A Quick Load

I met George at a support group for gay fathers.  He was not a father, had never been married, but he had been engaged to a woman once, and I suppose that made him feel like he had been close enough to the blade. The rest of us opened up our wrists every Wednesday night in a semi-circle in the basement of a Unitarian Universalist Church in a Boston suburb, airing dirty laundry with our “God knows I tried,” stories. 

We would pass the talking stick around and one by one, a nervous guy would fidget, tug at his collar and stammer through this week’s trials and tribulations on the road to, I don’t know where, but it sure as hell wasn’t here.

When the talking stick landed in George’s lap, he stood up and the room took notice.  He was broad shouldered, cocky and wore a blonde crew cut.  He was shaped like a refrigerator, all hard angles and cool.

“I’m not a father,” he said and the room of enraptured men replied “That’s OK!”

“I can’t say I’ve ever been married,” he continued and the room shouted “Good for you!”

“When I told my mother I was gay, she said you must get it from your father’s side,” he said and the applause was so thunderous that you would have thought that God had just farted.

When the meeting was over, word went around that perhaps we should all just walk over to the local bar and continue the support over a libation of our choosing, give us a chance to talk in a less formal setting, which was code for “hook-up.”  The apple-tinis, cosmos and chardonnays were cast aside for something more manly seeming, like beer, in the presence of “box boy.” The appellation was justified, as later we would learn that in addition to being shaped like a box, he also sold them for a living.

I was the lucky one who nabbed his number, or he nabbed mine.  In any case I ended up speaking with him on the phone for an hour or two that night replying “uh-huh” and “you don’t say,” while he told me what a catch he was.

“I’m looking for something long term,” he said.

“So am I,” I replied.

When I met him the following Sunday at his home he wanted to show me his hobby, which was a collection of vintage washing machines in his basement.  Now, most people would begin to second guess a relative stranger’s invitation to voluntarily venture into their basement to take a gander at their “hobby,” but I decided to find it cute and quirky.  It wasn’t like he held up a rag and asked me if it smelled like chloroform.    

We never made it to the basement. We hardly made it from the sofa and we never made it to a second date. I was foolish.  He just wanted to wash a quick load. Maybe we were both looking for something long-term.  It just wasn’t with each other

       

Read more...

Eye of The Beholder

I am taking pictures of the clouds with my iPhone and casting a shadow over Paul. He is lying on his stomach in the driveway,scrubbing the rim of a car tire with a brush specifically designed for this task, when he grunts “Can you find something to do for an hour?”

An hour really isn't long enough to do something productive like exercise or write and I have already taken the opportunity to go for a run on the beach, while Paul cleaned the gas grill.  It is a found hour, sort of like a crumpled twenty dollar bill you might pull out of your pocket.  Not enough to buy something you really want, like say, a life sized golden piggy bank, but enough to make you a little giddy with the possibilities.

I decide to take a selfie and try photo-shopping different eye colors, which is not as easy as it sounds. First, if your eyes are as beady as mine, you need to take a picture where they appear open, but not like they are in a state of shock; as if someone has told you that golden piggy bank costs more than $100, for example. Then, you need to get the right size software tool to color the iris and erase the spot over the pupil.  If you go too blue, then it just looks fake.

When Paul opens the front door and enters the kitchen, I am surprised that an hour has passed. He glances over my shoulder at the laptop screen and asks “Did you spend an hour on that?”

“I know,” I exclaim and then add “It’s really tricky, getting this to look real.”

He wipes the sweat from his forehead and stares at me without blinking, which is when I realize that his eyes are a mixture of brown and hazel and that this subtlety is exactly what I am missing.   As I adjust the tool and zoom in on the picture of my eyes, Paul grabs a rag and the spray bottle of vinegar and plods to the bathroom, where I assume he is going to clean the glass shower doors. I’m proud that I suggested a dual headed shower, though it requires more cleaning. I have learned not to complain about the vinegar smell.

It is precisely this moment when I realize his suggestion of finding something to do for an hour might have meant anything other than performing virtual cosmetic surgery, which is why I think our relationship works.  I bring a sense of whimsy to his otherwise strictly ordered life.

The next morning, Paul is driving me to work while The Captain and Tennille are singing on the radio about how love will always keep them together. Unfortunately, it did not.  Toni was always the bubbly outgoing one and The Captain was content hiding behind the piano. Something must have changed, a power struggle perhaps. Maybe The Captain said “You know Ton, I’d really like to get up and dance the fandango when we sing Muskrat Love,” to which Toni replied “It’s the Tango you buffoon! And that spotlight is mine, bitch!”

I offer to drive us in to work.

Paul rolls his eyes and says “Honey, I’d really like an enjoyable ride in today.”

Maybe our roles are as immutable as our eye color, but I know our emotional piggy bank will always remain full, because unlike Toni, I’m not a diva and I’m willing to bend.  Good thing we met later in life when our interests were equally shared, but if we ever need to change, I know we will, because we both have the right set of tools and more importantly?

We know how to use them.  

  

Read more...

Word Fishers

When you are writing a memoir, each morning you sit at your desk and kill your father, slander your mother and shame your children.  This is the price that you pay for seeking your version of the truth and that truth is like a wadded up ball of string that you pick away at slowly.  You may be able to get a purchase on the beginning and the end, but the middle seems hopelessly riddled with knots.

Once you untangle the twine, you are not even half way there.  You tie a hook on the end and throw it into a sea of words and hope to catch something, anything.  Most days pass without a tug.  Then, you feel a slight nibble and you struggle to reel it in.  Sometimes the catch is too small, sometimes too big and still others are monsters with razor sharp teeth and dark eyes too terrifying to consider. You cut the line.

At night, when sleep eludes you, the words swim through your mind. 

They shudder with a bright silvery flourish just beyond your grasp, but you try to remember. In the morning you say “Here, this is the spot,” and cast your line.  If you are patient, you catch a few and then some more until the boat is teeming with words.

Once you have enough, you select the best and prepare them, fry them, broil them, bake them; add a bit of salt here, add a dash of spice there until they are ready to be consumed.  You place your dish proudly in front of other fishers of words.

You wait.

You wait.

You wait.

“This dish is too cold.”

“This dish is too hot.”

“This dish stinks.”

They pick apart the words and spit out the bones.  They ask if you considered baking it less or baking it more or adding this spice or just throwing the whole damn thing out and starting all over again.

You swear off fishing for words. 

“I can sit on the beach with my friends,” you say.  They seem perfectly happy, you think. You rest.  You drink.  You go out to dinner, but you cannot stop thinking about the monster that lurks in the murky depths of the ocean. 

The next morning, when the world is sleeping and your dreams are like the mist on the sea, your line breaks the glossy surface. You let it sink deeper and deeper until it reaches the abyss where the weight of the words on the string threatens to capsize the boat.  You kill your father, slander your mother and shame your children. Because you know that if you don’t catch the words,the words will devour you.   

 

    

  

Read more...

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...