a story told by Michael, Danny, Margaret and Patrick Sullivan

Ya know, I, ah, didn't know until I was sixteen that my younger brother Danny was gay, a homosexual. I mean, I, ah, kinda' guessed earlier, I had a feeling that he was different. He was fifteen at the time. Different. Different. He didn't quite fit. Well, he fit in some places, but not in others. The girls 'liked' him, the boys, well, he was last to be chosen for the sports teams. Not because he was skinny or anything like that. He was just not a sports kid like me. Finally he just didn't join in. No humiliation in that. We were Catholic. My family. I'm not anymore. Vietnam cured me of that. But when I was growing up, we were 110% Catholic, we did the Catholic things, First Communion, Confirmation, the enlistment into the Army of Christ and all that. The processions, serving as altar boys, the choir practice…. Danny spent a lot of time alone, either in his room, or in church. Mostly in church. I just thought he was more …devout, ya know, than I was. Like maybe he wanted to be a priest. He fit in very well with them, Father Moran and the nuns especially Sister Delberta. I didn't. Sister Delberta in a stern voice, "Mr. Michael Sullivan, wake up." Followed by a wack on my head with a ruler, or a poke in my back with the infamous rubber tipped pointer. "Go to the blackboard Mr. Sullivan. Multiply 24,569 times 4,297, then divide that by 49. That should wake you up."

We had another nun, she used to take pencils…but I guess you've heard stories like that.

My brother…a fag. Turns out he was in a hell of a battle, not in the Army of Christ, but in a battle in his heart, his mind, his psyche, his emotions, whatever. I still don't understand it.

I knew early on that I didn't fit. My brother, Michael, seemed to fit. He was doing all the things boys were expected to do. Excel in sports. He was always the first to be chosen for the baseball teams. Basketball. Football.

"Don't forget your hymnals boys," I'd say. "Sister Bernice has enough to worry about than to have to find another hymnal for you Michael!"

Yes, Mother.

Yes, Mother.

I forgot my hymnal once. Once. Dad had to go home to get it. Not only was Sister Bernice pissed, but Dad…whew. My brother, …well, ya know what Danny did? He tried to give me his hymnal, since he knew all the hymns by heart. I sure didn't. It wouldn't have worked. Sister Delberta would have noticed that he didn't have his hymnal and would have guessed correctly that I forgot mine.

Me Father and me Mother, God bless their souls, may they rest in peace, taught me one thing 'bout the Holy Mother Church. And that is that she's there when you need her. I don't mean physically, or religiously. What I mean is, before I go to bed at night, just as I do before I go to confession, I examine me conscience. I ask meself, "Have I been a good lad, have I treated me family, me mother and me father kindly and respectfully? Have I obeyed God's laws? Have I respected the nuns and the priests? I go to church every Sunday, I go to confession when I can, things like that there. And I always keep me thoughts pure, and me body clean."

Danny was different. I remember there was this new girl in sixth grade. He and I were both in the sixth grade. I was kept back a year because I had rheumatic fever that winter, that set me back six months so the principal of St. Mathias and mom and dad thought it best I be held back. I could have made up those six months, but…. Anyway this girl was at the blackboard with a multiplication or division problem and all of a sudden her slip drops to the floor. There was this moment of complete silence. Danny was the only one in the class that jumped up to help her. Everyone began to snicker; I did, too, then laugh. Even the girls. Sister Delberta, the little monster, slammed her pointer down on her desk and the girl ran out of the room crying. I wonder what happened to her. Never saw her again. Well, Danny may have been her hero that day but in the eyes of everyone else he suffered as much. Children can be very cruel. Everyone teased him for a while after that. No sense to it, but….

When I was 12 years old Father Moran brought in another priest to talk to us boys about becoming seminarians. I remember that day clearly. He talked about the life of a seminarian, the life of a priest, and the possibilities of joining the priesthood to help people in South America, Africa…. I thought it would be a great life. Better than being constantly harassed by Michael. I wanted to be a priest. I talked to mom about it after school. She looked at me with a worried face.

"We'll talk about it later. Seminaries cost money, ya know," I said. "Your father is a machinist! We barely make the tuition at Saint Mathias!" Both my boys were altar boys, ya know. Danny was never in trouble like Michael. Always in trouble. Danny was never a problem. The nuns and the priests loved him. Michael was always a bit of a problem. Always in trouble. Not bad trouble, just trouble. I remember Michael had to serve the six o'clock Mass for Father Moran every weekday morning during one summer. That boy was so hard to get out of bed. I would have to wring out a washcloth filled with cold water on his face to get him to rise. Then he'd be mad until he came back home. He told me, but I already knew, Father Moran called me after Mass that first mornin', he was not a happy man. Father Moran came up behind him while he was kneeling asleep at the altar and cuffed him on the ear. You'd think that would have cured him. His ear was still red when he got home. I didn't like that. Didn't bother his father at all.

"If Father Moran caught him sleeping at the altar of Christ, he deserved the cuff on the ear." I remember once when I was his age all the lads and lasses were walking from the altar through the church and I spotted me mother. She was smiling at me. She was proud of her son being part of the church rituals. I broke into a smile. A nun came rushing up to me, grabbed me by the ear and marched me outside and gave me such a tongue-lashin I was in tears when me mother came rushing up. The nun told her that we were marchin in the Army of Christ and that the children must at all times be reverent in the march.

Danny and Richie Simmons were best of pals when we got into High School. He and Richie went everywhere together. Swimming, fishing, movies…. They seemed to be everywhere together. I remember because the Palace had a western matinee every Saturday. Danny loved westerns. I guess Richie did, too. They came out of a movie holding hands one afternoon. What the hell was I to think?

No one knows how lonely it was. I didn't have many friends. It was difficult for me to make friends. Nobody seemed to want to be my friend. None of the boys anyway. The girls liked me. I had quite a few girlfriends. Not so much as they were attracted to me or I to them, but we all had some of the same interests. We used to write our own plays, musicals…. The first one we wrote and performed was about priests and nuns. We even had costumes. I used to spend most of my time alone, though. Never liked football, baseball, or basketball. In my freshman year in high school I started playing tennis. At thirteen I was quick on my feet. I got pretty good at tennis, though. But the boys called it a sissy sport. So I stopped playing tennis. I tried playing other sports. Football was for bigger and tougher kids. They seemed to have a different attitude. I tried baseball. Playing catch with Todd, whom I thought was a good friend, until he threw the ball so hard and fast that I misjudged it and it slammed into my jaw. Nearly knocked me out. It did knock me over though. He walked up to me, didn't even ask if I was all right. "What's the matter you queer little sissy?" he yelled. "I didn't throw it that hard." Then he kicked me. Three days later his gang beat me up. Queer. Sissy. Neither of us knew, really knew, the meaning of those two words. I was never asked to play any sports after that. Father Moran thought Todd had really hurt me, and asked my Mother to take me to a doctor. He said I was fine just a little bruise and that I would be all right. But I wasn't. I became even more reclusive after that. I realized later that I was actually in shock. The ball crashing into my jaw really hurt, but queer, sissy….

Danny used to spend a lot of time alone in his room. Usually reading. But sometimes I would look up at his window from my garden work and he'd be starin out the window. He was a straight A student, that Danny. But he was very young, well, …immature. He never wanted to play with Michael and the Dirkson boys next door. Why, he spent more time with the Finnegan girls fantasizing and play-acting. He would be the priest and the girls would be the nuns.

After Todd accidentally hit Danny in the jaw with the baseball he became, well, he just wasn't the same. He'd spend a lot more time alone, usually in his room. The guys in our class used to laugh behind his back, point at him, whisper. He never asked them what they were laughing at or whispering about. He just never stood-up for himself. Kinda wimpy, ya know.

I looked for help, but there was none. I tried talking to Father Moran about how and what I was feeling, … my thoughts, … but I couldn't get up the nerve. I hadn't done anything wrong, so the confessional was out. Besides he would know my voice. Then I'd suffer the embarrassment knowing that he knew. Knew what? My doubts about myself? Father Moran led all of the physical education classes for the boys. His favorite sport was boxing. Thank God I failed his qualifying class. I could run like a deer at thirteen so I just didn't let Harold Nixon catch me. I just couldn't see two boys in a ring trying to hurt each other. "What's the matter ya little sissy? Stand still and fight, you little queer, he taunted." There it was again. Sissy. Queer. After PE, when all the boys were showering and changing their clothes, they would be talking about cars, sports, but mostly about girls. Who they would like to date, or take to bed, usually in more descriptive vulgar words. But, frankly, I'd be thinking of them. I liked looking at their bodies. All those hot and sweating bodies. All the noise, yelling and screaming, taunting………… I realized then that I looked at boys the way other boys looked at girls. Richie Simmons and I became friends our freshman year in high school. We met at our first high school dance. Every Friday night the nuns organized a dance in the school gym. The priests were there to chaperone. Richie and I talked until curfew that night. We talked about the books we'd read, the music we liked. Neither of us cared much for the Beatles. Contemporary jazz, we were both into Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton, Louie Armstrong and Benny Goodman, and western movies. Roy Rogers was my favorite. His was Gene Autry. Gary Cooper and Randolph Scott were the best, though.

Everybody knew there was something wrong with Richie Simmons. Different, ya know. They'd say, "He's kinda light in the loafers, isn't he." In my junior year in high school, we were sitting around the dinner table. Michael asked me why I pal around with Richie Simmons. He's a little limp in the wrist, isn't he? I said, "Because we like each other's company." "That queer little faggot. Everybody knows he gay. Are you gay, too?" Silence. Dad looked up and yelled, "That kinda talk doesn't belong in this house." I looked at Danny and said, "I guess I am". Dad looked at Mom. Mom continued to eat. Then he looked at Michael. They looked at me. Dad yelled, "You faggot bastard". He got up and walked out. Mom went on with her dinner, saying, "We'll talk about this later Danny and Michael".

Michael picked up his dinner and threw it at me.

Mom looked at him.

He rarely spoke to me after that. Only when necessary. "Get outta my way ya little fag." Eventually it was as if I didn't exist. In order to prove to his friends that being homosexual was not contagious and that he was not homosexual he began taking any and every girl he met to bed. Then came the drinking, which never stopped. Mother, on the other hand, never skipped a beat, at least in front of me. I could hear her and dad talking late at night. "I'll not have a queer in me house. What have ye done to me woman?" I could hear her crying. He would get up and go downstairs, sit in his chair in the dark all night. He never spoke to me again. I think he realized it, but never faced it or me, that what he guessed was true. His son is homosexual. We lived in the same house until after graduation, but never spoke to each other again. I was seventeen when I left home.

After Danny had his coming out at the dinner table we were never a family again. I went around town screwing every broad that offered it to me. I had to prove to everyone that he was a homosexual. Not me! It's not contagious ya' know. I can get it up for a girl, not a guy. I wasn't going to' be called a faggot queer. Not me. Hell, even girls I never would have considered looking at… My senior year I must have laid 40 …maybe 45 girls. "Watch out for that Michael Sullivan he's horny." We had parties. Damn, did we have parties. George, the guy who owned the gas station and beer joint outside'a town, he sold us the beer. We drank everything we could get our hands on, my buddies and me. Hell, I was drunk at my high school graduation. The nuns didn't like me anyway, they sure didn't approve of that. They liked that faggot brother of mine though. I wonder if they knew he was a homosexual? Michael sure got the news around town. It wasn't long before everybody was pointing at me, or whispering when they saw me. He'd yell at me from across the street, "Hey guys. That's my queer little brother over there. The queer bastard. Gets it up for the boys! Hey Danny, guess who I laid last night? Lena. A girl. Got her in the back seat of Dad's Merc." He showed up drunk for our graduation. Mom and I never talked as she said we would. It was as if she couldn't bring herself to want to know the truth, let alone face it. I'm her son. Doesn't my happiness mean anything?

Michael was always trouble. He would tease his brother Danny terribly. I didn't care for the language or the tone of his voice. Their father always blamed me for their shenanigans. "Boys will be boys," he would say. But Michael took to drinking. Coming home smelling of beer and whiskey. I told his father, but he just threw up his hands, and walked away yelling back at me, "He's a big boy now, ya know. I can't handle him anymore now. And I'll tell you again woman, there's talk of the plant closin'. I may be out of a job. At my age! I have worse things to worry about than Michael havin' a toot now and again. It's a good thing, it is, that this house is paid for. A drunken sot and a faggot. That's what I get from ya' woman."

I didn't tell mom or dad that the day of graduation I enlisted in the Marines. I was gonna' go kick some gook ass and take some gook names. There was a war goin' on. Vietnam. You remember Vietnam, don't ya? I jumped off the bus in San Diego and got the shit kicked out of me for 90 days. I loved every minute of it. Three months of sand flies, DI's screamin' in my face, guys cryin' like babies, crappin' and pissin' their pants like dam fags. Pukin' their guts out in their mess kits 'cause they were ho-o-omesick. And all I wanted was a beer. It was so dam hot down there. You'd think they'd offer a guy a beer once in a while. My first day in the Corps I was probed, inoculated, shot, got my teeth checked by a drunk dentist, yeah, he was drunk on his ass. I coughed, gave blood, pissed in a bottle. You name it. I got it and gave it. Second day I took tests. Ya' know intelligence tests to find out what kind of job they had for me in the Marines. Reconnaissance! That's where I want to go. On my third day four DI's, Drill Instructors, ya' know… one at a time they called each of us new recruits into their hut …they were all standing there with baseball bats.

"Private Sullivan, front and center!" the DI yelled.

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Private Sullivan, you shit eatin' faggot, what makes you think you can be a Marine?"

"Sir, I can take anything, sir. I want to be a Marine, Sir."

"Private Sullivan, do you like me?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Private Sullivan, d'you know that like means love, and love means fuck? I'll be dammed if you're gonna' fuck me you goddamed faggot. Get in that fuckin' locker, Private Sullivan."

"Sir, yes sir!"

Well, I got in the locker. They slammed the door behind me and locked it. They began pounding the locker with their baseball bats. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! After what seemed like half an hour later the pounding stopped…

"Do you still like me, Private Sullivan?"

I didn't answer. The door swung open. I fell out and scrambled to attention. I was so scared, I was afraid I was gonna' crap my drawers. But I didn't let them know it. One thing I did know though, they never called me a faggot again.

All of a sudden my family is gone. I look around the empty house. There is no one here for me to care for any more. No happy children's voices. The house is strangely quiet. Even the anticipation of someone coming through the door is gone. Danny is off to college. He calls me every Sunday afternoon, and writes at least once a month. He's always been such a good boy. I cried for two weeks after Michael got on the train for boot camp. He wanted to be a Marine. He didn't write. He didn't call. I miss my Michael. May the Good Lord watch over him.

I said to his mother as we was wavin' goodbye at the train station, "The Marines is what he needs, ya know. They'll straighten that lad out. He needs a stronger hand than mine."

I didn't hear from or see Michael until Christmas of '68. There he was at the train station in his fine green uniform. He had just finished some special training. He looked different. All buffed out. He was sent home before he was to be shipped to Vietnam. The anti-war movement had not yet begun. The guys that dropped out of college but remained in the reserves or the National Guard were being called up on a regular basis. Some came back in body bags. Mom gave Michael a big hug and peck on the cheek. Dad shook his hand and they smiled. We shook hands, but he didn't look at me. Discounting me as his brother was worse than his abuse before he left. I'm his brother. I can't be like him. I am homosexual. I have accepted myself. I'm happy.

There he was, the family embarrassment. The little faggot bastard. You'd think he'd a go to San Francisco. We sure didn't have any like him in the Marines. I don't think we did. NAW! Eight days later I was flyin' into Saigon. I was trained as a member of a special Recon team. Recon. Recon, ya' know. Special Reconnaissance Unit. Regular Marines gave us a lotta room. Five days later I was leadin' my platoon across a narrow river. We were chest deep in muddy, smelly water. It was so hot and humid we could hardly breath. My LT, my lieutenant whispered that the rear was draggin' its ass and sent me back to pick 'em up. As I turned the shells screamed over me. I didn't hear them hit until two of my men were lifted twenty and thirty feet in the air. Arms, legs, rifles, water and mud were flyin' past me. Another shell got my radioman, his hand, still grippin' the microphone, shot past me. Blood all over me. Jesus Christ! This is just my fifth day.

Mom says she got a Christmas card from him. He was in Hawaii. In her letter to me she asked, "Danny, what does 'R and R' mean?" I wrote back, "I think R and R stands for rest and recuperation, Mom. Vietnam is a terrible place."

Nice thing about Vietnam… There's always plenty of beer and broads. The bad part was that there were too many bullets, bombs and bodies. Got wounded just before Christmas of 69. Caught a 'through and through in my right leg. Don't believe me, huh. Hell, I'd show ya' if I could. I like to look at it once in a while. It's beautiful. Got a purple heart for it. Should a got two! Came in here, that's one, came out here, that's two by my count. I got the little gook bastard that did it, too. One shot! I knew it had to be a gook up a tree. I looked up and there he was. One shot! You should a heard him on the way down. I didn't tell the folks I got shot.

Richie and I organized an anti-Vietnam War march on campus on July 4th, 1972. We called it a peace march. The turnout was larger than Richie expected. I knew it would be a success. But there were police everywhere.

You can call me 'Gunny Sergeant' now, Gunnery Sergeant Michael Sullivan. This is my third tour in Vietnam. I just couldn't take the chicken shit stateside. Couldn't wear my uniform. Had to wear my hair a little longer so I didn't look military. Besides the beer and the broads are cheaper here, ya' know? One of the duties my LT gave me was to account for the wounded and dead. Seventeen wounded this week. Eleven body bags. One of those bags was filled with what remained of my LT, after a napalm raid we called in on a North Vietnamese ammo dump hit us instead. We gathered him up and put him in a bag. That's the way he went home. Been here nine months twenty-two days. Four months, eight days to go.

April 2, 1975. "Dear Mother: Sorry to hear about Dad. On my way home for the funeral. Michael."

Mom and I made the arrangements. He was a simple man. He wanted a very simple service. Michael arrived the day before the funeral. After the graveside service, Mom went to bed and never woke up again.

I guess she just gave up. Some times I feel like giving up, too. After I came back from Vietnam I re-enlisted. Re-upped they call it. That was in 70. Four years later, in 74, I re-upped again. Twenty-three months later I was given a medical discharge. But they couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with me. I didn't have any energy. I got so tired so often. Couldn't keep up. Now I can only work one day out of four, when I can get a job. The rest of the time I'm either sleeping or resting. Been goin' to the Vet's Hospital. Remember the wound I got in my leg? Hit my femoral artery. Two days of blood transfusions. The Vet doctors told me yesterday that I have Hepatitis C. It's the incurable one, ya know. It's a 'dirty' disease. Ya get it from contact with blood that has the disease in it. It kills ya in stages. I'm in stage three. That's it. That's all she wrote. Stage three means my liver will go soon. At first they thought it was cirrhosis from all the booze I been drinkin for twenty years. I'm not an alcoholic! All the blood transfusions I got. All the bodies I handled. All the blood from my dead buddies on me. That's how I got it! It isn't so much the disease… ya know. It's the attitude, the sick comments and the looks I get from my friends and relatives that go with it. What kinda' dope were you shootin' in Vietnam? I'm not a dope addict! I never did drugs! What kinda' whores were you humpin' over there? I had my share. Never had a whore I didn't like. It's the dirt that's thrown at me. It's like AIDS. Only a homosexual can get AIDS. Bullshit! I never slept with a guy! THIS ISN'T AIDS! This is different. I fought for my country and this is what I get! This is my a third wound! Don't I at least deserve another Purple Heart?! I won't recover from this one. There's no glory in that. And it takes so-oo many years to kill me. I'm gonna' die from some filthy, dirty disease like Aids! God .........I'm tired.

I buried you next to you Mom and Dad, Michael. Your gravesites look and feel so peaceful. It's too bad you didn't die in peace. Now that you are all in one place, gathered together, so to speak, I can finally tell you that I am happy. Now, for the first time in my life, I feel complete. But I am just as sad. All the time you were alive I wanted so much to share with you the happiness I feel and the peace I found, but you wouldn't let me. As a family we could have celebrated our happiness, if only you could have listened and understood. All the years of heartache and misery we caused each other, because I couldn't be like you. You didn't want to listen then. You can't listen now.

^