Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners

Orpheus in Texas

69 Saeed Jones Per­ haps I am being pre­ sump­ tu­ ous when I as­ sume that every gay man has a com­ pli­ cated re­ la­ tion­ ship with the idea of father­ hood. The word makes me look over my shoul­ der, ex­ pect­ ing my ­ father to be there, arms ­ crossed and wait­ ing for a good an­ swer. He’s prob­ ably smil­ ing, know­ ing ex­ actly how much it ir­ ri­ tates me: that in­ ap­ pro­ pri­ ately ­ bright grin. To bring ­ poetry and the no­ tion of in­ flu­ ence into the room sets a spark in me. While I write here, in this burn­ ing room, I want to tell you about my ­ father, the way his ab­ sence has ­ fathered my poems and why I think Or­ pheus might be to blame. The first song Or­ pheus ­ taught me was about re­ gret. I can­ not re­ mem­ ber the last time I saw my ­ father, only that—in the ­ months be­ fore his dis­ ap­ pear­ ance—I took to tell­ ing any­ one who would lis­ ten that he was no ­ longer my ­ father. He had dis­ ap­ pointed me too many times in my four­ teen years alive, I’d say. (Hours spent by the liv­ ing room win­ dow, my eyes ris­ ing to meet every pass­ ing car that was not his. His gift for walk­ ing into the room im­ me­ di­ ately after the ­ recital’s con­ clu­ sion, the­ school ­ play’s last line. I’m sorry I’m late. How were you?) And any­ way, he had re­ mar­ ried and ­ started a new fam­ ily. I would tell peo­ ple that the de­ ci­ sion was mine: I ­ didn’t want him to be my ­ father any­ more. Or­ pheus in Texas Saeed Jones 70 I can­ not re­ mem­ ber how peo­ ple re­ sponded to such a state­ ment. How fool­ ish I must have ­ looked in front of them: a pet­ u­ lant teen­ ager angry his ­ father was not meet­ ing his ex­ pec­ ta­ tions. That was the na­ ture of my con­ ver­ sa­ tions with and about him in the weeks be­ fore he went on a busi­ ness trip and did not re­ turn. Only in my­ thol­ ogy does there seem to exist such a per­ fect equi­ lib­ rium­ between an ­ ill-conceived ac­ tion and ap­ pro­ pri­ ate con­ se­ quence. ­ Arachne, far too proud of her work at the loom, is ­ turned into a spi­ der. ­ Acteon, the un­ for­ tu­ nate ­ hunter who hap­ pens upon Ar­ te­ mis bath­ ing in a ­ grotto, is ­ turned into a deer and at­ tacked by his own ­ hounds. A boy tells every­ one he knows that he does not want a ­ father any­ more and his ­ father dis­ ap­ pears. Here is what I do re­ mem­ ber: Late night, a phone call from my grand­ mother, the re­ ceiver ­ sticky in my ­ sweaty palm, re­ mem­ ber­ ing— even then—that he al­ ways had ­ sweaty palms, and lis­ ten­ ing but not under­ stand­ ing the words leav­ ing my ­ grandmother’s ­ fraught mouth. I did not know he had gone on a busi­ ness trip just be­ fore Thanks­ giv­ ing. All I knew was that he had not both­ ered to call me for my fif­ teenth birth­ day. “He ­ didn’t come back, Saeed. We’ve ­ called all the hos­ pi­ tals and filed a re­ port.” Guilt sharp­ ens the ­ senses, crys­ tal­ lizes every frag­ ment of the mo­ ment: the soles of my feet sink­ ing into car­ pet while I try to focus on each word, my ­ mother watch­ ing me (and not under­ stand­ ing yet) from the other side of the room, the way the phone fi­ nally slips from my­ sweat-slick hand, the fact that it is not rain­ ing out­ side but ­ should have been. I cried like a boy who knew ex­ actly what he was being pun­ ished for. In ­ retrospect, it feels a bit too ­ clever to say I ­ started writ­ ing poems­ around this time. And ­ though I am sus­ pi­ cious of the idea that a ­ writer’s life can be ex­ plained by one in­ ci­ dent, that phone call and the weeks that be­ came years of...