Chapter Text
Note to self: don't be gay in Cleveland.
Actually, that's a note for everybody else. I'm already gay in Cleveland, and it sucks.
I told the Internet before I told my parents -on my YouTube channel, MachineGunKelly. It's just me, my guitar, and covers of whatever's popular at the moment. People tend to leave more comments if I sing the songs they know, and I like that. I don't have too many friends, so those little digital gifts make me feel less alone in the world.
I'm not trying to get discovered or anything like that. That never works, and the idea of fame terrifies me. I already feel like everybody knows my business, and that's because they actually do know my business. One wrong move and it was everywhere.
So, this is what happened.
Picture this: the summer before sophomore year. I was mousy, with thick-rimmed glasses that gave me owl eyes. I'm at a youth-group picnic hosted by the church with branding and youth pastors with drum kits. That church really pissed off churches like Old Stone, Cove City, and all the other traditional places of worship packed into Cleveland, Ohio.
Naturally, this means all teenagers want to go there. High-level rebellion or whatever. No, Mom! I'm going to the cool church that'll let me wear jeans during the service! And naturally, this means that all the youth group invites that used to lead to punch and cake parties in dingy fellowship halls suddenly lead to big outdoor picnics. The food was still pretty unfortunate, but that's because it's still a church pitch-in.
That's how I end up with a plate of meatballs dipped in marinara sauce. I've heard too many horror stories about potato salad, macaroni salad, and any other salad that uses mayonnaise as glue. I've also read that baby carrots are just rejected regular carrots, but they're bleached and shaved down. Another fat no-no.
A Crock-Pot full of steaming hot meatballs doesn't exactly say summer fun, maybe in Sweden, but the contents seem safe. I loaded up on them, but now I'm trying to figure out how to eat them without making a mess. These things are impervious to plastic forks and knives, but that's all I have on hand.
There's a line at the food tables, and I don't care enough to cut through it to get a spoon. Also, I don't feel like drawing attention to myself with the excuse 'Oh, I just need a spoon!' Even extremely adorable people would get the side-eye for jumping ahead in the food line, and I'm only awkwardly cute at best.
Additionally, who eats meatballs with a spoon? Meatball Spooner wouldn't be the first name I've ever gotten called but at this moment, it feels like it would've been the worst.
Spoiler alert: it's not the worst, but I'll get to that later.
So I'm standing there, trying to shovel food into my face, and then he walks up. Shortly cropped, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He stops, and so do I. The entire world stops, and maybe even the universe stops; I can't explain the physics of it.
I can only explain the magic. At that moment, Marshall Mathers looks at me, then turns into a god. A brilliant, smart, funny god with chapstick that I suddenly want to taste.
I'm not surprised to find myself crushing on Marshall Mathers. I've always liked guys. Once, I was a teeny, baby prawn. In sixth grade, I was crazy into Percy Jackson from The Lightning Thief, and not because I wanted to be his friend. Now, I'm a regular, teen-sized prawn. I have impure thoughts about Johnny Depp, and I feel like an extra in Love, Simon.
But I am surprised when Marshall reaches past everybody at the dessert table and presents me with a giant skewer. With a quirked grin, he says, "It's the only damn thing that works around here." I'm not surprised that he's nice when his friends aren't around, but that he noticed me. That I'm somehow visible to the most beautiful man to ever breathe air. The surprises only keep coming, because he accidentally touches my hand, and then stands with me while I impale my meatballs.
He even lets me share one with him. RIGHT THERE AT THE CHURCH PICNIC.
On the lawn, people play cornhole -which is legitimately the name of a bag-tossing, target-hitting game. Christian rock blares from a speaker, courtesy of Pastor Paul's iPhone playlist. The sky is endlessly, perfectly blue. Marshall doesn't put his number in my phone.
That night, I recorded a Taylor Swift cover for MachineGunKelly. Everything inside of me was so fantastical and cotton candy, I told the world I was in love with a hot guy without a second thought. Without even the slightest hesitation. I uploaded, picked a thumbnail that looked semi-decent, and went to bed.
My mother was the one to wake me up. I'm sure that one day, this will be a hilarious story, but she shook me awake and shoved a printout of my Youtube page into my face. Then, she demanded, "What is this?!"
All I could was, "I don't know!" But that's because I didn't!
"We didn't raise you like this!" she yelled.
"Like what?" I asked because I was woken up from a deep sleep with a piece of paper crammed halfway down my throat.
My mother rose to her full -not all that impressive- height of 5'4. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Colson."
I didn't. They didn't raise me to...sing on the Internet? Post videos in the red shorts that my grandmother got me for Christmas? After a couple of seconds, the old brain kicked in. I posted a video filled with shameless, unfiltered heart-eyes for a guy that gave me a marshmallow skewer. And after I posted, somebody in town must've watched it and immediately informed my mother. She printed out my profile page like it was a recipe for Crunchy Macaroni and Cheese; there's no way that she found it on her own.
At that moment, I guess I was too stunned to be scared of my parents. Even though they were lifelong members of a church that hated gay people, but were too nice to say anything about it in public. I must've taken their silence for approval, which has historically been a bad policy position. I told the truth. "I just like him," I said.
"Well, you can just stop," she snapped as if I could cancel the gay like a Netflix subscription. "Not in this house, and not under my roof!"
If this were a heartwarming, Hallmark special, this would be the part where I'd say it was hard for a while. But eventually, my parents remembered that I was their precious child, and then loved me unconditionally. They joined PFLAG and began wearing embarrassing shirts to pride parades. I brought my boyfriend home, and by graduation, they had stopped calling him my "friend."
Sorry, but this isn't a Hallmark special.
They argued about it for weeks: either conversion camp or eviction. Ultimately, they let me take my guitar, my school stuff, and the clothes on my back before they kicked me out. All of my other clothes, my laptop, and the box of birthday cards I'd saved since I was seven years old... well, I heard they burned whatever they couldn't donate. What a couple of drama queens, right?
Now, I live with my grandmother, two blocks away from my parent's house. I'm the only uncloseted queer in my school, and everyone makes fun of me for it. Marshall especially.
It's a good thing that I still have my YouTube channel. It's aggressively ordinary, and I'm never going to go viral. I do have subscribers, and their responses feel like friends I've never had. Like-minded, queer friends. I need them. I need them so desperately, I treat it like Pokemon: I gotta catch them all.
There are places where it's in to be out, like New York or San Francisco. Imaginary places, in imaginary lands that are far, far away from here. But Ohio is not one of those places, so that's my advice to you: don't be gay in Cleveland if you can absolutely help it.
There's nothing here for you except heartbreak.