Jonny Appleseed

CONTENT NOTE: Mention of childhood sexual assault (non-graphic)

The first-person narrator, Jonny, figures out he is gay from watching Queer as Folk on his kokum’s (grandmother’s) TV as a kid. He masturbates to images of the characters. He is Indigenous and “a brown gay boy on the rez” (12) on the land of the Peguis First Nation in Canada. His experience is not one he sees reflected in the public experiences of older, out gay men, who are largely white and come from class privilege.

Jonny’s father struggled with substance use and is absent from his life; he is presumed to have died after a fire on another reservation. Jonny dislikes his name because of this association (he is named after his father), so he often names himself after vacuum cleaner brands instead. When he researches the legend around Jonny Appleseed at the reservation library, he is confused about why that particular legend was sung about at his summer camp.

At school, Jonny is bullied for being gay. At summer camp, Jonny is preyed upon and molested by a camp counselor, but he is blamed for the incident by the other campers.

Beginning as an adolescent, Jonny does phone and text sex work for money.