My mother was always a very politically engaged woman. She came from a long line of New Democratic Party members and supporters, and she was always keen to trying to pass that social democratic angst onto me. There was always something happening in our country to get upset and angry over, and whenever something good finally happened, it ought to bring the same reaction as winning the lottery. So, when I went downstairs one morning in June of 2003 to be greeted by the cheery squeals of Mom, I knew something interesting, at least, had just transpired.
“What’s going on?” I asked, as I found her standing proudly in the living room in front of the television. “Come and see, honey!” I walked over by her side to see what was so special. It was a CBC News report about the Court of Appeal of Ontario; they had just ruled to legalise gay marriage in the province. “Oh wow,” I commented. “That’s pretty cool.” “It’s amazing!” Mom added. “Finally gay people in this country are actually being given basic animal rights.” “Yeah. It’s a really good thing.” She turned to me. “Your friend Jeremy is gay, right? You should tell him about this!” “Yeah. Yeah, I should.” I did agree.At lunch break, I met up with Jeremy at our usual spot: a large branch near the top of this oak tree in the middle of the schoolyard; the highest one that could still hold both of us. Even though we were both cats who naturally enjoyed having our territory to ourselves, we both came to each other at break time almost every day. That’s how strong our friendship was.
It had been this way for years, probably since we were about fifteen years old. It started out as us sitting next to each other in a computer science class, and he was bragging about already knowing plenty of programming languages that he learned on his own. I asked him to prove it, and before long he basically became my personal instructor in class, teaching me everything the teacher couldn’t get to yet about how to code, how to design a website, the whole lot of it. We ended up creating a shock site together, where we hosted bait-and-switch images of whatever weird stuff we found on fetish sites. We both had a similar, edgy, irreverent sense of humour and personality, which for two teenage cats was perfectly normal.
Somehow, we grew entertained enough by each other that we started hanging out at lunch break and after school; it was after school that I learned Jeremy was a boxer. I would go with him to some of his sessions at the youth boxing club in town, and I spent most of the time sitting at the end of the room watching him practice, whether at a punching bag, or occasionally, with other boxers. He had a particularly tense rivalry with this gray wolf named Tyler, but he always beat him when they had a coach-monitored practice match.
Jeremy was an amazing boxer, and you didn’t have to know anything about boxing to know it. He was extremely dedicated, going to the club for hours every single day regardless of whatever else was going on. And the way he just went at it with the punching bag, seemingly punching at it over and over again, his fist movements acting in perfect symmetrical succession to one another. And the way he just continuously fought his opponents and took punches like they didn’t even hurt... it was like a robot. It was like it was all just nothing to him.
And at a certain point, it was probably close to that; the dude was always bulky as hell, even when we were just fifteen. The first time I saw him without his shirt off was in the boxing club locker room, and it even despite seeing his thickness from the outside, it did not at all prepare me for actually seeing the real thing. The definition along his abs and stomach was nothing like I had ever seen before, even in most adults. It was all just pure muscle, not a speck of fat or any other kind of looseness anywhere. His biceps were like extra cylinders added to his already fairly dense arms, and there was absolutely no jiggle in his legs, either. Fifteen, sixteen years old, and I could already tell his heart was going to act as if he were that young for a much longer time.
It was at the end of grade ten that Jeremy had finally come out to me as gay. He told me this as we overlooked the street below us at the top of the oak tree, on the last official school day of the year and the last Friday before the beginning of our final exams.
I told him the truth. “You know, Jem... I’ve always kind of figured that about you. That you were gay and all that.”
“Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “How so? I don’t think I act campy or anything like that.”
“Well, you just always seemed kind of different, I guess. I mean, for one thing, you were always chill about letting me hang out with you. That’s not something most cats are ‘chill’ about.” I looked at Jeremy and that seemed to make him think. “And, also... you take way too good care of your body to not be at least a little gay. Just sayin-”
“Aw, goddamn dude!” He slapped me on the back, almost pushing me out of the tree. “I just knew you were going to say that!”
“What?!” I said, repositioning myself on the branch so I didn’t fall twenty feet. “It’s usually true, isn’t it? I mean, I’m just saying, not even any of the grade twelve guys look anywhere close to you.”
“Mmmm. I guess you’re right on that one.” I could sense a hint of veiled smugness in his voice. “Still, though. Not every gay guy is all buff and shit like I am. Ever heard of what it means to be a twink?”
“Yeah. But still, it’s a pretty common thing, right? Buff gays?”
“I guess sort of. But like, a gay person can just be a perfectly normal-looking dude. Doesn’t have to fit any stereotype or whatever. I mean, I’m a pretty normal guy, right? I probably don’t ‘act’ the way you think gay people act.”
“I guess not really. But... still, most cats aren’t going to just accept another cat into their life you way you did.”
“Maybe that’s just because we’re really close,” Jeremy replied, smirking.
“Maybe.”
“You’re a good friend, Seb. I like that you’re just really easy-going about most things. You wanna know to program, so you let me teach you. When I take you to my boxing place, you just sit there and observe. You’re pretty unique for your species just as I am.”
I thought about it. And soon enough I couldn’t hold back a smile of my own. “Yeah. I guess we really are just both pretty cool about most things.”
“Hey, Seb.” Jeremy leaned in closer. “I think you’re purring.”
I focused, and just as he suggested I could feel my mouth making that rumble. It was hardly familiar, though; it had been so long since the last time that I had actually purred.
That was June of 2002. Now it was 2003, and gay marriage was now a thing where we lived. As I headed to the oak tree after the third bell, I wondered how many other places in the world allowed gay people to marry each other. I think my mom had said something about the Netherlands having it. Belgium? I couldn’t remember. And I couldn’t think of any other places. Maybe that really was it. A couple countries in Europe, and here in Canada. Ontario, anyways.
I thought about how cool that must be. To live in one of the very few places in the world as of yet, where people are allowed to marry others of the same gender or sex. It was like my mom had suggested, full equality had finally been reached. And way before most other places. Jeremy would definitely be happy to hear that news. Not that he was in a relationship with anyone – in fact I never really saw him pursue any guy – but still, it was a friendly reassurance that people like him no longer had to carry the weight of knowing that their relationships were not fully recognised like they were for everyone else. Provided he didn’t decide to travel out of province, anyway.
There were a number of large trees out in the schoolyard, all of them unofficially designated for a certain clique of students. The birch tree was for the birds; the maple tree was for the rodents; and the oak tree was for the cats. Jeremy and I always sat way higher up than the rest of the other cats, but it’s not like it was ever something we took note of; just as cats do, they minded their own business as I climbed up past them as I did for them. Eventually I got to the top, where Jeremy was, as usual, sprawled across the entire branch before I came along, and he had to make room for me. This time around, he was eating a hotdog from the cafeteria, as he looked out at the street below us. The oak tree was right at the edge of the schoolyard, so you could easily see the street below.
I dug my claws into the trunk as I hung there, looking him over. “Hey fuckboy,” I called out. He sat up and looked over at me, clinging onto the trunk.
“Hey dipshit,” he replied. He sat upright, letting his legs dangle from the branch. I leaped over him and onto the free space next to him, and took out my pizza slice as I gathered myself together. This was always how we greeted each other normally; cats can be nasty with each other in a friendly sort of way.
“Did you see the news this morning?” I asked.
He was still eating a bite from his hotdog, and made a little gesture with his pointer finger to indicate an extra minute. Once the mouthful had been fully digested, he asked, “What was on the news this morning?” He opened his mouth to take another bite.
“They just legalised gay marriage here in Ontario.”
I expected him to immediately close his mouth before it got anywhere near the hotdog. I expected a look of surprise, of happy surprise, for him to turn to me and say Really? But he didn’t. Instead, he just took another bite. I watched his slow, concise chews; no sense of surprise or joy in the inflections his cheeks made, or any particular emotion at all for that matter. Once he was done, he took a soft, anticlimactic swallow, and then finally put the hotdog down. He stretched his arms out to the sides to grip the branch with his claws. “Well. It’s about fucking time, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t expecting him to put it like that, but I was happy to go with it. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“Just... goddamn. It’s been a long ass time coming.”
“It’s great, isn’t it? And I don’t think any other place has it yet. Besides, like, the Netherlands I think.”
Jeremy threw his head back before sitting up a bit straighter. "Sure... Sure it’s great, to know that literally, just as of today, I finally have the right that straight people have had for thousands of years. And even better that we are the only place on Earth – one of the few places, anyways – where this right is finally being given to us. In 2003.” He looked over at me, dead in the eye. “Does that really sound great to you Seb? Or is that just, like, kind of indicative of something?”
I saw his point, but I wanted to shed a bright side onto it. “Well, I think you should just be glad that you live where you do now. Because you’ll probably have it worse in most other places in the world. Imagine trying to be openly gay in Afghanistan, or Iraq. You’ll probably be executed or something. Hell, if you lived somewhere like Texas or Alabama, you might still be in danger.”
He grabbed my shoulder. “But, Seb. That shouldn’t have to be the line. Why can’t I just, be accepted as a normal person? Everywhere? For longer than literally just today?”
That actually ticked me off a bit. It was almost as if he was implying that the past two years of our relationship meant nothing, or at least my acceptance didn’t matter to him. “What the hell are you talking about? I treat you as a normal person, right? Have I not always just been chill about your sexuality?”
“Yes, of course, you have always been. And that shit about ‘buff gays’, I can forgive it, because it’s not like you’d met that many gay people before. But that’s kind of my point. There are still so many stereotypes, so many lies, so much fucking prejudice. It’s not like I’m not still in danger, Seb! What if any of those guys at the boxing club found out I was gay? They’d probably beat my ass in a heartbeat. It’s not like now that gay marriage is legal, I can just waltz around and come out to everyone. That’s not how it’s going to work.”
“I didn’t say that, Jeremy.”
He sighed a little and reached for his hotdog again. “Alright, I’m not getting into this anymore. I can get married now, woo-fucking-hoo. Let’s just eat. I’m really hungry right now.”
“Me too.”
And so, we sat there, for the rest of the break, silently eating our prized animal products.