Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Transylvania Part 3 - Beyond the Revenge

Transylvania Part 3 – Beyond the Revenge

I wrote this a long time ago, about my trip to Transylvania, but never posted it. There's probably a good reason why . . .

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I learned something about myself . . . I have tremendous difficulty distinguishing between ‘gay’ and ‘European’. My ‘gaydar’ was going off all the time in Transylvania and needed to be recalibrated to ‘Europe.’ Men are a lot more touchy-feely there. It’s kind of weird. America is such a homophobic culture, but, thankfully, people have the choice to be open about their sexuality. In Romania there is no real homophobia, because, as far as I can tell, there are no openly gay people there. I imagine it’s like it was in the olden days. Not until recently did people identify themselves as ‘gay.’ Back then, men who had gay proclivities married a woman, and sort of buggered on the side. It wasn’t really a ‘lifestyle’ thing. Romania seemed to be that way. Maybe I’m wrong.

Speaking of which, the night before I left Romania, I was nearly convinced I was being hit on by Tommy. I spent an extra three days in Romania after the symposium was over (due to a scheduling flub more than anything else), and for two of those nights, Tommy showed me around. The first night, he took me out to a bar (which will be a later story), but for the second night, hours before I was to leave for my flight (which will also be a later story), Tommy took me up to his family’s land on the woody hill outside the town. As we were walking along the path to Tommy’s bungalow, he was pointing out his family’s land. He showed me his family’s strawberry patch, grape vines, cherry trees and pointed out the boundaries of the land. It was actually pretty beautiful. “How long has your family had this land?” I asked. He had trouble understanding. “We always had it,” he answered, as if I asked the stupidest question in the world. Forgiving my stupidity, he further explained, “for thousands of years. This has always been my family’s land.”

We reached the family bungalow. It was a little wooden shack with a beautiful view of the town. We went inside and he pointed out three gigantic wooden barrels. “Wine,” he said. “We will drink some.” He removed the bung from the bung-hole (this is real terminology, people) and inserted a rubber tube into the hole, putting the other end in his mouth and sucking. He siphoned the wine like someone would siphon gas from a car, and once the wine was flowing, he grabbed two filthy cups and poured some for us. I was kind of getting weird vibes from him the entire time, but by this point I was more used to the culture, and just accounted for it as ‘European.’ “He’s just being nice,” I thought to myself. “Taking me into the woods, all alone, to share some wine on his family’s bungalow overlooking the town. Nothing wrong with that.”

“I will build a fire,” he said, grabbing a hatchet from the bungalow and going outside. “It will be very nice.”

I followed him outside and soon a ‘very nice’ fire was burning.

“Ooof. I am hot,” he told me, and took off his shirt. “I have American music on my telephone,” he said. He started playing Rihanna.

“Wow,” I thought to myself, “this is getting really gay . . .”

The sun was setting. “Do you have a girlfriend?” he asked me. “What? I, uhh, no. Not at the moment.” I immediately kicked myself, thinking that I should have said that I did. My gaydar was going off the charts. Tommy smiled. “You know what mistake people make in beginning of a relationship?” he asked, “you need to fuck on the first date or is no good.” That line of macho bullshit reminded me of the US, but the feeling that he was hitting on me did not dissipate. When guys hit on me in the US (and it does happen occasionally), I’m fine with it. In fact, it’s flattering, even though I don’t have any similar feelings. But here, in Romania, all alone with a young man who, by the look of the flab on his exposed chest and stomach, easily outweighed me by a hundred pounds, without anyone else in hearing distance – not knowing how to get back to the town, not knowing the language and not being able to get back to my hotel without his help – I suddenly got a little frightened. Moreover, what if he thought this was a first date? (Plus, I noticed, he still had the hatchet . . .)

As I was thinking of possible escape routes, Tommy’s mom and sister came up the hill. Tommy quickly put on his shirt and we got ready for dinner. He seemed a little embarrassed. For dinner, we had fire-grilled pig’s fat. Basically, it was like bacon, only a hundred times thicker, and with no actual muscle in it. Also included were raw onions that they just plucked from the ground. The mood had changed with his family there, and I was no longer in a worried state. I began to think about what he asked me. He was a younger guy at about 18 or 19. Maybe he asked me if I had a girlfriend because he needed advice, and he simply doesn’t know me well enough not to ask me. After dinner, his mom and sister left, and I asked him if he had a girl. “I am just in a break-up,” he said. “The father, he is a priest.” “Oh, that’s rough,” I told him. “Yes. But the father is not the reason. He and I just broke up.” “You mean, ‘she and I’,” I absent-mindedly corrected him. Then I finally realized it – in this case, my gaydar probably wasn’t malfunctioning. Tommy probably just needed to share –with a stranger from a land that is possibly more tolerant than his.

I learned a couple of things about myself. First, though I think of myself as a socially conscious liberal, I am possibly more homophobic than I thought I was. Second, though I always imagined myself exceedingly empathetic to the problems of others, a kind soul in a sea of selfish brutes, I found myself surprisingly indifferent to his troubles. “I, uhhh, am sure somebody else will come along,” I told him, brushing him off like so many people have done to me in the past. Then, I changed the subject, telling him that I needed to get back to my hotel soon . . .

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