Chapter 8
I ’d always heard that coming out to people in your life felt like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders, and like most of what I read online, I’d never really believed it until I witnessed it for myself.
After coming out to Abbey, I really did feel a lot better.
She was one of the most important people in my life and she genuinely did not care that I was gay.
I knew that her reaction – or lack thereof, as it had turned out – wasn’t to be expected across the board but it did help build my confidence a bit.
So after our second festival show in New Zealand, I tagged along with our tour manager Kelly to grab a coffee from catering so I could talk to her too.
The day we were interviewing Kelly for the tour manager position, way back before the tour we did before Sara was born, she’d shown up with her girlfriend Alexis.
They were in the process of moving to LA and the plan had been for Alexis to sit at another table at the coffee shop we’d agreed to meet up at until Kelly was done.
Mira and Annabelle had figured out that Alexis was there with Kelly, invited her to join us, and the rest had been history.
We’d all been in the wedding party when Kelly and Alexis got married.
That was why I’d decided to come out to Kelly next – I knew she’d be totally cool about it. Still, the butterflies in my stomach didn’t seem to get the message that not only was Kelly gay, she was married with cats and a closet full of plaid .
“Hey, so, I wanted to talk to you about something,” I began, busying myself with sugar and creamer and one of those shitty wooden stirrers. I’m all about saving the turtles, really, but I hate those things.
“Shoot,” Kelly said, raising a judgy eyebrow at my drink as she gracefully sipped from her unnaturally strong black coffee.
“Well, uh, I’m sure you’ve noticed that this whole, um, situation…
” I waved my unoccupied hand as we wandered away from the coffee stand.
It was still early – perks of having a child on tour – so there were only a few crew members milling around in the backstage area.
This was as much privacy as we were likely to get.
“Look, Max, you’re a man of few words and I’m worried you’re going to hit your daily word count before you get to the point,” Kelly said, a friendly grin spreading across her tanned face. “Spit it out. Trust me when I tell you there’s nothing you can say that’s gonna shock me.”
Well, that just sounded like a challenge.
“I’m gay.”
Her eyes widened behind her thick rimmed glasses – just a fraction, but I was studying her face for a response so I caught it. I couldn’t help but grimace, a little bitterly. I had shocked her, despite her insistence to the contrary.
“Wow,” Kelly replied, pushing her glasses up her nose and taking another sip of her coffee. “Alright.”
“Alright?” I repeated, scanning her face for more of a reaction. She shrugged.
“Yeah, Max. It’s alright,” she smiled knowingly at me, tilting her head in that way that I always read as maternal. It was like she was looking right through me.
“Ok,” I dragged in a deep breath, held it for a second, let it out. “I just…I’ve just started dealing with it recently. I promise I haven’t been keeping it from you.”
I don’t know why it was so important for me to get that out, but it was.
I didn’t want Kelly to think I didn’t trust her.
That was always at the front of my mind when I was gearing myself up to have these increasingly common conversations; worry that my friends would think that my reluctance to share this part of me was a reflection on them instead of a reflection on me.
“Hey, take another one of those deep breaths. Listen, Max, I’m gonna tell you one of the most important things I’ve learned since coming out.
I don’t wanna go all Elder Lesbian on you, because queer people are not a monolith and my experience isn’t gonna be your experience, but I think you need to hear this, ok? ”
“Ok,” I said, feeling pretty dumb about not being able to do anything other than repeat what she’d been saying.
“You don’t need to come out to everyone.
You don’t need to come out to anyone, if you don’t want to.
What you’re doing now, most people call it “coming out of the closet”, and if it works for you to think of it that way, you can – but I don’t.
You’re not stepping out into the world, you’re inviting people into yours . Do you understand?”
I nodded, glad for the motion of ducking my head so that I could hide my face from her for a few seconds.
Tears were prickling in the corners of my eyes, and I didn’t want to cry about this.
I was taking positive steps forward, I was sure I was, but God coming out to another gay person was so much different to coming out to heterosexual people.
Nothing against my friends, who had been nothing short of spectacular when it came to my fuck ton of issues, but I felt so seen talking to Kelly.
“I understand,” I managed, the words scraping out around the lump in my throat.
“You don’t owe this to anyone, Max. There’s gonna be some shitty people who view your sexuality as your defining characteristic, but it’s not. Telling someone that you’re gay will help them get to know you better, but it’s not necessary. So if you want this to stay between us, it can.”
She was back in business mode. It was one of the things I appreciated most about Kelly, she was entirely unflappable. It was why she was one of the best tour managers in the business – dealing with musicians day in and day out was no picnic.
“I appreciate that, really I do,” I told her, finally able to get my emotions back under control in the face of her firm support. “I have told a few people. Shep, Mira and Annabelle know. Abbey knows.”
“Ok, good.”
“It’s weird, I feel so much better every time I have this conversation,” I told her as we continued meandering back to where the others were hanging out. “But it’s been different, with you.”
“I didn’t make you feel better?” She asked, flinging an offended glance in my direction.
“Oh, not like that!” I stammered quickly, bumping her with my elbow.
“You were great. I dunno, the others were great, they were really supportive and kind and you know…just really cool about it. I knew they would be, but I still got myself all worked up about it. It’s just… different, talking to you about it.”
“Well yeah,” Kelly chuckled, nudging me back. “I know I said queer people aren’t a monolith, and we’re really, really not, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have universal experiences. I’ve been where you are.”
“Yeah? How was it?”
“To be honest? Probably not as complicated as it is for you. This journey of self-discovery coinciding with the mysterious reappearance of Sebastian Jacobs in your life isn’t just a coincidence, is it?”
We’d reached the static trailer where Reliant were going to be setting up for the day.
I could hear Shep’s booming laughter from inside, followed by Sara’s high pitched little giggle.
It was a welcome distraction from the realization that I was going to have to explain the Sebastian situation again, because Kelly clearly had a bit of an inkling that things were weird between us.
Damn her and Abbey and their fine-tuned intuition.
“It’s not,” I sighed, rolling my eyes so hard it actually made my head hurt a little bit. Even after half a decade, Sebastian was still giving me headaches.
“Well ok then. I get it, he’s gorgeous,” she nodded, pushing past me to open the door. “And if you need to talk, anytime, about anything – I’m here, Max.”
“I know,” I smiled, for real, the headache passing as I followed her into the trailer.
Sara beamed up at me, waving wildly as Shep swung her up onto his shoulder while crowing about getting ready for take-off. I sat on yet another under-stuffed Ikea mini couch, enjoying the warmth settling over me as I watched my little family.
◆◆◆
We had a couple of days off between our festival shows in New Zealand and the first set of actual tour dates in Japan. They were mostly to allow our touring crew time to arrive and get adjusted, but after a few emotionally exhausting days, I was glad for a little bit of time off.
We had a few members of our usual crew joining us: David, who was our guitar and bass tech, our drum tech Nick, Daisy, who was in charge of our sound and lighting and Natalie, who had been our merch slinger since we’d been playing dingy clubs back in the States.
Natalie had been on tour with us the last time we’d toured with Burning Bright, so she knew most of their crew as well.
She’d been one of our longest serving crew members, so I came out to her next.
She was very supportive and had offered me her brother’s number, which I politely declined.
I caught David, Nick and Daisy on the first day they arrived, dropping the I’m Gay bomb on them in the hotel lobby while they were so jet lagged they weren’t entirely sure which planet they were on, let alone continent.
They had also been very cool about it. David made sure to tell me he was happy to talk about it more after he’d gotten exactly 14 and a half hours of sleep.
It was definitely getting easier the more I did it. Kelly was right – it didn’t feel like I was stepping out of the closet, it really did feel like I was just letting my friends get to know me better .
On our last day off before the shows started, everyone decided to go sight-seeing around Tokyo. Sebastian and Jet had invited the whole Reliant crew a few times, and I was kind of curious to see what it was like hanging out with two truly world-famous musicians in public.
Turns out, it wasn’t much different from hanging out with normal people, except we didn’t have to queue for anything, anywhere. I was alarmed at how much I enjoyed it, honestly.