by Robin Talley
Tonight at the show, I was watching you dance, with your eyes closed and the music pounding. You were off in your own little world, a world I can only try to imagine, and I realized something.
Well, okay, I’ve actually known it for a while.
Sharon...I want to share that world with you.
I used to think that was how I felt about Carolyn. Back then, I didn’t understand how it really felt to want to be with someone.
I understand it now.
When I was watching you tonight, I felt something I never felt with her. Something I’ve never felt with anyone. I didn’t know I could feel it.
Anyway...I’m sorry. I know you’re straight. You wrote it in black and white and everything. If you tell me to back away, I promise I’ll never say anything about this again.
But right now...I want to be with you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.
Okay. I read this over and I realized there’s no way I can give this letter to you. I never would’ve written it at all if it hadn’t been for those drinks.
We sleep in the same room. Besides, you’re straight. There’s no way you can feel what I’m feeling.
Reading this will only make you feel terrible. If I give you this letter it’ll ruin our friendship.
Your friendship is the best thing in my life. I won’t give that up. I can’t.
Sorry. I guess I won’t bother signing this.
I... Sharon, I...
God, I wish things could be different.
Saturday, June 24, 1978
Dear Harvey,
I’m stupid. I’m so incredibly stupid, sometimes I can’t believe it.
First there was that ridiculous letter I started writing to Sharon last night. At least I wised up before I actually gave it to her. God, I can’t imagine how badly I almost messed everything up.
But what I did tonight might’ve been worse.
Javi and Rosa were out, and they left Peter and me in charge at the store. Sharon came over, too—we were planning to go out after we closed up. Until I fucked everything up.
The store was empty except for us for most of the night, and after I swept the aisles we were all hanging out by the cash register, waiting for closing time, talking about Gay Freedom Day and flipping through the L.A. Times. That’s what gave Peter the idea.
“Hey,” he said, holding out a page for me to see. “Isn’t that your uncle?”
I’d seen the ad before, for my aunt and uncle’s radio show, but I hadn’t paid attention to the date. It turned out the premiere was tonight.
Saved from the Wrath of God, the top of the ad read. Below it, a few lines of smaller text were printed:
Searching for faith during sinful times? Tune in to hear the Lord’s message, from the Reverend Russell Dale. Call in with prayer requests and points for theological discussion.
“Hang on.” Peter looked at his watch, then looked at the ad again. “Their first show’s on, live. Right now.”
“God, I’m so glad we don’t get the L.A. stations here,” I said. “I don’t know if I could handle hearing my aunt’s voice. I’d probably break out in hives.”
“Well, I want to hear it.” Peter stuck out his lip in a fake pout. “From your stories I’m expecting a fundamentalist cartoon villain. Like the bad guy at the end of a Scooby-Doo episode who talks about how they could’ve gotten away with it if only it weren’t for those meddling gay kids.”
“I wish my aunt was that easy to get rid of,” I said. “Then maybe I could’ve fought back instead of running away.”
“What do you think she’d do if an actual gay person called her show?” Peter tapped the ad with his finger. “Would she self-immolate from fear of tainted phone lines?”
“Probably. Or she’d pretend to faint and my uncle would pretend to revive her on-air.”
“You should do it,” Sharon told her brother, grinning. “Use the pay phone. Tell her you’re searching for faith in these sinful times.”
“Oh, my God, I should.” Peter’s eyes got comically wide, and he turned to me. “Can I? Please? I’ll tell her I’m having sinful homosexual thoughts and I need her to pray them away.”
I laughed. I can’t believe it now, but honestly, the idea sounded funny to me. “Sure. Just as long as I don’t have to talk to her.”
So that’s how the three of us wound up gathered around the pay phone at the back of the store. We had to hunt to find enough dimes for the long-distance call, but we were having a blast, each of us psyching the others up.
Peter dialed the number, holding the phone out so we could all hear as it rang. I thought whoever picked up would tell us to take a hike, but when the voice answered and said, “Yes, caller, did you have a prayer request?” I got a sinking feeling in my chest.
I should’ve reached over and hung up right away. Instead I stood there, a rabbit in the headlights.
Peter didn’t notice. “Yes, hello, ma’am,” he said, using the same superpolite voice he uses when he’s on deliveries and hoping for a good tip. “I was hoping you’d pray for me.”
“Certainly,” my aunt said. Her voice was so smooth, and my heart was pounding so hard. “Could I get your name, please, sir?”
“It’s Paul, and no need to call me sir. I’m only eighteen.” Peter’s voice caught, as if he was embarrassed, but he was still grinning.
“All right, Paul,” Aunt Mandy purred. “Where are you calling from?”
“San Francisco. It’s hard, living here.”
“My, you’re calling from a very long way away,” my aunt said, her voice stuffed with fake sympathy. I’d heard her do this countless times before. “Tell me, Paul, my child, why is San Francisco such a difficult place to live?”
I could tell Peter was on the verge of cracking. He was enjoying tricking my aunt a little too much. “I suppose it’s because of all the homosexuals.”
Sharon clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Then her eyes cut to me. I don’t know how I must have looked, but the smile drained off her face in an instant.
“Ah, yes, your city is known for that form of sin,” my uncle said. He sounded gruff, but kind of bored, too. As though he had better things to be doing than talking to “Paul” about San Francisco’s homosexual problem.
“Yes,” Peter said. He was almost choking from trying so hard not to laugh. It probably added to his performance as far as my aunt and uncle were concerned. “Sometimes I get, um...urges.”
Peter burst out laughing as soon as he finished his sentence, but somehow he managed to slam his hand over the mouthpiece in time. It worked. My aunt and uncle didn’t hear.
“Oh, you poor young man,” my aunt said, her voice coming through faintly now that we were even farther from the receiver. “We’re very happy to pray for you. Please know that if you have faith in God, he’ll protect you from the devil’s temptations.”
Peter took his hand off the mouthpiece and said, “Oh, good. Because the devil’s been checking me out lately every time I go to the Elephant Walk, and I’ve got to tell you the truth, ma’am, because I know you’re a woman of God—he’s been looking good these days.”
That’s when I made my biggest mistake of the night.
Maybe I had a death wish. Maybe I just couldn’t handle the tension anymore, and I had to let it out.
Maybe it really was that funny.
But when Peter fell over laughing at his own joke, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece anymore, I laughed, too.
I couldn’t stop. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
My aunt and uncle definitely heard.
I was still laughing when I took the receiver. I meant to hang it up. Honestly, I did, but then my aunt said, louder than before, “Well, Paul, I suppose you and your friends in San Francisco think this is all very funny.”
And I—God, I don’
t know what the Hell was wrong with me—I pulled the phone up to my mouth and said, “Yes, we think it’s absolutely hilarious.”
I reached up to drop the receiver back on the hook, and that’s when we heard my aunt’s voice again. She sounded different this time. Less smooth. More alert, as if she’d just awoken from a deep sleep. “Wait. Who was that? Where did you say you were calling fr—?”
That was the last we heard before I dropped the receiver onto the hook with a sharp clatter.
For a moment we all stood there, staring at each other. Sharon’s face was white. Peter tried to ask what was going on, but I couldn’t speak.
It was Sharon who suggested we go home after closing instead of going to the club after all, since tomorrow was going to be so busy with Gay Freedom Day. I nodded—I couldn’t trust myself with actual words—and even Peter agreed.
We didn’t talk much the rest of the night. Not that I would’ve known what to say, anyway.
I don’t know what’s going to happen now, Harvey. All I know is that I took a situation that already sucked and I made it a whole lot worse.
Yours, Tammy
Saturday, June 24, 1978
Dear Tammy,
Hey.
I don’t think I completely understand what happened when we called in to your aunt’s show tonight. I could tell you were upset, and I figured you’d tell me in a letter if you wanted me to know. Only...we’ve been home for a while now, and you haven’t given me any letters yet.
If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay, but if you want to talk, you know where to find me.
Yours, Sharon
Saturday, June 24, 1978
Dear Sharon,
You’re asleep already, so I’ll leave this by your bed for you to read in the morning. It’s been an hour since you gave me your letter, so I’m sorry I didn’t write back sooner. I didn’t want to think about it, but...there’s no point. It’s done.
It was so stupid of me to pick up that phone tonight. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was just that I was having so much fun. That’s new for me, you know?
I’d thought it would be awful to hear my aunt’s voice again, and it was, but for a second, it felt good, too. Hearing her right where I left her, getting totally taken in by a gay teenage boy on what was supposed to be the crowning achievement of her life. Maybe I felt so superior I genuinely thought she couldn’t hurt me anymore.
I should’ve known no one’s ever safe from Aunt Mandy. Especially not me.
She recognized my voice. She knew we were calling from San Francisco. She knows about Peter from your letters. That fake name probably gave us away as much as his real one would’ve.
And this means... Well. She knows I’m here, with you. She might’ve already suspected, but now she knows for sure.
I don’t know what’ll happen. I don’t know what she’ll do. Whatever she thinks will get her what she wants, probably.
I’m so scared, Sharon. I hate that I’m still so scared of her. Maybe that’s the kind of thing that never goes away.
I’m so, so sorry. Things were going so well, and now I’ve ruined it all.
Yours, Tammy
Sunday, June 25, 1978
Dear Tammy,
No, you haven’t.
I don’t have time for a real letter—I’m just writing this one fast while you’re in the shower so I can leave it for you before I go downstairs—but I wanted you to know you haven’t ruined everything. You couldn’t, not ever.
We’ll figure out this thing with your aunt. For now, it’s Gay Freedom Day. It’s a day to be happy. So please, try to relax and enjoy it, all right?
Yours, Sharon
Sunday, June 25, 1978
Dear Diary,
So that was my first Gay Freedom Day.
The house is dead quiet tonight. I’ve been lying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling for the past two hours. Peter and Tammy are both who knows where and Mom is asleep, as usual.
The afternoon was amazing at first, being in the middle of all that energy in the air. It wasn’t exactly perfect—it was hard to shake all the fears that phone call with Aunt Mandy the night before had stirred up—but Tammy seemed to have taken my letter this morning to heart, because despite everything that had happened, she was so excited to be there for the parade, it was contagious. She must’ve said the word “wow” a hundred times before it was halfway over.
“Wow,” she said again, beaming, as a dozen motorcycles revved their engines up ahead of us. Her face kept lighting up, over and over again. “Did you see that, Sharon?”
I grinned. “The motorcycles? Yeah, they were tough to miss.”
“That woman had a shirt that said Dykes on Bikes.” Tammy’s usual sunny smile had been overtaken by an all-out Cheshire cat grin the moment we’d reached Castro Street and gotten our first glimpse of the huge flag hanging in the distance, with massive stripes in all different colors. “That’s what they call themselves. They don’t think it’s a bad word at all!”
“They don’t? Really?” I hadn’t noticed the woman’s shirt. How would a shirt like that even get made?
“Nope,” Peter said from Tammy’s other side, grinning just as wide as she was. “Words mean different things when different people say them.”
“Wow. Okay. Oh, my gosh.”
“Oh, my gosh!” He laughed again and flicked a braid off my shoulder. He’s done that every time I’ve worn my hair in braids since we were little kids, and it annoys me as much now as it did then. I elbowed him back just as a drag queen in a one-piece bathing suit blew us a kiss from atop a tinsel-covered truck.
“I’ve wasted so much time being scared,” Tammy said, reaching out to catch the imaginary kiss. “But my aunt isn’t more powerful than all of this. She can’t be. There are thousands of us here! This is the world now, whether she likes it or not.”
“Exactly.” Peter reached out, pretending to take the kiss from Tammy and slapping it onto his own cheek.
He’d somehow maneuvered us to the front row of spectators, but the crowd was impossibly tight all around us. I knew Gay Freedom Day was a big deal, but I’d never imagined this. There had to be tens of thousands of people around us, and fifty feet away a cluster of TV trucks with cameras on their roofs was taking in the scene.
Peter even heard a rumor that a gray-haired woman was walking around the crowd with a sign that read I LOVE MY GAY SON. I’m not sure how much faith I put in that rumor, though. I can’t imagine any parent carrying a sign like that, here or anywhere else.
“Sharon! Tammy! Hey!” I recognized Evelyn’s voice, and I waved with a smile. She was wearing dark sunglasses and a white T-shirt that said WOULD YOU WANT MICHELANGELO TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN ART? It was also very obvious she wasn’t wearing a bra under it, but then, a few minutes earlier I’d seen two women walk by with no shirts at all. “You missed an awesome show last night.”
“Oh, right, sorry,” I said, while Tammy’s smile faded. “We were going to go after work, but...uh, something came up.”
“It’s cool.” Evelyn grinned and waved at the marching band going by. They were playing a startlingly upbeat version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” while men in short red shorts and bright white knee socks twirled batons. “Next time, right?”
“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.” Leonard’s voice sang out from behind Evelyn. She stepped aside as Leonard and Dean maneuvered toward us through the sea of people. I was about to introduce them to Tammy, but before I could say anything Dean pushed through the crowd and plastered his face onto my brother’s.
“What the—?” I lunged forward, my instincts telling me to pull Dean off before he hurt Peter, but Tammy laughed and grabbed my arms.
“Oh, my God, you two,” she said, laughing. “Your kid sister’s right here, man.”
“Oh, shit.” It was Dean who answered, d
rawing back from Peter in an instant. “Sorry. You okay, Sharon?”
“I’m fine,” I mumbled, wishing I could turn myself invisible.
The others were still laughing, but Peter was blushing, too. My brother doesn’t blush as often as I do, but when he does, he turns an even brighter shade of tomato-pink.
“Hey, were you at that meeting on Briggs a couple of weeks ago?” Evelyn asked Dean. “I thought I saw you there.”
“Oh, yeah! One of your friends gave my boss a ride home on her bike. I was so jealous. I’ve always wanted to ride one of those.”
“You mean you haven’t? Oh, my God, it’s amazing. You have to get somebody to give you a ride—it’s such a rush.”
Evelyn and Dean got into a very enthusiastic discussion of motorcycles while I ordered the blood to stop rushing to my cheeks.
“Dean’s cute.” Tammy waved at a float carrying a few nervous-looking politicians dressed in shirts and ties. “Well done, Peter.”
“I mean, I don’t know that I’ve done anything...” Peter bit his lip and glanced my way, but I kept my gaze fixed firmly on the parade. His cheeks were luminescent. “We’re friends, that’s all.”
“Yeah, that’s totally how I greet all my friends...” Tammy sounded as if she was going to tease him more, but then trailed off as she glanced my way, too.
I tried to steady my breathing. I was still in shock.
Did my brother go around kissing guys in public all the time? What if someone saw?
Last year a gay man was stabbed to death right in this neighborhood. It was on the news for weeks.
“Whoa, look at that float.” At first I thought Peter was only trying to change the subject, but I followed his gaze past a large contingent of men marching over the cable-car tracks with NO ON BRIGGS! signs, and over to a pickup truck with eight young kids crammed in the back. A sign taped to the side read LESBIANS WANT THE RIGHT TO BE ORDINARY MOMS.
“Are those seriously kids of gay people?” Peter asked.