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November 19th, 1989
Will is coming home today. He’s only staying a week before flying out again, but Jane couldn’t be happier that her brother will finally be under the same roof as her. She’s missed him sorely, and the only way the gaping hole in her chest heals a little when he’s away is when she curls up in his empty bed and hugs one of his shirts to sleep. At least now, she can cuddle up to him properly and inhale his scent while it’s fresh and not gone stale on a random piece of clothing.
She watches trash television while she waits for Will to walk through the door. She’s up to date on all the sitcoms—Full House, Roseanne, The Cosby Show, even a new show called Family Matters—and has grown bored anticipating new episodes. It’s autumn, when the networks are airing new episodes each week, but Jane is starting to understand predictability now, and sometimes the plots fall short when they fail to surprise her. But that’s a good thing. It means she’s learning, finally able to read between the lines that have always been there, able to fetch the bone the writers throw at her.
Finally having enough of the average American family living in suburbia, Jane switches the channel to the news. The news is terribly boring, especially for such a small town that used to have a hell dimension beneath it, and sometimes it makes Hopper start yelling obscenities at the TV, so Jane rarely ever watches it, but there’s nothing else on, and she’s been bored all day because for some reason she feels like she can’t do anything until Will is home.
The local newscaster is a pretty woman who always has her hair in an updo held together by an egregious amount of Aqua Net. She’s reading off a script in her hands. Jane once asked Hopper, when she was really small back at the cabin, if it was the same kind of script that Mike writes sometimes. Hopper’s blood pressure hit the ceiling at the same time she mentioned Mike, and Jane never got her answer.
Eventually the segment fades out and then cuts to a table where a different woman and a man are sitting. The woman is wearing a tasteful pantsuit and the man is wearing all black with a white collar just barely peeking out of the fabric. They’re next to each other, like they’re having a coffee date. Jane isn’t interested in whatever topic they could be discussing, but she decides after a few minutes that it might be worth tuning in. Hopper and Joyce always encourage her to absorb all the information she can.
“…there have been numerous protests throughout the country this year, including San Francisco, where AIDS activists demonstrated on the Golden Gate Bridge,” the woman says, gesturing to the man sitting beside her. “The country has seen a rise in protesting in churches, as well, criticizing the church’s opinion on the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS among the homosexual community. What would you say your opinion on that is, Father?”
The man clears his throat. “Well, it’s very important that we understand that the church does not condone homosexual behavior to begin with. We firmly believe that it is a sin and that all homosexuals should repent in order to be right with the Lord. There are consequences to their actions, and some might argue that that the development of AIDS is God’s punishment to those who do not repent.”
“And that is what you believe?” the woman asks.
“Yes, of course,” he says. “I am not against protesting; what I am against is the idea that the church needs to adjust to this new way of thinking; the belief that we need to accommodate sin by promoting the usage of contraceptives. That is what I’m against. The protestors can believe what they like. It is their god-given right. Just as it is the church’s right to believe that what they are doing is wrong.”
Suddenly the TV flicks off. Jane rolls over onto her back. Hopper is standing over her, looking both irritated and concerned.
“My blood pressure, kid,” he warns, patting her hair. “Go back to Full House, will ya?”
“I was watching that,” she huffs. “You said I can hog the TV until Will gets here. He’s not here yet.”
“I did say that, but no news.” Hopper drops himself into his recliner and kicks up his feet. “Makes me itch. And I don’t want Joyce to hear any of it.”
Jane snatches the remote from where Hopper set it on the side table. She doesn’t turn it on, though; just stares blankly at her reflection in the glass. Hopper is lighting up a cigarette and cracking open a fresh newspaper.
“You said no news,” Jane points out.
Hopper holds up the Sunday Comics page that features Garfield and Snoopy. “It’s the funnies.”
Jane giggles, because she has a hard time that her old man is genuinely reading comics meant for kindergartners, but he at least pretends to be invested in the fat orange cat for a moment. It’s not until he’s done with his cigarette and stubs it out in his made-by-Jane ashtray that he realizes that it’s still unreasonably quiet.
“You not gonna turn on the TV?” he asks her. “Will’s gonna be here soon. No more TV after that. Dinner, shower, bed. Tomorrow Joyce is going to take you kids early Christmas shopping once Jonathan gets home, and then we all get to take happy family portraits for a nonexistent Christmas card at JCPenney like we’re the Wheelers. You need your sleep.”
Idly blinking at Hopper, Jane climbs up onto the arm of the couch so she’s closer to him. She’s like a curious cat sometimes, always slinking around with her inquisitive eyes.
“I have a question,” she says.
Hopper inwardly groans, already reaching for another cigarette. “Yeah?”
“The man on the TV; why was he saying those things?” Jane asks.
She doesn’t elaborate, and Hopper gets a little nervous.
“What things?”
“Why did he say that AIDS is a punishment for homo—homo—homey…”
“Homosexuals,” Hopper gently corrects. He’s grateful that Joyce isn’t home yet. She might whack him over the head with his ashtray for even uttering the word. “Do you know what that is?”
Jane shrugs. “Not really.”
Hopper shifts uncomfortably in his chair and lights his second cigarette. He has to take a few puffs before he’s able to look at his expectant daughter, who’s not moved an inch, hanging onto every cloud of smoke that leaves him.
“Remember how I taught you about prefixes and suffixes?” he asks. Jane nods. “The prefix homo means same. The word sexual is pretty self-explanatory. When you put the two together, you get same sex. So, homosexual means someone who is attracted to the same sex. Boys who like boys. Girls who like girls.”
“Oh,” Jane says. “Like Will. And Robin.”
“Yeah. Like Will and Robin,” he agrees. He quickly recalls a conversation he had with Joyce when Will came out, and he sighs. He can almost hear her scolding him in his head. “But we don’t call them that. Okay? We say gay or lesbian.”
“But the man called them that,” Jane says, perplexed. She stares at the TV for a minute and then looks back at her dad. “What’s the difference?”
Hopper’s shoulders sag. “Kid, you know how sometimes people make fun of you for mispronouncing words or not understanding jokes?”
Jane twists the blue band around her wrist, nodding. Her voice is small. “Yeah. They call me a retard.”
Hopper knew that, but even the mention of it fills him with incomprehensible rage. And he knows, deep down, that’s how Joyce feels when people look at her son and call him a fag.
“And it hurts your feelings, right?” he asks her. “Because that’s a mean word.”
“Yeah,” she agrees.
“What the man was saying—when he said homosexual, he meant it in a mean way, and it’s a word we don’t say because sometimes it can hurt people’s feelings,” Hopper says. “That man is, what we now call, homophobic.”
“Homophobic?” Jane parrots, tilting her head.
“Remember to break the word down, Jane.”
“Homo means same,” she says. “So…same-phobic.”
Hopper takes another puff. “You’re almost there. It’s a little different. In this context, the homo part means, in a whole, homosexuals. It’s shortened. And phobic means…”
Jane knows this word. Joyce has been claustrophobic since coming back from the Upside Down.
“Phobia. Phobia is to be scared of something,” she says.
Nodding, Hopper encourages her. “So, if homo is referring to homosexuals, and phobia means fear, what does that word mean?”
“Fear of homosexuals,” Jane surmises. “Oh. That’s a mean word. Fear of gay people. Lesbian people.”
“Right.”
Jane sits with this for a moment. How could anyone be scared of Will? Or Robin? Will is her brother—her twin, if people don’t know any better—and he’s the sweetest, most gentlest creature on the planet. And Robin—well, Jane doesn’t know her all that well, but the times she has spent alongside her have felt warm and safe, like a big sister.
“I don’t get it, Dad,” she eventually says.
“Get what?” Hopper flicks his cigarette stub into the ashtray. “You got the word right.”
“Yeah, but how can people be scared of gay people?” she asks. “Will and Robin are very nice. Will lets me borrow his clothes, and he sings me to sleep when I have bad dreams. And Steve is always saying that Robin is his best friend.”
Plucking a third cigarette from the carton, Hopper sticks it between his teeth and lights it up. He has to puff a few times before he can look his kid in the face.
“Well, the word isn’t really literal,” he says. “To be homophobic means, maybe not that you are afraid of gay people, but that you don’t…agree with them.”
“But sometimes I don’t agree when you make me go to bed early, or when you say no more Eggos,” Jane points out. “So am I Dad-phobic?”
Hopper has to scrub a hand over his face at that one. He sighs, wishing she would just turn the damn TV back on so he can drown his sorrows in stupid sitcoms.
“Let me put it this way,” he tries again. “You know how when you see a pill bug and you tell me to squish it because you hate pill bugs?” Jane nods. “Well, that’s how homophobic people feel about gay people.”
Jane visibly tenses and her stomach feels sick. “So they want to squish Will and Robin?”
Hopper sighs. “Something like that, yeah.”
“They want to kill them?”
Hopper is silent. He lifts his cigarette to his mouth and breathes in, watching Jane squirm like she herself is a little pill bug about to get squished under his boot.
“Some do, Jane. Some do.”
He wasn’t sure of what he expected after that, but it certainly wasn’t Jane bursting into tears. He quickly puts out the cigarette and leans forward to grab Jane off the couch arm. He gathers her into his arms and presses her head to his chest, rocking back and forth in the recliner.
“It’s okay, kid,” he says, trying to coax the shakes out of her skin. “Stop crying.”
“They’re gonna kill Will!” she sobs.
Hopper holds her tight. “No one is gonna kill him. I won’t let that happen.”
“But he’s far away! And they’re gonna kill him!”
Hopper doesn’t know what to do with her. He’s trapped in his recliner with her in shambles in his lap, and she’s starting to hyperventilate, and Will is on his way home, and Joyce is going to walk through that door any second and—
The goddamn door swings open and Joyce is walking in with two pizza boxes in her hands. She has just enough time to step out of her shoes and toss her keys onto the hook before she registers her husband trying and failing to console their daughter.
She moves like she’s back in the Upside Down, like the mother she was when she slaughtered Vecna to death in the name of motherhood. Suddenly the pizza is on the coffee table, warming up the teenaged girly magazines scattered there, and Joyce is running over to the recliner.
The first thing that Joyce hears tumbling out of Jane’s lips is, “They’re gonna kill Will!” And her heart sinks to the floor.
“Hop, what’s she talking about?” Joyce demands, not even sure if her first priority should be soothing Jane or charging out the door to find her son. “Why’s she crying so hard? She’s turning blue!”
“Joy, it’s nothing,” he says so quickly, the nickname doesn’t even register. “She’s just upset. She completely misunderstood what I said.”
“And what did you say?” Joyce asks, now mildly concerned that she’s going to have an even bigger mess to clean up.
“She was watching the news. There was a priest—he was saying stuff about gay people,” Hopper tries to give her the condensed version, because right now, Jane is soaking his shirt and bruising his arms with her fingernails that dig into his skin. “She thinks those people are gonna kill him. You know, for being gay.”
Joyce’s face falls. In part, she’s relieved that this has nothing to do with the portal to hell that used to reside beneath their feet and eat children, but she’s also concerned for Jane, who shows no signs of soothing, and she definitely wasn’t expecting to come home to this.
“Jane,” Joyce says quietly, putting a hand on her back. “It’s okay. You know how I know it’s okay? Because Will is safe. He called me just a few hours ago and said he was on his way here. He is safe. No one is going to kill him.”
Of course, in a place like Indiana and with people like that priest spewing hate that spreads faster than any human virus could, that isn’t a promise Joyce can really make, but if it’ll get Jane breathing again, so be it.
Jane takes a big breath. “But-But Dad said that those people want to do to Will what I want to do to pill bugs because they’re scary and gross.”
Joyce sits back, unamused. “Really, Hop? That’s the analogy you went with?”
“Hey, she understood what I meant,” he defends, lowering his voice to a mumble. “A little too well.”
Finally, Jane’s crying is reduced to just ragged breaths and hiccups. Joyce is still rubbing her back and shushing her until Jane is relaxed but still curled up in Hopper’s lap like a scared little girl after a nightmare.
“It’s true that there are people like that out there, honey, and they are very dangerous to be around,” Joyce says, trying to be gentle but factual. “But Will is safe. I promise. He’s going to be home soon, and then Jonathan will be home, and we’re all going to be together this week. We are all safe.”
“But what if they do kill him, Mom?”
Joyce is quiet for a moment, because she’s wondered the same before, too.
And still, she is a mother, and her job is to comfort and soothe, even if she doesn’t fully believe herself, so she says, “They won’t, sweetie.”
Jane is as stubborn as both of her parents combined. It’s just not good enough for her. She sniffles, dissatisfied by the contrite expression on her mother’s face. “But what if they do?”
Joyce sighs. “They won’t. But I can tell you that we will always love him for who he is, and we will never let anyone hurt him. Right?”
Reluctant and uncertain, Jane nods, although her eyes are incredulous. “Right.”
Joyce plants a kiss to Jane’s hot forehead. Hopper visibly sighs with relief, Jane sinking further as she leans her head on his shoulder. While both adults know that it’s dinner time and Will is coming home any second and now is not the right time for Jane to take a nap, the evening has decidedly been too overwhelming, so neither Joyce or Hopper say anything when Jane closes her eyes and dozes off on his shoulder.
Hopper looks up at his wife like he’s been through another war. “We’re sticking to Full House from now on.”
Joyce can only laugh.