Write about being displaced from somewhere that once felt like home. Maybe it’s leaving a hometown or the loss of a sense of community. Maybe it’s a routine part of transitioning to adulthood or an earth-shattering forcible displacement. Your piece could focus on the aimless drifting after loss or the discovery of a new home.
“Hooters?!”
Mom sounded embarrassed. I, for one, was mortified. I was sitting - silent - in the passenger’s seat, and Dad was driving the two of us from somewhere to somewhere else. must’ve been time to eat.
Mom worked as a secretary for Dad’s small business. For most of my growing up years (and also my adult years), their business was just the two of them. Occasionally they had a third employee who’d help out with the filing and the scheduling while Mom did the accounting and Dad did the selling.
He was in sales, my dad. A manufacturer’s rep sales engineer who sold things like seismic coils and joints and things for big commercial HVAC jobs. Work/life balance was never really on his radar, so a lot of times Mom had to do some secretary-ing long after she’d left the office some days. This was one of them.
There were a lot of things that Dad, who had held a job that supported his family since he was 12 years old, did for himself. Then there were those things that Dad didn’t do for himself but really should’ve. Calling Hooters to find out how late they’d be open was very much one of those things, and Mom’s reaction on the phone should’ve been his first clue.
“Yeah, could you call them and see if they’re open? I thought I me and Matt could go there to eat.”
“Well…okay,” she said. The call ended.
I couldn’t say what I would’ve wanted to say, had I even known the words I would’ve wanted to use. But I didn’t know them. I didn’t have the words. The words wouldn’t have helped at this point. Dad stopped listening months ago. He was always more of a talker than a listener. But the day he found out I was gay, well, pretty much anything I said after that he couldn’t hear. So that day, in the car, I stayed quiet, embarrassed and ridiculed, and looked out the window wishing and wanting someone or something somewhere to beam me the fuck up and get me out of that car, that conversation, that situation, that life.
Hooters. Hooters and heteronormativity were the solution, in his mind, to the choice I made to be gay. Because that’s how it works, you know. You choose to be gay.
You wake up one day at 16 years old. The beeping alarm clock hurts your ears, and turning on the lights hurts your eyes. You shower and dry off, but you forget to put on deodorant. Your hair is messy. It’ll be messy for the whole day.
You wait at the bus stop and then get on the school bus when it comes. You sit down and a few rows ahead of you there’s the red-haired bully who calls you “faggot” every day. You have headphones on and pretend you don’t hear him. You’re self conscious about breathing too loudly. You’re self conscious about your hair. Maybe you should’ve combed it. Maybe you should’ve worn a hat. You’re self conscious about your sweat and realize you forgot to put on deodorant.
You get to school, go to your locker, and get to study hall right as the bell rings. You open your trapper keeper and decide to be gay. Yup. That’s how it works.
Except that isn’t how it works. That’s never how it worked. And taking your kid to Hooters, for the record, doesn’t somehow encourage him to close his trapper keeper and decide to be not gay. The only thing it does is feed your kid’s self-hatred and shame. The only thing it does is embarrass him. The only thing it does is make him feel like home isn’t a place where he can be himself. Not a place where he can feel loved and accepted. Not a place he’ll thrive. Not until he leaves it for good, anyway.
My dad’s birthday is this month. We’ve come a long way since the day he called Mom and asked if Hooters was open. We’ve argued, vacationed, dined, laughed, cried, and supported each other through a lot of change. And I’m grateful for all of it. But even still, when I say I’m going home, I’m not talking about my parents’ house. I’m talking about my own. And in my house, we don’t have hooters. Thank god, we don’t have hooters.
