Man pickles

The house was dark – pitch black – every particle of evening air sporting a teeny-tiny, North Face jacket. \nAfter tiptoeing inside, trying not to wake my parents, I meandered toward the kitchen. Famished after a night of drunken Catch Phrase, I stumbled to the fridge for a juicy, midnight pickle.\nBut just as I reached inside ...\n“Heyyyyy.”\n“TESTICLES!” I shouted, fumbling the jar. I swiveled around to see Aaron, my stepbrother, slumped on the couch. “Crap, man, you scared the sodomite out of me!”\nAs my pulse slowed, I opened the lid and began fishing for a dill – the salty waters stinging a recent Playgirl paper cut. \n“You know what,” he muttered, his voice sullen and blunt. “You’re lucky you’re gay.”\nI raised an eyebrow in confusion, arching it like a hairy boomerang.\n“Why do you say that?” I asked.\n“Because women suck.”\n“Trust me,” I said, snapping the girthy pickle in half. “Men suck too.”\nI understood his pain. Here Aaron was – beginning the break-up process I’d recently finished. \nIt hurt to see him like that – knowing the inevitable next stages. The anger. The Facebook stalking. The rebound. The text messages. The Kleenex. The new guy. The Facebook stalking. The heartache. \nHe looked broken. \nIt was such an unusual emotion from him – vulnerability. I have two stepbrothers in all, and a stepdad, all total “macho men.” Growing up, they taught me everything masculine. \nHow to fish. How to hunt. How to kill a bear with just your ball sack. \nIt was Aaron, in fact, who showed me my first porno, which we ended up accidentally dropping into our basement crawl space. We spent the entire next day trying to retrieve it, fashioning a device out of duct tape and vacuum attachments. \nIt was during times like this – marveling their technological ingenuity, vigor and virility – that I learned how to become a man. \nThere’s a stereotype passed around between most gays – and women – that straight men don’t have emotion. It’s joked that they don’t experience love and compassion, or, frankly, acceptance of gay relationships. \nThis infuriates me. When I told my stepdad that I was gay – during the Colts’ halftime no less – he gave me a hug and said I was more of a man than anyone he had ever met. \n“And if anyone ever does anything to you,” he said, “I will hunt them down with my crossbow.”\nWhat unites all men – gay, straight, blue, mauve – is ultimately love, whether present in darkened closets or darkened living rooms. \nThe same brand of cloaked sensitivity resides in Aaron – which is why I sat down, turned on the light and gave him my support. \n“Want a Vlasic?” I asked. \n“No thanks.”\n“How about a drink?”\n“God yes,” he said. “I need a stiff one.”\n“You and me both, dude,” I said, smiling. “You and me both.”