In which my uncle is the best de facto parent of a queer kid ever
Itâs Pride, and also the first anniversary of my uncleâs death, so I want to type up a story about him. (NB: my aunt, his wife, is equally cool, but sheâd want this story to be about him too.) So here goes.
I skipped town when I was 16. Nothing interesting about that part; just standard queer kid in a conservative place in the 1990s stuff. Iâd just gotten my driverâs license (this took a while; Iâm good at other things), it was the beginning of summer break, and my parents had recently bought a new car and were planning to fix up their old one to sell. In the meantime, the old car (whom Iâd named Harold Godwinson because one of his headlights kept exploding) was sitting all by himself in a corner of the driveway, and I thought he might be down for a little adventure. So, one night, I threw some stuff in my backpack (documents, journals, a few changes of clothes, my $235 in babysitting cash) and snuck out after everyone else in the house had gone to sleep.
Harold Godwinson and I hit the highway. The thing about him was that he started shaking violently at speeds over 57 mph, but in fairness so did I â Iâd driven on the interstate in driverâs ed, but, like, twice, and for 5 minutes at a time instead of several consecutive hours â so we made a good pair. We were lucky enough (seriously: I cannot stress enough how lucky we were in this) to have a destination in mind, and we reached it just as the sun was coming up.
My uncle was in the kitchen making breakfast for my aunt, whoâs not a morning person, and he did not look surprised at all to see me coming up the path with my luggage. He met me at the door and said, âWell, hey there babygirl, we were just thinking you might want to come and stay with us for a while, and Iâm so glad you read our minds.â I ate my auntâs breakfast and then faceplanted in the attic bedroom while he called my parents to tell them where I was and that Iâd be staying. (I could hear the yelling even through the adrenaline crash; I think thatâs the only time I ever heard my uncle yell and, believe me, I did a LOT of dumb shit in front of him over the years.)
The next week my uncle and I went out to run an errand. Iâd thought we were just going to the hardware store â we were forever putting up shelves together â but instead we drove 45 minutes to the stateâs only âalternativeâ (plausible-deniability term for âgay and lesbianâ) bookstore. He walked me inside, poked his head into every room while I watched, confused, from the entrance hall, and then came back over. âOkay, babygirl. Hereâs a twenty, you should, uhhhhhh, buy yourself some, uhhhhhh, alternative books. Back in one hour, I gotta go to the grocery.â At this point he looked around and realized that the cashier (who, I was about to learn, was permanently cosplaying Mo from Dykes to Watch Out For) and a nice middle-aged lesbian couple were trying very hard not to stare at him. He bowed slightly toward them, said âLadies,â and then backed out the door in what might have been the most awkward little shuffle ever.
âYour dad is really sweet,â said the cashier. I didnât bother correcting her.
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