Brokeback Wal-Mart

I was standing in a cashier’s line at Wal-Mart the other day, my arms full of cars and trucks for my son, who was about to turn 2. Out of nowhere, a man thinner than a toothpick but weathered by at least six Republican administrations struck up a conversation. I don’t know what made him think we could buddy up. He couldn’t possibly have been encouraged by the giddiness of the season (it was just before Christmas). Wal-Mart’s fluorescence ensures that all giddiness is disemboweled from all occasions and all entrants. Something else was urging him on, something compulsive. He asked me if I’d seen “Brokeback Mountain.” He clarified for me that it was about two cowboys in Wyoming humping something other than horses. No, I told him, I hadn’t had the pleasure. Again, I don’t know what urged him on, or what gave him the notion we were on the same gay-bashing wavelength. Maybe the Wal-Mart surroundings induce customers into a trans-Southern trance of mob prejudices, as in contemporary-vintage Baptist congregations. But the toothpick started coursing (and cursing) of the disgust of the thing, his face contorting along in agony, well-practiced, I imagined, from having had a lifetime of agonies to share with strangers. Funny, I told him as I pointed to my son, who was a few aisles over (I’d asked my daughter to keep him from seeing his presents), “my 2-year-old son is gay.” Read the full post...