‘My gay awakening’: a love letter

Joseph Trinidad’s debut collection of essays, Lucky Creatures, explores Filipino culture, queerness, Aotearoa, friendship and love. The following excerpt is from the section called ‘To all the cocks I’ve loved before’.

Dear Dan,

I was in the snacks aisle thinking of you. Blackpink blasted through the store’s speakers. Rum pum-pum, pum-pum, pum-pum. Uniform aisles stretched before me like Boy Scouts, not an MSG-filled snack out of line. I looked for Melona, the green melon-flavoured ambrosia, to suck away the thirst I’d been feeling all day. This was my attempt to call for home, a carefree sense of self, at a time when exams held my sleep and comfort for ransom. How could I possibly memorise another psychological concept named after another white walrus? Instead, I walked the familiar airiness of the aisles.

I was here on a mission. Here to call for a memory, a good one, of the country I used to call home. I stared at the glossy Technicolour of the snacks: Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino all next to each other, waiting to be unwrapped and munched. Maybe it was the sativa from the tinnie house on Ohiro. Maybe it was the bubblegum playlist blasting from the speakers. My thoughts of you underlined my high with camping: our group of boys, that cocktail of the soil’s earthy tang, our sweat, our sweetness, that tent.

*

I was eight. You were eight. You were a few inches taller than I was. You had a sharp nose, matangos na ilong, and skin a shade lighter than husk — a moreno. You spoke in a lilt, as if you sang your sentences.

The tent was meant for six people. It was just the two of us sleeping in there. The rest of the space was filled with the troop’s hiking bags, dirty boots and walking sticks. Teacher Paul, our computer teacher cum troop leader, said we were the most trustworthy scouts, which really was code for no one wants to sleep next to the swishy gay boys. We were to sleep up the hill, farthest away from the camp fun, food and toilet. You were singing “Fabulous” from High School Musical 2, in key. I followed along, offkey, unsure of my recollection of the words.

Ding! Sugo Salted Peanuts, NZD$2.49. You almost woke the other scouts as you cleanly belted your runs. I was having so much fun with you. I’d forgotten about the bullies, the sleeping hyenas below. I reminded you we had an early start tomorrow. You didn’t care.

Ding! Buldak Spicy Hot Chicken Ramen four pack, NZD$8.99. I can feel the hairs on your arms. I hope you can’t feel the hairs on my legs, standing straight up.

Ding! Roller Coasters, NZD$1.43. You took off your shirt before bed. I see the hairs growing on your back: tiny, sweaty soldiers. I took off mine and showed you my favourite moles.

Ding! You touched me, not accidentally this time, a starburst of dopamine. Ding! You pointed and pressed on the freckles I didn’t know I had. Ding! Ding! Ding! When most boys our age were too afraid to talk to girls, here we were, tracing the constellations of our skin. I was also afraid. Afraid because, in the face of beauty, I was hampered by intrusive thoughts of boys being boys, boys being only with girls. The most powerful forces — God and my grandfather — taught me what I knew.

You told me your dad lived in Anaheim, his place was a stone’s throw away from Disneyland. Your English was always on point. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. You made fun of me because I’d lose track and say “peppers” as “peckers”. You knew that you didn’t need to love Laguna. Your dad was on his way to save you from your one-bedroom apartment in a part of town my grandparents mentioned with dread and disdain. It was only a matter of time before he’d take you, your mum and your siblings to live in California. Laguna was a temporary pit stop, a means to the more fruitful end.

Before daybreak, I opened my eyes and stared at the mole behind your neck, the staccato of your hairline as it faded into your back. The baby hairs growing on your shoulders glowed as the morning light appeared.

We got dressed in our finest pambahays, taking the beach towels our mothers marked with our initials, and our slip-on Islander tsinelas. You had big feet. They looked like clown shoes, attached to your slender calves. The Boy Scouts of the Philippines’ National Jamboree didn’t provide normal showers. Growing boys needed to smell like men, and real men smelled like caked mud and testicles in a stew of sweat. We made our morning march to the next best thing: nature’s shower, the waterfall.

We surfed on the river stones. A serious slip could’ve been fatal, but at least we’d have gone out with an army of shirtless twinks behind us. We reached the waterfall just past noon. I took my shirt off, then my basketball shorts. We belly-flopped in our tighty-whities, so good it hurt: sloshing in the river, making whirlpools, exploring the deep caves behind the waterfall.

It was hard to call you my gay awakening; the red Power Ranger already beat you to that. But, trust me when I say, when you walked into my life, visiting your little brother in Teacher Anthony’s classroom, in an instant, I felt old enough to ask for the impossible things grownups ask for when they know they like each other very much.

I wanted to figure you out, and I wanted you to do the same to me. I wanted a kiss. I dreamed up clumsy, careless fantasies I only ever told myself: the hairs on your armpits, the rubbery islands of your nipples, the small of your back. They followed me home, like dirt lodged in the grooves of my school shoes. I wished for you to make me feel loved, whatever that meant to you; I wanted you to show me.

After the waterfall, we helped fill our jeepney back to civilisation with haphazardly folded tents, heavy souvenir rocks painted with names of troop leaders and members, and hiking gear covered with thick memories of the marsh. On our way home, one of the teachers took a picture of me falling asleep on your shoulder.

“How sweet,” he said, showing the picture to his snickering Cub Scout minions.

If you had asked me if I was going to hell, I’d say yes and believe it. You didn’t care, so I didn’t, either. Doomed anyway, might as well do what we want. I went back to resting my head on your shoulder.

You emptied bottles of Stylex hair gel until stiffness broke your fine-tooth comb. You wore skinny jeans so tight that you needed ingenuity to get in them. You put your feet in plastic bags to easily slide them on. You boasted about winning singing contests with “Colours of the Wind” and “Part of Your World”. When you got bored with the high notes, you made a switch to dancing. You joined beauty contests too, winning the crowd with talent and showmanship, a confidence that felt natural and regal. Time and time again, people called you bakla under their breath. You wouldn’t let anything mess with your eight count. Nothing stopped you from dancing to Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina” with your girlfriends: Rene, Jovi and Queenzel. You sang Mariah Carey at sports day. You belted “When You Believe” while I mouthed the Whitney Houston parts from the sidelines.

My high faded as I entered my mouldy Aro Valley flat. I dumped the rest of my Wellmart haul on my unmade bed. Why did I do this? The two hundred dollars from StudyLink wouldn’t come until Tuesday. I jumped in the shower to clear my mind. I darted back to my bedroom after successfully avoiding my flatmate and her boy problems. Short of it, don’t date a busker. I put on my Kmart sweats — the stretchy, marbled grey of eternal comfort. My fat black cat, Ming Ming, crawled out from beneath my bed and asked for a pat. After an acceptable amount of tummy rubs and “good girl”s, I shooed Ming Ming out of my room and placed a towel into the gap under my bedroom door. I started packing another cone. I opened my laptop and dodged studying once more.

Your Instagram was easy to find, and I scouted for clues. Your resolute brightness had survived. I hoped that your coming out went okay. It looked like you went to your first Coachella. Your voice had improved with age; you’d stopped singing show tunes and turned your tastes toward R&B Your current boyfriend, another hottie, another singer, has a song on YouTube called “A Thousand Reasons Why”. You told the internet how he’d written it “just for you”. That’s just so you: a teenage dream immortalised in a pop song.

I looked at old pictures of us. I admired you, then looked at myself, and scanned for all the things that were wrong with me. I struggled to find reasons why you liked me. I wanted to message you, say hello. Intrude on your peace with the baggage of my past. I thought better of the situation, saved myself from embarrassment, which was a new thing I was trying out.

I wrote you this letter instead.

I wish you well,

Joseph from the Jamboree

Lucky Creatures by Joseph Trinidad ($35, Te Herenga Waka University Press) is available to purchase from Unity Books.