I jump into a taxi at the airport and tell the driver my home address. When he asks me if I have been traveling for “business or pleasure,” I keep it vague and say, “a bit of both.” I’m not up for dealing with the potential fallout of telling him exactly what my business is, so I immediately redirect the conversation to something that will keep me clear of controversy.

“Did we get much rain this week?” I ask.

“I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t really paying much attention,” he says. I don’t ask him to elaborate but he continues as if I have.

“I didn’t pay much attention,” he explains, “because I was so busy driving back and forth from downtown to the airport. The Episcopalians are so upset about that –that bishop– that homosexual, they were leaving their convention early. Couldn’t get out of here fast enough. And I don’t blame them.”

I want to rewind. Hadn’t I asked about the weather?

My cab driver goes on about homosexuals and how they have to turn everything into being about sex, and how this is just one more step in the homosexual agenda.

Deep breaths, I tell myself, deep breaths. I contemplate asking him to let me off at the next highway exit and let me call for another cab, but really I just want to get home.

For once, I try to just let it go. I say some noncommittal comments, like, “Well, it certainly gives us all a lot to think about,” and “I imagine there are people who would disagree with you.”

When I think it can’t get any worse, the driver launches into a soliloquy that is a near carbon-copy to Senator Rick Santorum’s now infamous sound bytes. He presents me with an ignorant muddle of homosexuality interchangeable with adultery, incest, pedophilia and bestiality. I am pained to think about other people from LGBT families who have also been his captive audience in the back of this cab. I wonder, hasn’t anyone confronted him before?

I don’t mean to be too dramatic here, but this man behind the wheel has my life in his hands. I know I have to say something, but I decide to wait at least until the cab is stationary and my luggage is out of the trunk and safely on the sidewalk.

I hope he does not see that my hands are shaking as I give him the money for the fare which includes a deliberately measly tip. I’m still not sure what I’m about to say. “I thought you would want to know,” I begin, “that my father is gay, and he has been with his partner - my other father - for 26 years. They are two gay men who helped make me who I am. I wanted you to know that because there are so many people who have gay loved ones - probably many who have been in your cab - but unless we tell you, you might never know.”

“Hey, sure,” he shrugs, “To each his own.”

“I know,” I say, fumbling for something really meaningful to end the exchange. The best I come up with is to repeat, “I just thought you’d want to know.”

He drives away, but the residue of homophobia stays with me for the rest of the day. It’s that feeling that makes me want to take a shower, even when I know a shower won’t make a difference.

I do not count this coming out story among my smoothest “teachable moments,” but it would have bothered me too much had I walked away without saying anything. That is why I came out to the cab driver, despite my shaking hands and the clunky way the words fell out of my mouth.

Years ago I would have said nothing. Now I just can’t help myself. Consider it my inner child’s revenge.

I come out because I can. And because I still know there are people who cannot.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS