Coming Out With Dad

His parents split up because father was gay. Colin St. John gets straight with his dad.

By Colin St. John, published on May 01, 2006 - last reviewed on June 04, 2008

When I came home from my friend Chad's house on the morning of November 2, 1996, my parents opened the door before I had put my key in the lock.

"We need to talk."

Oh, man. Had they found the empty beer cans I chucked in the garage? I figured I could deal with another "beer and cigarettes when you're 14" talk. But when I looked past them and saw the three water glasses waiting on the living room coffee table, I knew that this talk was probably more serious.

"We're getting divorced."

I was too shocked to actually let the tears flow. Instead, I was gasping. But that wasn't all.

"Who's been cheating?" I asked. I was trying to marshal my machismo.

My father's response: "I'm gay."

People describe these moments as out-of-body experiences, and for good reason. Everything that I'd known about myself, my family and my father seemed to instantaneously turn to fiction. The transition was so stark, a complete 180. A couple of hours and three empty glasses later, my dad was gone.

A lot of children of divorce say that they saw it coming. I hadn't seen one damned thing. It left me feeling like a character in a Cassavetes movie, teetering on the edge of sanity. Like his heroine, I was a kid under the influence, split between what I wanted and what my father wanted.

In the months that followed, when I'd be waiting for my father to come over to my house to pick me up, I would pace around the kitchen, not wanting him to come. I remember being so angry, and also suffused by sadness. As soon as he would show up, most of my anger would melt away.

I hid from what was happening to my family, even though it gnawed at me. I wasn't homophobic, and it wasn't a question of values. It was a question of propping up what was left of my old life. If I didn't talk about it, people wouldn't know and, therefore, it couldn't exist. The irony was that everybody around me probably did know about it. My dad had talked openly about his sexuality, and in the East Denver social circle my family was part of, word traveled. He used to prod me, "When are you going to talk about it? When are you going to tell?" Sometimes I felt like I was the one who was queer, who was supposed to go through the process of publicly admitting it.

A few months after my father moved out, it became his turn to drive me to school in the morning. One day, I ran downstairs ahead of him to throw my backpack in his old white diesel Mercedes, and there it was: a big, glittery rainbow flag sticker. It was his message to the world—and to me—in unavoidable, stick-on, six-color plastic.

I was a freshman at an all-boys Jesuit high school. Having a gay father would be a death sentence.

All the way to school, I tried to come up with excuses for him to drop me off somewhere else, but I couldn't keep my thoughts in order. I hunched over, trying to make sure nobody saw me.

When we arrived at school, I slunk from the car like a soldier in the brush. I scanned the grounds. So far, no witnesses.

I made it through the day and was waiting for my dad to pick me up when the archetypal high school bully approached—the kind of guy who actually still gave people wedgies.

"Hey, St. John. You came to school today in a white Mercedes, right?"

My only reply was an empty stare at him—and at the gathering crowd.

"Well, why did your dad have a gay sticker on his car?"

"I... don't know what you're talking about." I don't know what you're talking about? It was probably the first lie that I learned. Mentally, I was shrinking into the fetal position.

"Come on. I saw you. Is your dad a fag or something?" He laughed and looked around for approval.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I was a worse liar than Ralphie in A Christmas Story. More people were coming up. It was before basketball practice and I knew practically the whole team; we had played against each other in grade school. They knew what my dad looked like. This was it. I was going to have to move out of Colorado.

"We all know it was your dad. We all know he's gay."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Stymied by my lame response, he went off in search of more interesting prey. I had saved myself from social death. Nevertheless, it made me feel awful. I hate to lie, but, back then, I hated telling the truth more. My friend Matt came over to ask me what was the matter—and I lost it. I wept. I told him everything.

And strangely, that was it. The next day, I pretended that everything was status quo—and so did everyone else. I didn't want to talk about it, and, I suspect, my friends would've been even more uncomfortable.

Luckily, my parents sent me to a therapist, who, if nothing else, helped me to get my feet on the ground. I needed to be comfortable with myself before I could deal with the reality of my changed life. It's only now that I realize the two coincided. My dad had come out of the closet, and now it really was my turn.

To this day, I think my dad shouldn't have put me into that position. But it turned out to be for the best. It meant that I had to figure out a lot sooner who I was, and who my father is.

By the time I was a sophomore in college, I was talking (and joking) about my dad's sexuality. Everyone knows and everyone should know. It's who he is. Now, I'm even more willing to talk about my father and our relationship. And things are good between us; sometimes we even take the old Mercedes out for a spin.