Russian Gay Family Takes Refuge In Spain
A gay Russian family appeared in a harmless ad for a food chain and wound up being viciously targeted on social media. They received death threats and actually had to wind up fleeing Russia.
“We don’t have anti-discrimination laws [in Russia] so we don’t have any protection,” Mila said. “We can’t go to the police.”
Here's more. They went to Spain because they received a lot of support, and most of all they feel safe there. There's a photo of them at this link.
The article goes into more detail about what it's like for LGBTQ people in Russia.
Personal Memoir "Nice People Once Lived Here" by Ryan Field
I recently finished a personal memoir titled, "Nice People Once Lived Here." I'm not going to spend a lot of time with this one. It's really the kind of self-indulgence I don't like doing.
But I just felt the need to get this written, and it is finished. I'm actually querying literary agents about it right now because I don't want to indie publish this and I want to keep it separate from my gay romance novels. For all I know, this project may never see the proverbial light of day. But at least I did it and I got it out of the way so I can move on to other things.
Here's the short introduction and the 1st two chapters. I'm not even sure there's an interest in this sort of book.
Nice
People Once Lived Here
Introduction
In
the late fall of 1998, when Tony and I were together about 6 years, we were
outside in front of our townhouse on a typical suburban cul-de-sac called
Spruce Court putting up Christmas lights just like everyone else had been doing
that week. We were laughing and joking and trying to untangle strands of little
white lights. We didn’t have a care in the world.
Together
we framed the front window with little white lights, placed a perfectly round
evergreen wreath on the front door, and set a festive green spotlight about 10
feet away from the front entrance so it would shine on the wreath after dark. When everything was ready, Tony went to plug in the
green spotlight so I could step back and see if it was shining on the door.
While he was up next to the front door where the electrical outlet was located,
the next-door neighbor’s little boy said, “Hey daddy, can we get a green
spotlight just like the two fags next door?”
At first, I blinked. I’d never been called that word
before. The little boy pointed directly at me with a great big smile, and I
just stood there gaping in his direction with wide eyes. I couldn’t speak. I
couldn’t look at Tony so I don’t even know what he was doing. The father ran
over to the little boy, scooped him up in his arms, and rushed him into the
house before he could say another word. That was it. No explanations; no
apologies. I never saw either of them up close again.
The next morning we quickly removed all the Christmas
decorations we’d put up and phoned a friend of ours who was a realtor. We
listed the townhouse on Spruce Court that Monday morning and started packing
that same afternoon. We had no idea it would be the adventure of a lifetime.
Chapter 1
We were happy. We were ready to put down roots. We were still at
that point in our gay marriage where the world was filled with possibilities.
Of course, we weren’t allowed to legally marry in the 1990s because
we were gay, but we lived the same as any other married straight couple, and we
thought of ourselves as married in every sense of the word.
We sold the townhouse on Spruce Court fast and on the very day we
moved, a massive oak tree came crashing down on the next-door neighbor’s minivan. This
was the same neighbor who had the child who had referred to us with the anti-gay slur. The oak
tree had been the only established tree on the cul-de-sac. The builders of the
townhouse community had promised to preserve it. There were no storms that day.
There was no wind. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the entire world
seemed to have gone dead still. The tree hadn’t even been leaning to the side.
It simply swayed back and forth a few times, and it fell directly in the center
of the neighbor’s minivan.
As the moving truck pulled away from the curb, and we turned to
follow it to our new home, we watched our neighbor come rushing out of his
townhouse to see what had happened. He put one hand to his mouth and one to his
stomach and just gaped at the crushed minivan. For a brief second, I made
direct eye contact with him. Tony and I exchanged a quick glance and I shrugged
and said, “My grandmother always said you can never trust a tree.”
Tony smiled. “Or a homophobic neighbor. Let’s roll.”
We bought a larger townhouse in the very gay-friendly town of New
Hope, PA. We researched the area carefully and we were determined to never
again be the only gay couple on the cul-de-sac. We felt safe in New Hope and we
were surrounded by other gay people. At the time we didn’t realize it, but our
real lives had just begun.
In the fall of that year, I traveled all the way up to unfamiliar
Quakertown, PA and bought a red miniature poodle puppy from a small mom and pop
breeder. The puppy was only 8 weeks old and I drove all the way back to New
Hope with him on my lap. When I pulled into the driveway, I set the puppy down
in the kitchen and called upstairs to Tony. When he wasn’t traveling he was
upstairs working in the home office. I told him to come down to the kitchen
because I had something to show him. I held my breath and waited for him to
come down.
He took one look at the puppy and I exhaled. I don’t think I’d
ever seen him that happy. He not only smiled so wide I could see his gums, he
picked that puppy up and wouldn’t put him down for the next 3 days. He carried
him around under his arm everywhere. For the next two weeks we couldn’t figure
out what to name him, so we just called him “doggie.” We finally decided on the
name Kipper and he responded well to it. The only one who wasn’t happy was our
poor cat, Nittany. She would just glare at him, howl, and swipe at him with her
front paw. He would walk around the house, from one room to another, and she
would jump out from behind a chair or table and bat him in the head. Unfortunately,
she never did learn to embrace Kipper, but she did learn to live with
him.
We had a social life with good friends we saw often, we
entertained, and we lived our best lives to the fullest in every aspect. We had
one Christmas party in that townhouse with over 60 people, and dinner parties
for over a dozen that went on until 3 or 4 in the morning.
It wasn’t all smiles and laughs. During our first year there I
lost my grandmother to old age and dementia, and a year later Tony’s mother was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he lost her in the spring of 2002. It was
a rough time for Tony because I couldn’t be there to support him fully like
other married couples. You see, even though we were out of the closet for the
most part in New Hope, we weren’t out of the closet with our families. Tony
certainly wasn’t out of the closet in corporate America. Those were the days of
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for gay couples.
When Tony’s mom died we were already together 10 years as a couple
and our families didn’t know a thing about us being gay. I’m sure they guessed
things, but we never formally came out of the closet to either of our families
and I never had a chance to meet Tony’s mom. The sad fact that I never met her
would be one of the biggest regrets of my life. And after she passed away I
vowed that I would not make that mistake with my own family.
So a few weeks after Tony’s mom was laid to rest, I invited my mom
and dad to our townhome for dinner one Friday night. They drove up to New Hope
from New Jersey, about an hour away, and I don’t really know what they thought.
I never asked. They knew I lived with Tony, as if we were roommates. But they’d
never walked through our front door and seen where we lived, or how we lived.
On the night my mom and dad came to dinner at the townhouse, Tony
and I greeted them at the front door and welcomed them with hugs and kisses. My
mom wore a light apple green dress and she brought a marble cake in a red and
white Tupperware container, plus a Baby George Grill as a
housewarming gift. I have other straight siblings and she never went to their
homes without bringing a housewarming gift and she clearly wasn’t going to come
to mine without one. All this normalcy made me feel validated and I couldn’t
stop smiling.
We had drinks and snacks in the living room before dinner on our
brand new white Chippendale sofa, we sat down at around 8 o’clock for dinner,
and by 11 o’clock they were on their way home again. The evening had been a
huge success, with no questions asked, and my mom and dad fell in love with
Tony. It was the beginning of his relationship with my family that would last
for many years to come.
We should have been satisfied with so many wonderful blessings,
but we had to push our luck just one more time.
On a quiet evening in July of 2002, we were outside on the deck
having dinner and I said, “I was reading about real estate prices in this area
going up lately and I was thinking we might want to list this townhouse for
sale just to see what happens. We could make a lot of money.”
Tony looked up from his food. “We’ve only been here a few years. I
didn’t think we were going to move again for a while.”
I smiled and nodded. I didn’t think we’d move again for a while
either. Just being outside and eating dinner on our beautiful deck, with birds
singing and flowers blooming all around us, was something we’d grown to love. We were an
end unit townhome high up on a hill that backed up to woods. From our deck, we
saw nothing but nature and in the distance we saw the little town of New Hope.
When it was dark at night the twinkling lights made me sigh and sleep better. “I
just think that if we have a chance to make money we should at least try and
see what happens. Our goal has always been to eventually move to a single
family home and this might be the right time to do that. I would hate to miss
the opportunity.”
Tony thought for a moment, and shrugged. “Well, you call the
realtor on Monday and let’s list the house. But we have to list if for a lot
more money than we paid otherwise it’s not worth moving.”
“I agree,” I said. “I think we should ask for double what we paid for
it a few years ago.”
Tony laughed. “Oh, we’ll never get that kind of money. That’s
ridiculous.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t want to appear too confident.
“Let’s do it and see what happens. The worst thing that can happen is the house
doesn’t sell and we take it off the market. And we’re in no rush to move
anyway. But I think we should try. The timing might be perfect.”
“I’m all for it,” Tony said. “I don’t see how it can hurt.”
So I called our realtor friend, Danny, once again who was the same
realtor who’d helped us sell the other townhouse. When he came over a few
nights later so we could sign the papers to list the house for sale I thought
he would fall sideways laughing when he heard the price we wanted to put on the
house. He just pressed his palm to his chest and gaped at us. Of course, we
didn’t listen to him when he said it was too much to ask, and we set a price
that made us feel comfortable.
By the end of August we’d had a few showings but no serious buyers
so we packed up our SUV and went off to Provincetown, MA just as we’d been
doing during the week following Labor Day for 10 years. It was one of those
perfect weather weeks on the Cape. Blue skies, warm dry air, warm ocean, and
all sunshine. In the middle of the week, we received a phone call from our
realtor in New Hope. He’d left a message for us at the front desk of the bed
and breakfast where we always stayed because cell phones still weren’t that
dependable yet, especially that far out on the Cape.
We’d just returned from the beach, covered in sand, dry and
thirsty, and ready for two good showers.
I headed off to our room and Tony went to the main lobby to call our realtor.
About 15 minutes later, Tony walked into our room, stared at me for a moment,
and smiled. “We just got a full-price offer on the townhouse.”
I blinked. “Full price?”
He nodded. “A full-price cash offer and they want a 30-day
settlement.”
“What should we do?” The
last time we did this we didn’t really like where we were living and we
couldn’t wait to leave. This time, however, we were leaving a home that we
truly cared about.
Tony laughed. “Are you kidding? What should we do? We take the money and run.”
“Okay,” I said. “I agree. Let’s do this. The only problem is there isn’t much
out there for sale right now in New Hope. And that’s a deal-breaker for me. I
want to be in New Hope. I don’t ever want to go back to living in a homophobic
community. I want to be around other gay people.”
“I’m sure we can find something,” Tony said. “And if we can’t we’ll rent
something until we can find a house we like enough to buy.”
I nodded, but I sent him a look. “As long as we stay in New Hope I’m fine with
that.” I was not about to go back to living in a straight townhouse community
where they would refer to us with anti-gay slurs just for putting up Christmas
decorations.
Chapter 2
Our buyers for the townhouse had sold their
home and they had been renting temporarily. They were moving up to New Hope
from McLean, Virginia. They needed a home in less than 30 days, and so did we. In
their case, it was even more serious because the house in Virginia they’d been
renting had been hit by lightning and they were living out of an RV. They were
eager to get into their new home.
So in between packing and our regular work schedules, Tony and I
went house hunting with our realtor and we discovered there wasn’t much
inventory out there for sale. Everything that was for sale was highly
over-priced and needed to be totally renovated. But more than that,
nothing felt like home.
One afternoon I said to Tony, “It’s been two weeks of house
hunting and we still haven’t found anything.”
“I know,” he said. “We’ve been through old stone cottages,
mid-century modern ranches, and even a few cookie-cutter gems and nothing seems
right.”
“We’re going to wind up homeless if we don’t find a place soon,” I
said.
A few days later, on my way home from work I started to make the turn into the
main drive of our townhouse development and I spotted a “For Rent” sign on the
old building across the road. The very next day Tony and I met the owner of the
building and did a walk-through. We couldn’t stop smiling. A few days after we
handed our new landlord a check for the new house we were going to rent for a
year, I got a call from our realtor that I hadn’t expected. “I have this house
I want you to see,” he said. “It was just listed and you’ll be the first people
to see it. The original owners who built it still live there and it’s the first
time it’s been listed since 1971.”
“But Dan, we just put down money on a rental property that’s almost directly
across the road. We signed a one-year lease and we really like this place. I
don’t see any point in looking at another house.”
“You have to see this house. It literally just came on the market and I think
you’re going to like it. And the price is perfect. It’s in your range, and I
think it’s underpriced. It’s an elderly couple and they’ve been there for 30
years. They’ve been planning to move to an assisted living facility but they’ve
been putting it off for 5 years. The wife is 86 years old and the husband is 92
years old. Their kids are constantly worried about them and they really want
them to move to assisted living.”
I hesitated. I really liked this house we were planning to rent. I’d been
visualizing how I would live there ever since I’d seen it. “Oh, Dan, I don’t
know.”
“Just look at it,” he said. “That’s all. If you don’t like it’s no big deal.
But I really do think you should look as an investment for your future. It’s a
good opportunity to own a single-family home on 2 acres of property at a very
fair price. It’s surrounded by million-dollar homes that are on 10 acres or
more. These places don’t come up often.”
After I hung up the phone with Dan, I called Tony. He’d been traveling all week
on business and he wasn’t due home until the next day. When I told him that Dan
wanted us to look at a house his reaction was the same as mine. “Just tell him
we already have money down on a rental, we made all the plans, and it’s all
settled. We not interested.”
“I did tell him that,” I said. “But he insisted. He’s a friend and I couldn’t
say no. So I made an appointment for the day after tomorrow at 5 o’clock. He
said he would meet us there with the sellers’ realtor, a woman named Anita.
They work out of the same office.”
A
few days later, we met Dan in the gravel driveway of a heavily wooded property
that looked as if it had been perfectly maintained by the most seasoned
gardeners. At the time, I wasn’t an expert myself, but as I glanced around
quickly I noticed long expansive sections of pachysandra that I figured must
have taken years to cultivate. I didn’t see much grass, but I saw English Ivy,
Vinca, and a vine that I’d seen referred to as Virginia Creeper. Nothing was
pruned to perfection and there were no trees with rounds of mulch like in the
townhouse development where we lived, but the well-established landscaping was
not an accident and it seemed as though everything had a reason.
I hugged Dan and looked up at the trees. “I’ve never seen so many beautiful
trees. I like them.”
Dan smiled. “Mostly ash trees. The owners are minimalists and they have a
passion for trees. They actually built the garage and the house around trees
that have been here for hundreds of years. You’ll see what I mean as we walk
the property.”
The moment I said I liked the trees, Tony sent me a serious look. I knew all
too well what that look meant. We once went car shopping and we went out with a
salesperson to test drive a Lexus. I’d never driven a Lexus before and the
moment I sat down behind the wheel I fell in love with it. Tony had warned me
about showing any emotions at all while car shopping. He didn’t want the
salesperson to know how much I loved the car. He didn’t want the realtors to
know how I felt about this house either. He sent me that serious look because
he wanted me to remain totally silent and objective. So I looked back at him
and nodded. I loved everything I was seeing so much I was ready to run around
the property and start hugging trees, but I remained silent.
Tony glanced around and asked, “Is this still considered New Hope? It’s on the
outskirts of town.”
Dan nodded. “Yes, this is still considered
New Hope, and that’s the official address now, but at one time it was the
little hamlet of Glendale.” He turned and pointed to the property next door.
“That little old house there was once the Glendale Post Office. Now the owner
of the property owns an internationally known custom lighting business. Clients
come from Paris to buy her designs.”
As I said, “Interesting,” another car pulled into the gravel driveway and
stopped short. A tall woman with a medium-sized frame in her mid-sixties
climbed out and walked to the back where she opened the trunk. She quickly
pulled out a pair of ugly, thick-soled walking shoes and removed her more
formal black leather flats. She put on the walking shoes, straightened out her
size 16 dress, and walked over to shake our hands. Her name was Anita, she was
the sellers’ agent, and she spoke with a thick German accent. I found her
amusing, especially because she’d come so well-prepared for the gravel driveway
with those awful sensible shoes.
As she crossed to greet us, a large gray mouse darted out
into the gravel path and ran across her large foot. It actually touched her
skin at the base of her ankle and she dropped her purse. She placed one palm on
her chest and the other on her mouth and she screamed so loud the mouse
disappeared into the pachysandra. I didn’t know mice could run that fast. I
glanced in the opposite direction so she wouldn’t see me smile.
When the mouse was gone, she took a deep breath and continued walking toward
us. She shook our hands and explained that the two-car garage in front of us
was oversized and there was a legal studio apartment above the garage.
Apparently, the sellers had built the garage with the apartment for the
husband’s mother and she’d come to live with them for a few short years before
she passed away. After she passed away, they decided to rent the apartment out
to a man named Walter. When he’d moved in, Walter had been in his early
sixties, which had been 20 years earlier. He was now in his 80s and he’d been
living there for over 25 years.
I was stunned. Other than my own parents, I didn’t know anyone who’d ever lived
anywhere for over 20 years. “So it’s a legal apartment?”
Dan and Anita nodded. “Yes, I checked with the township,” Dan said. “It’s
legal.”
Tony asked, “Would Walter be willing to stay on as a tenant?” He glanced at me.
“The extra money coming in every month couldn’t hurt and he has been here for a
long time.”
My eyebrows went up and I just nodded in agreement. I was surprised that Tony
had even considered this. We were only supposed to be there looking, not
seriously thinking about moving there.
Anita frowned and said, “I’m afraid that Walter will be moving when the house
sells. He’s moving to an assisted to be near his family. He claims he just
couldn’t stay here without Mr. and Mrs. Sutton around anymore.”
I smiled. “I understand completely.”
“It’s for the best anyway,” Dan said. “Walter is only paying $200 a month,
which is what he paid 25 years ago. They never raised his rent in all these
years.”
I smiled again. “They must be good people.”
“Well you’re about to find out,” Anita said. She turned right and started
toward a long gravel path that led uphill toward the main house. There appeared
to be two front entrances: one on the left and one on the right. The one on the
right had a more formal front door. “The owners are expecting us. But I have to
warn you ahead of time. This is a very hard move for them. They built this
house, they’ve lived her for over 30 years, and they really don’t want to
leave. It’s just that it’s become too much for them to handle. So please be
careful what you say. We don’t want to offend them. They could change their
minds at any moment.”
I stopped short and I looked her right in the eye. I didn’t like her tone.
“Well of course I wouldn’t say anything insulting that might offend them. Do I
look like an idiot? If they love their home so much and they have to leave
against their wishes my heart is breaking for them. I can’t even imagine how
terrible that must be. Losing your home is one of the worst things in life. I’m
going to just say as little as possible and let them do all the talking.”
Anita didn’t reply to me. She just turned and kept walking up toward the house.
On the way up the gray gravel walk to the front door, I noticed that the design
of the house was markedly different from the garage we’d seen up close down in
the driveway. The garage had been a two-car and two-door affair with a second
floor that had a large picture window overlooking the farm across the road. It
was barn-shaped, in that Dutch colonial way that I’d never really loved much.
On the other hand, the main house was more modern and contemporary with a ski
lodge type of appeal. It had vertical wooden siding, too. The middle section of
the house was a variation of an A-frame with two-story walls of glass and a
sharp peak. On either side of the A-frame I noticed two different wings that
were also two stories tall. And the house was set on a slight angle facing the
road.
When I asked Dan why the house seemed so different from the garage he told me
the house had been designed by a famous architect form New England and the
garage had been built a year later by a local contractor. According to Dan, the
design of the house and the architect were extremely well known. Not as
well-known as Frank Lloyd Wright, but almost as well known. He mentioned the
architect’s name and we moved on to the next topic.
The one thing I didn’t love was the colors I was seeing. Both the garage building
and the main house had been stained in that very dark brown that had been so
popular on the 1970s when the house had been built. The trim was even darker
brown paint. Thirty years later it looked tired and I had a feeling that the
inside of the house wasn’t going to get much better. As we headed toward the
front door I imagined pink tiled bathrooms, imitation wood paneling,
vinyl-covered floors, and that awful green scalloped wall to wall carpeting all
over the place. We had just finished removing green shag carpeting in the
townhouse and I wasn’t looking forward to doing that all over
again.
While Anita rang the doorbell and Tony and Dan talked about the cedar shake
roof, I glanced around and saw even more trees. It was late summer and
everything was still in bloom and everywhere I looked I saw green leaves. When
I looked up, I didn’t even see sky. Although I’d never been proficient in
naming tree species, I did notice that most of the trees on this property were
ash, oak, or maple. And some were so tall they soared hundreds of feet
upward. They towered over us and the house. The front of the property up
near the road was a more overgrown woodland area, with more ivy and
pachysandra, and some well-positioned bamboo. The rest was overgrown on
purpose, clearly to keep the house hidden from view on the road. There were
cars passing but they couldn’t see us and I liked that aspect. I could have
been walking around naked and no one would have known.
For a minute or two, we waited in silence for the owners to come to the door.
After listening to Anita talk about how difficult this move was for them I had
no idea what to expect so I decided to say as little as possible. I didn’t want
to insult them or hurt their feelings. And I certainly didn’t want to push them
out of the home they’d been living in for the last 30 years.
As the door slowly opened, I noticed a small woman with white hair and a
friendly face greet Anita, “There you are. We’ve been waiting for you.”
It was obvious they weren’t familiar with the usual protocol for showing a
house. Either that, or they didn’t care. We’d sold two townhomes in the last 3
years and we knew that one of the worst things for a seller to do is be there
when a potential buyer shows up. In fact, the more distance between the buyer
and seller the better. I had lost track of how many showings we’d had with the
townhouse, but I never met one single person who walked through. However, these
people were old school and they were not going to allow strangers to walk
through their home alone, and they were not going to miss a thing.
The woman with white hair stepped to the side and gestured for us to enter. As
all four of us pass through the doorway the woman was introduced to us as Mrs.
Sutton. We shook hands and Anita told Mrs. Sutton our names. We stepped into a
large open foyer with a bluestone floor, a wall of glass next to the front
door, and oversized sliding glass doors on the other side facing the back of
the property. There was a small courtyard in the back off the sliding glass
doors with a small garden that consisted of mature azalea bushes, more
pachysandra, and massive rocks that were clearly native to the area. I noticed
another mouse cross from one side of the walk to the other.
I was the last one to shake Mrs. Sutton’s hand and the others were already
heading into the next room. I read something in her eyes that the rest of them
had missed. It wasn’t anger or sadness, or even something I could pinpoint
exactly. It wasn’t even confusion. It was more like anticipation, and
wonderment. It was as if she didn’t know what to expect and she was going
through all the motions to be polite.
Before I followed the others I leaned down quickly and asked her a question.
“Thank you for letting us see your home. But I have to ask you a question.
Where are you going to go if you sell the house?” I couldn’t imagine anyone
forcing this sweet little woman out of the home she’d lived in for 30 years. No
one should be forced to move at that point in life. It just seemed too cruel to
make someone that age do something so drastic.
Well, Mrs. Sutton didn’t even blink. She covered her mouth with her hand and
laughed so hard I thought she might tip sideways. “We know exactly where we’re
going. We’ve had this assisted living apartment for over 5 years now. We bought
it with the intention of moving 5 years ago, but we just couldn’t bring
ourselves to leave Street Road. This has been a wonderful home to us. It's a
very lucky house.”
At that moment, I glanced down at the wonderful big square and rectangular
bluestone blocks in the hallway, and I glanced at the photo of a family member
hanging near the front door and I understood completely. This was, indeed, her
home and she loved it dearly. I had a feeling we were going to be good friends.
![Uncertainty by [Field, Ryan]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zNy11g1lL.jpg)
![Altered Parts by [Field, Ryan]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41kq7EeIZUL._SY346_.jpg)
