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Why is it we wait until it’s too late to ask whether we should have done things differently?
I’m at work right now. The one thing that I do like about working in an office now is that I can sometimes avoid work and write a post. But, I’m not avoiding work. I can’t work.
I have been staring out the window for about two hours doing nothing. Nothing but thinking. Thinking about the terrible news we got at the office today. And wondering if I could have made it different.
Those of you who have followed me and my previous blog may remember a post or two about a young guy named Travis who used to paint for my company. The original posts were about the time he came out to me.
He was looking to me as some kind of mentor or something and I regret to say that I was not a forth-coming as he was. I didn’t turn him away or anything like that. But, I also didn’t do anything to make him not feel so alone. I let my worries about being open in the rural South influence my actions. Or non-actions, as the case may be.
And by the time I positioned myself to be a support system, he had rolled back up in his shell and into the closet and violently refused to acknowledge we had ever had a discussion.
A while later he got fired1 and I rarely saw him. But we did cross paths once at a gay bar down in Knoxville.
He was drinking even more heavily, and his image had changed from a cute fuzzy-lipped hot-bodied little redneck boy to a frosted-hair A&F wannabe. He had really thickened up the muscle on his body, but at the same time looked gaunt and unhealthy. 2He was well out of the closet and apparently well out from under the oppression of his right-wing Church of God family.
That was the last time I saw him.
Today I found out he moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida maybe a year or so ago. According to the party line, he turned up dead over the weekend. He was abusing crystal meth and something called GHB. I thought it was some kind of growth hormone3, but I’m told it’s not.
He went into a coma briefly, came out of it, and died.
I don’t know that if I had been the mentor he was seeking some years ago he would not have ended up running in the crowds he apparently was any more than I can know that he ended up that way because I wasn’t.
By nature I have a protector instinct. This time it failed.
This is one of the reasons I would never want to have kids. I wouldn’t always be able to keep them safe.
They say hindsight is everything.
What they don’t say is that it is also a bitch.
RIP Travis.
{ fin }
- From missing too much work as a result of alcoholism and losing his license to DUI. [↩]
- Although admittedly still with a smoking hot little rump. [↩]
- that would explain the extra muscle [↩]
Tony, I am sorry to hear about Travis. The loss of anyone, a friend, a family member, a co-worker can be a hard thing, but please don’t let this loss weigh on you too much. You did what you could for him. It was up to him to accept.
I hate these bits of horrible news….. especially since he came out to you…one of life’s most difficult conversations. And probably as big to you as to him. I’m thinking of you tonight. I’m sure you were as much to him at the time as you could have been. I have that good feeling about you.
Although we are never to blame for the actions and choices of others, often our inaction can cause a lot of harm. The lesson to learn here is that we should never, ever ignore another, no matter what has been said or done. To write another off as insignificant and to tightly hold on to senseless grudges that serve no purpose is a grave mistake. It takes a big man to apologize, and an even bigger man to accept apologies as sincerely given.
May God see fit to bless Travis’ soul.
Tony, you can’t ask yourself what if. It will get you know where. You gave him some help and that’s more than anyone else probably had at that point. Unfortunately, like thousands of others, Travis got caught up in the idea of what is cool and appropriate for a typical gay man to do. He wasn’ strong enough to resist and make a smarter decision.
Be grateful you’ve always had the confidence in yourself to live life the way you want to.
Lots of love and wishes.
It is always a tragedy when one so young dies. But, as one man, you are not responsible for all the lives of all young gay people. Please accept that. On the other hand, this is a learning opportunity for the future. Could you have done anything differently – I don’t know, and as Brenton wisely notes, this is not the time to play “if”. You did give him some help and that is more than anyone else did. The question is, what you will do next time and craft your response to these and other situations of this ilk. How much are you willing to trust and put yourself at personal risk in the future based on this outcome? Only you can answer these questions. But I am sure I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already considered as you are an intellegent well meaning individual. Bless you Tony.
Rest in peace Travis.
This is so sad.
In retrospect, perhaps you should have come out to him. But TRUSTING him to keep your secret was probably on your mind as well. In the South, we have to worry about “job security” if we work for a private business. So, I understand totally why trusting someone with knowledge of your sexuality is so important. Well, next time a young boy comes around looking for a mentor… perhaps you’ll be more comfortable in coming out next time. You can’t blame what happened to him on you. He chose that path.
I am just so sorry…..
Dude, so sad to hear this. And I know we don’t know each other, but I’ve had several similar experiences. I’m not out at all in my life, except to the guys that a) I’ve become close friends with outside my “straight” circles or b) the guys who I’ve had sex with (they have a rough idea). Whenever I used to hook up with younger guys even 3 years younger than me, I had this total big-brother reaction going on where I wanted to help, give advice, counsel on experience or just plain knock some sense into them. And in some cases we remained in touch and I’ve watched them evolve into well-balanced guys in or out of the “gay lifestyle”. Unfortunately, in others I couldn’t convince them away from certain atractions of that lifestyle present in larger cities (like drugs, VERY unsafe sex, alcohol, extreme body preocupation etc). The bottom line is, some guys in their younger years just need to feel they fit in, and when they find some guy to look up to or validate who they feel they are, we can guide them to the right path. But other times, they just need to drown out certain issues (self-hate, personal past, feelings of inadequacy etc) through full-immersion in the gay lifestyle and all the numbing effects that can be had within it.
Sorry for the long post here. But your story really struck a chord.
So sorry to hear this news. Of course its troubling to you, because we always wish that we had done something more, found something to say, something that makes a difference. Knowing that things happen as they are meant to is often little comfort.
I hope you can find some peace about how things turned out. I imagine Travis has.
I remember this story well. Hindsight is always 20/20. The truth is you weren’t in a place to be the type of mentor he needed. There is no shame in that. We can always ‘shoulda coulda woulda’ our actions after the fact. More to the point, we don’t know Travis’s whole story. We only know one little snippet that overlaps with yours. Don’t blame yourself my friend. There is a much bigger societal issue here.
He seemed like a bright kid and while mentoring might have helped, IMHO his denial later clearly showed he was not ready to accept it. He compounded this by later turning to a destructive path. I’m not blaming him as we are all human, prone to mistakes. But 2nd-guessing the outcome doesn’t solve anything.
Meth is a horribly addictive drug not only physically but psychologically. It takes years (yes I said years) to beat the psychological affects. Some never do. It is destroying our community from the inside out. Hopefully, other young readers can learn from Travis’s mistake and avoid such a horribly destructive path.
*hugs*
Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own actions in life T. You know that well. I’m fond of saying, “its not your fault but it is your problem”.
Sometimes Tony no mattter what we do we cannot change the cosmos. There are many out there who IMHO are just on a path to self destruction. It is not a personal choice but more a side effect of the deep sense of self loathing that religion can bring to gays and lesbians.
Growing up in the south I know that feeling and also what it felt to become an outcast in my own family at 20 when I came out. Fortunately for me I was determined not to let it ruin my life.
When I came out in 88 Coke was the drug of the day and I watched people around me get drawn into it and I knew that I would never do any drugs just for that reason. The saddest part of your loss and what happened to Travis is that we as a community just do not have the family and community support to help those that are coming to terms with their sexuality.
Sad, very sad indeed and I am sorry for your loss.
Tony -
I’m sorry to hear about Travis.
I know guys with all the support in the world….still, drugs will be their undoing. You were a good egg when Travis first approached you with the subject of knowing anyone “queer”. How do drug dealers live with themselves? That’s who should be questioning themselves in blog land.
That’s really heartbreaking.