Free A House Is Not a Home by James Earl Hardy Page B

Chicago .
    They are the Black SGL community’s power couple. And they’ve managed to juggle all of this and parenthood, too. They had no trouble adopting Korey—and it’s not because Babyface is an ace attorney who had the right connections and knew how to work the system. Truth is, there weren’t any concerns that the four-year-old boy would turn gay having two gay guardians.
    After all, he came to them that way.
    Whether he actually is remains to be seen; he’s only eight. But if he isn’t, it would certainly be a shock. Korey was—and, today, is even more of—a firecracker. He makes Christopher Lowell look like Clint Eastwood. This was why Claude, his father (and Babyface’s brother), didn’t want him. Babyface’s family never accepted Babyface, and he is one of the “straightest” gay men one could ever meet. So Babyface could only imagine the torture Korey must have experienced. Babyface’s great-aunt Geraldine said Eloise, Korey’s mom, defended and protected him from a lot of the abuse (the majority of it verbal, much of it from his father). Claude’s contempt for his only son, his only child, was so strong that, while his wife was in a hospital dying from ovarian cancer (which some misguided relatives felt was her “punishment” for giving birth to an “abnormal” son), Claude began the process of putting Korey up for adoption. (Geraldine would’ve volunteered but she was eighty-two.) It all brought tears to Babyface’s eyes—and B.D.’s. So when they attended his sister-in-law’s funeral, Babyface informed Claude that they’d take Korey. (He didn’t have to discuss it with B.D.; after Babyface told him about Korey, B.D. declared, “We have to go get him.”) Claude didn’t put up a fight; he probably figured that Babyface and B.D. couldn’t do any more damage to Korey (not realizing that he himself had done too much).
    And seeing the instant connection B.D. made with Korey was further evidence to Claude that he could never embrace Korey in the same way. For B.D. and Korey, it was love at first sight. Babyface and B.D. arrived in St. Croix the night before the service, and from the moment he saw B.D., Korey clung to him. B.D. probably reminded Korey of his mother: light-skinned, pretty, and very maternal (he’s got a pumped-up chest, and if he could lactate, B.D. would’ve breast-fed him). Korey bawled when they were leaving to stay the night with Geraldine; without asking, B.D. packed him an overnight bag. That evening, he slept in B.D.’s arms. At his mother’s funeral, Korey sat on B.D.’s lap, not his father’s. When he kissed his mother good-bye, it was B.D. who held him over the casket, not his father. And at the burial site, Korey mourned for his mother (once again) in B.D.’s arms. Babyface and B.D. stayed an extra two days to take care of the paperwork and then brought Korey home. They had all his clothes, toys, and books shipped; the only thing Korey carried on the plane with him was a photo of himself and his mother.
    While he was pleased that his life partner and nephew had bonded, Babyface was concerned about Korey’s being so flamboyant at such a young age. He and B.D. butted heads over whether and how they should discourage his overtly feminine ways. Not wanting to repress his personality, Babyface agreed that they shouldn’t restrict how Korey expressed himself, but B.D. had to promise not to go overboard in his “support”—which meant no Barbie, no Easy-Bake Oven, no pom-poms, and no jump rope (having a figure like B.D. in his life who did play with all those toys as a child meant he’d still get that kind of influence, anyway). Even if Korey identifies more with the opposite sex and turns out to be nonheterosexual, Babyface doesn’t want him to forget that he is a boy. He’s still taunted and teased by others, but at