The Nonconformist
by Ken Cohen
Chapter 2
Rosebud
Who was Danny Stavros?
On a cool evening in late summer of 1954, he was a four year old boy standing alone outside the little house where the family once lived on the north edge of the city. The air was still, the sun low in the sky. An old picket fence ran along the property casting a long shadow before him in the dying light.
Through the twilight hush came the distant wail of a whistle, a train racing deep into the coming night. He felt the future rushing at him. A shiver down his spine. An awareness of himself within the world around him. The enormity of the times ahead, the life that might be. It all struck him in an instant. This was to be his life as it dawned before him, expanding forever. He never forgot it.
His maternal grandfather was Spiros, who Danny called "Papou," Greek for "grandpa." Spiros was born in Greece in 1890. There was a constant threat, as Spiros and his younger brothers were growing up, that they could be drafted or kidnapped into the Greek army or a private militia. It happened to other boys in their village.
Fearing the worst, Spiros' parents suddenly decided to board a ship to Canada and make a new life for themselves and their children in Montreal. It was 1906. Spiros was 16, spoke no English and had little education. His parents had sold everything and brought enough money to open a restaurant in a Greek neighbourhood.
Spiros worked for his father and got to know the restaurant business in Montreal. He met, courted and married Danny's grandmother (called "Yaya"). He eventually took over the restaurant and ran it until 1953 when he sold it and retired.
Papou and Yaya had four children that survived to become adults. Their oldest was Barbara, born in 1921.
Barbara married Alex Stavros in 1944. Danny was their first child, Mary their second.
Papou Spiros was an affectionate, caring man whom Danny adored. He was a tender and patient grandfather, with only kind words and encouragement.
When Danny was seven, Barbara came to him one day and whispered, "Danny, Papou has died. They say he had a stroke. I have to go to Montreal to be with Yaya and bury Papou. Be a good boy while I'm gone and mommy will love you."
For the first time in his life, his heart was broken. He had never confronted death. He couldn't tell anyone his Papou had died, he felt it must stay a secret. He didn't know why he felt that way. His feelings were too close to talk about with anyone.
Barbara went to Montreal. While she was gone, Danny missed her. He also feared her return. She might be angry, her father had died.
She came home two weeks later. She had her arms out to hug and kiss him. They embraced, they cried. He needed her warmth. She held him, he felt it. She still loved him. Thank you, God.
He had tics. The doctor called it Tourette Syndrome. He squinted and made faces. A switch turned on in his brain by mistake one day, then turned on and off by itself whenever it wanted.
His parents kept telling him to stop. He didn't want to be like that, but couldn't control it. He was sure he was "sick in the head." His mom sometimes used that phrase with a little sneer to describe people she thought crazy. She made a circle near the side of her head with a finger while she said it: she's nuts, she's sick in the head.
The doctor said the tics would probably subside as he got older.
Then he was starting grade three. His sister Mary began kindergarten. She was too young to walk to and from school. Danny was to make sure she got on the school bus every morning and afternoon. The bus was only for five and six year olds. After Mary boarded, Danny walked to school. At the end of every day he watched her board the bus, and then walked home.
He worried about Mary. Even at night when he went to sleep he thought about her. What if she misses the bus and gets lost going home. And he can't find her? A bad man might find her. Mom said it would be his fault.
It was the second week in grade 3. Miss Williams, his teacher, was young, tall and thin, with a narrow powdered face and red lipstick. She smelled like perfume, her hair was stiff. She wore shoes with pointy heels.
One afternoon, Miss Williams told the class to work quietly, then left the room for a few minutes. Some children began talking. The classroom filled with noise. Mike stood on his chair making funny faces while others laughed.
Miss Williams returned and was angry. Everyone had to stay after school until 4 o'clock as punishment for being bad.
"Why?" Danny objected, "I wasn't making noise."
Miss Williams told him to be quiet but he continued arguing. He was angry. It wasn't fair.
She walked toward his desk staring at him.
"Danny, be quiet!"
"No! I have to make sure my sister gets on the bus! And I didn't do anything wrong!"
She slapped him hard across the face.
"Ow!"
"That's what you get for talking back."
He cried out, his cheek burned brightly, his head hurt, he shook and cried. He felt hot, it was hard to breathe. Other children looked at him. It felt like the room was spinning. He rested his head in his arms on the desk and hid his face so they wouldn't see him cry. The room was hushed.
Miss Williams told the children to print words in their notebooks. Danny wouldn't. He was hiding.
She bent down and softly said she was sorry. She whispered, "When the bell rings at 3:30, you can go to the school bus to make sure your sister gets on, then you will come right back and sit here with everyone else until 4 o'clock. Do you understand?"
He looked at her. Four o'clock seemed like forever. He managed to squeak out "yes." She straightened up, turned, walked away.
December came. It was very cold with deep snow one morning, two weeks before Christmas. Sunlight reflected sharply from the snow and ice, blinding him.
At recess outside that morning, he stood near a window, looking inside at an empty classroom, wishing they could go back in where it was warm.
A boy said, "I dare you to taste the window sill."
"Why?"
"Just do it, you'll see."
He stuck out his tongue to taste the frozen metal. His tongue stuck to it, eww, he pulled his tongue off. The boy pointed at him, laughing, "Your tongue is bleeding, stupid!"
Oh, yuck! He didn't like that boy. He stayed near the school door waiting for the bell to end recess. His mouth tasted like metal.
The bell rang. Mike was behind him as they lined up to go in. They weren't allowed to talk in line or in the halls at school. But Mike didn't care about silly rules, so he whispered to him, "Danny, I saw how Clary tricked you. He's really mean, stay away from him. Nobody likes him."
Danny nodded and kept walking. He would get in trouble if he broke even one rule.
After school that day, the sky had turned gray. It was snowing again. He forgot his mitts at home that morning so he kept his hands in his pockets to keep them warm as he walked home. He heard someone behind him shouting his name. "Danny, wait up. Danny, wait."
He looked back. It was Clary, running to catch up. Clary was a thin boy several inches taller and a year or two older, with a long, sad face. A bit of stuff ran down Clary's lip from his nose and a big booger dangled from one nostril. Danny wondered if he should tell him but he might get mad.
"Hi, Danny. I'm sorry for that trick I played on you before. I like you, you're a good kid, I can tell. I was stupid to do that to you. Come on, let's keep walking, I have to get home."
"How do you know my name?"
"Everybody knows you. You're the boy Miss Williams slapped that time. It was real bad what she done to you. Were your parents mad at her?"
Danny didn't want to talk about getting slapped. He felt ashamed. He didn't tell his mother, it was a secret, she would have yelled at him. So he talked about something else.
"What grade are you in?"
"Grade 4 with Miss Sanger."
"How do you like her? I heard she's nice."
"Yeah, she is, as nice as a teacher can be I guess. She's pretty, sometimes I feel like running up and kissing her."
"Eww, you mean kissing her on the lips?"
"Haha. No, don't be silly, just on the cheek. She's pretty. I have this feeling like I have to run up and kiss her on the cheek, but I won't never do that, I'm already in enough trouble with her."
"What kind of trouble?"
He looked down and said, "I don't read so good. She makes everybody read out loud. I can't read some of the words. I get scared, then I feel real stupid."
Danny had no trouble reading, but he knew a couple other boys like that, and felt badly for Clary. "Ooh, sorry Clary I gotta run home and pee, my mother will kill me if I pee my pants."
They had reached Clary's house, an old, worn out little wood house, there were one or two among the new brick homes on almost every block. As Danny began to run, he looked back, Clary was walking up his driveway. Then Danny was gone, running along the street, hands in his pockets to keep warm, still over a block to go until he got home and to the toilet.
Clary's not so bad, he thought as he ran, then all he could think about was the toilet, and that day a few months ago when Miss Williams slapped him and made the whole class stay after school. He would never tell his mom his teacher slapped him. She'd be angry.
He made it home. The door wasn't locked, so he walked in, tore off his boots, ran up the steps and past his mom who was cleaning the kitchen floor with a Hoover and raced down the hall and 'round the corner to the toilet with his coat still on and pulled his fly down, opened his underwear and yanked out his penis which had turned hard and…
Whew! finally! barely made it! Ahhh, the pee comes flooding out like Niagara Falls. He peed and peed, it went on until finally it slowed. He shook off the last couple of drops and took a deep breath, that was close. He put his penis back in his underwear, zipped up the fly. Washed his hands, walked back down the hall and around the corner and down the steps to the coat closet.
But before he could take off his coat and hang it up, Barbara saw him and said, "We have no Kleenex left. Put your boots back on. Walk down to the store and buy two small boxes of tissues. Here's the money." She counted out four dimes and two nickels.
"Okay, mom."
"And come right back please, it will be dark soon."
He found his mitts and walked out the door. It was a long walk to the store. The sun looked like a dull halo behind clouds low in the western sky. Snow was falling softly, silently, landing everywhere. The ditch at the side of the road was drifted over; the brown tops of dead plants poked through the snow.
He stared at them and remembered when the ditch was filled with a hundred wildflowers that shot up in the brilliant morning sunlight after a night's rain, white, purple, yellow, smelling like crazy perfume that warm blue day amid the hum and buzz of bumblebees, dragonflies, black and orange butterflies that filled the air.
That world came and went, summer, fall, bygone days. Now winter, white, cold, dark, days crawling slowly. He walked faster trying to stay warm as an icy damp wind picked up in the fading light. He passed the little graveyard next to the old church. Snow gathered in swirls around the old gravestones, like the ground in Montreal where Papou lay so recently buried, that sweet old man who had survived so much, whom he had loved.
He thought, it won't matter to dead people that it's cold outside, they're not really here now. I hope whoever they are they've gone where it's better than here. That's what mom says, they've gone to a better place. Can death be better than life?
He shivered as he approached the store. Soon he would go back home, clean and warm and cozy, mom and dad will talk quietly while we eat dinner, dad will read the newspaper in the living room afterward while mom listens to music on the radio and Mary plays in her room. His warm bed waiting for him. He and mom will read a story before sleep.
Right after Christmas, Miss Williams' class got a new pupil. The principal came in and introduced a new boy, Jonathan, who must be half a foot taller than the rest of them. Wow, he was really tall.
At recess that morning, Glen and Paul decided to bring Jonathan down to size.
They teased him, pushed him around in the schoolyard, challenged him to fight. Jonathan didn't act like a tough guy. He wanted to be left alone. Glen and Paul wouldn't let up, they pushed him until he fell backward into a big half frozen puddle of mud and slush, while a number of children looked on. One boy yelled at them to stop, to leave Jonathan alone. They called that boy a homo and told him to mind his own business or he would get the same treatment. Danny instinctively hovered at the edge of the group, trying to avoid being the next target.
Jonathan was wet so Miss Williams sent him home to change.
Danny might have stepped forward to try to stop the bullies. But he didn't. He watched. The humiliation and pain Jonathan must have felt that day, Danny had no experience of it. Just because the boy was tall.
When he returned home after school that day, he asked his mother, "Mommy, what's a homo?"
"Where did you hear that, Danny?"
"A kid at school today called another boy a homo."
"Well, it's really not for children. Homo means a homosexual. A homosexual is a disgusting man who's mentally ill. Men like that are perverts. They can hurt children. They belong in prison. You stay away from strange men. You understand? You don't go near them, ever."
"Oh."
She seemed angry.
Danny loved music, especially the classical music and operas his parents listened to at home on the radio and now on their new stereo console.
He thought he would like to play an instrument. When he turned nine, he persuaded his parents to buy a piano and pay for lessons. He felt serious about it and wanted to be good at it.
His parents hired a teacher who came to their home. Miss Campbell recommended a used piano she knew of that was for sale. Over the next few years, under Miss Campbell's supervision and with daily practice, his technique and knowledge of music rapidly developed.
His mother Barbara was a teacher at heart. She taught him to read before he started school. And taught him about music and opera. She paid for piano lessons for six years. And she was to teach something else, that he would not forget.
By the time he was eleven, he had watched a TV program called The 20th Century. It could have been used as a high school introduction to modern history, although it sees history mostly from an American viewpoint. From it and his parents Danny first learned about what German people did during World War II following their mass descent into madness. He learned about the approximately eleven million innocent civilians including six million Jews the Germans and their allies in many countries murdered across Europe, even in Greece.
A boy his age named Horst lived on Danny's street a few doors down. His family were German immigrants. One day Danny told Horst that Germans were evil people.
Word got back to Barbara. Horst's mother had phoned her. Mom was angry with him. She explained to him that it's wrong to hate large groups of people who look or speak or think or act different from those around them. It was wrong to blame every single German person for what happened during the war. After she explained this, he understood that what he said to Horst was wrong.
At his mother's insistence, he walked with her to Horst's home at dinner time, knocked on the door, went in and apologized to the whole family for what he had said. It was a hard thing for a boy to do.
Where was his dad? Alex was an accountant, he worked, read the newspaper, watched TV. He was a gentleman, a truly gentle man. There was an invisible film of genial formality between him and his children. It never occurred to him to talk much with his son or daughter, or to reassure them that they could talk to their father. Alex once commented that his own father rarely spoke to him. The possibility of his talking to his son or daughter at any length probably never entered his mind.
On a sunny morning at the start of July, 1959, when Danny was nine years old, his parents drove him to the Y. He'd be going with a couple hundred other kids to a summer camp a two hour drive northeast of Toronto, for three weeks.
The camp was in a region called Haliburton Highlands located on the Canadian Shield, a vast, once mountainous area eroded by ice, wind and rain for a billion years. In 1959 it remained a wild, thinly populated area with nearly endless lakes carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago, rivers and forests, where animals and fish, trees and flowers, thrived. It would be his first time away from home.
He might not know anyone at this summer camp, he might have no friends.
He climbed into the old bus and found a window seat. A warm breeze came through the open bus window. A boy he knew from school appeared in the bus, saw him, sat next to him and said "Hi, Danny."
"Hi Les, wow, I didn't know you were going to this camp. I'm happy to see you."
Then Danny joyfully called to his parents from the open window, "I found a friend!" Now his parents would be happy and not have to worry. Danny chatted with the boy. If his parents were happy, he could be happy too.
He spent the next three weeks with Les and lots of other boys, his first time away from home. Despite his fears, he made a few friends. Mother never forgot the story about Danny calling through the window "I found a friend!" She told it over the years to whoever would listen. From that morning on, she was convinced his social fears were imaginary and she could ignore them.
Early one morning the boys in Danny's cabin made up bed rolls and donned life jackets. They paddled canoes a couple miles across a lake to a wilderness area where they camped outside for the night. They learned to build a fire, cooked their own meals, hiked in the forest and swam in the lake. It was exciting. After dinner, they gathered round the fire to roast marshmallows while the counsellors told scary stories. Then they bedded down for the night.
Around 4 a.m., after the moon had set, Danny woke up, he had to pee. He found his way through the darkness to the edge of the forest, and peed against a tree. Then, shivering in the cold of the crystal clear night he returned to the warmth of his bedroll and glanced up. He stared at the infinite black sky lit by a million shimmering stars splashed brilliantly across the void from one end to the other as far as he could see. He felt stunned, awed, for he was looking at heaven itself. He lay gazing up until he dropped back into a dreamy sleep.
Late that summer, after he returned home from camp, he began to change. He turned 10 and entered grade 5.
His mother had perhaps chastised him once too often about his behaviour in school the previous year. His humourless grade four teacher Miss Fraser had complained incessantly about his boyish miscreance. He resolved to change.
On the first day of grade 5, he imposed on himself a code of silence. He would show his mother and the new teacher. He would become the perfect student. He would seal his childish, silly feelings deep inside and pay no attention to them. That would be the new Danny Stavros.
It was at his school, during a routine parent-teacher interview one evening six weeks into the school year. Barbara's first question of his teacher was whether Danny's behaviour was a problem, for it was in her nature to expect the worst.
"Danny? Behave? You must be talking about someone else, Mrs. Stavros. Danny's not a problem at all. He's quiet, pays attention, understands everything, never speaks out of turn. In fact it's all I can do to get him to participate in class. I'd be concerned about him but for the fact he's done very well on all the tests to date. I expect he'll be near the top of the class."
The next morning at home, drinking her coffee, Barbara was all smiles as she told everyone about the interview. "Your teacher told me how well you're behaving. She was surprised I even asked. I'm so proud of you!" She spoke as though it was a miracle.
This was another story she would relish telling in years to come. Danny, the perfect son. He felt proud, mother loved him.
His sexual nature hadn't existed in his mind before now. There were occasional little things that vaguely troubled him. But anything to do with sex felt shameful so he tried to ignore it. His childhood seemed intact.
Then he was 11. The little things that troubled him seemed to multiply and grow.
He only vaguely understood what was happening to him. How could the boy inside him know what to do with the man's body growing around him? It was all new. He felt bewildered.
It was the spring of 1961. Junior high school was just months away as was his 12th birthday. He felt like an outsider looking in. He had friends down the street, but mostly he was on his own.
He didn't feel part of the group of cool boys at school. He watched and envied them. And increasingly couldn't take his eyes off them.
One night he dreamed a boy touched him down there as his heart pounded, his penis swelled and hot stuff chaotically poured forth. He awoke alone in the dark and felt the warm electric aftermath of the dream. Had he peed himself? He reached down and found warm and sticky instead of tepid wet pee. He closed his eyes and slept on.
He awoke after daybreak and remembered. The stuff had dried. He placed his pyjamas in the laundry beneath other soiled clothes, hoping his mother wouldn't notice.
He recalled the dream. An image of a boy touching his penis blew up his childhood in a few ecstatic moments. It should have been a girl touching him. Not a boy. A terrible mistake. He wanted to take it back and repeat it the right way. He didn't know how. Like the tics. A mistake in his brain. He wasn't normal.
He tried to forget the dream. He dressed, ate cereal, rode his bike to school, thinking as he went. The stuff must be sperm, I heard about that somewhere. My body sure is strange.
Hair grew down there. He hated pubic hair. He cut it with scissors and flushed it down the toilet. But it grew back.
Puberty was a constant disturbance, a remote turmoil in his mind that he wished did not exist. He couldn't stop it, control it or slow it down. Couldn't prevent the wet dreams.
He rued the strange feelings he had when he looked at other boys. He deeply envied them, the slim boys, their innocent faces, the shapes of their bodies.
One warm May day at recess, he was staring at a blonde boy he knew, his friend Maurice Lowther. Straight blonde hair, big blue eyes, a little shorter than Danny. His face was cute, round with an eager smile, a sweet, boyish face Danny found reassuring and welcoming. Maurice was friendly and soft spoken. He seemed pure, the kind of kid you just knew you could trust.
Danny became conscious he was looking at Maurice the wrong way. He felt like he was in love with Maurice. He could no longer deny it. He was a homo.
On that bright spring day when he first looked at Maurice in that new way, he felt desire, guilt, a subtle, mysterious yearning.
Maurice's family moved away at the end of that school year. Danny wouldn't see him again.
Danny would be thinking about Maurice for the rest of his life. Some day, he imagined, a long time in the future, he might still be wondering what became of Maurice. Was he still alive? Did he have a happy life? The feeling was like, in that movie he'd seen, the longing for something lost that Charles Foster Kane had when he was dying. Despite his wealth and power, what he thought about on his deathbed was his childhood toy called Rosebud.
Over the many years after Danny knew Maurice, he would often remember how he felt that first time he found himself staring at his beautiful friend the wrong way.
He had a terrible secret now. He mustn't give himself away. Otherwise what future would he have? If people learned what he was, it would be very bad. People like him were sent to hospitals for crazy people like the one downtown. 999 Queen Street, a 19th century Toronto hospital for mentally sick people. Those with weak brains or diseased minds. They lock you in, you lose everything, even your family. You're a pervert.
There was nothing Danny could do to change himself. He didn't need a doctor to tell him. He had to accept himself for what he was, and hide it. That's how it was.
He was about to turn 12 and start grade 7 in junior high school. He'd been growing, his old pants and shirts no longer fit. His mother sent him to a department store with money to buy new ones. He came home excited about the clothes he bought himself. He anticipated his mom would be delighted.
He proudly modelled his new pants for her. They were tight in the style many boys wore. His mother looked at him. Her expression turned to anger. "They're too tight. Why would you buy those? Didn't you try them on?"
"Yes I tried them on, I like them."
Close-fitting clothing was in style for teenage boys. She must have seen this new fashion around and anxiously suppressed her revulsion of boys flaunting the outlines of their slim young bodies.
She sneered at him. "I don't believe you. Look at how tight they are. Yer penis is sticking out!"
He felt sick when she spat it out. Angry bitter words that hurt. He wanted to look like other boys but he couldn't tell her that. He had to hide his desires.
"Did you even try them on? Get out of my sight!"
He needed to cry. What could he do? The pain ran deep. She hurt him badly.
He picked up the new clothes, went to his bedroom, closed the door. He lay on his bed amid the bags, sobbing. She hadn't said he mustn't buy clothes like that. He didn't understand.
He wouldn't forget how wretched he felt that afternoon. Why did the memory stick in his brain this way, constantly floating up like a cheap plastic toy in dirty bath water? Feelings of humiliation, embarrassment, shame. Anger so deep he couldn't comprehend it. He couldn't make the bad feelings vanish. The vile attraction to other boys. His ugly body. A penis that offended her. He absorbed her anger, believed what she said. There seemed to be nothing good about him any longer.
She didn't much like him now. He couldn't meet her expectations. When he was nine, she complained he wasn't behaving at school, so he turned himself into the perfect boy, and she loved him again for a while. Puberty wrecked that carefully built image. He could dimly see how the new sexual version of him displeased her.
He had no way to hide it from her. His hair was greasy, had dandruff. He shampooed it in the morning, by the evening it was oily again.
His face had a few pimples. It was his fault, she said, he didn't wash his face.
His voice became deeper, it would break or crack sometimes when he spoke. When she heard that, she furrowed her brow and turned away.
He wondered if he smelled bad. His friend Calvin told him about deodorant but when he asked his mother to buy it, she said it's perfume, boys don't use perfume.
She resented what he was becoming. In place of her compliant little boy, she had a pimpled 12-year-old half man dressed in tight clothes, who played with his body when no one was looking and left stains on his bedsheets. A sexualized son she no longer wanted.
She had in his early years taught him a set of sexual restraints, a safe path through life that she expected him to follow. Taking her teachings literally as he did, he felt he must comply. Sex was for marriage. Some day you'll marry a pretty girl and have lots of children. Homosexuals are disgusting perverts. Now his penis offends her. She hated and distrusted his looming masculinity.
When he was 12, his parents told him about an exciting opportunity. He could go to a camp in Greece in the summer of 1964 when he'd be 14. There would be about 100 other teenagers, Americans, Canadians, Greeks. They would travel around Greece together to see it and learn about its history.
They described it as the opportunity of a lifetime. How could he say no?
The time arrived. He went to Greece for the summer. What happened there would haunt his memory for years to come.
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