It was a cold January day in Durham, the small cute little town in United States, very far away from the
glittering and amazing America that we were told about growing up. But somehow it is nice here, nice
and small and very country. Now let us not drift away from our story, I know you all are already
anticipating something more exciting than a story about a small American town from the title. We are
riding in a pretty old manual transmission car which is speeding to Raleigh with two of its passengers
seated in the front seat. And oh my my! it was over speeding as they are late for a show in Raleigh. And
just like the stories from fairy tale they reach the club they were headed to just before midnight, when
the show would start. In the hurry the guy at the gate of the club did not have the time to notice the age
difference between the two people rushing in, although there were few awfully young, smooth skinned
kids, who noticed this odd couple and made some obscene remarks. But well we can just ignore them.
Any way the show starts, and when I say a show do not be mislead by thinking it was something
refined like a piano recital. The couple was rushing to see a drag show!! Yes a drag, where a man dress
up like a woman and sings and dances and makes very inappropriate sexual comments. Somehow it is
very popular with the fags, but to be very honest it is not to my taste. But who am I to speak here, I just
tell you a story. So we get back to that room, filled with 20 something year olds, screaming and shouting
for the show to begin and at the corner stood our odd couple. The woman in the couple had no
understanding, or maybe she did not get a chance to clear her mind from the smoke and loud music,
about her where about. But she was as apprehensive as her partner, the 30 something guy. And then
with a boom it started, the huge, overly make up clad “woman” was on the stage, matching her lip with
a recent popular score and walking around the room collecting tips. She might have stop for a bit, may
be surprised, or may be for her tips, in front of our old lady. But the old lady was so much in shock that
she could not respond. Where was she, she thought in mind. And why would anyone bring her in a place
like this? Thousand such questions were storming her minds and she tried to look at her partner, but
somehow realized he was intentionally gazing away. Any way the evening, or shall we say the early
morning, kept unfolding, with very inappropriate questions about homosexual love making thrown
towards the audience by the “drag queen” and every time she went from vulgar to more vulgar
questions, the crowd somehow started to get more relaxed! To her it seemed it will never end, this
obscenity, and loudness, but as everything it ended, actually sooner than our 50 something old lady
thought. And she was glad as she could now talk to her friend.
So now there they were, with the guy holding a cup of water and the lady a glass of alcohol,
hoping to intoxicate the thousands of questions in her mind. The guy tried to pretend that he cannot
read the questions, knowing asking question is not her lady’s nature. But for the first time in his life he
wished she asked her the question that he could see in her eyes, but nope, nothing in this bloody world
works the way it should. So it was time he spoke the truth, the moment he always waited and dreaded,
but it was there. There was no going back from there, as he knew bringing her here to the drag show
would be the best and easy way to do it. But for a split of a second he still thought he would just say
that- oh I just wanted to show you a little different life of this amazing country, he so much wished he
could say that in a more convincing manner. But instead he said, “Ma, I like men”! just four words, the
moment they went out of his mouth he knew a burden has been shifted from him . And our old lady, the
mother of the not so young man there, for a moment she thought she misheard him. So she looked at
him silently, waiting for him to repeat. But he did not; he just let her realize that what she actually heard
was what he said. And oh boy! It was a real shifting of the burden, as she now did not know what to do,
and how to deal with this. And he on the other hand suddenly realized it was not as awful as he always
thought.
Thousands or more questions were running through her mind right at that moment, would my
son never get married, would I never see my grand kids I always longed for, how would I explain this to
the whatever left over “functional” family we have, what does he expect out of me now. She was for a
moment very angry, angry at him, angry at her life, angry at everything around. As if it was not enough
for her to have a bad marriage, a separation after 30 years of a bad marriage, a poorly satisfying job and
an amazingly scandalous love that she has been hiding from every one for last so many years now. And
the last thing, when crossed her mind was like an epiphany, she suddenly realized that this is her
moment of truth when she can shift a little bit of burden from her to him. And the first thing that she
said in reaction was, “son I am in love with another married man”.
