Jonathan

My old friend Norman, the high school teacher, was a queer kinda guy.

I don’t mean he was queer, mind you. Norman had a wife, a couple of kids and at least two women he partied with on the side.

But he certainly had some odd ideas and one of them did make a few people wonder whether he might, after all, swing both ways.

Norman taught English in an all-boys school and it was pretty obvious - not least to the students - that you got good marks in his class if you were a good-looking stud.

Once I asked him why the most handsome boys always did best in his class.

“It’s like this, Dan”, he replied.

“I’m training those kids for Life” - and the way he said it left me in no doubt that Norman was referring to Life with a capital “L”.

“You see, good lookers and people with a bit of charisma about them are always popular and will always get on, while ordinary-looking people have to struggle for their success.

“It may not be fair, but that’s just how it is. And, if that’s how it’s going to be for them in the big wide world, then I figure I might as well start getting them used to the idea at school.”

Well, I guess the living embodiment of Norman’s philosophy was my nephew Jonathan.

Even when he was a small kid Jonathan had something - and lots of it - that made him stand out from the crowd.

Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing overtly sexual about his appeal at that age. But he was a cute kid who always had a cheeky grin and a twinkle in his eyes, who was game for anything and who you’d forgive anything too.

I discovered Jonathan was gay when he was 18. His parents were cool about it but had thought it best not to make too much of it until then. Now, though, they were at a loss in giving him advice so they called on me to do the job for them.

Like the rest of the family, Jonathan had always known that I was gay so when he turned up at my apartment one night there was no embarrassing silence or beating around the bush.

“So, Uncle Dan, tell me all about it. Are you gonna take me to a gay bar, or what?”

As Jonathan sprawled back on a couple of cushions, he thrust his slender body forward eagerly and fixed me with his deep brown eyes.

“And tell me, Dan” - I noticed he’d dropped the “Uncle” now - “what are us guys actually supposed to do? I mean, I jerk off every day at home but there’s gotta be more to it than that, right?”

Jonathan’s charisma was switched right up to maximum intensity by now. Anyone, no matter what their orientation, would have to be made of stone not to be stirred by the vibes he was giving off.

And I realised that I, for one, was certainly not made of stone.