay aspect" of himself he felt both relived that no one would ever find his files, but also a growing knot of tension because he was eliminating his channels that allowed him to feel. He destroyed everything that wasn't as straight as could be. His electronic journal he deleted, the poetry that he wrote was also deleted, stories that he wrote, and also those that he read over and over again suffered the same fate as his poetry. After he was satisfied that every single gay aspect of his computer was gone Kyle began to find it hard to breathe, he had never felt as alone as he felt at the exact moment. No one was there for him; there was no one who he could talk to. Kyle had never been able to talk to anyone about his personal life before, and that meant that there was no one who would morn the passing away of this Kyle, and the re-birth of an entirely new Kyle, one that was as close to perfect as he could possible be. So, with nothing else to do, Kyle moved downstairs to begin his preperations, and final clean up for the party that night.As Dominik woke up that morning he felt relived. As he had driven home from Kyle's house the night before he had realized something. As he spent time with Kyle, he didn't feel dirty, he didn't feel attacked, all he felt was that he really liked Kyle. The more he thought about it, the more Dom felt like he understood the poem in Christopher Rice's novel Density of Souls:
"Fear cannot touch me . . .
It can only taunt me,
it cannot take me,
just tell me where to go . . .
I can either follow,
or stay in my bed . . .
I can hold onto the
things that I know . . .
The dead stay dead,
they cannot walk.
The shadows are darkness.
And darkness can't talk."
To Dom, the answer to this poem was to apply it to his life, to accept that fear can't lead him, nor should it. As Dom had driven home he knew that everyone had to be what he or she were and so as Dom was laying in his bed, he began to form his own plan. No longer would he be limited by what everyone else said about him, he wouldn't allow his fear of homophobic shadows to keep him from acting and being who he was any longer, and with that he started his computer, and sat down to compose a newspaper article.
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1 out of 10, 10%, these numbers according to many studies on the issue are the number of gay individuals in our society. While shocking too many these numbers are researched, and widely accepted.
But what does this mean to you. Well, I don't know, but I can tell you what it means to me. Lets start of by discussing this year's senior class; we have 302 students in the senior class. 172 of these students are male, so according to the study that means that out of the senior class that is graduating this year, about 17 students will be gay. But then again, lets extend that, because we are only talking about gay males, what about the homosexual females, we can't be sexist. So, if there are 302 students in the senior class, about 30 who walk up to the stage will be gay. Now however, I am being to focused on the senior class. I don't know the numbers in any classes but this years seniors, except that every year classes grow in size, but for this test let us pretend like every class is 302 students, making 1,208 students in this school, so about 121 of your friends, your study buddies, and the people you pass in the hall daily are gay. Tomorrow, I want to suggest a simple activity for you to try. On Monday, as you stand by your locker, count. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, GAY, for each student you pass, remember that one of 10 is gay, and if you are that 10th, remember that you aren't as alone as you think you are.
But none of this answers my original question, what does this mean. I guess what this means is that when I am walking up to the graduation platform this spring 16 of my friends will be walking with me in heart, even if they don't accept their diploma as who they actually are. On Monday, as I walk through the hallways, 120 of my closest friends, only neither I nor them know each other as friends, will be walking that hallway together. So what I am basically trying to tell you is that I am that 10th, and I am not alone as those of you who hate me now would think.
So tomorrow as you walk the halls remember that every 10th person is gay, and every 10th person I urge you to no longer feel fear of being who you are, so stand with me. And finally remember that this is as hard for me to say as it will be for some of you to read, but it's the truth, and it is what must be accepted.
-Dominik
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Dom had written his article, and on Monday he would be out to the entire school, but he printed 3 copies, and as he began to get ready to go off for the day, he knew exactly where each copy was going.
Dom pulled back into Kyle's neighborhood, because it was about time for him to meet up with Kyle. He quickly reviewed what he had done today with a small smirk on his face. First, he had called his friend Kati, and was spending the night over at her house, Dom had told her what he was going to announce over the phone, and Kati had been nothing but supportive. Then, Dom had put one copy of his article in an envelope for his parents saying that he would be back on Sunday to talk to them. The second copy of the note had been hand delivered to Mrs. Brown to be printed in the newspaper on Monday. That was the first time that Dom had seen anyone's reaction to his announcement, and he hoped that everyone would react like Mrs. Brown. She had read the article, and with a small look of surprise, Mrs. Brown had embraced Dom and said, "I am so proud of you Dominik. If you ever need a place to hang out during the day remember that my room is always available." Dom had talked to Mrs. Brown for several hours and he felt very good about that reaction. That did still leave the last copy of the article, and he knew what to do with it. He was taking it with him to Kyle's house, and would ask him to edit it for him.
As Dom pulled up to Kyle's house he saw Kyle clearly through the windows. As he walked up to the door he could see Kyle moving through the house to open the door just as Dom walked up to it. Kyle invited Dom in, and they walked up to Kyle's room to get the papers that Kyle had edited for Dom. When they got up to the room, Dom noticed that Kyle must have been cleaning because there was a white bag sitting next to Kyle's trash can, but Dom didn't pay much attention to that, instead he handed the article to Kyle, and asked him to read it really quickly.
As Dom watched Kyle read the article he saw surprise as Kyle started it, and then it grew into anger, and as Kyle finished the article it dropped from his hands, and Dom saw a look he never expected to see on Kyle's face. Kyle's normally beautiful features where twisted into a picture of pure anger and hate as he drew his arm back and punched Dom in the stomach. "You fucking fag," Kyle screamed at Dom as Dom doubled over in pain, "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE" he screamed as he shoved Dom backwards. Dom tripped over the white bag that was sitting by the trashcan, and fell, but this didn't stop Kyle. He kept screaming hateful and vitriolic phrases at Dom, and all Dom wanted to do was to get out of this house. To get away from the enraged God that Kyle had become.
As Dom fled from the house, he ran to his car, and quickly drove it to the only place he knew where to go, Kati's house. As he pulled up he was sobbing, and Kati ran out the door to meet him. But upon her seeing Dominik's sobbing she quickly brought Dom into and embrace, and told him it would all be alright, and that he just needed to calm down and tell her what happened, but all Dom could hear were Kyle's words echoing in his head, "you fucking fag".
Kati finally managed to get Dom calmed down, and to tell her what happened. As he related the events that transpired at Kyle's house, Kati got an angry look in her eyes. "Don't believe what that rich bastard tells you, he is just a fucking prick, and he doesn't matter anyway. You, Dom, are worth 100 Kyle's, and don't you forget it." And so it was with Kati's reassuring words that he fell asleep, and in his dreams Kyle and Kati fought one for Dom, and one against him; in the end Kati, with her reassuring words a presence won the battle, and Dom finally settled down and slept peacefully.
So there you have it, the newest part of my story. Please e-mail me with comments at freestylecheese@hotmail.com