Paul Karofsky knew that his son was gay. I mean, how couldn’t he? He was the poor lad’s father. And he knew that Dave was afraid of coming out to him, but he didn’t know how to hold out a helping hand. As much as it hurt him to say, it was probably more helpful for Burt to have a talk with Kurt when the latter had come out to some people so early in his life. Dave was still a jock and he knew that the bullying that was happening in Ohio to people who were homosexuals was sometimes too brutal. He decided that he would be ready for when his son came out to him, if not to the world, and slipped an envelope in Burt’s hand. The envelope contained a letter which was very small and contained these contents:

            I really do need your help on some father-son bonding issues. I’ll be over later at your garage so we can have a father-to-father talk. Thanks so much in advance.

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            Paul had met with Burt and even a year later, the advice he had given had stuck to him.

            You should be careful of how you behave. Yeah, we all had those times when we were young and told our mates they were “gay” for being emotional or some crap like that. You CANNOT afford to do that with your son, even mistakenly. You have to think twice, thrice, ten goddamn times before you speak, because when they have a secret to tell, especially one as big as this, they’ll be scrutinizing each and every syllable of what you say just to measure up whether they can confide in you or not. And each word you say that may even slightly look like a slur, they will not be able to tell you their secret.

            And let me tell you this, your child roaming about in Lima, not out is slightly scary as it gives someone else the power to out him, as opposed to him making the decision to out himself. Give him support, love him as much as you can, and just show your willingness to not be homophobic stay very, very obvious so he can come to you, if worse comes to worse.

            He didn’t know how this could have happened. As he clutched on to the almost (he shuddered to say it) dead body of his only son, he called 911 thinking of the various ways he could have actually reached out to Dave before he had to resort to sui-…, this because of the bullying.

            Paul reached the hospital and as Dave was taken into the ICU, he called Burt and said, “I need help, please. Dave is in the hospital for partial strangulation.”