The rain won't stop. The more I wish for it to let up, the harder it falls, and the blacker the sky becomes. I can't believe I am wearing high-heels on this day like. Sickly yellow-brown mud oozes from beneath my patent leather shoes as they sink into the water-soaked ground. I think of the diarrhea in my little brother's diaper as I watched mother changing him; me, mom's little helper holding my nose. A worm slithers out from under my sole, lifting its head to see, too, if this rain will ever end.

"Not today little fella," I say aloud with a bit of a laugh.

Father glances towards me with a pained face maybe he thinks his daughter is losing it. He doesn't get it. He thinks I'm talking to my brother.

I look at my father's face. I wonder how many things in his forty-seven years he did not get. It's a strong face. He is of Irish descent, but does not possess the soft, round, pale features associated with the Irish. He looks German. High cheekbones, flat forehead, angular nose and strong square jaw. A slight cut, to the right of his lip, from an uneasy razor this morning, refuses to scab. When he moves his lips a bright slit of red appears. He is aware of this and every few minutes his tongue skirts to the side to remove the blood. His tan is perfect having just returned from the annual pilgrimage to the Florida Keys.

"Time to get away," the chant echoed each March when the strains of winter and job peaked. "I'll go nuts if I have to stick around here waiting for spring."

To Florida we would be dragged during March break. This was the first year my brother and I had opted for not going. My brother, with great ease, declined with talk of preparing for his college entrance exams. I was more reluctant to end the tradition, but luckily I was about to start my first nursing job. I said it was not worth going and have to return a week before everyone else.

The worm continues to writhe. I slide my foot to cover it and shoe again begins its gurgling slow-motion descent into the mud. I squint, past the beading water; I can see everyone around me in the black leather reflections on my shoes. The arch over the toes and sides distorts the image. Everyone seems taller, and their heads all twisted to the right, as if each suffered whiplash from some mass auto accident.

A small motors whir joins the rain and mother grips my hand tighter. I think that it should hurt, her freshly painted red nails pressed against my flesh. The long rectangular box begins its downward journey. The fall is slow and effortless, as if the casket has consciously been preparing for this day since its birth. The same twisted heads reflect in the rounded corners of the dark mahogany. The top edge passes the fake grass carpet. The fingernails begin to hurt, and for the first time I realize my brother is dead...

******

He looks silly lying there. The makeup is way too thick, as if an aging hooker applied it, trying to hide the lines and baggy eyes from countless nights on cold street corners. Despite the over application, a perfect row of parallel indents, barely visible underneath the jawbone travels along the neck and disappear beneath the hairline. God, what an ugly makeup job. If he were alive he would not be caught dead looking like that. I laugh aloud at my thought. A snorting laugh. When we were kids, I chased my brother for over plaid chesterfields and around polished tables with him giggling and shouting, "piggy-girl, piggy-girl."

I look around the funeral parlor and see relatives staring with shock at my outburst. A few give that look that says, "Oh she is taking this so hard she is delirious." I want to reach into my pocket, pull out a Mac compact, and fix his face.

Two Halloweens ago, when I was a high school senior and my brother was a junior, he burst into my bedroom: "Hey sis, do you have any foundation I can borrow."

"Say what?" While growing up, there were many times I wanted a sister to do the makeup thing with; I did not expect my brother to play into my need.

"The guys dared me to do drag for the dance tomorrow night. They bet me fifty bucks I would chicken out. There's no way I'm lettin' those dough-heads call me a wimp."

"And do tell, how will you live down the ridicule of the entire student body?"

"Easy. I'm taking the best looking girl in school, and she is going as a guy. We're not telling anyone. I can't wait to see the guys' faces; and their fifty bucks."

He planned to be the most stunning woman and she would be the most masculine man. When I gave him my makeup, he looked at the bargain store price tags, clinging on the bottles, and said there was no way he was putting that low-grade shit on his face. My brother was more than good looking. He had a strong, angular jockish face, with a touch of androgyny to soften the features, almost pretty. He seemed to bypass the gawky lack of coordination that afflicts most adolescents. Since the age of ten, he had been captain of all his hockey teams. Girls were always asking him out. All of my girl friends kept asking me to set them up with him. After the first few dates, he said enough all ready. I don't think he was aware of his looks. He constantly worried about his face and the appearance of a single blemish could cause a household hysteria. It was only in his final year he stopped playing sports, became reclusive, and his face was no longer a concern.

Our first step in his gender transformation was a trip to the Mac store. He blew a month's allowance on foundations, blush, eyeliners, and lipstick.

As we passed an amazon-like cutout of Drag Queen Rupaul, he chortled, "I am going to look better than that!"

I paid for half. It would end up in my room anyway. When I mentioned that winning fifty bucks would not pay for all the stuff, he looked me straight in the face, amazed that I did not grasp the magnitude of the principle that hung in the balance. He was so naive it made me laugh. His world was so black and white, and everything had to end with him landing on and in the right.

He always complimented me on the way my makeup looked, so he entrusted me with the job of "doing him up". We did a test run. This took hours. It became one of those rare bonding moments. We moments of idle chatter, serious life ambition stuff, and deafening silence, totally at ease in all three. During this time, I realized how much I truly loved my brother. He told me how high school scared him and his puzzlement as to why all those girls found him so attractive. He said he was tired of playing hockey but knew dad expected him to play every year. Many times he felt awkward and ugly.

"I guess your mirrors are broken," I said as I penciled in a thin black eyebrow.

He stared off in to space, and a faint, "I guess," left his lips.

"Your beautiful. And, you have me for a sister. What more do you need in this life?"

He looked in my eyes with an intense gaze and was about to say something but held back. I knew he would tell me in his own time. He leaned forward, kissed me on the check and said thank you. Our major concern was how to do the glam transformation without our parents knowing. They were on the Rush Limbaugh side of the political spectrum and Sunday churchgoers. Whenever there was a story on the TV about cross-dressers, transvestites, or gay people, mom and dad did the double squirm and a, "Jeez will ya look at that. Why do they waste good news footage on that crap?"

We received a reprieve the day before Halloween when our parents announced they were going to Octoberfest for the weekend. What was even more amazing was they did not get suspicious with our quickly uttered "No, no, not at all. Gee that sounds like great fun."

My brother returned home with fifty dollars in one hand and a trophy for best costume in the other…

*****

He sounded too weird for my liking. We had arranged to go to a movie and for pizza but he was canceling. When I did whined, he yelled, "NO, I don't want to go, leave me alone." And my eardrum vibrated as the phone hit the wall mount.

It was the first time he had yelled at me for no apparent reason. Something was up. The continuous ringing of my return call had a mocking desperation, mixed with a cryptic Morse, beckoning me home. Every traffic light had as its sole purpose the barring of my progress. My hands wrung the steering wheel, and I swore at every vehicle in my path. My anxiety grew in proportion to the obstacles.

I dropped my keys twice trying to get them in the lock of the doorknob. The bronze handle kept squirming away from the key, the way my brother at age two did, avoiding the spoon as mom was trying to feed him. This was wrong. Our neighborhood was safe; we never locked the door. There were times growing up I expected to see the Cleavers strolling down our street. The door finally gave up its protest. I began shouting his name as I hurtled inward.

No response. Again. Nothing.

He had taken to spending all of his time in his room in the basement. Like many of his high school friends, the adolescent ritual of marking territory had begun last year. He moved from the second floor to the low-ceiling cavern after pestering our parents to the nth degree. Mother feared he would catch the death of a cold in the dampness. Insulating the basement was one of father's permanently displaced weekend projects; the office beckoned. Dad was a little snubbed, but proud, when his son took on the renovations and achieved the remodel with great success. The protest to his subterranean submergence gave way to praise for a job well done. Hard work earned respect. At the same time his moods began to swing. Often he would enter the house, bolt through the living room and head downstairs without a word to anyone. The folks, considering themselves well versed in adolescent development thanks to my passage through same, agreed that I had displayed the same morose disposition and that I was, "None the worse for wear."

I ran down the stairs fast, blood rushed to my head. Vertigo hit. The room spun and tilted. Everything was impeccably neat, extremely neat, eerily neat. It had a wound so tight; move one thing and the cards will all fall feel to it. Bed crisply made; black comforter tucked in all around with military precision. The bookshelf was tidy; books out to the edge, ascending height, paperbacks on top, hard-covered texts on bottom. The white melamine desk was completely bare. No paper, pens, or school work. I walked around the room, taking everything in; the music CDs were in alphabetical order. This was all wrong. My brother was a slob. I thought if I went out and came back, all would return to normal.

Thud.

I heard it but I did not. It's as if I thought I heard something. Only after finding out what caused the sound did I connect the dots, implanting the memory in my brain. Something caused me to cautiously back out of the room, this was somewhere I should not be and I should leave before someone noticed me. I thrust myself up the stairs and headed for the second floor. The pull-down stair to the attic was lowered. I began to climb with great trepidation; the dry wood creaked under the weight of my step. With my ascent I was re-enacting a scene from a suspense movie. I felt time shift to half its normal rate; delaying the climax. I reached the top and turned right. I cannot remember screaming but it seems like something I would or should have done. Suspended in the air, slow-motion sway, eyes wide, neck to one side, face purple, mouth slightly open. A small pool on the floor where his bladder let go. I can't remember how long I stood there; a minute, an hour. The phone startled me. Father calling from Florida to let us know that all was well…

It would take a day for my parents to return home. I called the police. I did not know whom else to call. What could anyone do? I sat in the kitchen waiting for them to arrive. There were no sirens. I was amazed at how quietly everyone moved about their tasks. No one spoke except one officer, his questions calm and simple. It was over in two hours. The house felt emptier than it ever had did. I walked back downstairs and entered my brother's room. I looked around hoping for some ghostly figure to appear and explain it all. A beam of light, my brother to smile, says good-bye. And rise above me waving. The order of everything suddenly made sense. I began looking for a suicide note. The police officer said there usually is one. I upset everything in my panicked search. In a fit of anger I knocked over a bookshelf. There behind the unit lay a black journal. A while back I had rushed in to ask him to come to the corner store with me, and caught him writing in it. He had quickly snapped it shut and hugged it to his chest. I approached it deftly; thinking if I moved too abruptly it would dissolve. I carried it across the room and sat on the bed. I left the book lying on my lap, afraid to open it.

It was two-thirds full. The last entry was dated today.

"There is something growing inside me that I can't stop. I try to ignore it but it won't go away. The more I try to pretend that everything is normal the more it reaches up from inside. Yesterday I was going to go to the park again. But I went to the movies by myself thinking it would take my mind of it. The theatre was almost empty. Just before the movie started this guy, about ten years older sat next to me. He smiled at me and I turned away, pretending I didn't see him as I was reaching to the floor for my drink. He brushed by me slowly heading for the seat on the other side of me. I could smell his cologne. I inhaled his smell. From time to time I glanced at him. He was very good looking. I began to fidget in my seat. I kept thinking about moving my leg closer to his. Touch him to see if he would move. Half way through the movie he placed his hand on my thigh. I put my hand on top of his. The heat radiating through my jeans was sweltering. I was sweating like a pig. I glanced around. The only other people were ten rows back on the far side of the theatre. I undid my fly. It was exhilarating to have another man touching me. It was the third time this happened. I wanted it to go on forever but it ended quickly. The flood of pleasure was like a hot wind blowing over my body almost stifling my breath. It subsided rapidly. Then the other feelings began again. I felt dirty. I was ashamed of myself. I cleaned myself off and quickly darted out of the theatre. I felt like running to the edge of a cliff and leaping over and flying away forever, never to land. Soaring above and away from this thing I am becoming. I bought some gay magazines to jerk off with last week. I used to think about girls when I masturbated. But for the last year, images of all the guys naked in the locker room leap into my head no matter how hard I try to concentrate on girls. There is this one guy in my phys-ed. that I like a lot. I fantasize about walking along a beach with him not caring about anything. Just us. Stopping and holding each other as the blazing sun says good night. That's all just somebody to hold me. But it is wrong. I know dad and mom would freak. And the guys at school are always talking about how they think the chem.-teacher is a fag and if he ever tried anything with one on them, POW. I can't handle this anymore. Please make it stop."

**********************

Thank you for taking the time to read this story. Research has proven that gay men between the ages of 18-27 are 14 times more at risk of self-destruction than their straight peers. These suicides are fueled by an overwhelming sense of self-hatred, despair and isolation with regards to dealing with sexual orientation. Society and religion is to blame for creating this atmosphere of suffering and great tragedy. Being gay is not a choice. Who would choose to be a hated outsider. Being a gay person whether nature or nurture (probably a combination of both) is not a sin or a denigration of societal principles.

This senseless waste of life has to stop. If you are gay be proud of who you are and support your fellow homos in there pursuit of happiness and peace. For if we are going to change how society treats those who are different then we most show them that different does not mean evil, abnormal or unnatural. Different means people are not walking the same path as everyone else. Their path was given to them by society and genetics. Gay people are trying to live the journey as richly as possible. Just like everyone else!