Jeremy stared at me. He waited for me to take action. And yes, you can condemn me for my inaction and fear. But I was only sixteen years old. Nobody had taught me how to react in such a situation. I was young and terrified and I could not move. Jeremy waited for several long minutes. I sat still, so he gave me the finger and shouted, “Fuck off!” I gave him the finger and shouted, “Fuck off!” And then Jeremy drove away.
I sat there for a few hours, bewildered. Yes, I was bewildered. When was the last time a white American male was truly bewildered or would admit to such a thing? We had taken the world from covered wagons to space shuttles in seventy-five years. After such accomplishment, how could we ever get lost in the wilderness again? How could we not invent a device to guide our souls through the darkness?
I prayed to Our Father and I called my father. And one father remained silent and the other quickly came to get me.
In that North Bend parking lot, in his staid sedan, my father trembled with anger. “What the hell are you doing up here?” he asked. He’d left a meeting with the lame-duck mayor to rescue me.
“Jeremy drove me up.”
“And where is Jeremy?”
“We got in a fight. He left.”
“You got into a fight?” my father asked. “What are you, a couple of girls?”
“Jeremy is a fag,” I said.
“What?”
“Jeremy told me he’s a fag.”
“Are you homosexual?” my father asked.
I laughed.
“This is not funny,” he said.
“No, it’s just that word, homosexual; it’s a goofy word.”
“You haven’t answered the question.”
“What question?”
“Are you homosexual?”
I knew that my father still loved me, that he was still my defender. But I wondered how strong he would defend me if I were indeed gay.
“Dad, I’m not a fag. I promise.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
We sat there in silence. A masculine silence. Thick and strong. Oh, I’m full of shit. We were terrified and clueless.
“Okay, Dad, what happens next?”
“I was hoping to tell you this at a better time, but I’m going to run for the State House.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“I’m happy you’re happy. I hated to make the decision without your input, but it had to be that way.”
“I understand.”
“Yes, I knew you would. And I hope you understand a few other things.”
And so my father, who’d never been comfortable with my private school privilege, transferred me from Madison Park to Garfield High, a racially mixed public school in a racially mixed neighborhood.
Let my father tell you why: “The Republican Party has, for decades, silently ignored the pernicious effects of racial segregation, while simultaneously resisting any public or private efforts at integration. That time has come to an end. I am a Republican, and I love my fellow Americans, regardless of race, color, or creed. But, of course, you’ve heard that before. Many Republicans have issued that same kind of lofty statement while living lives entirely separate from people of other races, other classes, and other religions. Many Republicans have lied to you. And many Democrats have told you those same lies. But I will not lie, in word or deed. I have just purchased a house in the historically black Central District neighborhood of Seattle, and my son will attend Garfield High School. I am moving because I believe in action. And I am issuing a challenge to my fellow Republicans and to all Democrats, as welclass="underline" Put your money, and your house, where your mouth is.”
And so my father, who won the state seat with 62 percent of the vote, moved me away from Jeremy, who also left Madison Park and was homeschooled by his mother. Over the next year or so, I must have called his house twenty times. But I always hung up when he or his parents answered. And he called my private line more than twenty times, but would stay on the line and silently wait for me to speak. And then it stopped. We became rumors to each other.
Five hours after I punched Jeremy in the face, I sat alone in the living room of my childhood home in Seattle. Bernard, Spence, and Eddie were gone. I felt terrible. I prayed that I would be forgiven. No, I didn’t deserve forgiveness. I prayed that I would be fairly judged. So I called the fairest man I know — my father — and told him what I had done.
The sun was rising when my father strode alone into the room and slapped me: once, twice, three times.
“Shit,” he said, and stepped away.
I wiped the blood from my mouth.
“Shit,” my father said once more, stepped up close to me, and slapped me again.
I was five inches taller, thirty years younger, and forty pounds heavier than my father and could have easily stopped him from hitting me. I could have hurt him. But I knew that I deserved his anger. A good son, I might have let him kill me. And, of course, I know that you doubt me. But I believe in justice. And I was a criminal who deserved punishment.
“What did you do?” my father asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I was drunk and stupid and — I don’t know what happened.”
“This is going to ruin everything. You’ve ruined me with this, this thing, do you understand that?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll confess to it. It’s all my fault. Nobody will blame you.”
“Of course they’ll blame me. And they should blame me. I’m your father.”
“You’re a great father.”
“No, I’m not. I can’t be. What kind of father could raise a son who is capable of such a thing?”
I wanted to rise up and tell my father the truth, that his son was a bloody, bawdy villain. A remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain. But such sad and selfish talk is reserved for one’s own ears. So I insulted myself with a silence that insulted my father as well.
“Don’t just sit there,” he said. “You can’t just sit there. You have to account for yourself.”
My father had always believed in truth, and in the real and vast differences between good and evil. But he’d also taught me, as he had learned, that each man is as fragile and finite as any other.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, my father prayed aloud for the victims. All day, the media worried that the body count might reach twenty or thirty thousand, so my father’s prayers were the most desperate of his life. But, surprisingly, my father also prayed for the nineteen men who’d attacked us. He didn’t pray for their forgiveness or redemption. No, he believed they were going to burn in a real hell. After all, what’s the point of a metaphorical hell? But my father was compassionate and Christian enough to know that those nineteen men, no matter how evil their actions and corrupt their souls, could have been saved.
This is what my father taught me on that terrible day: “We are tested, all of us. We are constantly and consistently given the choice. Good or evil. Light or darkness. Love or hate. Some of those decisions are huge and tragic. Think of those nineteen men and you must curse them. But you must also curse their mothers and fathers. Curse their brothers and sisters. Curse their teachers and priests. Curse everybody who failed them. I pray for those nineteen men because I believe that some part of them, the original sliver of God that still resided in them, was calling out for guidance, for goodness and beauty. I pray for them because they chose evil and thus became evil, and I pray for them because nobody taught them how to choose goodness and become good.”
Of course, my father, being a politician, could never have uttered those words in public. His supporters would not have understood the difference between empathy for a lost soul and sympathy with a terrorist’s politics. Make no mistake: My father was no moral relativist. He wanted each criminal to be judged by his crimes, not by his motivations or biography.