I’ve always thought that there existed someplace in the sky a special police force. I’ve referred to that agency as the “Cops In the Sky”. I’m confident they exist for the sole purpose of taking away my status as the best little boy and in so doing heaping their judgments on me and confining me in a prison greater than the prison that I’ve created for myself in this goofy tale of the “Cops In the Sky and the Best Little Boy.”
Let me tell you a tale, goofy though it may be…
When I was born my oldest brother was 22 and his first child was only months away from being born making me an uncle before I was a year old. My nephew Jerry was my best friend as well and together we joined the Cub Scouts and my brother was the Den Daddy. I'll never forget our first camping trip when we loaded our camping gear as well as that of several other boys in the back of my brother's DeSoto Suburban.
On the way to the mountains we were playing in the back of the car and I snagged off a tag from a sleeping bag I had borrowed for the camp-out. Just barely being able to read I was able to figure out the message on the tag which I was then holding in my hand which read, “Do not remove under penalty of law."
What's really goofy about this tale is that somehow at the age of seven I envisioned that there were cops-in-the-sky whose job it was to come after little boys like me who removed tags from sleeping bags in the back seats of family cars on the way to the mountains. My upset continued into the night and was the source of my not being able to fall asleep, confident if I didn't remain watchful the cops in the sky would come out of the forest of trees and take this seven year old away to some kind of prison for those who removed "do not remove" labels from sleeping bags!! Plus, how would I ever explain to the people my parents borrowed the bag from how such a good boy could have put them in possible jeopardy as well with the cops in the sky.
What is even goofier about this tale is that I was the little boy who never got in trouble! And, here I was, the one most likely to be arrested and taken away to prison before the dawn of my first overnight camp out! I still have reservation whenever I purchase a new pillow or blanket and remove the label, confident that someone's watching over me and an alarm someplace is going off! And this was happening to me, the little boy who was such a good boy, not to be confused with a goody-two-shoe. I felt like such a phony!
In addition to the incident with my sleeping bag my anxiety was compounded as a child hearing that Santa Claus always knew who was "naughty or nice" and that God knew all of our thoughts and actions, especially the naughty ones. I was doomed because some of my thoughts weren't always nice and certainly bordered on naughty especially when I fantasized about cowboys, and duos like The Lone Ranger and Tonto or Batman and Robin. How could I, the little boy who was always so good ever be found out for naughty thoughts like those!
Growing up as the youngest child of older parents created circumstances for me where I was required to spend a lot of time with my parent’s friends who were all older and whose kids were grown. By the time I was eleven or twelve I was already thinking I'd make a better older person than a kid! Typically, there were no other children around. I would need to sit and read or color or play with my toys in a corner until I went home with my parents. What I often heard was " Donny is the best little boy!"
I remember once hearing this comment just as I was removing the lid from a crystal candy dish in an adjoining room. I then heard the host commenting that "as the good little boy that I was I would only take a single piece of candy from the dish". How could the best little boy be thinking my thoughts at the time which were to load my pockets with the entire dish! I saw myself as a fraud. I was such a phony.
The more I lived with needing to be "the best little boy", the more I was conflicted by the judgments of me being phony. I soon realized that if others ever figured out how or even worse, who I was as a little boy who liked cowboys, I definitely would be taken away forever by the Cops in the Sky!!
Looking back I realize how formational these experiences were, especially when it came to my sexual orientation. How could "the best little boy" ever be a homosexual. I have lived confident that the Cops in the Sky knew and were watching every time I hurriedly pulled onto 13th avenue, merely having driven through Cheesman Park or when I would buy a men's magazine; expecting that the same alarm that went off when I pulled the tag from the sleeping bag as a seven year old was going off somewhere signaling I was about to get caught by the Cops in the Sky and it would all be over for the "best little boy." My reputation ruined. Cast away by any and everyone who ever had known the “Best Little Boy.”
In looking back on my life there is a continuing theme in terms of the tale of my life. The fear of being caught by the Cops in the Sky and then judged and condemned created a paranoia in me that hasn’t served me in the best of ways in terms of living in integrity with myself. Coupled with the notion of being "the best little boy" kept me in the closet far longer that I should have ever agreed to. After all, several of the family and friends I've come out to have said "I always knew you were gay", and not once have those legendary cops that existed in the Tale I created ever seemed to notice my actions. As well, life was intended to be lived and not restricted by living up to expectations like being the best little boy.
So you see, even though the Tale has been exposed, it has not lost its influence in this boy’s life. Just this morning when my shelf installer drilled through the wall for his anchoring screws, and a neighbor commented on the holes in the hallway, the best little resident went running to the manager to confess his error, not the error of the installer, confident that my status as “Best Resident" in my new condo was in jeopardy. Oh, the saga continues…
© 1 April 2013
About the Author
Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.
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