We joined an elephant tour and watched them pull and push huge logs, have a tug of war and dance (a hula!). Later we fed them expensive bananas, but declined a jaunt in a dirty, flimsy howdah; we stayed on the ground where nothing untoward could happen. While some in our group were riding and others buying “ivory” trinkets, we walked back toward the bus. Turning a corner of the arena, I bumped into the rear end of an immense elephant. The timing couldn’t have been worse. A raised tail and massive cavern with vibrating edges caught my sight for a never to be forgotten instant before all went black. A huge fart had exploded right in my face; the blast blowing my hat off and into a nearby pool of piss! Stunned, dazed. What to do? What else – I threw up. My partner was embarrassed. He was embarrassed? Excuse me! He and our guide, having escaped the fetid fumes of flatulence, were convulsed with unseemly hysteria. The beast’s “mahout” (age about 12) took action. He severely reprimanded the culprit by hitting his massive leg with that little stick with a hook saying in English for my benefit, “Bad effelant. Bad effelant.” Effelant evinced not a shred of remorse. With eyes stinging and half shut, I was led to the toilet for a clean-up; a humiliation I shall omit. I thanked the attendant there by graciously offering him my slowly sinking hat. He replied with a gesture of universal rudeness.
A stench of inhuman design saturated my clothes to the point I was voted off the bus to be driven back in a 3-wheeled tuk-tuk (Thai for “death car”). We have signed up for the snake farm next. I shudder already.
What were the clues?
When many of us came out to family and friends, we were surprised their response was “oh, we always thought so” or “we knew”. What had led them to that conclusion? Thinking back, the clues probably started with the Christmas or birthday gifts: the princess doll with the long hair, tiara and fabulous ball gown: as opposed to, the GI Joe uniform, the trucks and the football. When receiving these gender specific gifts, our pleasure or disappointment may have led our parents and others to begin wondering, “Hmmm. Could it be possible?” In school it didn’t pass unnoticed how subdued we were with those of our own sex, but we came to life and seemed to loved being with the opposite group. Add to that how much or how little attention we paid to clothes, sports and haircuts and that was another give-away. Major clues were the way we spoke and the words we used i.e. describing a frat house as “charming, yet with a masculine ambience” was a sure way of not being invited to the Toga Party. The gay jocks and feminine lesbians avoided these admittedly stereotypical situations, but for many of us passing as straight that was not possible. I was what I was; I undoubtedly left clues all around me for those who cared to notice and I’m sure many of you did too. Strangely, others sometimes came to understand us before we did ourselves. Gay/lesbian topics were forbidden and unmentionable then. We were left so naive we didn’t even have a name for our different feelings. How lucky is the new generation in an LGBT world unrecognizable to us seniors.
