The Real House Husbands of Boston

There is a pause, a sigh and then a question. 

“Can I be honest with you?”

“Of course,” I reply.

“You’re not extreme enough,” she says, putting an emphasis on the word “extreme” that makes it sound like this is the holy grail of behavior.  I envision her, this TV producer, on the other end of the phone marking a big red X over a picture of our faces, scribbling “Pussies” and then underlining this three times in a huff.

She is right, of course. 

When she asked how we disciplined our children, I might have said “Oh, we make them drink hot sauce,” but opted for the cheery, sugary truth, “With plenty of love!”  I could sense her mentally vomiting in my face.

When she asked if we controlled their dating I might have said “We chose spouses for them before they were born,” but instead said “We just want them to be happy.”  I’m certain she was making a gun shape with her index finger and thumb while pointing it at her forehead.

“But we are two gay fathers with five children,” I maw.

“You’re one short of the Gaydy bunch,” she replies and then adds “Can you adopt another child?”

“I—uh—“

“I’m just kidding!” she laughs maniacally.

It is a funny little producer joke.

“Good luck,” she says before hanging up.  There is a tiger Mom on the prowl, or a helicopter parent 

circling somewhere to be discovered.

That evening I stand in the kitchen and whine, while Paul cooks turkey burgers on our George Foreman grill.

“We’re not going to be reality TV stars.  She said we’re not extreme enough.”

“That Bitch!” Paul replies, hands me a plate and then adds, “Come on. Let’s go sit down on the sofa. Jeopardy is on!”  He claps his hands like a small child excited for recess.

He takes a bite of his burger and then struck by an epiphany says “Extreme? She hasn’t seen you in the bedroom!” He snaps his fingers over his head for emphasis while shouting “Johannesburg!” at the TV.

I mentally reconstruct the scene from last night’s bedroom episode.  We lay side by side on our bed, Paul is on his back and I am facing him on my side.  I gently place my hand on Paul’s shoulder. I press my lips close to his ear and softly whisper “Roll over.” And then I say, “You’re snoring.”

“We are pussies,” I say.

There was a time when we lived a life on the edge.  We hobnobbed with a group of reality TV stars in West Hollywood on vacation.

“Remember how Jax sucked at making those drinks?” I ask Paul.

“What a douche,” Paul commiserates and then says “But you kept on drinking them.”

“Stassi and Kirsten were normal.  They could have been our daughters,” I say and then add “Stassi is from Detroit for God sakes!”

Paul places his plate on the end table and looks at me.

“Is Willy having a little melt-down?”

He is patronizing me.

“When did we become so normal?” I ask him.

“Honey, you’re anything but normal,” he scoffs.

If a TV camera were to capture the scene at this moment, I might pick up my drink and throw it in Paul’s face. He would pick up my plate, throw it against the wall and call me a thankless bitch. But, here is the scene as it plays out.

“Do you really think I’m not normal?”

“You’re Abbie Normal,” he replies.

We kiss.  We yell answers at the TV.  The camera zooms out, and I thank God for every minute of our extremely normal life.

Read more...

Snow Away-A Braided Essay

I am checking my phone in the car passenger seat while Paul grants and revokes driver’s licenses.

“He gets a license. She does not,” he says.  

I want to ask him if I would retain my license, but I already know the answer and it rhymes with snow, which blankets our world, plunging me into a deep abyss of despair.

“I’m flashing my lights. That means go! Go-Go!” Paul shouts at a hesitant driver.

A memory comes to mind, of a persistent go-go boy dancing on top of a bar in Key West. He leans down and asks us if we would like to go play together in the back room. 

“No, thanks,” I mutter and we both offer him a dollar bill to make him go away. I stuff it into the top of his briefs and Paul stuffs it from the bottom, our finger tips meet in the middle, like Lady and the Tramp coming face to face at the end of a long noodle. A year into our relationship, we find this to be utterly adorable in a way that only new couples could.

“Adorable,” Paul uses that word all the time now. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes puffy, hair looking like Cruella de Vil on crack, Paul will ask me “How’d you get to be so adorable?” I’ll silently think to myself that A) he is blind; B) he is much too perky in the morning and C), what was C going to be? I can’t remember now, but God how I miss swimming in the sea.

There are only a few weeks of the year that we can comfortably swim in the ocean in Maine, but I could sit forever on the sandy beach in the evening when the sky blushes pink and watch the waves roll in. 

Rollin’ with my homies. 

Who sang that song?  I look at my phone to check iTunes.  It was Coolio. That’s it. 

Mary-Ellen used to always say that, as if to say “Cool,” but said “Coolio,” instead. Or did she used to say “Cool Beans?” I can’t remember now, but over the holidays we met and shared stories. She has not changed one bit.  It’s funny to think that we kissed one night in high school after a “White Russian” drink party I hosted when my mother was conveniently away.  Both of us drunk and thinking what the hell, we’ll give it a try and then both of us feeling like we just kissed our sibling. 

I’m not certain what to think about the Russian Olympics.  We have stopped buying Russian vodka although I can’t say this has swayed Putin into changing his horrific anti-gay laws in the least.  I often wonder why any sane gay person would want to live in such a frozen place anyway.  Move to someplace warm I say, like Key West. 

Paul looks over at me and I can tell by the way he says it that I have missed it the first time he asked. 

“I said what are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I reply.

“It must be awfully empty in that head,” He says.

I look out the car window at the piles of snow, turning black from the gritty dirt and stained yellow from dogs marking their territory. 

“I guess I was just thinking about how much I fucking hate snow.”

Read more...

Life: Some Assembly Required

We have come to IKEA for an EMMIE LAND duvet cover, but leave with a BESTÅ black/brown storage unit, six blue DINERA coffee mugs, a GRUNDTAL spotlight and two cinnamon buns.  We do not leave with a duvet cover.  I blame the dioramas that showcase organized life in amazingly small spaces.  This is Paul’s version of Swedish porn.

“Our TV console is a pain in the ass to keep clean,” he says and I know we are in trouble. 

While he grabs a paper tape measure, I watch a harried mother lean in and whisper softly but firmly to her three year old son who is sitting in the shopping cart.

“Do not put that dragon in my face.”

The boy pushes the colorful stuffed dragon with the lurid red tongue between her ample breasts, performing an indecent act of motor boating.

“That’s not your face!” he exclaims.

The dragon is unceremoniously dumped on a MOLGER shelf.

Paul returns with a tape measure and begins to size up a storage unit. 

“I know something big we can measure,” he says with one eyebrow arched. 

I sigh and turn to watch a mature couple pushing a frail older woman in a wheel chair. They hand the old woman a sample cabinet door.  She regards the door with mouth agape and uncertainty in her eyes.  They have given her a door.  What will she do with a door?

“Do you like the finish, Mom?” her daughter asks loudly and then continues “It’s for the TV stand.”

The old woman places a gnarled finger on her lips to consider this and I envision an empty spot next to her on the sofa which fills me with an unutterable sadness.

When Paul has written down all of the pieces, aisles and bin numbers we amble through the showrooms. Here is life in 597 square feet.  When we walk into the bedroom I am startled to find a gay couple in an embrace.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mutter.

Here is life in 292 square feet. A sign in the bathroom exclaims “This is not a working toilet.” My eyes burn as if they have been sprayed with superfluous pepper spray at the vision.  As we continue, the rooms become smaller and I half expect to see life in an 8 by 10 foot cell.  The iron bunk beds would be brightly covered with a blue ticking NYPONROS duvet cover.

We load the boxes into the trunk of our car and lug them up the three flights of steps to our condo.  I watch Paul sweat and grunt and issue forth a litany of f-bombs, finally taking a hack saw to the unit in order to make modifications.

When the unit is complete I stand back as Paul turns on the GRUNDTAL light behind the glass door which showcases nothing but a dusty shelf and some air. He places two tequila skull bottles, souvenirs from a trip to California, inside. We have nick-named them Pablo and Guillermo.

“This will have to do until you find something to highlight,” Paul sighs.

Here is life in our 497 square foot condo. Two men cling to each other admiring tequila skulls in their BESTÅ cabinet.   It is an odd scene, but unlike IKEA showrooms, most lives have unexpected walls, doors and angles that require modifications.  When I first came to Paul, flat packed with missing pieces and cryptic instructions he took the time to measure out our lives in order to make things fit.  

That’s enough to highlight for me.

Read more...

Don't Say It

He is stirring green beans and butter in a red plastic bowl when I realize that I could watch the way his long fingers grip the fork for the rest of my life.  He scoops the beans out onto two plates, turns and hands me one while raising an eyebrow. 

“What?” he asks.

“Looks good,” I reply.

They are frozen green beans, nothing special.  Eat them and you will grow strong.  But there is a weakness growing inside of me and I can feel the tendrils squeezing my lungs.

“Don’t be the first one to say it,” my brother says.  “You will look silly.”

When we drive along the rocky coast of Maine and watch the green ocean swell like it is a living being larger than eternity I do not say it.  When the snow dances and blankets the back yard in a sea of white and clings to the branches of the pine trees I do not say it. When the foolish moon kisses his sleeping face with horizontal shadows late at night in the stillness of the bedroom I do not say it.

“Has he told you yet?’ My brother asks.

“No,” I say.

“Good. If you tell him you will scare him away.”

Night after night I watch him cook buttered green beans, turkey meatloaf Florentine, buffalo chicken and listen as he pours out gurgling red wine.  I tell him that I am not dating anyone else. I tell him that he makes me laugh.  I tell him that I have never been this happy before, but I do not scare him away because I do not tell him.

“I have to say it.”

“Are you sure?” My brother asks.  “What if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

His question seizes me with doubt. I am a fool.  It is too soon.  I pack up the words and store them away.  The ocean is simply a body of water.  The cold snow is something to shovel and the moon is just a moon.

The alarm has failed me and I am running late for work.

“Have you seen my striped shirt?” I shout.

“It’s hanging up in the closet. It’s ironed,” He shouts up the stairs.

“I don’t have time for breakfast,” I say. “Where are my shoes?”

“They’re by the door,” he says.

I slip on my shoes. He is a smiling sentinel clutching a brown paper lunch bag, the top creased underneath those long perfect fingers. 

“It’s breakfast,” he says.

My lips graze his lips.  

“I love you,” it slips.

“Me too, now get your ass to work before you’re late,” he says.

The vine clutches my heart and squeezes the air out of my lungs as I run down the steps.

“What did he say?” my brother asks.

“I am such a fool,” I say.  

He'd told me long before I told him.

Read more...

Merry Christmas Husband

Missy wants us to know that she is going to say Merry Christmas. Damn the torpedoes.  She offers this up like an extra dollop of whip cream snuck from the kitchen for our tutti-frutti breakfast meal. When I pick up the check it is sticky from maple syrup and scribbled across the top is Happy Holidays ya’ll!  a smiley face dots the “i”.

“Corporate’ll see that,” She says by way of explanation and grants us an upside down smile. She wipes the sweat off of her brow with the back of her hand to reveal a plump forearm riddled with blue shaded tattoos of roses, snakes and skulls.   I wonder if corporate has seen that.

I look across the table at Paul and he can see by the slight shift in my expression that I am about to challenge her, so he cuts me off.

“Good for you, Merry Christmas!” He says enthusiastically and hands her his credit card.

We leave the restaurant and begin the continuation of our drive through rural Virginia to my mother’s house in North Carolina.  There are billboards screaming “Choose life!” church signs stating that “Jesus is the reason for the season” and crudely constructed crosses perched atop red clay hills. Mixed among the messages is a sign for a gentleman’s club featuring topless ladies and a bright red hand advertising Miss Gina the palm reader.

“I hope Miss Gina’s first name is Va,” I say to Paul.

There is a long pause before he gets it.

“I don’t mind if someone says Merry Christmas, but why do they have to say it like “fuck you, I’m going to say Merry Christmas? What if we were Jewish?” I ask Paul.

“But we’re not,” he says staring straight ahead.

“She didn’t know that. She didn’t know that we were gay either,” I say and hope that Paul does not try to challenge my fuzzy logic.

“Would you like to go back and tell her this?” Paul asks and then continues “I could lay a big sloppy wet kiss on you in front of her.”

I put a check mark in the naughty list column in front of Paul’s name.

We cross the border from Virginia to North Carolina and my lungs constrict.  A list of all of the sanitized terms that will be used to describe the man sitting next to me flicker through my mind like giant black lettered billboards:  Partner, boyfriend or simply Paul, like some man who has showed up for a day in my life.  

Let Missy pour out her sticky sweet Merry Christmas greetings.  The power is not in the reception of the message but in the ability to define and convey your love through a phrase or a word.  Turning to the man sitting next to me I place a hand on his knee and say “Merry Christmas Husband.”

 

Read more...

Riding in Cars

I am marking a line in the middle of the car seat, karate chopping it saying “Here. Here. Here,” down the blue naugahyde. This is my side and that is yours. When my younger brother John’s toe illegally crosses the border I karate chop again and alert the National Guard.

 “Mom! John’s on my side!” 

My mother turns her head to regard my father’s profile without removing her sunglasses. She grabs a loose strand of hair twisting in the breeze from the open window and guides it behind her ear. Her shoulders slump. My father flicks the butt of a burnt out cigarette through the open window and performs a karate chop to the blinker.  For the rest of our annual drive to the outer banks of North Carolina, I sit alone facing backwards with the brown paper grocery bags crowding me on both sides in the way back seat of the wood paneled station wagon. I watch the world recede, rows of tobacco plants flickering by.

He WAS on my side.

The week after that vacation my parents marked an imaginary line down the middle of our lives.  “Here. Here. Here.” This is my side and that is yours. My father claimed the pretty young blonde and my haggard mother got four rambunctious boys. 

We all shifted positions.  My older brother Chuck moved to the front seat with a red haired boy’s determination, occasionally firing warning shots in the form of a stuck out tongue or middle finger. The battle would escalate until my mother would glance in the rear view mirror and catch me retaliating by attempting to flip my brother the bird, holding all of the fingers on my right hand down, except the middle one with my other hand. I learned to watch the road pass behind me without ever knowing what was coming up ahead of me.

On the rare occasion when I am in the driver’s seat now I am filled with anxiety about what COULD be down the road.  What if there is no parking?  What if the traffic is bad?  Oh, I hate turning left on the Harvard bridge. 

We are driving down Mile Road, the marsh sparkling on either side of us.  I am in the front passenger seat, Paul as always is in the driver’s seat and a fresh set of troops are in the back.

“Dad, let’s go to the beach closest to the restrooms.  I’m on my period,” a command comes from the back seat.

“Your father is on his exclamation point,” Paul shouts back, referring to my constant issue of warnings.  Watch out for this car! That person isn’t looking! There’s a parking spot!  Everything around us a clear and present danger.

When I issue one more piece of advice Paul turns to look at me without removing his sunglasses.

“What’s your job?”

“To sit here and look pretty,” I say staring ahead.

Isak Dinesen said “God made the world round, so we would never see too far down the road.”  It’s a quote that appeals to me, even if I cannot seem to embrace its full meaning. Paul angles the car into an impossibly narrow parking spot.

“Have I crunched you yet?” He says.

“Not yet,” I say and I know he never will.

But that doesn't stop me from worrying about it.

Read more...

Word Vomit

After the third (or fourth?) glass of wine I tell Sam that I write because I believe in life after death.  Both of these statements are true.  I write.  I believe in life after death.  But, I can’t connect the two in any logical sense and he can see that I am struggling with the word vomit that I have just chucked up onto our high top bar table.

 

“Because you’re going to come back and find what you wrote?” he asks me.

“P-Possibly,” I stutter and take another sip as his eyes narrow.

I am waiting for him to say this is the stupidest shit he has ever heard.  But he doesn’t, which surprises me.  He reaches into his drink with his index finger and thumb, plucks out an ice cube and pops it into his mouth. He pushes his eyeglasses up on his nose and shrugs.  I think he has finally decided to find my pointless statements charming. 

“Dameron, check out that dude,” he says while crunching the ice cube and motioning behind me with a nod of his head. 

Correction: He has decided to ignore my pointless statements and cruise the bar. When my head spins around, he admonishes me “Don’t do a Linda Blair!” But, he drops the “R” so that it sounds like Blai-uh. 

My face contorts reflexively into a disgusted look.  He laughs and says “C’mon’, he’s adorable.”

I’m sure his mother thinks so I think, but I do not say this aloud.  He has forgiven my word vomit. I’ll give him this face vomit.

We’ve been friends for six years now and this is our equivalent of the monthly sleep over; brushing each other’s hair, playing records and talking about boys.  We plan significant events together; fiftieth birthday parties, trips to Florida. Our exploits from the past have already taken on the sepia tinged quality of urban legends, referenced in some way each time we get together. 

“OK, let’s do our ‘Where’s Waldo?’,” he says to me and we rotate our heads like Linda Blai-uh minus the projectile split pea soup.  There is is no sighting of “Monkey Boy” or “Y” who we always reference by placing our hand in the middle of our scalp to signify how advanced "Y's" receding hairline has become.

We don our coats and amble on the brick paved sidewalk to Fritz, where the ceiling is painted black, surly bartenders hurl drinks, Donna Summer is moaning on the stereo and men pretend to watch sports on the wall mounted TV’s while they check each other out.

“This place is a fuckin’ dump.  It needs to be gutted,” Sam says.

He is referring to its imminent closure and reopening as a fancy new restaurant.  But still, we find ourselves here once a month.

When it’s time to go we walk to the corner together.

“See ya’ buddy,” Sam says and gives me a hug. My throat catches.

He walks towards the South End and I walk to the Green Line, the new Liberty Mutual building towering over us.  Hard to believe how much has changed in just six years.  I met Sam at the lowest point in my life when I felt like I had no friends.

When I step off of the T, I take a wider arc than is necessary, my spatial judgment impaired. “Damn Sam,” I laugh and think I must remember to write down this scene. In the morning, head throbbing, I find a note that I had taken on my iPhone: I write because there is life after death.

        

Read more...