But the princess in the big bed is not in her room, awaiting my comfort.
Jim is there instead, sitting in the chair by her bed, his hands in his face, sobbing.
She’s not here waiting for Papa’s comfort, either.
I am not sad.
I am furious.
The pain on Jim’s face is not a dream. There is no pill strong enough that could kill it, that’s how big it is.
She thought that suicide was an escape from her pain. Maybe it was; I don’t know. But even counting the painkillers she left me that Buddy flushed, Laura also left behind, for those who had to go on without her, a deeper pain than she could have possibly experienced herself. I will never, ever forgive her for that. I wish I’d never loved her.
This hate burning my heart feels worse than the withdrawal pains thundering through the rest of my body.
“How could she have done this to us?” It’s Jim who asks the question. He doesn’t wait for my answer, which is good—I don’t have one, and I doubt I’m functional enough to articulate right now. His words come in a surge as fast and furious as the rain coming down outside the window. “I should have known. I should have known. She was too ‘up’ right before. Do you remember all the exercising she was doing just before? All the obsessive organizing? The friends—new and old—she was suddenly needing to see? I thought it was just about graduation, that she was excited about starting Georgetown in the fall. I was relieved to see her looking forward to something. How could I have been so blind?”
For once, I am relieved to be outside the dream. The Laura I loved before—not the one I hate now—would want me to be fully present for her father in this moment. I feel it. Her.
I’d be the last person who could impart wisdom on Laura’s motivations to Jim. That is, I couldn’t offer him any insight into her last days that would give him comfort rather than more pain.
So I don’t say anything. I go sit by the side of the bed next to him, and just listen.
This, I can do.
First Lady: Not a Job I’d Want
I AM LARGE AND IN CHARGE. I’VE GONE FIFTEEN DAYS without a boost. This is a first for me since I was fifteen.
We’ve marked our summer in firsts: first Independence Day weekend without Laura throwing a garden picnic for us; first fireworks heard from the Mall without Laura cowering under her bedcovers in fright from the noise, even though she heard the explosions every year and knew what to expect; and now, our first—and only, this year—Georgetown summer garden party/political fundraiser without Laura wearing that year’s prettiest blue cocktail dress and acting as Jim’s hostess (unless she had a black-mark day, in which case she could be found, as on red-white-and-blue day, underneath her covers).
This first garden party without Laura is a political fundraiser hostessed by Dr. Turner—with an able helping hand from her First Lady, Niecy, who is wearing a beautiful princess dress and an eager debutante smile. The object of celebration is Dr. Turner’s sister, who is planning a run for D.C. city council. The people the family is here to meet and greet, by way of a guest list culled by Jim and Dr. Turner, are the assorted members of the D.C. gay hierarchy—business leaders, lobbyists, lawyers and socialites who wave their rainbow flags high, and use their financial clout to support their political agendas. Gaining favor with these constituents’ dollars and their dogmas is crucial to any serious contender for local political office. The federal part of our city may be overrun by Congressional conservatives who criticize the lifestyle, but the District’s residential population is substantially populated, particularly in Northwest, by those inside “the life.”
I used to hide out in the tree house during these parties, observing the party people without having to participate, while Laura put on her best “show” face and presided with her proud papa. I was never missed.
This year I participate. At least, I show up. Someone’s got to smoke in a remote corner with Jim through this first without Laura, to stand by his lonesome side. The benefit of this benefit is that Buddy left for the weekend. Since his trailer could potentially scare away party goers and their checkbooks, Jim very politely asked Buddy to make a temporary exit. I’d like to very not politely ask Buddy to make it a permanent one, but I can’t until I can be sure he won’t out my not-problem to Jim.
“Would you care for a drink, Lady Miles?” Jim asks me.
“I don’t care about anything,” I remind him.
He returns to our remote spot with a Coke for me. I hand him a lit cigarette.
We’re standing in the corner of the garden, away from the central party gathering area. Our usual sacred smoking space is now covered with a canopy, under which professional waitstaff serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres to guests. The smokers—and Jim and I are the only ones—stand at a respectful distance at the garden’s rim, observing, as our smoke drifts up and away into the hedges.
I’m already thinking what Jim speaks aloud. “Feels strange to see people assembled here again. I’ve lived at this house my whole life, hosted parties here probably hundreds of times over the years, yet this one feels like it may as well be attended by aliens for all that I feel I belong here right now.”
“I think we’re the aliens, not them,” I say. They are so vibrant in their champagne chatter. We are still dragging lead weights around our ankles. Will they ever unshackle?
I wear my basic black balloon dress, and would never dream of fitting into their couture. “I’m a disappointment as a teenager,” I tell Jim.
He shakes his head, smiling. “How do you figure, Miles?”
“Niecy over there, she is a good teenager. She’s got the right clothes, the right looks. Notice she’s meeting and greeting with her mom and her aunt, but also scoping out the young people here with their parents. She’ll have five movie dates for next week before the night is done, I guarantee it.”
“That’s not indicative of being a teenager. That’s called being an extrovert.” He points to an attractive couple, two young men, standing in the distance, at the fountain, holding hands. “I’ve never gotten used to that—I think that qualifies me as the disappointment. All the years I’ve fought for them to have the right—no, the comfort—to do that, and still, when I see it, I’m never not surprised. Here’s a laugh for you, Miles. When I was their age, so very much wanting to be empowered and emboldened in my identity, I actually tried to be flamboyant, tried to be a queen. I could never pull it off. At heart, I was and am just a boring old white man with an accountant who likes his plain white shirts to be French-pressed.”
The image of Jim as a young queen is funny. “Did you ever wear a rhinestone tiara?”
“I did.”
“Then you weren’t a disappointment.”
“Oh, but I was. It was a genuine Tiffany tiara that had belonged to my mother.”
“That’s just sick. Not disappointing.”
Jim raises his glass to me. “Cheers, Miles.”
I clink my glass of Coke to his champagne. “Cheers, Jim—Queen of Stodgy Ol’ Georgetown.”
“Ol’ J. Edgar would have envied me, back in my time.”
“I’m so sure.”
The shackles loosen.
The moonlight, the garden, the champagne—these elements must be inspiring if you’re young and in love. The two men at the fountain share a tender kiss, lost to each other—and to the two smokers peeping on their romantic moment.
“Do you think they take for granted the rights you and your generation fought for?” I ask Jim. I will never share a romantic moment like that with someone. The best I’ll ever get is inside the dream. Or watching it from a smoking distance.
“If we did our job right, they do,” he answers.
IwantmydreamIwantmydream.
“Can I bum a smoke?” The question is posed by one of my people: a teenage freak. Green mohawked hair, a nose ring. He’s wearing sloppy punk gear—tight black jeans, combat boots, a worn-out and holed T-shirt. I recognize him as the son of the two women I ca
n see engaged in conversation with Dr. Turner’s sister over by the drink station.
“No,” Jim and I both say at the same time.
Disaffected, angry young punk boy gives good pout. He folds his arms over his chest and grumbles, “I don’t see why I had to come to this stupid party anyway. What do I care who runs for D.C. city council?”
Jim asks him, “Do you care that you have to register for the draft when you’re eighteen?”
“Guess so,” Punk Boy grumbles.
I rally to Jim’s cause. I almost know the speech by heart. I say, “As a D.C. citizen, you will have to register for the draft, and enlist in the military if called—but your own elected representative will have had no influence in the decision to go to war. Yet, you serve. Possibly die, for their war. So the hope is that electing the right representatives to D.C. city government can be a step toward gaining influence with Congress, to lobby for D.C. statehood. To give you as a tax-paying D.C. citizen who serves his country the same voting rights and influences as the citizens of the other fifty American states.”
Jim leans in to me. “You’re doing an excellent job of not caring about anything, Miles.”
Now it’s Bex who’s found us. “Hi!” She grabs my arm. “Can I borrow her, Jim?”
She doesn’t wait for his response but leads me away toward the house, where Dr. Turner and Jamal are standing in the open doorway at the main entrance. Dr. Turner is not bothering with her usual polite tone of voice. She’s hot in conversation with her son. “Now is not the time for this, Jamal . . . Atlanta . . . you’re going to Atlanta next week if it’s the last thing I do . . . I am not hearing this, Jamal.”
“Don’t tell me,” I say to Bex. “You want me to flank you.”
“Please?” she asks.
Moonwalking
PEBBLES AGAINST MY BEDROOM WINDOW. THREE A.M. Just like old times.
It will be easier when he’s gone.
No more than a few hours have passed since Jamal’s blowout fight with his mother that ended with her storming away from the party she was throwing at Jim’s house, then Jamal taking a tearful Bex home. A full moon hangs in the night sky as I open my bedroom window to see Jamal standing outside, waiting to perform his grand finale.
Jamal moonwalks for my moonlit viewing pleasure. The crickets sing their approval.
He smiles up at me from down on the ground. “It means a lot to me that you stood up for Bex when it counted,” Jamal says.
I didn’t, really. I just stood by her side, held onto Bex’s arm, as Dr. Turner had a full-on public meltdown that her son had chosen that girl, and this particular bad time, to stake his claim.
“‘The desired effect is what you get when you improve your interplanetary funksmanship,’” I tell him from my side of the window.
“‘Chocolate-coated freakin’ habit-forming,’” he answers.
I grab a pack of smokes from my nightstand, slip my feet into my Chucks, and go outside to find him.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says. “I’m gonna be gone for good soon. I hardly saw you at all this summer. Let me see you now.”
“I’m wearing my pajamas.”
“So what!” He points to my Cookie Monster pj top and does his best impression of the furry blue beast. “Me want cookie! And a walk with Miles!”
Jamal grabs my hand and pulls me toward the gates of Jim’s property. He’s skipping in glee.
As a heavy smoker, not only do I not run, I don’t skip. Cough cough. Instead, I loosen my hand from Jamal’s, set him free—no touch, no touch, bad bad bad—but I do follow his wandering. I’ll walk anywhere, across the uneven, cobblestoned streets of Georgetown in the middle of the night, in pajamas, even, for him. Especially since I am sober and can truly appreciate the historic house scenery under the yellow moon, the balmy D.C. night, and can have Jamal all to myself for once.
“You are way too happy for a boy who just broke his mama’s heart,” I tell him. “And whatever could have compelled you to choose a party your mom was throwing to make your announcement to her?”
“I have no idea!” Still ahead of me, Jamal turns around and moonwalks again so I can see his beautiful face announcing his bliss. “When the spirit moves you, ya gotta go for it, I guess. But after I dropped Bex off at home, I called Mama from the car to apologize. She was calmed down. We had a good talk. She’s got a sorority sister from college who lives in Harlem, owns a brownstone there. Mama’s going to call her friend and see about me staying with her while I get settled in New York, find my way. We made a compromise. She supports me going to New York, I agree to take part-time community college classes there, once I’m settled.”
“So you’re not planning to move in with Bex, then?”
“No way! It’s love, man—but we’re way too young for that. Bex has got college to start. I’ve got the struggling actor life to figure out. We just want to be close, keep this thing we’ve got going, going. College life, right now, that wasn’t what I wanted. And I felt that way before I got together with Bex. Her moving to Manhattan to go to Columbia just gave me inspiration to make the choice I wanted to make anyway.”
“And Bex?”
“What about her?” The moonwalk stops. He’s looking directly at me. The unspoken words are our own little dance.
Does he know? What I can never say to him?
“Your family. Do they accept Bex?”
“They’re adapting. This wasn’t expected.”
“What about her family?” What about how Jamal got a girlfriend, fell head over heels in love, and completely changed the course of his life this past summer, while I just smoked and grieved and watched it happen from a pharmed-out distance.
Jamal laughs. “Oh, her family is a lost cause entirely! They’re never going to like their baby girl making this choice. A Negro! Imagine! Politically, however, it would look bad not to put a bright spin on it, so . . .” Jamal moonwalks again, but with a pained, stiff expression on his face as he performs an impression of Congressman Same Old White Man. “‘Jamal, young man. Welcome. Do you come to us with any NAACP leadership members in your family whom we might invite to Thanksgiving?’”
“Will you miss me?” I ask Jamal.
It’s the best I can do.
“’Course I’ll miss you. Not like I’ve seen that much of you this summer.”
“That was your choice,” I say. “You chose Bex.”
“No. I came by for you plenty. You don’t even realize how often I came by just to find you passed out with a book on your lap. I think you chose solitude. You chose pills.”
This is some kind of hypocrisy that I will not tolerate.
“You’ve used before. So why do I feel like you’re criticizing me for it?”
“I have experimented. Enjoyed it in those few moments, but don’t feel the need to experiment further. Had my fun. Moving on.”
I can’t fake it anymore—being around him and acting like my heart doesn’t matter.
I’m glad he’s moving on. Go, already.
Bex has done me a favor. Once they’ve taken off for their enchanted Manhattan universe, the hurt can’t hug itself around my heart, squeeze me to death. Not if they’re not here in D.C. to remind me of their hap-hap-happiness. Yay for Us, Couple of the Century!
Flick.
Out of sight is out of mind.
Being in control of the dream means knowing that a responsible user does not use to escape stress.
I am not stressed. I’m free. Free at last! I can go out of mind.
I’m over two weeks clean. Buddy is away for the weekend. I’ve got my secret stash. I’ve earned the fix.
I think Jamal’s still talking—Please get help, Miles, blahblahblah—but say what? I’ve got a plan.
I’ve hardly eaten anything for the last eight hours, almost like I knew without knowing that tonight would be the night for the grand return. On an empty stomach, the treat will last longer, tingle sweeter. Yes! Nownownow.
Buh-bye, Jamal, I’m go
ing back home, back to bed. Have fun in New York, hope you have the time of your life—like I plan to once you’re gone!
The Category 5 hurricane has made landfall. Time to batten down the hatches and ride out the perfect storm.
The Game
THE GAME I PLAY IS THIS:
Close window blinds.
Crank up A/C.
Harness happy hydros in hand.
Insert on tongue.
Chug-a-lugga H2O. Wash away yo’ cares!
Perform private happy dance standing on the bathroom floor.
Go to room and jump onto bed.
Wrap large-and-in-charge body inside covers.
Wait.
Sing song to self:
Lying in bed/wishing I was dead.
Refrain.
Lying in bed/wishing I was dead.
Jump-starting the dream before the tingle truly sets in is totally allowed.
It’s a garden wedding, summertime, eighty degrees and no humidity! Bex and Jamal stand before the minister under a trellis covered in honeysuckle, Niecy by their side as their maid of honor. The bride says her vows. The groom starts to declare his, then . . . he turns to Bridesmaid #8. “Miles, you’re the one! Only you! Can you ever forgive me for not realizing it sooner? My darling, Miles—hollaaaaaaaaaa for me, baby!” The bride, too, turns to Bridesmaid #8. “He’s right, 8 Mile. Can you ever forgive me for living out this lie when all along, this was supposed to be your dream?” The maid of honor adds, “Miles, I’ll braid your hair in the carriage house right now and we can come back out and have us a proper wedding! You and my brother. We! Are! Family!”