It makes me sad to think how clueless I was back then; how, not wanting to get my polished wing tips (with the arch supports) wet, I completely sidestepped that whole big wave of youth culture.
After graduation, as the war raged on, I was working in a bank as a loan officer, trying to banish the mind-numbing boredom I felt by extending my cocktail hour from before dinner to before bed. I was twenty-two years old and felt like an old man, yet my parents were proud of me. My parents’ pride; that’s what motivated me. Somehow I thought it was a worthy enough payoff.
What few friends I had were as straitlaced and out of touch as I was: with department store suits and clean-shaven faces, we banded together to disparage hippies and the Rolling Stones and free love.
One afternoon as I sat at my desk gnawing on the Tums that had become a regular part of my diet, a man came through the glass door of the bank. Through meeting him, another door opened, and that one led to my new life.
The man’s name was Perry, and he was the biggest queen I’d ever seen in my life. Of course, I didn’t know what a queen was back then—I just thought, What is this fag doing sitting on the other side of my desk? How dare he?
I wanted to tell him to kindly take his pansy little self out of my place of business but the bank manager who kept a plaque on her desk that read CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS OUR #1 PRIORITY was keeping her beady little eyes on me.
“So what does a guy do to get a loan in a place like this?” he asked, flashing me a white and shiny smile. I use the word flashing in the what-perverts-do sense; his smile was licentious.
“First of all,” I said, feeling the muscles in my forehead contract as my eyebrows edged down over my eyes, “what kind of loan are you applying for?”
“Well,” he said, turning the turquoise bracelet around on his wrist, “I want to renovate the old Vista Theater on East Fifth Street. Do you know it?”
He flashed his smile again as I shook my head.
“Oh, it’s an absolutely fabulous Art Deco building—well, it will be once it’s renovated. And once it is renovated, it’s not back to second-run movies, which is what was showing there up until two years ago. No, once the renovation is complete, I’m moving in my company, the Sexual Freedom Theater. Do you know it?”
“The Sexual Freedom Theater,” I said, coating each word with equal parts condescension and distaste.
“Why shouldn’t a woman play Hamlet? Why shouldn’t a gay man play Stanley Kowalski? Not that we’re relying on old standards, of course; our aim is to present works by playwrights and actors who live on the cutting edge of today’s society.”
A headache, like a summer storm, blew into my head. This guy talked so fast, so breathlessly, and about things I could barely comprehend. I shuffled around in my desk and gave him some papers.
“Fill these out,” I said, as brusque as a Soviet customs agent.
The potential loanee stared at me for a moment and then with a little salute said, “Yes, sir.”
That meeting with Perry was the tremor that started the avalanche. I went out that night with some of the automatons from work, regaling them with impersonations of the flaming queer who wanted to start a sexually free theater. Slamming down drinks, I slammed this guy relentlessy, viciously, until Brenda from investments said, “Gee, you really hate the guy, don’t you?”
Did I? I asked myself as I lay in bed that night, my head pounding as if my heart had relocated underneath my forehead. Did I hate him or just hate the way he was so gay? And why was his gayness such a personal affront to me?
The next day, I was compelled to take a walk during lunch that would lead me past the Vista Theater. I convinced myself that I just wanted a little on-site inspection of the theater this Perry wanted to renovate.
A small group was corralled under the marquee, pointing at some architectural detail.
“Why it’s my loan officer!” said Perry, and before I could cross the street unnoticed, and without my permission, he took my arm, introducing me as “our potentional savior.”
“I’m nothing of the kind,” I said, shaking his hand off. Little did I know how much more, and in how many ways, he would touch me.
Perry helped excavate the real me buried under all the bullshit. I had always liked girls, always preferred their company, but never liked them, never lusted after them. My celibacy didn’t seem odd to me; I thought I was a late bloomer and it was only a matter of time before I would meet that perfect person and fall in love. The biggest surprise—that the perfect person happened to be a theater director with a hairy chest—was that it wasn’t, after all, that much of a surprise.
Under Perry’s sponsorship, I joined two new groups: my own generation and the gay culture.
I celebrated my new memberships with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. The old Grant shrank and shriveled away like the Wicked Witch of the West (leaving, I imagined, the smoking puddle of a Robert Hall suit and some charred wing tips), and a new Grant emerged, as flamboyant as the other was conservative, as loud as the other was quiet, as free as the other was not.
Stuart couldn’t believe it when I told him my coming-out story—he said it sounded too implausible, too sudden. How could I have gone from the straight life to the gay one so suddenly?
“Ah, but see,” I said, “it was a celibate life. I just assumed it was a straight life, because I didn’t know any better.”
My poor parents didn’t know what to think. My dad never wanted to see me again, and my mom had to abide by her husband’s wishes, at least when he was home. When she had some privacy, she’d call me on the phone, and occasionally we’d meet for breakfast in a run-down little diner in South Tucson, where our anonymity was pretty much guaranteed. She always brought me a bag of her famous homemade cinnamon rolls (God, they just dripped with icing)—to me it’s not the idea of Mom and apple pie that makes me teary-eyed, but Mom and cinnamon rolls.
I knew I was a disappointment to her, but I also knew that her love was stronger than her disappointment, and that’s some knowledge.
My dad . . . well, dear old immovable Dad died in his sleep several years later without ever having reconciled with his queer son. There will always be a bruise in my heart because of that; it’s always sore, even though Mom has tried to speak for him, tried to convince me that he really did care.
Once, she said, she came home from bridge club to find him sitting on the bed, holding a picture of the two of us on a family vacation to Hoover Dam, sobbing like a baby.
“Yeah, that was a pretty lousy vacation,” I joked.
“He loved you, Grant,” said my mother. “But he just didn’t know what to do with it.”
A snort ripped out of my nose. “Uh, how about showing it? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with love?”
I don’t know why so many men have such a problem showing their feelings, hiding them away like they’re a deformity too ugly for public viewing. And then the irony, of couse, is that the very act of hiding is what’s deforming. My dad was deformed by his inability to love me, his completely lovable son.
I see mothers on TV whose sons are on death row and they’ll look into the camera and say, “He may be a murderer, but he’s my son and I love him.” And I always cry, wondering why a gay man’s father found it harder to love his child than a serial killer’s mother loved hers.
All right, enough already. I really don’t know too many people who have parents who haven’t harmed them in some way, but as Audrey says, it works both ways—think of how many kids have hurt their parents. It’s nothing but goddamned human nature.
Audrey, being of the cloth now, didn’t say “goddamned,” although she still said things like “sinsational” and “sexciting.” I think I might love Audrey more than anyone in the world.
I told her that once, and she said she felt as if I’d just handed her a warm, sweet-smelling baby to hold.
I love all the Angry Housewives. Just as I could never understand the brotherhood my dad was always going on about
, he sure as shit wouldn’t understand the sorority I’m a part of. Proudly a part of. I haven’t been in the trenches of war with these women, but I’ve been in the trenches of daily life with them, and if you ask me, that forges the stronger friendship. And if you’re turning in your grave, Dad, sorry, but maybe it’s time you found a new position anyway.
December 1995
Dear Mama,
Wade and I flew down to Texas to visit his folks. Of course poor Patsy didn’t know who we were—she kept asking Wade over and over again, “Do you like to wear hats, little buddy?”
It breaks Wade’s heart to see her, and it doesn’t do mine much good either—Patsy was never anything but nice to me. How many times had she made gentle overtures to me, letting me know that I could trust her with anything I might want to tell her? There she was all those years, waiting for me to unburden myself, and by the time I got brave enough to, she wasn’t Patsy anymore.
Dex feels betrayed by her disease; he only visits her when we come down, and he gets mad when she says things like “Do you like licorice, young man?” He’ll yell at her, “I’m not a young man, Patsy, I’m your goddamned husband who hates licorice!”
Dex is eighty-two years old, but a young eighty-two. He spends his time out at the country club, golfing on the days when his knees don’t bother him. I think I would have thought of him as cavalier if I hadn’t learned from my own self that how a person acts isn’t necessarily a true depiction of how that person feels.
It’s the first year we’ve missed Kari’s Christmas party. I’m Slip’s Secret Santa—I got her a lacy black thong and would love to see her blushing freckled face when she unwraps it.
Someone put garlands up in the nursing home, but the smell of urine, the cries of pain and scared shouts, and the rows of white-haired people slumped in the stalled wheelchairs that line the hallway (talk about gridlock) somehow diminish the festive factor.
With my voice, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I somehow managed to corral a group of residents into the common room, and as this four-hundred-pound aide played the piano, I conducted a Christmas sing-along.
There were a few game participants, raising their barely audible voices in “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “The First Noel,” but most people sat hunched and silent as gargoyles.
“That sure was nice of you, Faith,” Wade said afterward. He sat with Patsy, holding her hand. “Wasn’t all that singing nice, Mama?”
“Barbara Stanwyck knew how to wear a hat,” said Patsy. “And so did I.”
“Yes, you did, Mama,” said Wade, kissing her on top of the head.
“Did I tell you Mel Mathius left Carol?” asked Wade on the plane ride back to Minneapolis.
“He did?” I said, feeling sad for the woman I’d known for years through the Pilots’ Wives Association.
Wade nodded. “For a flight attendant who’s younger than their daughter Maureen.”
“Don’t ever leave me for a flight attendant,” I said, trying to make my voice threatening. Mel Mathius wasn’t the first of Wade’s pilot friends to do that exact thing.
“I won’t leave you for anyone, Faith.” He squeezed my hand. “I love you more than I ever have.”
Oh, Mama, nothing Wade could say could mean more to me than that—after all we’ve been through, he loves me more than he ever did. Of course, he’s not stupid like all those Mel Mathiuses; he sees that even with my wrinkles and sags and graying hair, I’m a deeper, richer person than I was when I was young and cute. Young and cute and, oh yeah, wrapped up in so much fear and jealousy that I was afraid to be the real me.
I’m still busy with lots of clients but also manage to volunteer with Slip on her Habitat for Humanity projects. I still remember the first house I worked on; the homeowner’s absolute joy got me involved in my latest venture, helping people with the interiors of their houses. Paying in sweat equity, these homeowners help me (and usually one or two Angry Housewives) paint their rooms, slipcover their furniture, and sew curtains. I’ve done almost a dozen homes, and, Mama, not to brag, but these people are left with homes that wouldn’t be out of place in Architectural Digest. Okay, Family Circle.
The gratitude of these people, Mama! If it were translated into dollars, I’d make Donald Trump look like a pauper.
Why didn’t I know this years ago, Mama, that by helping people, the person who would be helped the most was me? Ha! It figures, my own selflessness is actually selfishness. Oh, well, it works for me.
Love,
Faith
January 1996
HOST: SLIP
BOOK: The Beginning and the End by Naguib Mahfouz
WHAT I FELT UPON FINISHING THE BOOK: “Unsettled.”
“I felt like I was in a world I didn’t understand when I read this book,” said Merit.
“I thought everybody was way too much in each other’s business,” said Grant. “I mean, there’s such a thing as family loyalty, but their loyalty, their interdependence, brought down the whole family.”
“I didn’t want the sister to die at the end,” said Faith. “It was so unfair.”
“Life for women in that culture is pretty unfair,” I said. “Strike that. In all cultures.”
Audrey made a little funnel with her hand and announced into it: “And she’s off and running.”
“Well, as long as she is,” said Grant, settling back on the couch, “pass me that hummus.”
And so I ranted and raved about what an unjust world it is for so many people, but most of all for women. I wondered what it was that men feared so much about us that made them want to oppress us, to silence us, to make us invisible. Holy when’s-the-ERA-gonna-pass, it was nothing they hadn’t heard from me before, until I said, “I think we need to organize an action. Remember, Merit, when you wanted to unite all the mothers to stop rape and war and murder? Well, this would be a worldwide action where all the women of the world go on strike—and let’s see how long it takes for the world to stop.”
“ ‘A worldwide action where all the women of the world go on strike,’ ” said Grant. “That might take a bit of organizing.”
“I just get so fed up,” I said. “I get fed up by the term ‘women and minorities’—as if we’re some weird caste of people, as if we’re not half the friggin’ population. I get fed up with the rapists who say, ‘She asked for it,’ when they try to explain their despicable crime. I get—”
“Could men go on strike too?” asked Merit. “Because Frank would. He told me the other night how he’d like to be a woman for one day, just to see what it felt like to be the superior sex.”
“Good old Mr. Paradise,” said Audrey. “I’d let him go on strike with us. Or would men screw up the dynamic, Slip?”
“Maybe our male supporters could stand on the sidelines,” I said. “In high heels. Applauding us and fetching us coffee.”
“Ooh, I look great in heels,” said Grant.
“All right,” said Faith, “what’s our first step? Getting hold of all the women in the world? Who wants to be the contact person?”
“I’m serious,” I said, even as I laughed. “Something has to be done for our daughters. For the world’s daughters.”
“I’m all for that, Slip,” said Kari quietly. “The world has to get better for our daughters.”
A pall fell over the room then as all of us contemplated, I suppose, the odds of ever achieving that. And more than one of us, I’m sure, was thinking of Kari wanting to make the world better for a daughter who wouldn’t have anything to do with her.
Jerry accuses me of being judgmental, but it’s hard not to be when you can see things so clearly. If there were a motherhood contest and I was a judge, I’d give Kari a score of ten. Yet Julia hadn’t spoken to her in over six months.
“What am I?” Kari had asked me. “What am I if Julia doesn’t want me to be her mother anymore?”
It had taken all of us by surprise when Kari told us who Julia’s mother was. My gosh, it was right out of
one of the soap operas Mr. Klanski used to tell me about while I waited for Flan to finish her piano lesson.
And speaking of Flan, I did not think she was a font of understanding in the matter of Julia and Kari. We had spoken on the phone yesterday.
“My God,” she said. “Poor Julia, she must feel so betrayed.”
“I’m sure she does,” I agreed, but I had relaxed my own policy on secrets, realizing they were most often defensive and not offensive weapons. “But to not speak to Kari all these months? Not to return her phone calls? Kari’s practically out of her mind.”
“Well, she really should have told Julia long ago,” said Flannery. “I mean, it is a pretty big lie.” I heard her sigh. “Geez, you and your friends. First Faith creates a whole fantasy life and expects her kids to believe it, and now Kari. Are you harboring any big secrets, Mom?”
“Yes, I’m a visiting alien from Uranus,” I snapped. “Flannery, how many times do I have to tell you this? Julia didn’t want to know! It wasn’t a lie—not even a lie of omission. And it’s not just Kari’s doing—both Kari and Mary Jo agreed to this. They thought they were doing the best thing.”
“Hey, don’t yell at me. I didn’t do anything.”
There was a long silence as I played with the phone cord.
“Now can we get back to the reason I called?” Flannery finally said.
I felt a little zip of excitement. Had she met someone?
“Sure.”
“I finished my novel. I’m sending it to you by overnight mail.”
I drew in my breath. “Oh, Flan. Congratulations.”
My daughter had begun and ended a half dozen novels since college, but for the past few years she’d been working on one, sharing its progress with me as if it were her firstborn.
“I can’t wait to read it.”
“I can’t wait to have you read it. But you have to promise that even if you hate it, you’ll say you love it.”
There was a rare shyness in my daughter’s voice.
“That’s an easy promise,” I said, “because I know I’ll love it.”