At age 82, with leukemia and a heart problem and diabetes, I realize that "not to be" will soon be my fate so I'd like to record as much of me in these reflections as I can.

First off is my motto-the life force that has been part of my essence since my earliest memory: I am my own best friend!

And as such, I've been reclusive, protective, and lived all my life alone-in a shell that I created-a shell so small that I continued making shells upon shells upon shells upon shells that hell hath no power ever to destroy.

That's a really strange concept, isn't it, Scot? It's queer.

"Yep. You hit the screw on its head and scratched a quarter of a scintilla of a speck of dust and attempted to abuse my spirt-my soul, that collection of electrons that have existed since this tiny universe was created (more about that in a future story) but that word QUEER! How cruel it was-how hateful-and my boy brain was far too small to understand you and why it was so fundamentally (I write that as a boy who grew up Fundamentalist Christian) the only reason that you hated me, why you, if you found out who I really was would gather your crowd of unwashed, impure bigots and drag me to the stone quarry where each of you would pick up a stone-and one by one smile as you ejaculated its impotence, and the children spit-they always spit or hit or laugh and taunt as they too, pick up stones as you eject your vile hateful cruel Bible verses and chant your songs and invite Pastor Walter Kirk to sermonize me-he won't use the word queer-he uses those other Bible verses-he wants to me cry-to break me down, to have me confess my sin here in this crowded born-again revivial tent he set up in the middle of this stone quarry as he relishes in the deepest darkest part of his soul to set me on fire-the fire of the Lord-with his words-not loving me or protecting me or holding me, but casting me by the power of his god (with a little "g" like the little preacher man he was) to abuse me, to demean me, to dig into my outermost shell, scaping it with his unwashed ragged claws as he urges you all to gather more rocks-big ones for those of you who are big in your soul with hatred and small ones for those of you just came out (interesting choice of words, eh?) around just for the show-but then all of you cast stones rejoicing as you flung them at me and I am once again, backed up to that stone quarry wall knowing that you know that I, William Patrick "Scot" Walker am unfit to live.

I awoke from that nightmare just now-knowing how real it was-and still is in your universe among all of us homos-by your cruel wives, and daughters and mothers and dads and gramps and cousins and sons who hate things-especially those things like me-that they cannot control.

And I made more shells and temporarily rescued myself from that stone quarry and created five more even more solid, more secure walls, praying, hoping that you would never find the real me-that real me that you'd already decided was vile and unfit to live in your world, so I made me a new wall to rebrand myself and yes, that meant I had to lie to myself-and pretend with every breathe I took, with ever hand motion, with every verbal inflection, that I was not me at all as I forced myself to become a liar, a fake, a false prophet if you will, and put on a show-unable to take this pen and write this story because back then I knew it would be my death sentence, and I've always wondered why you were so hateful, so cruel, so despicable, so walking dead and brainless until now-that I can call a bigot a bigot and feel proud of myself in my spirt, in my soul, and at 82, I have finally blown up that closet (even though all my shells still linger there), when I'm asked from time to time by the most blatantly ignorant of all of you, "Hey Scot, umm, err, ah can I, ah, may I ask you a question and not ah ah, ah er offend you?"

I nod my agreement, knowing already the words that will ooze out of your mouth from those spit dripping lips and those pierce jabbing stabbing chewing chomping crooked teeth, and from deep down your throat, seeping acidly from your very vile viscera, "Ah, ah, Scot, why did you decide to become gay?"

There it is! Your cruelty and ignorance that I've shielded myself from for so many decades-knowing what you did to Matthew Sheppard and to all the rest of us whom you despised and abhorred because. . . because you could. … because that was the only way you could prove your masculinity, your humanity, your religious soul to bully and to demean~ How proud you must be of your religion-and your very soul!

Well, it took me these 80 years, but I must now confess that I am proud to share this answer to anyone reading this, who like me, has wrestled with the ignorance that permeates so many zealots, the answer to their question of why I decided to go queer on them: "Why did you decide to become straight?"

"What? Ah, er, ummm I didn't decide THAT! I am straight that's the way I was born that's the way I was created!" And then I see that glimmer of reality settle slowly into you-that Buddhist moment when you respond: "I didn't decide THAT-that's just who I am."

It was so heartwarmingly wonderful when I learned to ask that simple question and how quickly I saw a glimmer of hope struggling to escape from your vile soul, that religious soul and fill it with something you never had before: understanding, compassion:

Enlightenment!

The End

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