GenerationOut

by H.A.T.C.H. Writers

I HAVE A DREAM

And Sometimes the Dream Is a Nightmare

Jeffrey*, age 17

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fabulous fairy forefathers were having problems in school. They were being harassed by the milkman, the paperboy, even the florist. They had no counselors to talk to who would listen and understand their problems without calling the Centers for Disease Control. They had no H.A.T.C.H. or other support group. Billy was being stoned while Angie and Lora were hauled off to jail for wearing jeans, all the while Rene was crying because he couldn’t visit his friend Jose—not because of racial matters, but because Rene was “special.” He wasn’t like other boys. Friends and family knew not the basis for him being different, but he was to be enslaved nonetheless. It’s times like these Rene and many others alike globally need support, need friends; need talks with friends, need shoulders of friends.

Fortunately for the youth of today, we have a shoulder. We have support. We have understanding counselors at our schools. Our families aren’t all torn. Our walk to and from school isn’t a life-or-death situation anymore. The sun is peeking from the midst of the clouds. The weatherman says we’ll be seeing that condition for a while. But answer me this, reader. How often do you stay inside when he predicts rain? How many times have you canceled a hair appointment due to clouds? When’s the last time you’ve hesitated before vacationing after 9/11? Don’t worry about pulling out your journal and Palm Pilot. Even I can say it’s been a while. And do you know what that says to me? That says that it’s about time to pull out those shades, because from here the future’s looking bright, my friend. The future’s looking bright.

Justin, age 19

We have failed to hold these truths self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and that among those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We failed when we limited the term men to rich, white, able-bodied landowners with penises, shaming all who did not fit their description. We failed again when we thought that rights were inalienable. The right to life has been done away with. JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Matthew Shepherd, Brandon Tina—their right to life was protested and successfully revoked. The right to liberty was cute but unfit for our society. The liberty to associate with whom you chose was destroyed with segregation; its effect is still seen today. Shoot me dead if I take the liberty to love and wed he with whom I want to spend the rest of my life, for I am a man. As for the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of happiness was stabbed and left for dead in a school locker. Faggot! Queer! Spic! Jew! Nigger! These are just a few of the words jammed into the pursuit of happiness. It’s time we rewrite, it’s time we amend our society, the very intentions by which we live. We the people are responsible. We the people will hold these truths to be self-evident.

Andy, age 18

I have a nightmare in which I walk down a darkened alleyway fiendishly eyeing male prospects ready and willing for a buyer. In sweaty perspiration I dream of a dark hidden place where life is sought after in sparks of momentary exhilaration stricken by dollar bills. In this concrete grove our names cease to exist and newly acquainted faces fade before the moment ends. In this hellish dream people walk lethargically through the day but avenge their infertility in the night.

I have a nightmare in which my friends wear expensive clothes and play cards marked on both sides—one side with the word vitality and the other with choice phrases such as whatever makes you happy, never taking criticism, or retaining a job. These cards are all jokers because they lost the real deck before we met. In this nightmare my hands are like putty, and I can’t draw from any of the discarded piles of knowledge before me. But my fearful paralysis is quickly forgotten because now we’re drinking down yet another martini. My friends whisper to me their secrets to success, their words dipped in acid. After I swallow their delinquent cocktail, my mind swirls down into pathetic compliance.

I have a nightmare in which daylight was replaced by a strobe light. In this nightmare we got to know each other’s body before we got to know one another. Instead of refining our speech, we refined our bodies. Instead of listening for a heartbeat, we danced to techno-no. In this nightmare we created a make-believe world in which we were all beautiful and powerful. We stayed in our make-believe world knowing neither night, nor day, nor time. In this nightmare when time made itself manifest in others with age, we turned them out so they wouldn’t disrupt our game.

I have a nightmare in which this dilapidated pleasure is the only vacancy in the world. Families are torn asunder by a fate of birth, and gods bring down their condemnation on us as we strive to get by. In the nightmare the erotic thrust in the dingy shadows turns into death throws, a drunken haze of cards becomes a twisted piece of Nirvana, and an enclosed dance club is our only outlet for freedom. Somehow our agony boils up in us as stupid laughter while the world looks on in disgust.

I have a nightmare that the generation of queer youth 20 years from now will live in the same world we do today.

Some of the young writers involved with H.A.T.C.H. now contribute a regular column to this magazine. The Houston Area Teen Coalition of Homosexuals phone number is 713/529-3590.

* Because of the age of the writers and the need many have for confidentiality, OutSmart will identify most H.A.T.C.H. contributors by first names only.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.