The Hell's Kitchen Story

"Tracy sets exceptionally high standards for herself, that's all... and other people aren't always quite apt to live up to them."

So says Mrs Lord in THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. This is one of my favourite plays, one of my favourite movies, some of my favourite fictional characters, most especially Tracy Samantha Lord--created by one of my most favourite actresses. That, though, has nothing to do with the reason I have tended, over the years, to set exceptionally high standards for myself. It is, simply, the way I am and not my attempt to emulate Tracy Lord.

No. This is not a story about Katharine Hepburn, THE PHILADELPHIA STORY or Tracy Samantha Lord. It is a story about standards.

I have, indeed, been accused (with almost the same sentence as quoted above) of setting standards that are too high....standards that others cannot possibly live up to, causing dismay and loss of friendships over the years. I have, indeed, been accused of expecting too much from the people in my life. For awhile, I protested. For awhile, I took umbrage with this--may I put quotes around this?--"criticism". For awhile, I apologized for setting the bar too high. I stopped, apologizing a few years ago when I realized that people shouldn't have to live life on anyone's terms but their own. I should not have to compromise my standards of behaviour, of etiquette, of decency, just because people are irritated by constantly having to meet them. I feel that I have met high standards in my personal relationships. I am generous and loving, I am honest and I am present. I have brought integrity to my friendships--I don't say these things to brag. I feel that if you ask the people in my life what it is like being friends with me, they will say that I an a stand up guy. I am not being immodest. I think that I am a good friend.

So why should I be friends with people who will not operate with my range of standards? Do I allow people in my life, people with energy that spills into my life, if I find out that they are lacking of integrity or character? I don't mean little things like..I don't know..just...little things that don't matter. I'm talking about the big things. People who lie. People who cheat and steal and people who commit crimes of deliberate cruelty. People who do not live by the standards of decency. As a man who wants to live as a person of integrity, can I allow that energy into my world, Pat's world, our world?

My heart has been broken. It is not a romantic heartbreak, though there is romance in the story..

There was a man. There was a boy. Well...he was a young man, a boy trying to become a man. There. That's what he was. He was boy trying to become a man. We met. We liked each other. We became friends; we became close friends and then we became a family. He was nearly twenty years younger than Pat and I, yet we spoke a language that was unique, in my opinion. He was the third person for whom Pat and I have searched for our family. In the past, we have (actively) searched for someone that could become our third. We have dated separately and we have dated as a couple. We have not had success at adding to our family. This was not a full success, either, because the boy was not one inclined to a romantic relationship with us and we were not looking to convert a straight. Simply put, we fell in love. We all fell in love without sexual attraction. Oh, he was attractive, physically. It would be easy to fall in love with him, physically; but I am not attracted to straight men and I am not attracted to the idea of conversion. Nevertheless, we all fell in love with each other as people and we fell in love with the idea of becoming a family. So, he asked to move into our home after his graduation from college. Pat and I discussed it and we said yes, for one year.

It would have so wonderful. Well... COULD have. But things change.

The details of our year together are not important. There was good. There was bad. There was never, ever, any sexual impropriety, though we were a tactile family. There were hugs and cuddles and lying on the sofa together watching movies. There was good.

There was bad.

I received warnings from people about befriending him. I chose to ignore them. It was a mistake.

He called us his dads. The first time he did it, it bothered me. The second, third, fourth, fifth time he called us his dads, introduced us to friends as his dads, it bothered me. I went to him and said "that is disrespectful to your father, who is still alive". He told me that he did not have a good relationship with his father, that he always wanted a DAD; now he had two. I accepted this and even began referring to him as my son. I introduced him to people as my son. When their faces dropped I would add...by adoption. It wasn't an official or legal adoption but it was an adoption. We all adopted each other. We loved him, so.

We loved him, so.

That warrants saying twice. After all, I introduced him as my son. He honoured me by deciding to call me dad. I didn't ask for it but I came to like it. But in as much as he wanted a father figure, I felt it was important for me to set a good example. I am far from perfect. I am selfish and I have a temper and, yes, I set exceptionally high standards for myself. I told him before he moved in that I was impossible, that I like things in my house where I want them and if they are moved I get angry. I told him that I liked things a certain way--my way--and if I didn't get them my way, I was vocal about it. Fill the Brita when you empty it. Don't make me clean up unsuccesful flushes. Don't break my things. Don't open a closed door without knocking. Don't answer your cellphone and sit in my living room, talking, while I am trying to watch SURVIVOR. These are silly little persnickety things that we all have--the rules of our daily life. We learn how to adapt and how to live with other people. That wasn't the problem. The disrespect I began to feel at having to, repeatedly, say "don't spray cologne in the house, it gives me a headache" DID become a problem. There were some other persnickety things that DID become a problem. Not problems big enough to end our relationship. His laziness bothered me but not enough to come between us. His vanity and arrogance reviled me but not enough to ruin our family. We all have flaws. I am not Tracy Samantha Lord. I am not rigid. I accept flaw and welcome change.

I do not accept dishonesty in my home.

There were lies. There were infidelities commited against his girlfriend and lies told to his girlfriend; and he began asking me to lie for him. Periodically, I lectured him about honesty and about respect. There were even times that I thought I might have gotten through to him. For a year, though, I listened to him disparage his girlfriend--and I listened to her disparage him; and I had to keep it all inside. She called me to check up on him and his whereabouts; he asked me to cover for him. All this drama--drama I begged him not to bring to my house--was his. It wasn't mine. I found ways to deal with it (mostly by staying in my room with the door closed; mostly by not being available when the drama cropped up). There was professional lies told to get jobs, to get out of jobs, to auditions. There were a lot of things that happened, upon which I frowned. They were forgivable because we loved him so.

There came a day when that changed. It didn't stop. I didn't stop loving him. I still love him. I do not, though, respect him.

During his final year at college, during the winter semester, the boy I proudly called son had been accused, by a teacher, of cheating on a midterm. The boy was called before a tribunal and threatened with disciplinary actions. He went before the tribunal with his parents (his real parents) and declared that the male teacher had fabricated this accusation after having his sexual advances rebuffed. The boy I called son had been the victim of sexual harrassment. Pat and I were outraged that our boy would be treated in this manner and we offered our full, unconditional support, as did the girlfriend and the boy's real parents. We all defended him and stood by him. He was, nevertheless, found guilty and made to take a failing grade in the class, do a make up assignment and was prohibited from performing in any school productions for the rest of his college career. We were all heartbroken and indignant. However, he finished out the school year and left that horrible place and came to live with us.

During the rocky year with us, his rocky relationship with his crisis junkie girlfriend (guilty of just about as many relationship crimes as he--not as many but just about as many) became rockier. She and I became friends and spent hours talking about the boy, about how much we loved him, about how much we wished he would change, stop telling lies and be the man we knew he could be. It was during those long talks that she told me.

He did cheat on the midterm. When caught, he filed false charges against a teacher, a homosexual, for sexual harrassment as some kind of defense. The teacher (like the student) was put under scrutiny; and even though the student was found to be in the wrong, the teacher must watch his step, every single day that he goes to work. That charge will always hang over his head. These facts all came, directly, from the girlfriend.

I am heartbroken.

The boy I introduced as my son..even told my mother that I considered him as a son..knowingly accused (falsely) a gay male of sexual harrassment.

At the end of our year together, we could barely speak to each other. I could barely look at him, let alone touch him. I could not look at or be near either of them. Eventually he left us earlier than his one-year move out date. They have moved uptown to the upper west side and he will have nothing to do with us. My Pat is heartbroken. He misses our son so much that I can actually see the pain he is in. I am heartbroken for losing this boy, heartbroken for Pat's pain and heartbroken for the loss of a beautiful family and a beautiful thing.

There came a day, several weeks after he left 2A, that I could hold my silence no more. During a heated phone conversation I told the boy that I knew. I told him that his lover had told me the truth and that, as a human being, I was appalled; but as a gay male, I was made physically ill by the news. He replied by telling me that he knew, in his heart, who he is and that he is a good person; and that he could not believe that I was going to let our bond, our relationship, our love for one another be so deeply affected by my socio-politcal reactions to one isolated incident. He didn't make even a veiled attempt at denying it. He so much as confirmed that the story I had been told was true and suggested that I dismiss his actions.

That was the final crack in the break. I was, absolutely, heartbroken and it was clean break, right down the middle.

He's gone now. Peace and happiness have been restored to my, to our home. It's like the experience of pregnancy that I have been told of: once the baby is here, you forget all the pain. He is gone and I don't really even remember what it was like to have him here. I rememeber that I was miserable much of the time; but I also remember incredible kindesses and great love. I do not, though, remember the actual feeling of having him here. Perhaps that is my way of healing. Sometimes, in the cool gray of the dawn, I think of him and I miss him and I wish to reach out; he has, though, made it clear that he wants nothing to do with us.

I think it is probably best this way. I will never be able to look at him the same way again, no matter how much I (still) love him.

I do miss the sensation of introducing him as my son. It always gave me pride. No father, birth or adoptive, could be proud of so vile an action. Perhaps there are fathers who can lower their personal bar, lower their standards, and accept an act so dishonest, so repugnant. As a human being I have difficulty with it, as a gay male, I am impervious regarding this matter. I need neither validation nor explanation. This is the way things are and the way I am. My standards of decency, of integrity, are intact. My standards are still impossibly high.

If you don't like them, you have my permission to call me Tracy Samantha Lord.

please note that I took the picture of Katharine Hepburn from The Philadelphia Story off of the internet. I do not know the photographer's name; for that I am sorry.