Daniel is 58 and lives in Virginia, United States. He describes himself as very blunt and warns me on what is about to come.
“I come from an abusive household. I do not remember most of it. The abuse led to broken bones. You see my father was a Southern Baptist minister. And I had to grow up listening in Church that all gays will burn in hell. However, if you ask my mother, my childhood was all happy and rainbows. I was raped when I was 13. Right after, I started taking self-defense classes. I started going to bars when I was 15. I still check if the stalls are occupied when I go to the bathroom, even now, here in this lobby. You know bathrooms are the only place where there are no cameras and people get assaulted. I would sometimes get this 'what are you looking at!' from some guys, but mostly from ugly straight men. They want you to want them, just so they can feel wanted. Women would try to flirt with me and touch me on my arms. You know those light touches. But I am the same as you (women), I do not like to be touched without my permission. I think they liked feeling sexy knowing it is not reciprocal and it would not amount to anything. Psychology is a strange thing.”
“My father had a very high IQ. He was even asked to take the Mensa exam. He did not. So, he expected me to do well in school and my grades were not good. I was diagnosed with dyslexia and OCD in 8th grade, back when they first started studying these. The school did not know what to do with us. I have difficulty with patterns and memorizing formulas for algebra. Even now, I cannot type without looking at the keyboard and I have taken 2 typing classes. In 11th grade, I was failing Intermediate English. I remember this lady came in one day to evaluate all the kids who have been diagnosed with something. And she saw I was reading Lord of the Rings. We ended up speaking for a long time as she was also a fantasy fan. She said she could not understand why I was failing English. I explained I could not do a sentence diagram (a visual representation of the sentence structure). So, they moved me to a more advanced Literature class and my grade went from a D to a B. You see, I did not have to do sentence diagrams anymore.”
“I was homeless for a bit at 21. My family wanted to move to a tiny town in the south and I wanted to stay here. This is my 28th home and I have been here for 8 years" -where he works at the reception desk-.
“I lost friends on both AIDS waves in the 1980’s. People still believe because I am gay, I have AIDS and it can be transmitted just by speaking to you. People don’t do their research." -A mother with two under 5 years old children approaches us about getting some new packages in the mail and he only acknowledges the mother while I make funny faces and a high pitch voice to both kids.- "Same with kids. I don’t do kids. There is this perception of gay men being pedophiles.” -But I feel the gay perception has improved in recent years.- “Well, it slips back and goes forward a bit, and so and so.”
“I have a genetic issue which has caused me to have 5 heart attacks already. I have a scar in my chest from a heart bypass (and traces a line through the middle). My heart stopped in the ambulance two times. Last time the doctor sent me 11 different prescriptions and I asked him if any of these, or diet and exercise would prevent me from having another stroke. The doctor just said he could only make sure I am the healthiest when another one comes. They have been 5 years apart so far.”
“After 4 days of breaking up with my longest relationship, I found out he has been cheating for the last 8 years. Oh no worries, I threatened to run him over with my car. And his side guy had another side guy so they also broke up. I also found out after 11 years, when we sold the house, that he had been taking the tax credits.”
“During 9/11 I was working at an office that overlooked the Pentagon. While we were watching on the TV how our New York office crumbled, we saw the airplane crash the Pentagon. I could not drive by the Pentagon for a long time after. Luckily my job disappeared a few months after and I got let go.”
“I have also had wonderful things happen.”
“I took voice lessons when I was 9 years old.” -Do you sing now?- “It has been a long time since I performed live. I love theatrical music. But I hate karaoke. I like strong female power voices like Netta, Christina Aguilera and Jessie J. I like Black Velvet by Alannah Myles, it’s a jazz and country mix. I worked in a Drag Show for a couple years until I realized I was not going to be star. At first, I looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna from Saturday Night Live. My second bedroom is where I keep all the outfits. My mother taught me how to sew. I even had a friend that did some dresses for Miss America. I also worked in a hair salon for 2 years. I have been through every hair color. Imagine a 170lb tall man with black hair and white skin (as he covers his neck). Once I had 3 different colors on which looked like my hair was on fire. I tried to cover it with mahogany but after I washed it, it turned purple. And it was right before PRIDE. I could not take another snow cone joke. I was also a makeup artist. There is this Swedish blonde thick woman in YouTube I like. She rates products and always lets you know if they were a gift or if she bought them. She uses a lot of different colors for her eye shadow and always has lashes on. If I could retire, I would move to Sweden. Everyone knows English there and are not as social on the streets.”
“I have around 600 books in my apartment and a few years ago I decided to go digital, so I have 300 more on my tablet. I have my rules. I only read books that are part of a longer series and no short books. I just finished one book that was 570 pages long over the weekend and the author says there is a second one coming up. I cannot seem to get rid of any, even the ones I did not like. In the last 10 years or so, you began to see books where the protagonist was gay. You did not see that before. I would get these books in a brown envelope (so you could not see through) with no ship-from address.”
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