[This is a work of fiction. I may have experienced some of the dynamics in the storyline, but all the characters and settings are figments of my imagination. It is the coming of age stories of two high school friends involved in the school soccer team. For people in the UK, think football. The two boys are gay and same-sex sexual dynamics are mentioned but not elaborated on. If any of this offends the reader, he should leave now.
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[I did a little research about Colombian culture so I wouldn't make a huge gaffe. I don't know what the English of a Colombian teenager with three years in the U.S. would sound like. Rather than make up a kind of Spanglish, I wrote the dialog in standard English, with a few familiar Spanish words where appropriate.
See end for questions to readers and where to send comments.]
End of Part 1:
"I understand your concern," Coach [Eaton] said. "But remember, plenty of straight kids end up marrying their high school sweethearts after going to different schools, and just as many who go to the same school end up splitting up and marrying someone else. Do you think it's a good idea to make decisions about your education dictated by you relationship? Have you talked to your parents about any of this?"
Both boys quietly said, "No."
"They really have a right to know about something this important. After all, you're talking about becoming sons-in-law to each other's parents, aren't you?"
Jack and Juan Pablo : A Love Story -- Part 2
Jack was the first to speak on the way home. "J.P., what do we do now? I have no way of knowing how my parents will react. They've never said anything bad about gay people that I can remember. They were always more worried about strangers hurting me than they were about me being gay. What about your tio? Can you email him and ask him what he thinks we should do?"
"With my parents," J.P. said, "it has to be all about family Ð how it affects the family's status in the community. Even here in the U.S., they worry about the family's reputation. I'll try getting in touch with Tio Roberto. He's my mom's older brother. Even as a drag queen he has always been super-protective of her."
"I want to do it at the same time Ð not necessarily together, but I don't want one set of parents hearing about it from the other," Jack said. "I don't even know what to say. I can't just say, `Oh, by the way, I'm gay and I'm in love with J.P' "
"Do you think they already suspect?" J.P. wondered. "Neither of us has ever had a girlfriend. And if they do suspect, are they pissed off? Or worried? Or are they just gonna say, `We wondered when you were gonna tell us.' "
Jack thought about it. "If my parents do suspect, I think they're mostly worried about me getting hurt. Then they're worried about what the rest of the family will think and what it's going to mean for them."
"Like what?"
"Like no grandchildren, maybe?"
"Well, we could adopt kids, I suppose. I can't imagine life without kids around. Are you up for that Ð after we finish college and get married, of course?"
"I never thought about having kids. That's something adults do Ð oh, wait, we're gonna be grown-ups soon! Well, get in touch with your uncle, see what he thinks."
"O.K. See you tomorrow. Call later if you want," J.P. said.
"Bye, love you. Air kiss!" Jack answered as he turned to head toward home.
The next day was a Saturday, and J.P. volunteered at a youth soccer league, coaching and sometimes reff-ing for the younger kids. For Jack, it was chores day: the lawn needed cutting, and he still hadn't cleaned out the garage like his father had asked him to. He'd save homework for Sunday.
When J.P. finally got a hold of Jack, he told him that his uncle had emailed back to congratulate them. Apparently, according to J.P., Tio Beto thought J.P. would have more trouble with the Catholic thing than with the social part of it. Colombia is over 90 percent Catholic, in name anyway. Everybody claims membership, but a lot of people don't go to church regularly, especially the men. But if the Catholic Church says being gay is bad, then that's what most people believe. It's easy for the population to go along with the church, Tio Roberto said, because it doesn't affect them. That's why it's so hard to be gay in Colombia and most of Latin America. Colombia decriminalized same-sex relations, legalized gay marriage and gave same-sex couples the right to adopt Ð but that's all theoretical for most Colombians. What matters is how it affects the family. Tio said he had friends who were disowned by their families and a few others whose partners managed to blend in successfully, usually if the grandparents liked them.
Tio Beto thought maybe the boys would have better luck with their parents if they presented a united front. The boys considered hosting a barbecue with mixed cuisine, American and Colombian. That way the mothers would be distracted with food preparation, and the fathers could kick a soccer ball around with the boys. Maybe a lively 2-on-2 match would result. J.P. thought his parents' house would be a good choice, because Colombians are by culture avid party-lovers.
Jack's parents, Pam and Jim, knew J.P.'s mom and dad, Lena and Coco. They had met at the boys' soccer games but had never visited socially.
A little about the boys' parents: Jack's mom was Pamela Pike Benson. Everyone called her Pam. His father's full name was James Henry Benson, but most people called him Jim. He was a mechanic and owned a garage. Pam was bookkeeper and office manager for the Benson business.
Juan Pablo's parents were Magdalena Guzm‡n Vargas, known as Lena, and Jorge Manuel S‡nchez Gomez. Jorge, whose nickname was Coco, was an engineer for a bioresearch and manufacturing firm, and Lena taught Spanish at a private academy for girls. Neither boy had siblings.
By the time Juan Pablo was born, the requirement of using the mother's surname after the father's had been revoked. Coco and Lena decided that in the United States, it would be easier for Juan Pablo if he used only his father's surname. However, his birth certificate and passport listed him traditionally as Juan Pablo S‡nchez Guzm‡n.
The two boys had long debates about whether Tio Beto's idea of the two of them telling their parents together was best. What if one or more of their parents found the news upsetting? Would it be embarrassing for one or both parents of one of the boys to react in front of the other's parents? After all, the two couples were still pretty much strangers. Maybe the party would be a better idea after each boy came out to his own parents; that is, if everything went well. So, they turned it over and worried it for weeks, not sure what to do.
As it turned out the decision was made for them when Jack's mom sat him down one day after school and asked point blank why he and J.P. didn't seem to have any other friends. "Aren't you maybe spending way too much time together?" Jack could have danced around the issue, but he decided that the time had come to be honest about his relationship.
"Well, actually, we're in love with each other," Jack said.
"In love?" asked Jack's mom. "Do you mean romantically?"
"Yeah." There was a long silence. Jack finally said, "Mom, I've known since I was a freshman that I liked boys more than girls. I was so depressed when I figured that out. I knew how much people made fun of boys like me. I was afraid of what might happen if anyone else found out."
"I just knew something was wrong back then. If only you could have come to us. We were so worried," his mother said.
"I was afraid to tell you. I thought I was the only boy in my school who liked guys. And everyone was so down on queers and called them faggots and all kinds of things. I was afraid É I didn't know how you and Dad would react if you ever found out. I was afraid you'd kick me out, and then what would I do?"
"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry you felt that way. We're your parents, and we will always love you. We would never do something like that. I'd like to think that we could have found a way to help you work this out together."
"Then, along came J.P. in sophomore year. He was the first person to make friends with me in high school. He was new in town, and he felt so alone. I kept telling myself not to let him find out. I was afraid he would hate me if he found out."
By then, tears were streaming down his mother's face. "Jackie, I feel so bad you had to deal with this by yourself."
"I don't know what I'd have done if J.P. hadn't come along. We hit it off so well. We were both so shy about showing each other how we felt. Late last year, we were watching a movie together and our hands brushed, and he took my hand in his, and I just knew from then on that we had something special going on."
"That's so sweet. Something like that happened with your father and me, only we were a little older. We met in college through a mutual friend. He asked me out É to a movie, what else? We ended up holding hands in the dark theater. I knew right then that he was the one for me. I think it took him a little longer to realize it, but once he did we never looked back. So, I know something about what you're talking about," Pam told her son.
"Gee, Mom, I never expected to hear anything about you and Dad," Jack said, with his infamous blush creeping up his neck. "Speaking of Dad, what should I do about telling him? I always thought that, being a mechanic, he might not want his son to be gay."
"What's being a mechanic got to do with anything? He's an ordinary man with ordinary feelings, and I know he loves his son." Jack's mom said.
"I know. I guess the discomfort is all about me."
"Oh, don't start blaming yourself. You've probably done more than your share of that already."
"That's for sure."
"Do you want me to talk to him, or do you want to tell him yourself?" Pam wanted to know.
"I should tell him myself, but I'm so nervous," said Jack.
"I understand. Go up to your room and relax. When Daddy comes home, I'll send him up with a little idea of what might be going on."
"Good. Thanks, Mom. I've got to call J.P. anyways. We were going to tell you guys simultaneously, but we were chicken to set a date. Now he'll just have to do it."
J.P. saw Jack's ID come up on his phone. He wondered why he was calling just then. They usually talked late in the evening.
"ÁHola! Wassup?" J.P. said. "Why so early?"
"I just came out to my mom. I didn't mean to, but she sat me down and asked what was going on with us. I couldn't pretend any more. I told her we're in love. I'm gonna talk to my dad after he gets home. Sorry if that puts pressure on you."
"ÁCaramba! I wasn't planning on telling them today," J.P said. Papi's away overnight. I can't not tell him at the same time as mami."
"Well, your mom's got a gay brother. Maybe it would be good to start with her. But do what you think's right."
"I'll think about it. Call me later."
"OK, bye."
Jack had no sooner disconnected when he heard his father's footsteps on the stairs. Jack took a deep breath and wondered what his mom had told his dad.
Jim Benson knocked on his son's bedroom door.
"Come in," Jack called.
His father entered the room with a puzzled look on his face. "What's all this about a big announcement?" he wanted to know.
"Yeah," Jack answered. "Mom and I had a long talk this afternoon about me and J.P. She wanted to know why we don't have other friends and why we spend all our time together. Actually, we both have lots of friends at school and on the team, but that's more casual. J.P. and I have a special relationship. We're in love." (There! He had said it out loud for the third time. Maybe it would get easier someday.)
"Wha'd'ya mean in love? Are you telling me you're both gay?"
"Yup. That's about it," Jack answered, trying not to sound flip about it but wanting to seem casual, as if there was nothing unusual going on.
"Are you sure you know what you're saying? You're only 16. How can you be so sure it's love?" his father asked. "Listen, I had a friend, Tom, in college who was gay. He got teased mercilessly. Just about drove him out of the dorm. He ended up transferring out and I never saw him again. Do you have any idea what this might mean for you if you go public with it?"
"But what do you think about it, Dad? Did you care about whether Tom was gay?"
"Not a bit," his father said. "And I don't care about you being gay É well, I care, of course, but it doesn't put me off. I just want you to be happy, but I wonder if you've had enough experience to be so sure about it. What made you decide that it was time to tell us now?"
Jack told him about the meeting with Mr. Eaton, how the coach told them their parents had the right to know about his relationship with J.P.
"What started it all, Dad," said Jack, "is that we went in to ask the coach if he knew of any colleges that might give J.P. a soccer scholarship. We told him we wanted to go to the same college, or at least to schools that were near each other. See, J.P.'s dad wants him to go to his alma mater in Colombia. That would mean we would be thousands of miles apart, unless I went to a school in Bogot‡, too. But he'd have to live with his grandma, and we have no idea how J.P.'s family would react to our relationship. É Anyway, that's an engineering school, and there's no way I could get in or that I want to study engineering."
"And I'm not sure I'd want you in Bogot‡, either. I have no idea how safe it is. You don't know but two or three words of Spanish. How would you get around? Wouldn't that be a big drawback?"
"Yeah, that's why we wanted to explore the possibilities closer to home."
"Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves here," Jim Benson told his son. "What do you two plan to do about being in love, as you call it?"
"We don't plan to do anything different. Once we came out to Coach Eaton, we knew we had to tell you guys, too. Actually, we had decided to tell both sets of parents before we told anyone else, but Coach asked us why we wanted to be together so badly, and we told him. It sorta just slipped out, Dad. And it sure felt good not to hide it anymore."
"Well, I'm glad you did. It must have been hard to do. I appreciate that you told us. We love you, and we want you to be happy. Just don't do anything rash until you figure out what the ramifications might be. And your mother and I want to help you, if you'll let us."
Jack jumped off the bed and hugged his father with tears in his eyes.
"Thanks, Dad. You guys are so good to me. I love you."
"Don't ever forget that we love you, too!"
Meanwhile, ten blocks across town at the S‡nchez household, Juan Pablo was agonizing over how he would tell his parents. He envied Jack's forthright ability to come right out with it. Jack was always the one who was so shy and retiring, and now J.P. was the one who was looking to his best friend and lover for reassurance and support.
He thought that with his father away on business, he might start exploring the topic of his relationship with Jack with his mother. He was hoping that her seemingly friendly relationship with her gay brother Beto would predispose her to participate in a discussion of gay life in Colombian culture. By keeping the conversation theoretical, J.P. hoped to gauge his mother's openness to the topic.
After dinner, he helped her with clearing the table and loading the dishwasher.
"So, Mami, I've never heard much about Tio Roberto. How did your parents and the family accept him as a gay man and drag queen. I've heard awful stories about people whose families have disowned them," J.P. said. "He's your big brother, and it sounds like you guys got along well."
"Oh, Beto. Such a dear man, but all screwed up."
"How so? Why do you say that?"
Lena answered, "It's one thing to be homosexual, but he carries it too far. He's always dressing up as woman and performing on stage."
"But I thought people loved that."
"A lot of people do love it, but most of them enjoy making fun of him at the same time."
"But I thought gay men were accepted, especially at university."
"Si, if they're wealthy. If they're working class, or even middle class, they can be in for a lot of discrimination and abuse."
J.P. was shocked. "Is that how people treat Tio?"
"Some people, yes. But he has his friends. His coworkers snicker, but they do respect his work."
"How about the family? Your mami and papi?"
"Ah, well, it took them a long time to come to grips with it. Most Colombian parents love their children, no matter what. But they worry about their family losing face, people whispering behind their backs or criticizing the way they brought up their children," Lena explained.
"What does Papi think of Tio Beto? J.P. asked his mother.
"He's always polite and civil, of course. We've never discussed it, but I think he's uneasy when he's around Beto. I think he's very uncomfortable," said Lena.
She looked up at J.P. and saw his eyes tearing up. "Juanpa (a Colombian nickname for Juan Pablo), what's wrong?"
"Mami, I think I'm gay É at least bisexual. What's Papi going to think?"
"I wondered. You and Jack spend so much time together. You act like a couple."
"We are a couple, Mami! I love Jack so much." With that, Juan Pablo S‡nchez Guzm‡n, 16-year-old futbolista and son of an engineer and schoolteacher, broke down in sobs.
His mother did what she could to comfort him, but she silently worried where this would lead. Her husband Coco had never been particularly machismo, that she could recall, but she was uneasy about his reaction to Juan Pablo's revelation. Seeing how hurt her son was, she knew this was a discussion that had to take place sooner rather than later.
A few hours later, Jorge Manuel pulled in from his overnight trip, tired and grouchy. Nothing, it seems, went according to plan. The client he visited was intransigent, his flight was delayed and the airplane food was less than mediocre. Lena knew that his tough day didn't bode well for tonight's discussion. She hoped a glass of aguardiente or guaro, Colombia's national drink, would mellow Coco before he talked to Juan Pablo.
Once her husband calmed down, Lena told Coco a little of what had transpired between her and Juan Pablo, without coming out and telling him that Juanpa was gay.
"Let's go talk to him together," Coco suggested. "I can tell this is so important, although I can't figure out how, that I think he deserves to have both of us to talk to.
With that, the couple walked down the hall to their son's bedroom. His father knocked on the door and softly asked to come in.
"Entrar," called J.P.
"Juanpa, your mother tells me you have something you want to discuss with us," Coco said.
"Si, papi. But I'm worried about how you'll react."
"Hijo, I hope you know that I love you. I hope you trust me enough to tell me what's bothering you."
"Well, here goes. Papi, I'm gay. Mami said you've both been wondering why Jack and I spend so much time together. We're in love, that's why," said J.P.
"Love? What do you mean? Jack's a boy. É Oh, you mean you are homosexual? What do the gringos call it? Gay?"
"That's it."
"How do you know you're in love? You're only 16. Love is a very beautiful but serious thing," J.P.'s father said.
"I don't know how I know, Papi. I only know that on my first day of school here, Coach Eaton introduced me to all the members of the soccer team, including Jack, who is one of the ball boys. Coach asked Jack to show me around, and by the end of the day I knew that Jack was going to be a very important person in my life. By the middle of sophomore year, I knew he meant the world to me, that I hoped that he would be with me for a long, long time.
"At first, I thought, `Oh, we're best friends.' But as time went on, I realized how important he had become to me. Then one day, at the cinema, our hands brushed together, and I took his hand and I fell in love," J.P said. "Ever since then, I can't imagine my life without Jack."
"Why did you think I would be angry?" Coco asked him. "I can understand those feelings. I felt the same way when I met your mother. I just knew she was going to be my wife. The only difference was that I was a lot older than you. How old were we, Lena, when we met? Let's see I think I was 22 and you were almost 20."
"Si," said Lena.
"But that's not that much older than me. Besides, we're not saying we're going to leave home or get married right away or something like that. We É I wanted to tell you guys because it was getting harder and harder to keep it secret," J.P. told his father.
"This all started because we were talking about applying to college next year, and I told Jack about going to Bogot‡ to engineering school, and we realized we would be separated by thousands of miles for who knew how long, and neither of us could stand the thought of that. So, we went to see Coach Eaton to find out if he thought I could get a soccer scholarship somewhere in the U.S. because we wanted to go to the same school or at least nearby. He asked us why, and Jack blushed Ð he always does that when he gets embarrassed; it's so cute. Anyway Jack told him that we were in love and didn't want to split up.
"We wanted to tell our parents before anyone else, but we hadn't decided when. But now that Coach knows, we knew it was time to tell you. We didn't want you to hear it from someone else. Jack told his parents yesterday, but you weren't home, and I was waiting for today. So, this afternoon, I got talking to Mami about Tio Beto, and I wasn't sure how you'd react," J.P. said.
"I'm not angry, but I am concerned. I remember the problems Beto had when he was younger. Being gay can be difficult. Not everyone is as accepting as we are. Plus, there's AIDS to worry about. You need to know how to have sex safely. Have you two been together yet?" Coco asked his son.
"Well, not completely. Neither one of us has, um, like penetrated the other yet. We're kind of saving that for when we get married, I guess. We haven't really talked about it yet. So mostly just physical contact," J.P. answered softly. "I never thought I would be saying this to you."
"Nor did we think we would be having this conversation with you. We probably should have talked about sex earlier, but we kept putting it off. I'm happy to hear now that at least you boys seem to have been careful. And at least if you stick to each other you don't have to worry about pregnancy or disease. I assume that you are each other's first sex partners."
"As far as I know, Papi," J.P. told his father. "We were 13 and 14 when we met. Back then, Jack was so shy, I don't think he could get up the nerve to talk to anyone, girl or boy. Some of the guys in the changing room talk about, um, doing it with their girlfriends. But I think they're just bragging. Maybe one or two of the seniors, but I don't even want to know."
"It's just as well," said his father. "Men love to brag about exploits they think will impress their buddies. Most of it's all talk."
"I emailed Tio Beto about Jack and me to see what he thought about telling you. He said he thought, if anything would be a problem, it would be what the church says about us. Mami, Papi, I don't feel sinful or dirty. I'm just in love. But I am concerned about what the family will think when they find out," Juan Pablo told his parents.
Lena said, "I wish you had come to us first. I love my big brother, and he always watched out for me, but he didn't always act responsibly when it came to men. He was a big headache for your grandparents. Things are a little better now than when he was younger, but things are still not great for men like him back home."
"So, I start my junior year in a couple of months. In this country, junior year is when you start looking at colleges, so you know where to apply when you're a senior. How important is it to you that I go to Bogot‡ for university?" J.P. asked.
QUESTIONS FOR READERS: What do Jack and Juan Pablo end up doing about college? Together or apart? In U.S. or Colombia? Will they get married when they turn 18, or during or after college or, heaven forbid, split up?
What do you think should happen? Comments to blabonte16@gmail.com.