Wednesday, 27 May, 1987

About a half an hour before the diner's closing time, my boss has me washing tables late at night, after everyone has departed from their dinner and we know that no one else will be coming for a midnight snack. These times are always rather awkward, as the only people inside the diner are me and my boss whom I have never really liked and have actually kind of always felt on edge around, and he oftentimes tries to make some small talk with me as I work silently by myself. I have been working here for almost six months now, and I still don't know whether it is more awkward to talk to him or to endure the painful silence that everyone is thinking about as it stretches on. Tonight it's the latter -- I continue to wash those tables while my boss reads the newspaper from today with that same angered expression that he always wears when he sees any democratic headlines or has to think about the shabby state of the country for more than a second.

"Hey, Harlow, you're young," my boss remarks as I clean my fourth round table (having finished all the booths), taking a hammer to the silence and striking panic into my heart as to what he's going to ask of me.

Having no idea what my boss is talking about by pointing out my present period of life, I find that it's best just to agree and not ask questions about what he means by it. "Why yes, I am."

It turns out that my boss actually has a topic to discuss, which is made evident to me when he says, "So you would know a thing or two about this whole AIDS business."

My breath halts in the middle of an inhalation. My heart jumps over a beat. Every activity in my body is arrested by this sudden onset of fear. Normally a discussion about what my boss is currently bringing up would be joyfully welcomed by me. I would have a chance to put what I've learned from the group meetings to the test, and I could inform someone about this pandemic situation and lead them towards the right path of making a difference by supporting the people fighting it. However, my conservative boss is not someone I want to talk about the AIDS Crisis with. I would get nowhere with him, and I might even get fired for being a "liberal bastard", as he would say and has already accused me of being. I go with the subtle approach to the matter by pretending to have only heard the name of the epidemic and nothing else.

"A thing or two, yes," I reply, keeping my words simple and unsuspicious, but my boss is not finished there.

"To be completely honest," my boss starts, and I already know where this is headed. Whenever he says something similar to the phrase he just uttered, you can be sure that it's trouble and that he's going to embark on a fiery rant to someone who doesn't give a shit, like me for example. I can usually brush it off and restrain myself from voicing my own countering opinion because of how risky it would be if I did, but those other subjects don't mean as much to me as this one does, and I fear that I'll lose my filter and end up getting fired from my only source of income. I don't want to quarrel with the man who supplies me with money, but I also don't want him to think that it's okay to trample the efforts of people whom the government has thrown in the mud. I wish I could quit this job just to get away from him, but it pays well, better than any other job I could get with no college education, so I have to make it through.

My boss continues from his "to be completely honest" opening line. "I hate how all these young people are taking to the streets, waving their entitlement around as if it isn't their fault. If they didn't want to get AIDS, they shouldn't have chosen to be homosexual."

I clench my cleaning rag tighter, muttering, "The entire country is at risk, so you might want to pay attention to these riots and not dismiss them as homosexual pity parties."

My boss removes his gaze from the newspaper in front of him, detecting great amounts of resistance to his conservative views, something that he has never before witnessed from me. "What was that?" he asks as though he misheard me. Maybe he's just trying to pretend like I didn't say what I actually said, like I didn't challenge him.

I pause my work and look up at him now that he has paused his reading to look up at me, and I repeat my stance loud and clear so that there is no confusion about how I feel. "I said that everyone in the country could get HIV and that labeling it a gay plague is only going to increase the chances that everyone will die unnoticed along with the gay victims."

My boss snickers like an immature middle schooler. "What, are you a queer, too?"

I am cognizant that this is supposed to be a jab at me, but it brings up something that I haven't ever really considered before now. Yes, I attend the meetings for a disease that is still mainly a gay plague, despite what I just said about it affecting everyone in contact with certain bodily fluids, but I have never called myself gay or bisexual or anything of the sort, though I haven't even called myself straight, either. If my boss had asked me this question a few months ago, I would have quickly responded in the negative, but now I'm not so sure. It used to be so easy for me to reply, because I didn't have any friends with whom I was close enough to form a romantic bond, but now I do. I have Mac, Charlie, Elijah, Leo, and Juniper, and I'm feeling pretty close to the first name listed, maybe even close enough for that romantic bond, though I am not exactly sure what kind of connection Mac and I share. I might be attracted to Juniper, too, or any of the group members, for that matter. I am not familiar with what romance entails or how to recognize it. My belief is that I feel the closest to Mac, though, but I don't know what that means.

I hastily run through the symptoms I experience whenever I am around Mac or whenever I think of him, commencing two months ago when I first met him and reaching until now. Both types of contact fill me with an inexplicable feeling of warmth and excitement, as if a portion of his electric personality has been transferred to me temporarily. I make sure to attend every single meeting in order to see Mac, in order to not miss so much as a millisecond of him, and I never want to leave once I'm there, for every minute with him is incredibly and incomparably precious. I am captivated by his laugh and his smile and his soft, brown eyes and his women's jeans that go perfectly with his hips that are slightly more curved than the average. I love his mysterious leather jacket and his not so mysterious advocacy shirts. I cherish each and every quip compelling Juniper to sigh and wonder why she ever tolerates him, those smug expressions and those witty sentences. I like the bits of fire he places inside of me every time I see him riled up about the injustices of the world, his only goal to change it for the better. Everything about him reserves a place in my heart. It then strikes me that these are the kinds of things that I see on TV in people who are in love, so does that mean the same thing for me? Probably. So does that mean I'm gay? Probably again.

I've realized something -- two things, actually -- of great importance within an impressive matter of seconds, but I still have to lie to minimize the danger against me. The group members would all tell me to not be ashamed of who I am, to rub my homosexuality in homophobes' faces unapologetically, but they're all so comfortable with being gay, meanwhile I started to consider myself gay only a few moments ago.

"No, I'm not a queer," I murmur, and somehow I already feel dirty for lying.

"Good, because if you were, I might just have to kick you out of my diner right now," my boss informs me with a chuckle that I do not dare replicate because of the disgusting sentiment it holds.

I hate that I had to lie to him and that I was applauded for it, but this is how it is these days. At least I know in my heart that the real answer is a different one.

~~~~~

A/N: shit just got Realized™ 

~Da[n]k[memes]