Kevin Allison's True Stories: Secrets Revealed
A comedy article
by Kevin Allison  809  5
09/04/2009 01:44 PM 3149 views
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I was in the first grade when I met my best friend Ben. This was while I was chatting with an imaginary friend named Henry. I changed only my best friend's name here. The other one doesn't mind.
We were at recess in a room with dinosaurs on the walls. If you do interiors, take it from me, dinosaurs are awesome. Anyway, Ben seemed friendly and funny. He looked like a little Paul McCartney. He asked about this fantasy friend of mine. I told him Henry was a singing piano. We both thought this was hilarious. And then we were the best of friends. By the end of recess, we ditched the piano. We started calling each other Henry. And back then, the name wasn't even trendy.
This went on through the seventh grade, the Henry and Henry thing. By that time, we'd started The Henry Club. There was a caste system to it. You could be a Three-Quarters Henry, a Snap-Crackle-Pop or a Pineapple. Are you getting how cool we were? Three-Quarters Henry was the most demeaning position, even though it was the highest rank under Henry. It was basically the way that Ben and I let our closest friend Dean know that although we were all best friends, the full-on Henrys were better.
Because before Dean came around, the Henrys had stayed up till dawn in Ben's basement inventing the game Boner Ball. It was basically hurling billiard balls at one another's craniums from either side of a pool table. Funny it never caught on. Then there was the time we set the forest on fire and convinced everyone we were the heroes who discovered it. We snuck into a neighbor's pool at night and left a burning turd floating on a Frisbee. We charged around the yard pretending to be Indiana Jones on horses. We listened to Jesus Christ Superstar together. We joined the boy's choir at school and went to choir camp in the summer. I've seen news reports about these camps in recent years and now know that if the Henrys hadn't been joined at the hip, we might have had priests up our cassocks.
Anyway, E.T. ruined everything.
Ben had seen this movie and said I just had to see it. I did. And my soul cracked open. Ever since I was in diapers, I knew I was attracted to boys but hadn't told a soul. By the age of 12, I was yearning for something more than just sex-I wanted a boyfriend. I felt totally alone about it.
Now, a lot of people forget the set-up to E.T., but the gist is this kid Elliot is lonely too. His greatest need is to find the 10-year-old's equivalent of a soul mate. I felt profoundly sorry for him -- and fell head over heels. Also, as an obsessive connoisseur of male beauty, I felt I looked a lot like E.T. In short, I felt so many more flavors of pain than the average schmo sitting in that cinema, I was a sobbing mess.
The next day I bought the novelization of E.T. It revealed the actual thoughts and feelings of Elliot! I was reading it when my family couldn't afford to go on a legit vacation, so we packed up, drove to the next state and stayed at a Holiday Inn. I was sitting by the hotel pool with the book when these feelings for Elliot so overwhelmed me, like flood waters risen up to my head, I just couldn't hold it back anymore.
"Okay," I whispered to myself in a deck chair. "I'm gay."
It was monumental. I was just 12, but I was thinking, Finally! It was like the scene where Huck Finn decides that even though the Bible says slavery is God's will, he simply can't turn his friend in -- the runaway slave, Jim. After a few pages of wrestling with it, Huck says to himself, "All right then, I'll go to Hell." Like Huck, I was relieved to have accepted myself, but I was a Christian, and was a little uneasy about an eternity of having hot pokers up my butt in a Lake of Fire. Because apparently, our ever-loving God has policies a lot like Dick Cheney's.
I needed to share this relief and worry and confusion with someone. And if this couldn't be shared between Henrys, where could it?
A few days later, we were swimming in the Wilferd's pool. This time in daylight and without fire-turds. I looked for an opening. None seemed to come. So I awkwardly worked it in, bringing up E.T.
"I think I had ... different feelings about the movie."
"Huh?" he said. "How so?"
"Well ... that kid. Elliot." I should have stopped while I was ahead. The energy between us was crackling with suspicion. But I floundered on. This was my best friend of seven years!
"I just felt ... something..."
"About...?" he said.
I really don't know why I didn't backtrack. I really just don't know.
"About..." I choked on getting it out, "Him."
There was an awful pause. I'd barely said a damn thing, but it was enough. Ben was looking at me like he never had before. Like I'd deliberately dropped a baby on its head.
"You're sick," he said. And then there was silence.
We awkwardly got out of the pool. It took a million years. The blood had drained from my face. We walked to his driveway. My legs felt like they might give out from under me. Then, finally, we half mumbled, "See ya."
And that was the end of the Henrys.
Do you have a "Secrets Revealed" story? Submit it as a ZUG Article and title it "Secrets Revealed: _____________." You might be invited to contribute to my upcoming podcast of dangerous stories, daringly told called RISK! The first season of RISK! will include Marc Maron, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, David Wain, Janeane Garofalo, Keith Powell, Rachel Dratch and more. Click here to submit your story!
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Like This? Rate It!
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Funny
15 votes
3.6
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Funny
9 votes
3.8
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Bill the Squirrel 53,270  54
09/04/2009 01:51 PM
So, did you start hanging out with the singing piano again? A singing piano wouldn't care that you are gay.
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Funny
2 votes
3.5
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You make me feel so Ravos 63,472 21
09/04/2009 02:27 PM
We snuck into a neighbor's pool at night and left a burning turd floating on a Frisbee.
Genius. 5 Orbs for you!
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Hilarious
4 votes
4.8
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Alarm Clock the Chubby Robot 6,348 4
09/04/2009 06:03 PM
And now you come here and we like you 'cause you're a homo. Not just a fair-weather gay, but a true blue homo.
That was the most depressing story I've every read on here though. See, you're making me start to be all faggy and talk about my feelings and Shakespeare. I gotta run to Wal-Mart and buy some mud flaps now.
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Funny
6 votes
3.3
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Whistler P. McManus 186,130 44
09/04/2009 07:58 PM
Not just a fair-weather gay
Are you talking about me here? Because I resent that remark, and I'm taking this to Human Resources.
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Chuckleworthy
3 votes
2.7
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Asshats are falling from the trees! 11,439 21
09/04/2009 08:04 PM
I gotta run to Wal-Mart and buy some mud flaps now.
Isn't that a gay mans Coleridge after anal?
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Funny
3 votes
3.0
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Whistler P. McManus 186,130 44
09/04/2009 08:15 PM
Seriously, this was a sad, funny and beautiful story, Kevin. Thank you.
And don't listen to these jerks. I'm a full-on fauxmosexual.
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Funny
2 votes
3.5
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Millie 116,988 28
09/04/2009 09:19 PM
How is that story supposed to be funny? It was sad! It made me cry.
Damn you, Henry. (I clicked, though because you had good grammar.)
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Funny
4 votes
3.5
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peoriagrace 6,166 11
09/05/2009 03:37 PM
I hope you've found your Elliot; and you don't look like E.T.!
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Chuckleworthy
1 votes
2.0
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UnderWhere? 101,398 77
09/05/2009 07:38 PM
Dude. Depressing.
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Amusing
1 votes
1.0
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TomServo 3,759 7
09/07/2009 04:37 AM
GAY.
Kidding of course. Thanks for sharing that story, even as a straight guy I can imagine how difficult that must have been. Nice to see a humorous article with substance on Zug.
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0 votes
0.0
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Mielke 1,482 6
09/07/2009 04:53 AM
"Gay" just sounds like they are comparing you to the female sex....which actually will piss off some homosexuals(like my uncle)......but just work the word "Gay" around a little and make it an acronym and you get Y.A.G which as you may not know is Youthful And Gay.
I know Y.A.G sounds cool.....use it if you want.
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Chuckleworthy
1 votes
2.0
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mandellia 45 4
09/07/2009 08:41 AM
Stories about gays and etrons make me sick.
jocking ;)
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Amusing
1 votes
1.0
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John Pets Avenue 1 3
09/13/2009 03:54 PM
Seriously, this was a beautiful story, bravo!
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