Life Gets Better, Chapter 2

Doctor Liston meets Adrian

I met Mr. and Mrs. Peralta in the county emergency waiting room late one Friday evening. They seemed to be typical self-accusing, guilt ridden parents who were blaming themselves for not having properly protected their only son. Like many parents who had just learned their sons were gay, and had tried to commit suicide as a way of dealing with that fact, they were ready to do anything and everything to help their only son regain his desire to live the life they had planned for him.

I introduced myself as Dr. Harold Liston, MD. I spoke softly, explaining that even though I was a psychiatrist I had lost my own son to suicide for the very same reason their son had just tried to take his life. And so, I had dedicated my life to keeping other people’s sons from following in my son’s footsteps. I liked both Adrien and Sarah right from the start. They seemed like wholesome open-minded parents who truly wanted only the very best for their son, regardless of his sexual orientation, and so I felt good about taking their son on as a patient even before I met him.

Mr. and Mrs. Peralta were both handsome people, so I don’t know why I was picturing Adrien as a skinny bookwormish boy. As the Emergency staff was performing a CT Scan of Adrian’s neck when I was there, I didn’t actually get to meet him until he had been transferred by ambulance from county psychiatric to my small private hospital. I don’t think Adrian had any one trait that made him so attractive, but when I finally met him, I found him to be an extremely handsome boy, the kind of boy I desperately wanted to help. As it turned out, Adrien was skinny, but only in all of the right places, while at the same time he was rather muscular in all of the other right places. And to top him off, I felt his facial structure displayed a masculine beauty that wasn’t found in many other men or boys.

The ambulance attendants delivered him to my office just after noon that next day while he was clothed only in a hospital gown. As soon as I introduced myself, he asked, “Are you going to try to make me pray the gay away?”

“No,” I said, “That isn’t what we do here. This just isn’t that kind of facility, and I’m not even a religious man. But I am here to help you.”

Then while looking in my eyes, Adrian asked, “Are you gay?”

I wanted to say no, but instead I said, “Well, the truth is I think we are all a little gay when we’re totally honest with ourselves. Don‘t you think that’s true?”

Adrien just looked at me, and then asked, “When do I get my clothes back?”

“Just as soon as I’m confident you won’t try to run away. First of all, you need to understand that the only reason you’re here is because your parents are very worried about you. You gave them quite a scare last night, so I’m wondering how you feel about what happened last night?”

“I don’t know.” He said, “Scared I guess.”

“Scared of what?” I asked.

“Scared of being outed at school. I don’t think I can ever go back there.”

“I see, and why is that?”

“Because a guy whom I thought was my friend accidently saw one of my magazines, and then he called me a faggot, and threatened to hurt me if he ever caught me looking at him.”

While looking into Adrian’s handsome face, I said, “Then I’m glad you’re here. First of all, you don’t have to worry about anyone hurting you here. And secondly, you’ll learn here that being gay isn’t something you need to be ashamed of, and the quicker you learn that, the quicker I can let you go home.”

I then looked to my desktop computer and clicked on our room assignment chart. There I saw that our only vacancy was bed 2 in room 8. Bed 1 was taken by Lawrence Mc Kay, a very soft-spoken boy who had been severely beaten down by his religious father. He was a boy who seemed so fragile that I was afraid to pair him with any strong-willed person, even if that person was as gay as he was. Unfortunately, I had no choice, so I said, “I’m going to assign you to room 8 where you will have Lawrence Mc Kay as your roommate.”

Adrian’s eyes widened as he said, “But I don’t want a roommate. My parents have money so they’ll pay for me to have a private room.”

“Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m afraid that isn’t how things work here. If you don’t want a roommate, you can have your parents transfer you back over to county for the remainder of your 72 hour hold. Otherwise, I expect you to be nice to Lawrence. In fact, I expect you to help him any way you can.”

While looking almost angry, Adrian asked, “Isn’t that your job?”

“Yes it is. But the way I see it, it’s also every other decent person’s job, and I expect you to be one of those decent people.”

Adrian suddenly looked ashamed, to the point that I wanted to reach out and hug him.