  I remember wanting to learn how to play chess. I remember wanting to be really good at it. I'm not sure why. It has that elusive quality to it, doesn't it? It gives the impression that if you're good at chess, you're good at other things. It's a game that insinuates the need to use more of your faculties than, say....jacks (remember jacks? that game with the ball and those strange metal-mixed, small, multi-pointed things you picked up off of the floor between bounces of the ball? What happened to that? What happened to that game? Do people even play that anymore? ) My brother, Chris (the gay one), taught me how to play chess.
Of course he did. There was no one else. If something different and exciting drifted into my world, it was because my brother enticed it there. When I was growing up, there was something different about him. Oh, it wasn't how you probably think it was. He wasn't effeminate. He's quite butch, actually (to use the native lingo). He's more manly, more responsible and more sturdy than most men I know.
He's the one that will take charge when things go wrong. To put it in perspective - He's the one that escorted my mother down the aisle when our uncle, her brother, died and we attended his funeral. My father and other brother (the "real" men of the family) were huddled in the back, as far as possible from the casket. I don't think they knew how to nor wanted to try to comfort my mother. I've often said that if I have any sense of decency, I've inherited it from my mother.
I inherited my love of laughter, my facial expressions and sense of humor from my father. But, I owe my salvation to my brother. To my brother and his homosexuality. Have you ever noticed that a person's gifts may open doors, but it's often their flaws, their adversities that dictate which door they enter? There's never been anything particularly "special" about my brother to anyone outside of the family. He can't play guitar like the 2nd coming of Jimi Hendrix. He never excelled at sports. He's not a writer or an artist.
He's not rich or a savvy businessman. He's not saintly. He's not the devil. He's an average guy. Had he not been gay, he would've finished school, gone to Odessa college, gotten a good job, married a girl from town and had a couple of kids. Had he not been gay, everything would've been different. For all of us. First of all, no one's life would've been disrupted. My mother's heart wouldn't have been broken. My father wouldn't have been mortified. All of our lives would've been okay (or whatever passes as "okay").
Ahhhh, but he was gay and, as a result, as early as 6th grade, he affected my life in a way that I wouldn't see for a long time to come. He affected me, my life, and the lives of everyone around him for the better. He widened, slashed open, our little, destined for Odessa cliche, world. And, everytime I look out at the river in Austin from one of the bridges that crosses it, I think on the influences that have brought me here.
The first time I saw Austin was when I was 16 and visiting my gay brother while he attended UT having run away, too ashamed to stay in his home town. Before that trek, I'd have gotten a hard-on at the mention of Pecos, I never went anywhere. I remember breathing in the Austin air, looking out on the river, and, for the first time, becoming fully aware of a world outside the one I knew. Maybe it's the river (if I may have a Twainian moment) that brings home that feeling of connectivity. Whatever it is, I felt it that day and I feel it now. 
