"Daddy, what does ‘gay’ mean?"

My father blushed, a reaction I wasn’t used to from a
man who nothing can really shock. This was a man who had
stepped in a dead man’s brains accidentally and laughed
about it five minutes later. This was the man who was given
all the nut cases who came into the newspaper office where
he worked as a reporter because of his patience and sense of
humor; he would listen to their JFK assassination conspiracy
ideas and ideas about the waves and radiation with a
perfectly straight face. Nothing made my father blush.
Except that day when I was five, the day I asked my father
what the word gay meant.

"Well...," he started. "We’ll talk about it when we get
home, okay?" We were in the supermarket shopping for dinner.
The reason that I asked him that day was that I had heard
him talking about gay people today and I didn’t know what
that meant. Like a good five year old, I was exploring
language, trying to expand my understanding of the world.

I looked at my brother. He was two and a half years
older. He was supposed to know this stuff already. When I
looked at him, my eyebrows raised questioningly, he only
shrugged—"I don’t know."

As we got back into the car, I asked again. "What does
‘gay’ mean?"

"Didn’t I say I’d tell you when we get home?," my dad
asked.

"Yeah, but I thought you could tell us now. I thought
you didn’t want to say anything in the store with other
people around. Can’t you tell us on the ride back?"

"I guess so," my dad said as he started the car.

I was in the back seat of the VW Beetle sitting next to
the paper bags filled with groceries as my father began to
explain. My brother sat in the front seat next to my dad,
the place where older brothers are supposed to sit.

"You remember how babies are made, right?," my father
began. This had been the subject of a conversation we three
men had a couple of months before. Because my brother was
older, he asked the hard questions before I ever knew to ask
them. I loved hearing about the birds and the bees from my
dad. It had seemed mysterious and magical, like the young
chemist’s set I had received for Christmas the previous
year. Add ingredients to get this wonderful chemical
reaction and this wonderful product called a baby.

"We remember," my brother said. Even though I had asked
the question this time, my brother was still very interested
in the answer.

"And you remember that when a man and a woman love each
other very much, they have sex and then a baby is
created?"

"Because the man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina,
right?," I said far too enthusiastically. I enjoyed the
sounds of the words—very scientific and adult and important.
And silly. Penis. Vagina. I wanted to giggle but I knew
adults didn’t giggle.

"That’s right," my dad continued. "Well sometimes, a man
and a man love each other very much. Or a woman and a woman.
And if they love each other enough, they may have sex with
each other. That’s what being gay is."

My brother and I were very quiet—silent, in fact—taking
it all in. This was something neither one of us could have
imagined before. A man and a man, having sex? Or a woman and
a woman? It seemed kinda crazy but not bad crazy. It seemed
different, strange, but a strange that could be good. My
brother and I sat there, trying to imagine men having sex
together.

"So where does a man put his penis when he’s having sex
with another man?," my brother asked. "I mean, he couldn’t
put his penis in the other guy’s penis, could he?"

I got an image of exactly that: one penis’ small urethra
opening to take in a second penis. I did start giggle this
time because it was so absurdly funny. My brother twisted
around and slugged me in my arm, saying "Shut up!" because
he thought I was laughing at him. I stopped giggling as I
cried, "Ow!" but I kept smiling, that image still in my
head.

"That’s a good question," my dad said to my brother.
Looking back, I don’t know how my dad managed to respond so
calmly to all the questions we had that day. Once he was
over the initial embarrassment of the moment, he seemed to
revel in it. "There are other things two people can do when
having sex."

"Like what?," my brother asked.

"Like putting your mouth around someone’s penis," my dad
said. "Or putting your penis in someone’s butthole."

"Their butthole?," my brother asked, incredulous. This
image was too much for me. I was giggling again furiously,
so hard this time that I grabbed my belly and accidentally
rolled over on the bags of groceries, crunching the pasta
under my shoulders. This made it even funnier; I giggled
harder.

"There are some people who like that," my dad said. "Not
everyone likes the same thing. Like you like tuna but Peter
doesn’t. Different people like different things. Sexually,
too."

"Oh," was all my brother could say. I imagine he was
thinking of the discomfort of having something up his
butt.

"Cliff and Jim—your godfathers, Peter," my dad said.
"They’re gay."

My giggling had died down. I sat up again and leaned
forward so I could hear better.

"Really?," I asked.

"Yep," my dad said. "They’ve been together almost 10
years now."

It made sudden and obvious sense why they lived
together. In my mind, the obvious analogy was made: Cliff
and Jim were married.

"So can they have kids?," I asked.

"They can’t make a baby together, if that’s what you
mean," my dad said. "But they could adopt a baby or one of
them could have sex with a woman and have a child. You need
one penis and one vagina to make a baby. Gay men have two
penises; lesbians have two vaginas. So they have to do
different things to have children."

"Is a lesbian a gay woman," my brother asked. In the
back seat, I quietly tried out the word in my mouth:
"lesbian." I made another little giggle. "Lesbian, lesbian,
lesbian."

"Yes, very good," my dad said, more to Graham than to
me. "Peter’s godmothers—Bess and Judy—are lesbians."

"So Cliff and Jim and Bess and Judy are all gay?," I
asked. My godparents were some of my favorite adults. They
treated me well and talked to me like and adult. I admired
them more than many of my blood relatives.

"Yes," my dad said. "Cliff and Bess were very good
friends with me and Mommy when we first met. Then they met
Jim and Judy. So now they’re all your godparents."

"That’s no fair," Graham said. "I only have two
godparents."

"Your godparents are very special," my dad said to
Graham. "Just because you only have two doesn’t make them
any less important."

"I want gay godparents," my brother muttered so that I
could hear but my dad couldn’t.

The Beetle pulled into our driveway. We all helped carry
the groceries in. My mom met us in the kitchen.

"How was the trip to the store?," she said to no one in
particular.

"Great," I said. "We learned what ‘gay’ meant."

My mom seemed a little surprised but only nodded her
head. "Good. Good."

We unpacked groceries. Graham and I played catch out in
the street. The day went on.