Born to Be Brad Read online

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  “It was a way to get noticed in a sea of people all trying to be noticed.”

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  That changed the way I approached styling and style: Dressing up isn’t just for kids. We’re all playing characters—in the office, out with our loved ones. And style inspiration can come from anywhere. The other day I saw a box of Crayola crayons at the supermarket, which later inspired an outfit. I put on a candy-striped, rainbow polo shirt; a navy blazer; white jeans; and bright green high-top sneakers. Some days I wake up and feel like a chorus boy from the movie Grease. Some days I’m Danny Zuko, some days I’m Sandra Olsen. After a particularly long week I’m sometimes feeling the sad clown look—pairing a shawl-collared jacket with a sloppy Lanvin bow tie. Life is more fun when you’re playing different characters and not locking yourself into a look. Why be the goth girl all the time? Step outside of your comfort zone and don’t get locked into a uniform.

  * * *

  “Step outside of your comfort zone and don’t get locked into a uniform.”

  * * *

  “When I grow up,” I told Ruby, “I want to be either a makeup artist or a window dresser.” She didn’t flinch. Ruby only said, “Be a makeup artist. They make more money.”

  I had less-practical advice from my father. Though he was always around, he spent a lot of time in the garage. He was the kind of dad that was always building something, busy with the table saw. He enjoyed chopping wood in the forest near our house and then falling asleep in a chair in front of the TV. He wasn’t some weird mountain man. He was incredibly talented. He built the house we lived in from the ground up. I think part of that was just his wanting to get away from the stresses of home but also wanting to provide a beautiful place for his family to live. It was his way of showing us that he loved us. When he and my mother briefly split up, she went to Toronto and we remained with our father in Apple Valley. When I was getting dressed to go to a family event or a movie, he’d yell up to me from the stuck-in-the-seventies kitchen with its mustard-yellow appliances, “It’s not a fashion show! Hurry up!” But he was wrong. For me, every day was a fashion show.

  * * *

  “For me, every day was a fashion show.”

  * * *

  My father didn’t care much about what he wore. He had a mustache. He dressed in sweatpants and duck boots and if he was going out at night with my mom, it was polo shirts and blue jeans. There wasn’t a lot of variation. He was conservative in his beliefs, and quiet, too. With me, anyway. He and my sister seemed to understand each other. He played in a slow-pitch baseball league on Monday nights and my sister went to every game with him up until she went off to university. My mother and I—we had our own routine. On Thursday nights, we’d go food shopping and she’d buy fashion magazines for me, which I smuggled back to my room. Why the secrecy? Yes, my father had taken me trick-or-treating as Madonna. But I think he preferred the illusion. When I was too out front, too obvious with my first loves, he acted out. I came home from school one day to find that my Barbie dolls were gone, and it was no mystery what happened to them. More than once when Grandma Ruby would take me to the toy store, I’d pull a Barbie doll down from the shelf, and she’d smile at me and say, “We’ll have to sneak this one.”

  My dad built our house in Port Perry, on a tract of land he bought from my grandfather. This photo is memorable because of the pose: This is the beginning of my trying to find myself a s a high-fashion model.

  * * *

  “I taught myself to shave. (And to put on a full face, for that matter.)”

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  My father loved me. I know that. But he didn’t always understand me. And frankly, I don’t blame him. It was a two-way street. I wasn’t emotionally available to him, and I rarely engaged with him. We didn’t have anything in common. We never had that sitcom moment, like on The Cosby Show, where Dr. Huxtable shows Theo how to shave. I taught myself to shave. (And to put on a full face, for that matter.) He was interested in snowblowers and anything with an on/off switch. Everything he was, I was not. I never felt a lack of love from him. It’s just that my mother understood me enough for the both of them. I had such strong female role models in my childhood that I never sought that love and acceptance from him.

  I was happiest—or maybe safest—in the basement with my mom. The room had wainscoting running along the bottom of the walls and a border done in muted colors. And we’d sit at her Singer sewing machine in the corner adding plaid patches onto ripped knees. I liked to personalize my clothing even then. The basement was a place where the glue gun was always hot and at the ready. There, I never needed an excuse to put sequins on anything. I later joined the local community theater, and my mom and I would plant ourselves in the basement sewing more and more sequins onto the costumes, sometimes right up until closing night.

  My mother encouraged my creativity. There was a period where I wore gymnastic shoes everywhere. I’d taken a jazz dance class, and while the steps didn’t stick, the shoes did. I’d put on my Esprit yellow wool V-neck sweater with the gray, mauve, and white argyle print with my Hollywood brand jeans cuffed high. I’d come downstairs and I could see the worry on her face: What was going to happen today? She wasn’t interested in stifling my creativity. Far from it. When she asked what kind of curtains I wanted for my bedroom, and I asked for sequined Roman shades, she didn’t put up a fight. She didn’t suggest something blue and masculine or something with a sports theme. She went to the fabric store and custom-made the sequined window treatments to my specifications. But like all mothers, she wanted her son to be safe. And at school, I wasn’t always safe.

  My parents had questions—about me, about why I liked Barbie dolls and blondes and Debbie Gibson and why I wasn’t growing out of that. They didn’t understand why I was dancing and lip-synching to Madonna singles in the living room. For answers, they turned to a doctor.

  When I turned twelve and hadn’t stopped playing with dolls, my parents took me to see a therapist in Toronto, Dr. Kenneth Zucker, a man who felt if he could diagnose me as a gay, he might be able to cure me. His specialty was gender identity, and he wanted to see if I was confused about what I was. (I wasn’t.)

  It came on suddenly. One afternoon in the fifth grade, my parents pulled me out of school and drove me into Toronto for what they called “family therapy.” We were all going to this doctor, they said, to deal with the recent death of my maternal grandfather, Harry. He and Ruby had gone on a vacation to Portugal and the night they returned, Harry suffered a heart attack. Three days later he passed away.

  I took jazz lessons at the United Church, and here I am at the Christmas concert. I liked the classes. But I liked the jazz slippers even more, and I wore them around the house forever.

  It was a devastating loss for the family and it destroyed my mother and sister. The only other person I knew who had died was my aunt Judy. We probably needed the counseling. The office would provide a safe space to talk—about my grandfather, but also about me and my weight issues. (I was eating my feelings.) We talked about the boys at school and the bullying. And sometimes when Dr. Zucker sat with my parents, I went and saw a medical student, Myra. What she and I did felt more like hanging out than anything more serious. We just talked about what my life was like. She was beautiful, which made it easier to talk. It always comes down to someone being pretty.

  But these sessions weren’t always so benign. Sometimes it was me on display, me seated in front of that two-way mirror, me under observation. Dr. Zucker placed me in one examination room where there was a bucket full of G.I. Joes on one side and a selection of Barbie dolls on the other. He told me he’d be right back, and in the meantime I should go ahead and play with any toys I wished. While my heart desperately wanted to reach for Barbie’s shiny blond hair and Ken’s waxed chest, I refused to give this doctor the satisfaction. And so I sat with G.I. Joe and pretended I enjoyed plastic warfare; it was the longest hour of my life. It didn’t help that the doctor’s office on Spadina Avenue looked exactly like you’d expect a 1980s mental health building in downtown Toronto to look. The floors were white, the walls were cream, and the whole thing felt sterile. I like to think my parents knew, on some level, that nothing would change me. We were there because they felt helpless and because my pediatrician recommended we see Dr. Zucker. My parents wouldn’t have thought of such a thing on their own. Still, there I was. At night, safely back home, I’d sit on my sister’s bed, trying to understand what was happening. “Dr. Zucker asks me weird questions,” I said, breaking down in tears.

  * * *

  “While my heart desperately wanted to reach for Barbie’s shiny blond hair and Ken’s waxed chest, I refused to give this doctor the satisfaction.”

  * * *

  The doctor recommended I spend more time with my father. And so I went to baseball games with him. I chopped wood. I picked rocks out of the new plot of land he bought, so he could build on it. But, like the song goes in La Cage aux Folles, I am who I am. People often blame kids who are bullied for bringing this hurt on themselves. Why can’t you just blend in? they say. Why attract so much attention to yourself by dressing weird or talking weird? Well, I tried that. I wasn’t wearing faux fur in the fifth grade when that blond He-Man called me names. I was dressed like all the other boys, in starched shirts and collars. But somehow these kids could sniff something different on me, something they didn’t like, something they didn’t understand. And I could never please them even if I tried. In the third grade, I lip-synched to “Like a Virgin” on Talent Day in class, and I put my Lite-Brite on the floor pointing up at me like a spotlight. I wasn’t trying to be brazen. I wasn’t trying to stick a big middle finger up to the school. That wasn’t the kind of kid I was. I wasn’t angry. I was just trying to
be myself. I was just the kid who loved Marilyn Monroe, whose definition of beauty was defined by Marilyn, and who liked dancing to Madonna because she was the new Marilyn.

  This is my favorite overall styling of an entire family photo that we have. My mom looked so incredibly chic and beautiful on this day. It’s one of my favorite outfits of hers. That veil, come on!

  In my fifth-grade class, we had a lip-synching contest every Friday. I have no idea why. Maybe because it was the eighties. The other boys would perform things like Billy Idol’s “Mony Mony” and Aerosmith. But I lip-synched to Debbie Gibson’s “Out of the Blue.” I put a bow in my hair and I borrowed a bubble skirt from a friend and I had little lace socks and running shoes. I was visual, so I enlisted five girls from my class to sit up front and blow bubbles at me while I performed. I wasn’t worried what the other boys in class would think of me. I was more concerned that the girls were going to mess up the bubbles. All I could think about was that these girls were going to ruin my act!

  * * *

  “But somehow these kids could sniff something different on me, something they didn’t like, something they didn’t understand. And I could never please them even if I tried.”

  * * *

  That was my childhood. None of it was a response to what the other kids were doing. None of it was a reaction to bullies. I just didn’t know any better. No, I didn’t know any different. I was naïve and aloof and I didn’t know how else to be. All I wanted was to turn the lights off in our portable classroom and convince the kids from my class to perform five numbers from the musical Cats; for a set we built a pyramid out of milk crates and draped it in old blankets. I had a vision, and even though the trash pile was unstable, and kids were falling off and scraping their knees, we made it work. We wore costumes borrowed from the local community theater. And it was awesome.

  I’m sure my mom knew this whole thing with Dr. Zucker might be detrimental, that it might leave the kind of mark you can’t see on the surface but nevertheless festers beneath. At least she knew enough to take me to McDonald’s after. McDonald’s is where all parents take kids when they feel guilty about something.

  Years later, as a college student in Toronto, I would show that video of my Marilyn Monroe presentation to a friend. She and I hadn’t talked much about my childhood, and I thought she would laugh. But instead she cried. She saw this cute, chubby, awkward boy showing off his Marilyn Monroe calendar and her heart broke. I didn’t need to say a word. She knew the struggles that a boy like this must have endured in high school. She knew this overly sensitive boy’s teenage years must have been hell. She had no idea.

  On vacation in Disneyland, my parents bought me an Ocean Pacific T-shirt. To me, this was a major designer label and a true status symbol. It was also the closest I came to dressing masculine and sporty. My hair here loosely resembles Marilyn Monroe’s (intentional) and Queen Elizabeth’s (unintentional).

  2

  Anger can be your best friend. Especially when you have no friends.

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  THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS full of people who were not “cool” in high school. People who were misunderstood. People who dressed outlandishly because there was no other way to express themselves. No one had it easy. Lady Gaga—then Stefani Germanotta—was bullied for dressing too provocatively. Even Kate Middleton was called gangly by the girls at her grade school. We were all of us misunderstood. Who knew I’d have something in common with the Princess of Pop and a duchess?

  For me, high school was a study in isolation. I was fifteen years old, sitting on my windowsill, beneath the same gold sequined Roman shades my mother made for me. My bedroom was my refuge. I was lighting incense and candles and staring up at the stars, smoking a cigarette out the window, dreaming of a better place. It was high drama! But I lived in fear of going to school. I was superstitious bordering on obsessive-compulsive. I said a prayer in the morning and another at night, asking Him (whoever He is) to watch over me. If I fell asleep before saying the prayer, I was convinced the next day would be tragic.

  * * *

  “For me, high school was a study in isolation.”

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  And let’s face it: Sometimes it was. High school is tough, the hallways often cold. A teenager’s locker is one of their few chances for self-expression, and I wanted to personalize mine with photos of Calvin Klein models. But I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself. So I hung photos of the Beastie Boys instead—still personal, because I loved their wit, but less conspicuous. Sometimes I ate lunch in the stairwell with two girlfriends, usually salad I brought with me from home. Or I ate in the school library, even though we weren’t supposed to. The teachers didn’t have the heart to tell me to go to the cafeteria, because they knew I could no longer walk into the cafeteria without the boys in my class throwing food at me. I can’t remember a single day where someone didn’t imitate my voice in class. Or call me the F-word in the hallways. The word did hurt, but not because it was a surprise to me. Duh! I knew I was gay the first time I saw the opening credits to Who’s the Boss and a shirtless Tony Danza opened the shower curtain. The word hurt because it made it all real. It meant I would have to act on those feelings one day soon. And I was scared by what that meant for my life. I didn’t have any role models; I didn’t have a picture of what a happy, well-adjusted gay couple would look like. I thought being gay meant angry families and loneliness. I was worried about the loneliness. High school—for me and every other teenager since the dawn of time—was a minefield of angst like My So-Called Life, except in real life Jared Leto never falls in love with the girl with the Kool-Aid dye job.

  This photograph is all about the jeans. I spotted them at a store called Northern Reflections. And they were expensive—because some crazy queen hand-painted Madonna’s face on the right thigh. I begged my mom to buy these for me, which she did. And I wore them everywhere.

  * * *

  “I didn’t have any role models; I didn’t have a picture of what a happy, well-adjusted gay couple would look like.”

  * * *

  I made an effort. I should say this. For exactly two weeks I tried to fit in. I tried to pare it down, to limit the color in every sense. But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like me. Besides, people knew who I was. People knew what I was. I was the kid who plucked his eyebrows so much that there was basically one hair left. One tiny little hair. I was only fooling myself. I cried a lot—often because my sister was gone, off to university. She and I had talked about my sexuality before she left. I told her I thought I was gay. Of course I knew I was gay, but I was trying to test the waters, to see what her reaction might be. Any time I got up the courage to float the idea, her answer was always the same: “You’ll be what you’re gonna be. And you’re my brother. It doesn’t matter.”

  If I had an escape in these years—beyond my bedroom windowsill and the basement with the sewing machine and my pictures of Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell—if there was a place where I could be myself, unapologetically, it was theater camp. The summer after tenth grade, I enrolled in a one-week intensive drama program called Theater Ontario. I know that seven days doesn’t sound like much time, but the experience was transformative. It wasn’t just the classes, though the instruction was impressive, too. I took stage combat lessons and musical theater workshops and worked on monologues and learned to tap dance. But what made more of an impression was the taste of freedom. We kids lived in college dorms and stayed up all night dancing. Not sleeping was a point of pride. We chanted like Buddhists in the courtyard for hours. There was a real hippie vibe to the place and we embraced the free-love spirit. It was a chance for self-expression. There was the gamine girl with the red pixie haircut who wore baby-doll dresses with denim shorts underneath—a heightened nineties look. There was the girl who wore a tailcoat every single day. And the girl who sat in the courtyard with a broken keyboard, playing original songs with gibberish lyrics, and we’d all listen and do interpretive dance. It was all about feeling the moment. That summer I kissed a boy for the first time. His name was Ian, and I knew enough to know I liked it, that it felt right to me. Girls were my friends, not my love interests.