Although the program had not yet begun, they sat silently, staring straight ahead, leaving an empty chair between them whenever possible.
“This is weird,” Freddy whispered. “We just walked into a room ful of gay men and no one turned around to check us out.”
“They’re here to eschew that kind of behavior,” I reminded him.
Freddy stood up and raised his arms over his head. “Damn, I think I pul ed my shoulder out at the gym this morning,” he groaned. He stretched out, causing his T-shirt to ride up and reveal his flawless stomach and his biceps to bulge menacingly against the sleeves of his T-shirt. “Mmmm…” he moaned,
“that feels better.”
Every eye in the room turned to look at him. Eyes widened, jaws dropped. Lips were licked. Then, almost as one, the men, remembering why they were here, guiltily flushed red and turned away.
You could feel the defeat in the air.
Freddy grinned. “That’s better.”
Just then the overhead lights dimmed to total blackness. At the same time, a spotlight from behind us il uminated the stage. I could feel the floor vibrating a little before the music started to swel.
The song, incredibly, was “Sharp Dressed Man.”
“ZZ top?” Freddy asked.
“I think it’s like a theme song for straight guys,” I answered.
Just then, from where I don’t know, a tal, handsome man ran onto the stage. Michael Harrington, bursting with energy. Over the roar of the music he shouted, “You. Can. Change!” With each word, he pointed into the audience. “You. Can.
Change!” he shouted louder, stil turning and pointing. “You. Can. CHANGE!”
He pointed right in the direction of Freddy and me, but his expression didn’t alter. Good. He couldn’t see into the dark audience.
Gone was the reserved and dignified man I had met at the reading of his father’s wil. Michael was now in ful televangelist/motivational speaker mode, and it was a sight to behold.
Suddenly the music cut off. The room seemed quieter than silent, if such a thing was possible. The loudest noise was Michael’s heavy breathing. He stood stil for a moment. Then, in a whisper, he slowly extended his finger and swept it around the room, pointing to al of us at once.
“You… can… change,” he whispered theatrical y.
Another dramatic pause.
He pointed directly to a man in the front row. Stil whispering, he asked him, “Can you change?”
No answer.
“This is not a hypothetical question,” Michael’s deep voice began to rise again. “This is not a hypothetical life. This is the real thing, man!” He got right up in the guy’s face. “Can you CHANGE?”
The poor bastard in the front row wasn’t getting it.
“I hope so,” he squeaked.
“You hope so?” Michael thundered. “You hope so?
Hope is for church and for women! You are men!”
He pointed to someone else. “Can you change?” he bel owed.
“Yes,” the man said.
“Louder!”
“Yes!”
“Make me believe it!”
“Yes!”
“If you can’t make me believe you mean it, then how can you make yourself believe it?” Michael raged at him.
“YES!” the man screamed like a lunatic.
Michael threw his hands to the sky in a silent hal elujah. “That’s it! That’s the passion. You have to believe! You have the power! Al of you, together now: Can You Change?”
It was hard to tel in the darkened room, but I’d say about three quarters of the audience answered with various degrees of enthusiasm, including Freddy. I turned to look at him.
“I got caught up in the moment.” He shrugged. “I thought he was talking about changing my outfit.”
I scowled.
But the truth was, it was easy to get caught up in Michael Harrington’s moments.
Have you ever seen a TV infomercial that seemed to be too good to be true? Someone tel ing you that you could make ten thousand dol ars a week extra income with no investment of time or money? A pitchman extol ing the virtues of a vitamin that would turn back the clock and melt off the pounds? A motivational speaker promising you that his life management system can add hours to your day and years to your life?
And even though you knew-knew! — there was no way the product could meet those claims-were you ever tempted to pick up the phone and order?
Those spokespeople have their jobs for a reason.
There are some people who are just natural persuaders, people whose charisma and carriage and charm strike just the right chords to be convincing on even the most spurious claims.
Michael Harrington was one of those people.
Fantastical y attractive, deep-voiced with authority, he strode the stage like an athlete about to set a world record.
As he spoke on, it was hard not to get excited and believe. Some of what he told us was what anyone would want to hear. We “have the power.” We “are in charge.” We “control our destinies.”
Some of what he said were generalities that could apply to anyone, but when he looked into the audience, you felt he was looking into your soul. Your mother “loved you, but she couldn’t love you enough, and not in the right ways. You worshiped your father, but you feared him, because you were always afraid you couldn’t measure up. When you hit adolescence, you felt different from the other kids, apart from the other boys, frightened of the blossoming girls, awkward and alone.”
Wel, who didn’t feel awkward when they were growing hair in new places, erupting in acne and springing inopportune boners? But if you were looking for a cure, looking for someone who understood you and could lead you to a better place, Michael Harrington would be easy to fol ow.
Then, he spoke specifical y about homosexuality.
How gay men were stuck in a developmental stage,
“like a caterpil ar that never emerged from the cocoon.” That we needed to “break free, to spread our wings, to fly (that word again!)”. That any behavior can be changed through the right kind of conditioning and support.
At the end, he threw in references to a higher power. We were not fol owing Mother Nature’s plan.
We needed to get back to what the Lord had intended for us.
“I don’t get it,” Freddy whispered to me. “Is it God who’s in charge or Mother Nature?”
“I think they’re the same person,” I whispered back.
“Like in drag?” Freddy asked.
Throughout the message, Michael planted seeds of self-hatred and doubt. Weren’t we there because we knew we were on the incorrect path? Didn’t we always sense there was something wrong with us, something deep inside? Didn’t we want to live a life congruent with society’s values? Didn’t we want to make our parents proud of us?
“Wel you can!” Michael thundered. “You have the power! And so, I ask you one more time: Can You Change?”
This time the crowd roared. “Yes!” they cried with one voice. They clapped and shouted and whooped it up like Oprah’s audience being told they had al won brand new Buicks.
“OK,” Freddy whispered, “this is a bit much.”
“Ya think?”
Suddenly, the lights came on ful force. We blinked in the sudden bril iance. The room became sober again. “Just by coming here today, you’ve al taken the first step towards reclaiming your lives and your identities as men,”
