|
THE
turmoil still roils in Brian Gorrell as he drives up to
his home in the rain forest at Byron Bay, New South
Wales. It is turmoil his voice can hardly contain, as
off-the-track as this weather-beaten road very much like
those leading to mountainous towns in the
Philippines.
“You see why I like it here? It is very much like the
Philippines—lovely country,” he says, as the jeep dodges
puddles on this rain-soaked morning, both sides of the
road made darker by towering trees and dense vegetation.
Australian Brian would very much like to return to the
Philippines, back to the warm welcoming sands of Boracay,
but he just can’t. He is in the middle of a real-life
telenovela that could endanger him the moment he returns
to the archipelago. Truly.
The
storm is just brewing over a love affair gone very
wrong, where seemingly justice denied is simply brought
to the blogosphere. Reputations of Philippine socialites
are smeared, embarrassing secrets best kept in closets
are out, and lawyers are in a tizzy over the legal
implications of a blog read by over 3 million people in
37 countries.
The
25-minute ride to Brian’s home from the town center of
Byron Bay is peppered with caustic statements about his
former lover, Jose Delfin “DJ” Montano, the 35-year-old
Manila socialite, former lifestyle columnist and scion
of a political clan who, Brian claims, scammed him of
his life’s savings.
“Seventy
thousand dollars [about P2.7 million in today’s exchange
rate] was all the money I had in the bank. When it’s all
you have, it is everything. This is the whole point of
my blog. If I still had money in the bank, I could pick
up the pieces. I can pay for rent, I can pay for a plane
ticket, I can pay to move. You know, I can move forward
with my life, but the fact of the matter is that now I’m
only left with my Australian pension, which is barely
enough to get by on a week-to-week basis,” says Brian.
“He took
it all.” The way he drives matches the glint in his
eyes. He has the youthful vigor uncommon for a
38-year-old with HIV, much more so because he is a man
who cannot find an avenue for justice.
Brian’s
Australian pension is A$1,100 (about P43,000) a month,
which, he says, is not much in
Australia.
His monthly electricity bill is A$180 and phone bill,
A$250. For other expenses, he has to make do with A$110
a week.
HIV-positive but fighting
WE stop
at a petrol station by the highway surrounded by hills
and after Brian returns to the jeep, his driving takes
on a fervent intensity.
“I am
not the type of person who would roll over and neatly
walk away when I feel injustice has been done against
me. I was raised in an environment where you fight for
your rights. As an individual, I am fighting for the
five years of hard work I did on my farm. It was hard
for me to save that money every day, knowing that I
would need that money for my future—not just because I
am HIV-positive but because I am not 25 years old
anymore. I am a grown man and I am responsible for my
own future,” he says. “I have never received a penny
from anyone in my life. I have worked since I was 14
years old working at McDonald’s.”
Brian
learned he had HIV in 2001. He was celibate for three
years until 2007, when he met DJ, his fifth serious
lover. He had dedicated affairs with a Bahamian for
three years, and spent a year each with a Canadian and
an Australian. His fourth and longest relationship was
with an Australian man. That relationship lasted for 15
years, and they still remain the best of friends. He
says it is unlikely that DJ has HIV because they
practiced safe sex. Brian crinkles his nose when
describing DJ as a “mediocre lover.”
The
family that never was
Throughout all this defining moment in his life, Brian
credits his mother, Patricia, for pulling him through
the tough times, and a Filipina best friend he met in
Toronto 15 years ago.
Now 58,
Patricia is retired in
Thunder Bay
in Ontario, Canada, having worked in a hospital there
for 35 years in the same job at a sterilization unit.
“You
keep on talking about your mother; What happened to your
father?” I ask.
There is
momentary stunned silence, broken only by nervous
laughter. Then the sobs and unstoppable tears come in a
rush.
After
five minutes, Brian regains his composure.
“I have
not seen my father since I was 16 years old. I have no
contact with him. I was abused terribly as a child.
Physically abused, mentally abused, emotionally abused
by my father. I was actually removed from my family home
when I was 14. I started running away at 10 years old.
“I talk
only about my mother on my blog, because she is the only
person in my family with whom I have a relationship
with. I am estranged from my father, my sister and my
brother. I am the middle child after an older sister. I
never had a family here in
Australia,
except my mother. She lived the last five years on the
farm. I lived here for 16 years with no family.”
Brian’s
sister also lives in
Thunder Bay
with two beautiful daughters, and Brian has seen her
twice in 15 years for just a few hours. “My sister is a
very hard worker, and I respect her for that. She is a
nice person, I have been told, and a great mother. I do
miss her at times. I miss not having siblings.” Brian’s
younger brother is now a radical Baptist convert in
Canada, whom Brian has met only twice in 20 years.
The
Gorrells were poor until Brian was six. His dad found a
proper job working in a nickel mine, while his mom
started working in the hospital. “My parents slowly
dragged us out of lower-middle class. We were poor
working class but my parents worked very hard. Every
three years, we would get a better house, better than
the last one. But all four houses were on the same
block. We just kept upgrading on our street. That was
how I grew up in Thunder Bay.”
Brian
was 16 when he ran away with his first boyfriend, whom
he met while living in a Toronto shelter for young men.
It was from this boyfriend’s friends that he heard about
Australia. “For me at the time, Australia was just
another planet.”
Of
lovers and loyalty
THE jeep
finally does one turn and a heave, and we are deep in a
beautiful rain forest of 30 acres, bought seven years
ago. This is Brian’s property coowned with his former
Australian partner. By June, all this will be gone, sold
to keep its HIV-positive owner decently alive.
Brian’s
lean 5'10" frame complements the wooden prefabricated
house of 110 square meters. The deck extends the house
by 70 meters. The view is soothing. Clouds envelop a
mountain in the far distance and below is a lavish
greenery of the Amazon kind.
The only
concessions to civilization in this private Shangri-la
is a swimming pool measuring 15x5 meters, the phone,
electricity, and an Internet connection to power the
blog that has sent Philippine socialites scampering for
cover.
Brian
goes about preparing coffee, claiming it would be the
best coffee we could ever taste.
“I
worked in a restaurant for 10 years. I was a waiter from
age 18 to 28 in Sydney. Before I started my flower
business, I was in hospitality. I loved being a waiter.
I was very good at it.”
Brian
left Canada at the age of 16 with his first boyfriend
who was a year older. They moved to Amsterdam, Holland.
Brian arrived in Sydney for the first time when he was
20 years old and says he led a “brilliant life as a
young gay man.”
“Sydney
was perfect for me,” he says.
He is
still on very good terms with this Bahamian ex-boyfriend
with whom he talks to via Skype every day. In fact,
Brian says he is in the best terms with all his former
partners—except, of course, with DJ.
“This is
the first time that I had something unsavory occur in a
relationship. DJ was my fifth ‘serious’ partner. But he
is not even in my top sacred four. My ex-partners still
love me. DJ is not in the same league as my four
ex-partners. They spend their whole lives maintaining
and retaining a relationship with me. I could never have
that kind of connection with DJ. He is just up there
floating, he hovers above me still,” says Brian.
A day in
the life with a best friend
WHILE
the rest of affected Manila high society toss and turn
in their beds or go to sleep with the help of drugs,
Brian the blogger wakes up at 4:30 am Manila time (about
6:30 am in New South Wales).
He
drinks his coffee for 15 minutes and goes for a 3.2-km
run with any of his seven dogs. Brian is obviously into
caring for anything, what with four cats, chickens,
ducks, rabbits, cows and wallabies part of the living
menagerie in his property.
He says
he thrives on the devotion of another important person
in his life: his Filipina best friend.
“She is
the fundamental reason why I am crazy about Filipinos.
She is in her mid-40s, comes from a very good honest
family. That is why I am very honored to mention her in
my blog, because she has been my primary educator in the
last 15 years of my life. She is my chosen sister.”
They met
at Starbucks one day in
Toronto
while having coffee. They had a conversation and formed
a beautiful friendship.
“We
spent three weeks together in the middle of winter in
her basement flat with snow getting in the cracks of the
door. It was absolutely hilarious. And from that moment
on, we have been just inseparable best friends. We
constantly travel to see each other. Once every three
years, she’s here. But I can’t do that anymore because,
DJ has my savings.”
As if on
cue, the phone rings and the Filipina best friend calls
in a panic because she has seemingly misplaced her Maui
Jim sunglasses. Brian says he would call her back. He
explains to me that Maui Jim sunglasses are part of
their friendship, the glasses having a story only they
two can appreciate.
Molested
FOR
Brian, connecting to God is a big issue in view of his
being gay and having been molested by no less than a
priest and other men around him when he was a child.
He told
his parents he was gay when he was eight years old after
kissing and “playing” with his “boyfriend” at the school
cloakroom. He refused to go to high school because he
was bullied throughout grade school on account of his
being a young homosexual.
“I had a
nickname in grade school. It was ‘Femme.’ In Canada that
was a bad word to be called. It’s like being called a
faggot when you’re four or five. I was raised in an
aggressive paper-mill town. I felt like a water lily on
an ice-covered lake. I never felt like I belonged. I
wore pink as a child in grade four, grade seven. I just
thought that was normal and it was for me.
“I was
both physically and sexually abused when I was young. I
was a very unlucky child. Other kids wanted to beat me
up, torture me verbally because I was smart as a whip. I
was very acerbic. I told my teacher out loud in class
one day that I was born gay. It was very special for me.
I always had pride. I knew I was different. I was
special.”
Brian is
now matter-of-fact about the abuse and could give an
account with a straight face, almost clinical
detachment, like something typical to talk about over
coffee. His being gay in a Catholic school caused a lot
of problems. The priest who filled in for the regular
priest molested him for many weeks when he was about 10
years old. Brian’s mother knew about this only many
years later, when he was much older.
“I was
molested so often as a child because I was a very open,
effeminate. I was very eager to please because my dad
was such an abusive man. I wanted to please other male
figures. My neighbor molested me, my dad’s friend
molested me, the priest molested me, and a teacher
molested me.”
Brian
the man has graduated to a certain level of maturity but
his natural honesty remains, as well as the earnest
sincerity that triggered the evil in other people. As a
child, he was always demonstrative and remains so. Once
in a while, he would touch my arm or get closer to make
a point. He says people saw this innocence as something
to be conquered and taken at will.
He looks
at me intently and as he patters to his one-way
see-through glass bedroom overlooking the lush greenery,
he rationalizes that although he was molested as a
child, he doesn’t suffer from it and doesn’t blame
himself anymore.
The pain
in Brian’s eyes takes on a different glint when he talks
about the worst abuse he has experienced as a gay man
and as he does so, he paces back and forth beside the
toilet. This is some toilet, also walled in by the same
glass material used in the bedroom. There is something
about this house. The living room is all wood when it
should have been all glass. The private spaces, like the
two bedrooms and the toilet, are mostly done in glass.
“The
worst abuse I’ve had as a homosexual was having my life
savings taken from me by my ex-partner, DJ Montano.”
“Does
that have to do with you being gay?” I ask.
Brian
says he made his money by being a hard-working gay man,
and he believes he was targeted by DJ because of his
personality and his eagerness to please. And his being
an HIV-positive man.
The
child in Brian refuses to die. He shows me a tattoo of
the word “Love” on his left wrist, which he says he had
made for protection—and to always remember what is
important in life. “I got this tattoo after I left DJ.
Even though love has caused me a lot of trouble lately,
I still believe 100 percent in love,” says Brian.
“I am
all about love.” There is no unease in Brian. He is
confident. Now, he just wants his future to be as clear
as it can possibly be. Clear of this pain.
Brian is
excited to be back in Canada soon with his family and
his best friend.
After I
snap some pictures, Brian clutches his stomach and
grimaces. By this time, three hours into the interview,
he is very hungry and emotionally drained.
We go
back to the jeep. The rain hasn’t slowed down. Brian
decides to take another route so we can see his kind of
country—rolling hills, vast plains, sheep, a nirvana
kind of peace, far from the madding crowd.
As he
was about to park, a white woman looks at me and then at
Brian. “Did you see that filthy look?! Did you see
that?!” He would not put up with any kind of racism from
anyone, even the ignorant who thinks a white man with a
dark-skinned Asian is gross.
As we
ate at the Japanese restaurant, Brian could not believe
I actually dipped my sushi in the same sauce plate as he
did. I know he has HIV but it does not make me think
less of him. I think this is one very brave man. Brian
says he intends to live up to my and his blog readers’
impression of him. Fun times ahead. |
