Danny lay down on his bed, listening intently to the sound of his own breathing. He gaze drifted upwards from the loose thread that obnoxiously stuck out of his socks to the ceiling above his head. He remembered when his parents first bought the house. Danny, his father had said, I know you will love your room! Just look at the ceiling, it’s so white, so pure! His father was always rambling about chastity and the importance of instilling fundamental values based on virtue and integrity. It wasn’t as if Danny ever listened. He already had his fair share of listening to hypocritical men drone on about fabricated tales at church. All they did was attempt to indoctrinate their own flawed beliefs upon ignorant victims who did not know better to decide for themselves. If it were not for his parents, he would have never stepped foot in church. Danny focused back on the ceiling. It had never bothered him before, but for some reason, its whiteness suddenly seemed to blind him. If was as if every pigment of light was furiously racing against each other, rushing in from every angle, attempting to infiltrate his dark pupils.
Danny closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them, relieved that his momentary vexation had gone. He began to examine the small crevices and subtle cracks of the wall that lay before his eyes. It seemed only moments ago that this wall was flawlessly white, but upon closer scrutiny, Danny realized that it wasn’t so smooth after all. How long would this ceiling last? Would it, survive in an earthquake? Danny got up and took out his diary. Today was a great day, he read. This was his entry from when school first started. He remembered how his hands paused for a second, when he hesitated before writing Playing video games with Peter was exhilarating. Many things had changed since then. If only the hesitation that had caused him to stop before writing that sentence had been able to transcend the other, more ambiguous and indescribable, and also more dangerously impulsive emotion that suffocated him for the weeks to follow. If. Only. Danny cringed at the diary page, as the projection of himself three months ago, innocent and mirthful, danced in front of his eyes, making a mockery of the cold, sinful monster who was at the moment holding the pages of the same diary.
Danny flipped a few pages. The entry recounted his parents’ frustration with his slipping grades. He remembered his mother, cheeks puffy red, yelling at the top of her lungs It’s because he’s spending too much time playing games and not doing his homework! What you do think he’s doing there at Peter’s house all the time? Peter. For some reason, everything always came back to Peter. That’s it, no more going to Peter’s house all the time. I don’t care if he’s your best friend. You need to pull your grades up! Did you hear me Danny? I said, no more going to Peter’s house. Peter. He did not want to see the word Peter one more time.The guilt and regret was already consuming him from within, invading every body cavity and nibbling away at the fringes of his sanity. He imagined the newspaper headlines: boy dies as a result of a strange cannibalistic infliction-wounds appear to be internal.
Danny skipped a few weeks-until his shivering fingers arrived on that fatal day, which, in retrospect, taunted him at the thought of his own naivety. He recalled waking up to a blue and sunny morning, thinking that it was going to be a perfect day. After all, he had already read all the signs. He was convinced that the feelings were mutual. It wasn’t as if Peter hadn’t held his gaze for five extra seconds the other day for no reason. It wasn’t as if Peter didn’t purposefully walk into the more crowded section of the hall so he could brush Danny’s arm when he passed. He remembered staring at the hairs that crawled up Peter’s neck during class. He remembered looking at the ridges on the collar of Peter’s blue T-shirt (as blue as the sky!), wondering what it was like to run his fingers across those ridges and let the tickling sensation sing happiness into his body. He did not know what, exactly he had wanted to say. Perhaps it was, whenever I’m with you, I feel lightheaded, as if I am floating on a cloud and all other concerns seem to precipitate into the irrelevant earthy world below. Or maybe it was, sometimes I dream that I could crawl out my skin, so that my intangible existence can find and merge with yours. None of those words, of course, were what actually came out of his trembling lips.
Peter had a meeting at the library that day during lunch. Danny had tightly gripped his wrist, telling him not to go. It did not take five or ten or even twenty seconds. In fact, it took Peter one full minute to understand the truth that finally emerged after years of repression through the trials of their long friendship. Even after Peter tried to wrestle his hands away from Danny’s iron tight grip multiple times, and even after the troubling revelation that his efforts were futile washed through his mind, Danny held on tightly. The electrical sensation he felt while touching Peter pleasurably ran through his body, and this compulsion, coupled with his own subconsciously self-recognized fruitless approach of holding on to an intangible desire through physical force, increased scrawny Danny’s physical strength by seven fold. He imagined that he was fighting the final battle between good and evil. If Satan actually existed, for Danny, he materialized in that instant, in the form of Peter’s resistance. He deluded himself into believing that if he were to let go, evil would ultimately win. And he could not let that happen. Peters eyes seemed to say betrayal, mesmerizing him and pushing further into his bewildered state of intoxicatoin. Then Peter said the words that would reverberate through his head on the entire way home and for days to come FIND SOMEONE ELSE TO SCREW DANNY, I’M NORMAL! Taking advantage of Danny’s momentary shock, he twisted away.
Danny ran home. He wrote down exactly what he felt. Anguish. No. Excruciating. Pain. What? Wait. Who am I? What am I? I was just telling the truth. That’s not so bad right? Sinful. The church had said homosexuality was Sinful. But the Lord accepts everyone into his kingdom. How could the Lord not accept pure, genuine love? It’s not my fault. I way born this way! Was I…born evil? Destined to be a puppet of the devil from the instant I was conceived! Had I been, fighting for the wrong side all along? What am I? Peter. this. Peter. that. Peter everything. Peter’s eyes. Peter’s hair. His bare, naked skin.
Danny thumbed through the remaining pages of his diary. The trivial turn of a few pages skimmed over his alienation. Skimming was almost doing injustice, as if the anguish and agony he had felt could be summarized within the matter of minutes. Or the emotions he felt crashing through his head after reading the anonymous messages in his locker could be recounted in a few paragraphs. Or the dirty looks he was given could even be described in words. As if anyone would ever understand the mental abuse he had subjected himself to, when he became the most popular topic traveling from lip to lip, darkening and adulterating school hallways. It was as if he was in possession of some covert weapon, hidden within his soul that was capable of undermining all of societal order. But when those boys had left the permanent scars on his arms and bruises on his legs, they found him to be defenseless, vulnerable to their sinister snickering and brutish attacks. He was crawling into a hole now, one that was concealed below the ground, where the dirty rainwater from the clouds that washed through the sewers would drain into. Where every mouthful of water he accidentally swallowed was polluted with sin.
Danny heard noises from outside his room and abruptly dropped his diary. Father’s friends from church had come to celebrate Christmas together. Church. What a joke. At least his parents didn’t know. Yet. Sooner or later their prefect family would be shattered anyways. Danny stared at his ceiling. He imagined small vibrations, slowly building up in the floor beneath him. He imagined the small crevice in his ceiling erupting in to a giant crack. He imagined the white powder falling down into his eyes. He imagined the furniture creaking the floor slanting, the pictures swaying and the books falling. His head was spinning. He closed and opened his eyes. Everything was still. Danny walked to his father’s room and opened his bottom drawer. He took out the cold metal object and held it against his chest. He could hear the heavy beating of his heart, pounding to escape his chest. It was pleading for an exit, cursing fate for imprisoning it within such a wicked body and wishing it were in another-a good one, a pure one. Or maybe it was the heart itself that was the culprit. Either way, the pounding had to stop. He was glad father was always well prepared to protect the family. Well, I’ll show him protection. I’ll protect the world. I’ll protect them from me. Danny walked to the basement. He closed the door behind him.
One, two, three steps down. Gay. Outside in the living room, the friends are joking and laughing. The windows are foggy and the room is warm. The colorful Christmas lights are on and the candles lit, illuminating each cheerful cheek. Hold on, father says, I need to go to Danny’s room to get something. Four, five, six steps down. Find someone else to screw. Father picks up Danny’s diary. The friends are passing around the dishes and both father and Danny can hear the clanging of the dishes and the clattering of utensils. The smell of food fills the air, contributing to the friendly, inviting aura of the living room. Father reads: Peter and I talked for an hour today on the phone; I feel like I’m in paradise, as if life is finally worth living. Father gasps. Did I raise a-Seven, eight, nine steps down. Faggot. Outside in the living room. A friend interrupts the lively conversion to remind all the guests to pray before eating. We must celebrate His birth! He will help up repent for our wrongs, and tomorrow will be a new, more clearer and more wonderful day! Everyone closes their eyes and puts thier hands together. The room is silent. Father drops the diary. Ten steps. Danny is standing at the bottom of the pitch black basement. Danny feels the smooth curve of the trigger beneath his sweaty index finger. I don’t belong here. He pulls the trigger. Or rather, the trigger pulls him.
