So Happy Together, page 27
“Yeah . . .”
“Look,” he says suddenly. “I don’t know what made you show up when you did. Whether it was just one of those lucky, random things, or whether there was some kind of divine intervention . . . but I want to thank you . . . I . . . it gave us time . . . time to . . .” His voice breaks.
“I know, Peter. I know. It’s all right . . .”
“I wouldn’t have left if I’d had any choice, but I didn’t. One morning, I woke up and knew, I just knew if I didn’t leave that very day, that very morning, in fact . . . I would kill myself. I . . . I tried once before, but I knew this time I would succeed. It was that simple. Nothing had happened, it was just going to be another ordinary day, but I knew if I was in the house by nightfall, I wouldn’t live to see the next day.
“So, I took Mother over to visit a friend, went to the bank and transferred most of my savings from my account to hers . . .”
“Most of your money?”
He grins wryly. “Yeah, I got to New York with $800 in my pocket. I don’t know, maybe I thought the streets were paved with gold or something . . .”
“Go on . . .”
“After the bank, I came home, packed, wrote a resignation letter to the theater . . . the show must go on, and all that. But if I hadn’t gotten the hell out of Dodge, my show would have been over. And then I caught the 10 a.m. Greyhound to Fargo. I was able to get on the plane to New York just a few hours later. Got to the city just in time to call Ernesto before he was about to turn in.”
“But how could you be so sure Ernesto would be there?”
“How could you have been sure that I would be here?”
“You weren’t . . .”
“Right. But Ernesto was . . . and so, of course, was Roger.”
“Ernesto’s lover?”
“Yeah, he does windows for Bloomingdale’s . . .”
“Good lord, Ernesto told me about him six . . . no, seven years ago when I ran into him one afternoon.”
“Yeah, well they just celebrated their tenth anniversary a couple of months ago. They had a party . . .”
“Did you go?”
“Sure. On my salary, I can’t afford to pass up an offer of free food and drink.”
“Wasn’t it hard, though, seeing Ernesto so happy with someone else?” I probe.
His eyebrows raise. “What do you think? Of course it was hard, but I had to do it. I have to live in the real world . . . can’t afford to stay lost in my dreams. Anyway, I’m glad I went. I . . . I met someone.”
“Oh, Peter . . . you have someone . . . someone special?”
His face begins to redden, and I remember how that blush used to start on his neck and work its way up to his ears and I’d thought it so endearing.
“Well, no, not exactly. It only lasted a couple of weeks before we realized that, other than both of us being gay, we had absolutely nothing in common.”
“I’m sorry. I thought . . .”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll always have a very warm spot in my heart for Randy. He ended a long, dreary, self-imposed term of celibacy.”
“Jesus! You mean for twenty years you didn’t . . .? No wonder you wanted to kill yourself.”
“Yeah. For a while, I thought I might convert to Catholicism and join the priesthood. Maybe I’d finally get lucky and get laid in seminary or something.”
He disappears into the kitchen and returns with two more beers and a bowl of pretzels.
“Lunch, madame . . . unless you’d care for some heavier fare?”
“Nah, not until this heat breaks, anyway.” I fan myself with the newspaper.
“Peter, Ernesto said you didn’t want to see me? How come?”
He looks annoyed. “He shouldn’t have said that, but it’s true. I didn’t. I didn’t want to know anything about you. I knew you were married . . . probably had children. I had such mixed emotions about everything. I didn’t feel stable enough to see you. Part of it was that self-loathing thing. You know, if only I’d been straight, I would have been your husband . . . they would be my children. I’ve reconciled myself to being gay, but I feel so sad that I’ll never have children.
“Sometimes, years ago, I used to fantasize that we were married and had kids, the proverbial white picket fence and everything, but . . .”
“But what?”
He looks away. “But you always turned into Ernesto. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, listen, we have to stop saying ‘I’m sorry’ to each other. Remember what ‘Love means never having to say’?”
He groans, then laughs. “Oh, wasn’t that an awful movie . . . even I could have done a better job dying than Ali MacGraw.”
“Oh, Peter, I do love you. I miss having you as my friend.”
“I love you, too, and believe me, if there had been any way, any way we could have made it . . .”
“Yeah, I know. But what was it? What was it when you came back for me—when you said you were straight? Sometimes I thought I’d dreamed it.”
“That whole scene was kind of bizarre, wasn’t it,” he admits. “I guess in order to make some sense out of that, we have to go back to the beginning.”
“The very beginning . . . you mean when we first met?”
“How about the sixth day, when ‘God formed man in his own likeness . . . male and female he formed them both’ . . .”
“C’mon,” I protest. “Seriously . . .”
“Seriously. I am being serious. That part where God puts Adam to sleep and fashions Eve out of one of his ribs . . .”
“I’m beginning to see.”
He nods. “Okay, now us. You know all about my early history. I think I told you that when I was still at the State U. here, I had a couple of one-night stands, but I was really fighting it. Maybe that’s one reason I transferred . . . wanted to get away from my history and make a new beginning.
“You remember I was still pretty heavy into my religion at the time, which only served to make me feel more guilty, of course. The Church wasn’t all that enlightened in those days. And now, not only are they ordaining women, but avowed lesbians, as well. Isn’t progress amazing? But I digress. Anyway, remember when I walked into the Love House, I told you I was there to borrow a book? Well, actually, I was, but I had an ulterior motive.
“It was about a month or so after I’d gotten to Tucson. I had been going to church a lot, vowing to change, praying to change. Praying for a miracle, I guess,” he adds ruefully.
I reach for his hand. “You know, you really don’t have to go through all this again. I was just curious . . .”
“I know, but I want to. After twenty years, it’s time all the pieces were put together. Maybe it will finally make some sense.”
“In as far as life ever makes sense . . .”
“Right. So, where was I?”
“Praying for a miracle . . .”
“Yeah. So, anyway, I had met Scott in one of my classes, and . . . I don’t know, I kind of just knew about him.”
“Uh huh. Ernesto told me . . . radar.”
“Ernesto told you I knew about Scott? He wasn’t even there. When did all this come up?” He is incredulous.
“No, actually, Ernesto told me how he recognized you . . . how gay people know about each other . . .”
He looks at me in a bemused kind of way, one eyebrow raised, his mouth in a half-grin. “Is that something you want to talk about when I finish my story?”
I nod, slowly. “It’s all part of the same story, isn’t it? And I guess if we’re putting all the puzzle pieces together . . .”
“Okay, so, anyway, I could’ve had Scott bring the book to class, but I asked if it was okay if I dropped by his house to get it. I kind of had it set up as a test, you see. Sort of . . . well, a sign from God, if you will.”
“I don’t understand. You mean a sign from God whether you should be gay or straight? You had no idea I’d be there that night . . .”
“No, but I had it set up in my own mind. Well, you know, if Scott was there alone, and if he said something to me . . . I mean, you know . . . approached me . . . Well, I know this sounds really dumb now, but remember how angelic he looked? That silky blond hair and those guileless blue eyes . . .”
“Careful, you’re waxing rhapsodic.”
He tosses a throw pillow in my direction. I duck and don’t toss it back.
“So,” he continues, “I set up this test, see? If Scott made a move, it would be like God’s angel saying what I should be, that I was gay, and that it was okay, that that’s what I was and what I was supposed to be, in God’s eyes, despite what the Church taught.”
“And if he wasn’t there? Which, as you recall, he wasn’t . . .”
“Well, if he hadn’t been there, or if he was there with a lover . . . well, that would have been a sign that I wasn’t supposed to be gay, and that I would just have to fight my impulses even harder, but that God would help me.
“Actually, I wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to mean if he wasn’t there . . . that part of it wasn’t very clear. The thing was, I was so distressed, so ambivalent. I wanted Scott there . . . I didn’t want him there. I wanted him. Lord, how I wanted anybody, at that point. I guess what I really wanted was a clear, irrefutable sign from God. I wanted the finger of God to come down and point. I wanted a heavenly voice to say ‘This is the way, my son, the only way . . .”
“Jesus, it must have really blown your mind to find me there—and totally out of my mind, to boot.”
“No, no . . . it was wonderful to find you there, that’s what it was. It was my clear and irrefutable sign from God: ‘I want you to be straight, my son, and this is the woman who will make you that way.’”
“God should have consulted me on that one, Peter. Although, if He had, He certainly would have found that our thinking followed the same lines. God knows, I tried. He certainly can’t fault me for trying.”
“I know you did, dear, and I love you for that. It’s just that, after a while, I realized it wasn’t really a sign, that there never would be that sign pointing to the one and only way, that I would have to find my own way, without divine guidance. And that wasn’t the one I would have chosen, if I had had any say in the matter. But, you know, I always wanted to be normal. I hungered for normality with the same intensity I hungered for members of my own sex. I was fighting myself every step of the way, and that day I showed up on your doorstep—I guess it was just one more attempt to fight that losing battle.”
“So, you wanted so much to be straight that you had yourself convinced you were?”
“No,” he grimaces, “My shrink had me convinced I was. Once a week, I saw this guy in Fargo. He did a lot of behavior modification for gay ‘conversion’ . . . kind of like Pavlov’s dogs, you know?”
I shake my head.
“Well, it’s like this: They show you pictures of these hunky guys, you know? And if you respond positively, you know, if your pulse starts to race and . . . um . . . other things start to happen . . . well, they give you this electric shock.”
“God, it sounds positively barbaric. Were they naked pictures?”
“Naked? Of course. Or else they were wearing these teeny little bikini pants or jock straps. Anyway, then they showed you these pictures of women, like out of Playboy and Hustler . . .”
My nose wrinkles in distaste. “Ugh . . .”
He laughs. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” and ducks as I throw a pillow at his head.
“Anyway, if you responded positively to the pictures of the women, you got rewarded.”
“How?”
“Would you believe Hershey’s Kisses? So, anyway, after a while, I learned to respond in the ‘right’ way. I mean, I’ll take chocolate over megavolts any day. So, the shrink said I was cured, and I guess I believed him. You know, that’s the same kind of ‘therapy’ they use on child molesters in the state prison here . . . only they give them shocks when they see pictures of little kids. I was in great company, wasn’t I?”
“So then you went back to Tucson?”
“I hopped in my car the very next day, my dear . . . and then, did you burst my bubble.”
“Oh, God . . . I’m sor—”
“Hey, hey, hey. Remember what we weren’t going to say?”
“Oh, right . . . sor—I mean, oh shit, forget it.”
“Right. But after a while, after I wrote that last letter to you, I realized that, electric shocks or no electric shocks, I couldn’t make it with a woman, that I was really and truly, irrevocably and undeniably gay. And then my real problems began.”
“You mean living here?”
“Yes. My mother’s family has lived in this town for generations. They were pillars of the community. How the hell could I reconcile that with being a pansy? How could my mother hold her head up if anyone knew? So, I just resigned myself to a quiet, celibate life. Mother needed me. She was too old to be transplanted somewhere else. All her friends were here. So, I made a sacrifice. Plenty of people do.
“Anyway, I lived my quiet little nowhere life until that fateful day—the day I chose between flight and hanging myself from the rafters in the attic. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
The shadows have gotten longer and the oppressive heat has finally lifted. He glances out the window.
“Look, there’s a breeze. What say we take some of those victuals the good church ladies have provided and make us a picnic in the backyard. I do miss having a backyard,” he sighs.
“You know, I probably should have stayed with my first shrink, the one who wasn’t trying to change my sexual orientation . . .”
We have polished off fried chicken, biscuits, and coleslaw and have downed another beer apiece. I am feeling rather woozy: I’m not used to drinking so much. Lying on my back in the hammock, looking up into the branches of a giant oak, I find myself getting sleepier and sleepier as I struggle to hold up my end of the conversation.
“Why? What did he say?”
“That my homosexuality was all tied up with the rest of me. That if I gave that up, provided it was possible to, I’d sacrifice something else, like my creativity. I struggled with that for a year, but I couldn’t resolve it. Anyway,” he says with a wave of his hand, “That doesn’t matter now.”
“What? What doesn’t matter?”
“The question of going straight. Because it’s not a question anymore . . . We also talked a lot about you.”
That snaps me out of my stupor.
“About me? What about me?”
He laughs. “You needn’t act so indignant. When you were in therapy, didn’t you talk about me? I mean, you must have, with all those unsent letters and everything.”
“Well, yes,” I admit. “But that was different.”
“Right. Different . . . c’mon. Anyway, don’t you want to know what the shrink said about our relationship?”
“God, I don’t know. Do I?”
“Sure. I mean,” he hastens to add, “it’s not anything awful or perverted or anything. He said I was looking for Sissy—for the sister I never really knew. I had completely forgotten, but it came out during the course of the therapy: When I was a little kid, I guess about seven or eight, I used to pretend she was still alive. She was like an imaginary playmate, except she had once been real. I used to get teased a lot—I was small and sickly. I’d come home from school and go to my room and shut the door and tell everything to Sissy and she always stuck up for me . . . said she’d go and beat those nasty kids up if they ever bothered me again . . .”
“You never told me that, Peter.”
“I didn’t remember . . . not ’til it came out in therapy. Anyway, the shrink said that when I met you, it was like, without my being aware of it, I had found my sister again. And, of course,” he adds gently, “you can’t go to bed with your sister.”
“No . . . Why did you stop seeing him?”
“Because I couldn’t reconcile myself to being gay. It was so unnatural. Everything I’d ever heard, everything I’d ever been taught, both in church and out, told me it was an abomination. God, how I hated myself . . .”
“And that’s when you found Dr. Frankenstein and his megavolts?”
“No, first I tried to do it on my own. I read a lot, and then decided what I really had to do was to start asking women out and just go to bed with them, and not even think about it . . .”
I try to control myself, but I can’t. Soon my muffled giggles become loud guffaws.
“I don’t think it’s one bit funny,” says an obviously miffed Peter.
“Oh, oh,” I gasp, “I’m sorry. It’s just that the idea of you going to bed with women . . . treating them like objects . . . I mean, that’s what Artie used to do. He had it down to an art, if you can call being a pig like that an artist. But I just can’t see you doing that. God, you didn’t, did you?”
“What do you think? Of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t have even had a clue as to how to go about it. But I thought, you know, if I could just do it once or twice . . . get it over with . . . No, I don’t mean get it over with . . . just those first few awkward times over with, then I could go back to you and all that would be behind me, and I could be, you know, just . . . normal. I wanted that so much I fell for Dr. Megavolt and his crazy theories. And, you’ve heard all the rest, my dear.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Now? Well, I guess get Mom’s stuff together to give away or sell, and put the house on the market. And then, I have to get back to work. Really, I need to get back to New York by the end of the week. What about you? What are you going to do now?”
“Me? I don’t want to talk about me.”
“Caro, dear, we have to talk about you.”
“Not yet. I’m not ready to talk about me yet. Let’s talk about you some more. What are you going to do when you get back to New York?”
In truth, I’m terrified to talk about me, Peter. I know I can never have you, but now I fear that I’ve crossed the line with Jack, that even if I went back to him, he wouldn’t have me.
“When I get home . . . and I do think of it as home, now . . . I’m going to take a sublet on an apartment. One of Ernesto’s friends joined a touring company of Les Mis. It’s for six months. That’ll give me time to look for my own place. The Y is not exactly conducive to the more creative aspects of my life, although I have started writing a play. I’m even thinking of dipping my toe in the water and going to a couple of casting calls. And, of course, I hope to improve my sex life,” he laughs.
