Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [56]
Before Ed could get to his feet, Bobby turned and rushed into the bathroom, sobbing. Ed followed.
“Bobby, I’m sorry,” he began. Bobby brushed past him and rushed back into the girls’ bedroom. He smashed his fist into a mirror on the bedroom door, breaking the glass. Ed hurried to help. Bobby pulled away, his hand miraculously unscathed. In a voice choked with anguish, he cried, “All I ever wanted was to be like you!”
Ed surprised himself with his response: “That’s funny. I’ve wanted to be like you! You’ve got the good looks, the height, and all the girls think you’re really neat.” It was true: he envied Bobby’s physical stature and pretty-boy looks.
Bobby listened, probably in amazement, as all the energy of battle drained from them both. Bobby strode from the house. It was over.
Bobby had totally lost it, Ed observed. He was out of his head during the fight. Still, at the time Ed didn’t view their scuffle as particularly serious. Later he would realize that it had had nothing to do with them, that the volcano inside Bobby had been bubbling to the surface. He would understand, too, that when Bobby had said, “I want to be like you,” he had meant, “I want to be ordinary, not some freak.” When Bobby drove his fist into the mirror he was lashing out at the freak he saw reflected there.
In his most rational moments, Bobby knew he was tampering with a suicidal impulse. He spent hours analyzing his every mood swing and recording it in prose that vacillated between paranoid fantasy and exquisite clarity. In a stunning entry in October 1982, he articulated the Jekyll and Hyde logic that saw self-destruction as a way—perhaps the only way—to stamp out his evil (read gay) impulses:
I’ve got to be strong. It’s either that or I die, really die…. I’m really scared because I think I will die. I’m so weak. I don’t know what to do. No, I won’t die. I’ll live and try to learn from past mistakes. That’s all I can do. I’ve got to love myself. I’ve got to stop the self-destructive side of my brain. Half of me tries to destroy myself and the other half, which is stronger, tries to do something constructive with myself.
The evil force compels me to do self-destructive things to myself and those around me…. I’m determined to win over the evil…. I’ll kill the evil force within me. I will kill the evil force within me. I will stop you. You won’t win. Good will win. Evil will die. I will kill it. I will starve it to a painful death. I will cause it to suffer as it has caused me to suffer.
Through the fall of 1982, Bobby plotted to find a way to leave home. A wonderful summer visit with Jeanette in Portland had strengthened his determination. Jeanette had invited Bobby to come live with her and her partner, Tina [not her real name], who was about to purchase a house. But the thought of leaving the nest for the first time was frightening to Bobby despite his growing alienation.
He tried to sustain a tolerable existence. In October he resumed working at CalFrame. In addition, he was taking drama, swimming, and weight training at Diablo Valley, and hanging out with the Rocky Horror crowd and a new set of friends he had met through Blaine.
At a gender-bending party at Elaine’s home, which Bobby depicted in a guilt-ridden account as a wild orgy, Bobby experienced his first heterosexual kiss:
Kendall was supposed to be going with Alethia and vice versa. But he was busy with Michael, and I was busy with Alethia! We were just making out, but still! I’ve never been that bad before, and the worst part is that I knew exactly what I was doing. The whole night was soooo weird!…I feel especially wicked. Please God, forgive me. Why do I do it?
For Alethia, recalling the event years later, the party and, especially, the incident with Bobby were anything but wild, and far from a make-out session. The two of them were sitting on the couch, Bobby looking gorgeous in a white cashmere cable-knit sweater. To Alethia,