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'SiLeNTLy PoPuLAR' o1
WriTten by T. Chase McPhee
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Kristjan Einarsson felt so bad he had to leave the home he grew up in, in New Jersey, his friends, soccer team and the one guy he could confide in, that he is gay.
His mom, when she was in the land of the living, always used to say, 'when one door closes, another opens'. This was her way of telling Kristjan that there is always hope in all situations which seem to be hopeless. It seemed to make sense and at the Lutheran church he went to, the pastor said the same thing in his sermon one Sunday, so it had to be true.
Kristjan's father wasn't in the picture, after he turned nine, being there were a lot of fights between his father and mother. At least that's the way he understood it, no one bothering to explain it to him, when his father left the house one day. But three months later he was back. Then he left again, coming back almost the precisely same amount of time. What he discovered, it didn't have anything to do with the quarreling, but his father's job at the embassy in D.C.!
His mother was quite unrelenting in her emotions to his father, when one day Kristjan asked, "when is dad coming back?"
"Never, if I have anything to do with it," she stood adamant in her opinion.
Still, Kristjan had no clue to why his parents had to fight all the time and to what end it all amounted to. However, after a period of time his father did come back and soon as walks in the door, his mom is there to greet him and they get all kissy! It was all so confusing.
A short time after their last fight, Kristjan dared to ask, "mom, why do you and dad fight all the time?"
"Oh, you know your father. He thinks he's right all the time. And, that other woman, well I have no answer for that!"
In her own silent mind, she didn't want to field a question that had to do with her husband bouncing back and forth from Washington D.C. Too complicated for a young boy, even so for herself to explain!
For a twelve year old kid, yeah, he did know his father, for him, a loving kind of guy, who was always making him laugh. But when his dad was yelling at his mom, who had been yelling too, it wasn't the kind of voice that made him laugh. Of questions he had about stuff, in particular Kristjan asking his father about the connection about girls and boys, his father certainly did seem to have all the answers. He had meant to bring up, 'that other woman', his mom talked about, but it slipped his mind.
Kristjan did bring it up to his mother once more, at the end of some question about wanting to join the Boy Scouts. After she shot him down, for no reason, he did ask once more, "what other woman were you talking about, when you were talking about dad being right all the time?"
She hesitated for a minute, like deciding something silently in her mind, or figuring out how to choose her words, finally saying, "some woman that works with your father, at the embasy. I don't know. When you're with him, ask him sometime."
Well, that told a lot of nothing! Kristjan was sorry he asked, for he didn't get a straight answer, thinking he would have to figure it out himself.
Then it came to him, 'not a bad idea', asking his dad about 'the other woman'.
As time passed, his mother began to become more religious and busied her free time at helping out at church. At first there was the soup kitchen and a room where old clothes were sorted for the needy. Sometimes he would help, sort clothes, but it became very boring, so Kristjan took to wandering outside the church.
Something else transpired, a void, whereas his father didn't come from work, or if he did, it was late at night. On the late nights, Kristjan could be found in his room, reading a book or goofing off, looking at the internet, an online magazine featuring guys in skimpy briefs, with no shirt on. This was right after one of those conversations with dad, about why boys and girls are attracted to each other and 'other' things. There was also question, about why his little pecker reacted when seeing an older man fully naked and he didn't know why.
At one such time, when he did corner his dad in laundry room, actually following him, which also could be heralded as stalking him, really he wanted some answers.
Aware Kristjan had descended the stairs, his dad asks, "how's school coming along?"
"Fine. If what you're wondering if I'm passing everything, I am."
"Thats good. Remember, knowledge is power."
It did strike Kristjan as something worthy of remembering, but with something else on his mind, he uses the power of knowledge to ask, "do you think men who model clothing, think it up all on their own to not wear a shirt?"
Turning around, his father is direct, "and just where is this coming from?"
Suddenly he felt like a criminal, Kristjan thinking fast, "uh, nowhere."
But even those thoughts were falling by the wayside, when outright his father pulls up the tails of his tee shirt, whips it off overhead and tosses it in the washing machine.
Without provocation, other than seeing his father, full frontal assault, from the waist, up, "oh wow, dad. You look," he was thinking 'beautiful', "cool."
He knows his wife, him thinking it too, their son growing up into a fine young man, meeting a girl, getting married, having kids, their grandchildren and starting a whole new generation of Einarsson's, but more a modern man than most men, "son, are you gay?"
"Am I what?"
Then his father felt like he was the stupid one, "come over here and sit."
Finding two chairs, one upside down and stacked on the other, Kristjan's father separates them, placing them facing each other, with the instruction, "sit. Time for another one of our talks."
He didn't start out with 'why' Kristjan was looking at men without shirts, but went right to the point, "there's no shame in a man admiring another man."
'Wow', Kristjan thought, 'dad must be a genious,' that he was thinking it not a weird thing to think, "really?"
It's something Kristjan should have thought of right away, but being a fourteen year old boy, he was still questioning things in a world, whereas he kept silent about things, even to his best friends at school.
Sitting there across from each other, his father says, "now, what's on your mind?"
As when he saw his first whisker, just last year, popping up from his chin, Kristjan knew his father would know the answer and now, "I'm not sure you really want to know, dad?"
"I'm your father. I'm responsible for you and you're upbringing. Don't worry," he pats Kristjan on the knee, "there's nothing you can say that's going to make me blow up and yell at you for, unless that is," he turns serious-funny, "you're going to tell me you stole my keys and wrecked the car?"
Kristjan detected his father's humor. Yet, he was silently thinking, about how his parents bickered and didn't know what that was about, but that it happened.
"No, nothing like that," Kristjan assured him, "but in case it does happen, what will be your thoughts on it?"
Sitting back in his chair, Kristjan takes a full look of his shirtless father. He wonders what his father thought, at whatever age his bod starting sprouting more than a hair on the chin, all that fuzziness on his chest, the stripe down the middle and the rest, diving underneath his belt.
However, about digging deeper, his father comes back at him with, "I have a feeling this is more about another thing, than that. I'd be more concerned about what happens to you, than the BMW. After all, cars can be replaced, but not humans." And, before Kristjan could even process it, "now, what's really on your mind, son?"
'Dammit!' Kristjan thought, 'how did dad get to be so smart?'
"What I want to say might throw you?"
He had sat forward, once again tapping Kristjan on the thigh and when his father sat up, again that full facade of hairiness hit him like a conviction!
"Try me."
"Okay, here it is," Kristjan gulps. Not in what he brought to the table, the same idea, but using his father as an example, "am I weird that I think you're beautiful?"
He smiles, his father leaning forward once again, "I think you're beautiful too, son. I think you act in a very responsible way. You're growing into a fine young man."
'Dammit! That's not what I meant!'
Kristjan gathers, his father has missed the boat. The conversation was going too slow, so whether the leather belt was going to be ripped from his pants, and in the Icelandic tradition of his father and grandfather and every Einarsson male of authority before that, was going to be thrown over the workbench and take his first disciplinary beating, "not in the way you're thinking. What I'm meaning is, I like," he takes a deep breath, "I want to feel up your chest and run my hands through all that hair," all the air goes out of him.
Rather than a grim posture, Kristjan's father leans back, placing his arms behind the chair, interlacing fingers behind, which in essence makes all that beautiful dark brown hair covering his pecs, stomach and stretched out navel seem more accessible, "go ahead then."
"Are you for real? Like, you're not going to haul off and hit me?"
"And what would that solve?"
"You and mom argure all the time?"
"That may be true, but our differences are shown to each other in words and never comes to the point where I would lash out and hurt her, physically."
"Then, why do you do it at all."
"We vent."
"Vent?"
"Not which I would prescribe for anyone, especially the people I work with at the embassy, but a long time ago your mother and I made a pact, if we ever got to the point of disagreeing about something, it would never come to a boxing match."
To Kristjan, that didn't make any sense, which has him saying, "like, how or what made you and mom think that?"
"You're Uncle Karl."
"Oh," Kristjan thought way back to last year, "the one from Sweden, who used to come visit us and didn't think it wrong to walk around the house with no clothes on?"
Thinking he was returning to more of what his son really want to talk about, "I kind of thought you liked the way his penis bobbled around?"
Kristjan didn't know it he was, but felt blood rush to his face. Realizing his father had hit the hammer on the head of the nail, "there you go again, being right?"
It's also then, silently thinking, that his father had found him out.
"Why don't we put all those other thoughts aside and talk about you?"
Thinking on it in a more wise way, the fourteen year old says, "I have a feeling you already know?"
"Most likely, but you and I know, I have to hear it from you?"
Man was his old man smart, "yeah well, it's hard for me to say and if you're already thinking it?"
His 'old man' completes the thought, "then why am I putting you through all this, instead of answering the question for you?"
Rocking his head back and forth, Kristjan did think he was turning this boring, "I like boys."
There he said it, but now, after there long, drawn out father to son talk, he feels more confident there wasn't going to be a backlash coming.
"I've got a little secret."
Looking up at his dad, in restrained way he was sitting, casually, Kristjans dares asking, "you like boys, I mean, men, too?"
"No. One hundred percent straight, last time I checked, but you're not the first man who has come out to me?"
"Really?" Kristjan has the mindset he can chat about anything, "how does that go?"
His father has a momentary silent chuckle. Like a chip off the old block, Kristjan must've gotten that phrase from himself, being he always uses, as has a long line of Einarssons.
"Last year and a couple of years before that, and, the second year I worked at the embassy, three different men scheduled appointments with me, only to find out that I was the only one in their lives they felt confident they could come to me and talk about their feelings."
"But why would they come to you? Why didn't they go to their own fathers?"
"Because," his father leans forward, looks from left to right, like the Homeland Security might be listening in, "in their lives, in the countries they are from, it's a crime to be gay."
It's then that Kristjan grows up a couple of years, "I feel so bad for them, that they don't have a dad like I've got."
It made his dad smile, rock back on his butt muscles, sit erect, "well, thank you for the compliment, son."
It's a strange thing, silent thoughts, as his father sits back. Like a second awakening, all that dark brown hair once again strikes Kristjan with such a lust, "say, dad?"
"What?"
He threw his dad clear off his gourd, saying, "would you mind if I... would you care if..."
Using a hand, like 'come to me', his father says, "come on. Out with it."
"Do you think it would be okay if I."
They sat there eye to eye and like playing a Tv game, whereas one person has to provoke another into divulging something, "if you?"
"If I ran my hands over all your... fur, or moss, or whatever you call it?"
"My hairy chest?" follows a decisive, "no."
Kristjan's whole demeanor drops like 50 feet, "oh."
"But granted," his pa had all the answers, "by the time you hit full puberty, I bet there will be a man in future that you won't have to put that question to."
"Easy for you to say. How do I even know when a man will come along, who will let me do that to?"
They got the call, from the top of the stairs, 'dinner!'
They also knew they better act with promptness, or else the spread on the table might disappear back into the kitchen and 'mom' would be livid at everything getting cold. Sometimes she had a short fuse. This one of of the predictable ones!
As they get up, his dad grabs an old shirt from the laundry pile, sniffs it and in doing so, remembers, "how does a bloodhound seek out his prey?"
"I don't know. How?"
Tossing the opening over his head, his dad says, "Google it!"
Not allowing his father get the last dibs on the subject, "I will!"
With his shirt up above his hairy pecs, his father holding it from flopping down, he says, "what the hell, give it a rub!"
Much as Kristjan wanted it, that he could almost taste it, "no. You're right. I have to go out and find my own boy. But thanks anyway, dad."
Still holding the shirt up over his hairy pecs, "are you sure? Last call?"
"No. I'm sure."
He planes it down over his bod, blocking all that lush hair.
His father had a foot on the wooden step, Kristjan remembering from out of his past, "dad, one more thing?"
Stepping down, turning a back on the stairway, "yes?"
"One time I had asked mom something, about your fighting with her and she mentioned something about, 'that other woman'. What did she mean by that?"
"Hm," he thinks on it, putting two fingers to his lips and tapping them. "Why don't we save that for another time?"
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% Copyright 2021 T. Chase McPhee
Developing segments of 'SiLeNTLy PoPuLAR' may not be sold, nor made part of any collection, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the author.