A sixteen year old neighbor, who lived on the top floor of the Brooklyn tenement building my family and I lived in, was taking a bath one day when my mother, younger sister and I stopped by for a visit. As was customary in those times, children were to be seen and not heard. Mom had instructed my sister and I to go into the bedrooms and play while she gathered in the kitchen with the other ladies who had already come together for coffee and neighborhood gossip. I remember how the women sat around the kitchen table sipping coffee, talking in loud voices and laughing at who knows what. The hens were loud enjoying each others company.
My sister who was three at the time went into one of the bedrooms where some girls had gathered to play with dolls. Me being a boy who had already learned that playing with dolls was absolutely forbidden stuck around in one of the adjacent bedrooms to wait for Luis Armando to finish his bath. We were the only males in the home. I stuck around and waited hoping he would let me play with the few toys he kept in his room.
Sigh. And thats when it happened. Luis Armando opened the bathroom door and summoned me to come into the bathroom. Never suspecting the terror that awaited me. I walked into his trap. No sooner had i entered the bathroom he grabbed me, laid me face down on the cold bathroom tiled floor and pulled my shorts and undies down to my ankles. He placed his hand over my mouth and introduced himself into me. My excruciatingly painful introduction to anal sex.
I remember the searing pain accompanied by the suffocating horror of his hand over my mouth. The muffled screams. The hot tears streaming down my face. His heavy frame pressing down on me threatening to break me. His hushed hot whispers telling me to be a good boy, to be quiet. To this day when I look back I am amazed at how I did not pass out right there and then. Sadly, I remained present for the whole ordeal feeling every brutal thrust going in and out of me until at last God saw fit to make the agony end. He shuddered and convulsed and finally lay still covering me in darkness.
His instructions were firm and clear as he pulled me off the wet floor and jumped back into the bathtub. "This never happened. If you tell anyone they will not believe you and will be angry with you. Pull up your shorts. Go quietly, like a good boy, and wait for me in my room". I did as I was told still covered in tears but deathly afraid to tell anyone what had just happened.
I carried this dark and shameful secret for many years. I never told a soul.
My molester found an obedient receptacle in me and continued to use me for his pleasure for several years after that first incident. I learned to take it. Grew up overnight capable of withstanding pain and hiding it for the sake of survival. I believed the lies fed to me that I had brought this hell upon myself and no one would or could save me from what became my new life.
Labeled and branded, other child molesters saw the signs and helped themselves in the process. It seemed wherever I went, someone was waiting to continue the process of defiling and rendering me worthless. a neighbor, two uncles, and a cousin; my captors and tormentors.
So when people try to convince me that "we" are born this way I know now that not to be the case in my life. I was made gay by the countless sexual and verbal abuse inflicted upon me. Verbal abuse from men and peers who would call me and tease me with such hateful words as "sissy", "faggot", "queer", "weak" and so on. They too did their part to cement into my psyche my present day identification and association with being Gay.
... And people wonder why, at times, I become a cauldron of seething volcanic anger. They dare judge me for ever wanting or even attempting to take my life into my own hands. Maybe now people will understand me better and not fault me for attempting suicide three times... for being fiercely mistrustful and independent in nature. For I have only myself and my God to count on when the darkness rolls in like a flood and the haunting memories, followed by the painful questions of "Why God, Why me? Where were you when I most needed you? Why...Why...Why? crash down on me and try to do me in.
I hope my painful and traumatic story may help someone out there who may be struggling with a similar situation. Believe me, take it from me, God is still good. He does care. He truly does and he alone is able to turn the very thing evil intended to destroy and undo us, to become the very thing that will become a blessing and strength.
As I write these words I am beginning to see greater and more meaningful purpose but more so I am entering into deeper levels of healing and revelation of god's love.
