by Kim Fielding
They watched another episode of the show—this one on a tropical island—and then they were both yawning. Colby pulled away from William so he could stretch. “I should head home. Gotta work in the morning.”
“Sorry. Evenings with me aren’t exactly filled with excitement.”
“I had a great time tonight. Really.” Colby stood. He gave William a hand to lever him up. Together they walked out of the apartment and down the corridor into the entry hall, where the patches of moonlight had found new positions on the marble floor. Outside, Colby retrieved his bike, and they walked slowly up the driveway. After waiting for William to unlock the gate, Colby once again pulled William’s head down for a kiss. “Thanks for having me over, Will. It’s been a zillion years since anyone wanted to just hang with me.”
“You’re fun to hang with.”
Even in the relative darkness, Colby’s wide smile was bright. He climbed aboard his bike.
“Want me to give you a ride?” William offered.
“Nah. I have a light, see? And I want the exercise.”
“You should wear a helmet. It’s dangerous out there.”
“It’ll ruin my hair,” Colby replied with a grin. “See ya Tuesday!”
Once again, William watched him ride away, although this time Colby was swallowed by the darkness before he reached the bend in the road. William was suddenly looking forward to Tuesday night.
Twelve
Dec. 3. 1939
My dearest Johnny,
Sometimes I wake up very early in the morning, before they come pounding on the doors to wake us all. And if I’m lucky, all the other loonies are still asleep and everything is quiet. It might not even be dawn yet, but if it is, the fog presses hard against my window. I can imagine that the entire world has disappeared, leaving me alone in my cell. And then I wonder what I’ll miss most.
You, of course. You are always at the top of my list. Each day that passes I miss you a little more, until I think there’s almost nothing left of me but an absence, a man-shaped Not-Bill in pajamas.
I miss privacy.
I miss choices—what to eat, when to sleep, even when to bathe and use the toilet.
I miss your friendship. Yes, I know I’ve mentioned you already, but you bear mention more than once. There’s the strength of you, the feel of you around me, in me, the taste of you. But there’s also the joy of your company. You tell those crude jokes that make me snort with laughter, and you like to listen to me read. You can tear a piece of equipment apart and put it together before I’ve finished a cup of coffee. You do those wonderful impressions of actors. I think you’re best at Clark Gable, although your Errol Flynn is very dashing.
I miss a comfortable bed with thick quilts and fluffy pillows.
I miss my books. Oh Johnny, I miss my books.
I miss children. I haven’t seen one since they locked me up.
I miss being treated like a man.
And I miss you. I want you to know I needn’t touch you. If I could only see you, even for a short time, that would be enough. The staff here don’t know you. You could use subterfuge to get near. Pretend to be making a delivery. Even get a job here.
I don’t miss those endless rows of numbers in my father’s ledger books, or the smell of dust in the back rooms of his store. I don’t miss the way he and my brother used to look at me, as if I were worthless. A disappointment.
Yesterday I was given a bath. It felt lovely—it had been so long that the water was brown. I had clean pajamas to wear afterwards. And then an appointment with Dr. Fitzgerald, in which I assured him that I am cured. He asked me the same old questions. “When do you first recall having these depraved urges? Do you remember desiring your mother when you were a child? What do you fantasize about?”
I tell him the same half-truths and partial lies. Perhaps he catches me sometimes; I don’t know. He always stares at me with watery brown eyes until I feel my skin crawl.
I never told you some of these things either. You know you’re not my first, just as I am not yours. The first time I wanted a boy in an unnatural way, I was fourteen. The boy was saddled with the unfortunate name of Comet Halley Brown—he was born at the time that celestial body passed, I suppose—and he was a school chum of Edward’s. He was beautiful. I used to follow them around until Edward lost patience and shooed me away. I think even then he knew there was something wrong with me.
I do not remember desiring my mother. Poor woman, I don’t know that my father ever desired her either, at least apart from her small inheritance. I am positive that Edward and I owe our existence to Father’s sense of duty and his desire to keep Mother occupied while he went about his affairs. More than once I’ve seen him secrete himself in his office with some attractive young woman. It’s hardly a secret. But nobody finds that behavior unnatural or worthy of incarceration.
And my fantasies are simple ones now. That feeling in my chest when I run to your house on Sunday mornings. Strong coffee and flapjacks in your kitchen, with the radio playing softly in the corner. Drowsing lazily in your bed, in your arms.
Dr. Fitzgerald is doing research, he says. He has an idea he might want to try.
I will do anything if it means I can be released.
It used to be that when I was anxious about things, you would calm me down. “It’s nothing,” you’d say. “Don’t worry about it.” Why can’t you be here now, to whisper those words in my ear?
What if I’m like Moony or Danny Meadows or the others? What if everyone forgets me and I die here?
Have you forgotten me, Johnny?
The jays call to me sometimes when I’m in my cell. One of them—I’m quite certain it’s always the same fellow—lands outside my window sometimes and looks in on me. He’s no doubt wondering what a human is doing in a cage, and whether I sing for my masters. He’s very handsome, blue and gray and crisp white and black. He squawks at me as if he’s asking me a question. I’m very fond of him.
Yrs always,
Bill
William took a sip of his coffee. Although it had grown cold, it tasted better than the bile at the back of his throat. He sat on his couch—the same couch he’d shared with Colby the previous night—with the closed tin box nestled on his lap.
He had been denying his sexuality, even well into adulthood when the sanctions he faced would be relatively minimal. How could he possibly have denied what he was, especially when Bill had endured so much just for being in love?
How could he continue to hide his true self?
His cell phone lay on the table beside him, mute. There was something accusatory about the little chunk of glass and plastic.
Jeez, he was anthropomorphizing his gadgets. Maybe he was going nuts now.
He picked up the phone, opened his contacts, and pressed a name. The phone on the other end rang three times before being picked up.
“Hello? Lyon residence.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“William!” Her voice betrayed surprise, but William couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or alarm. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong.”
“Have you reconsidered the divorce? I spoke with Lisa the other day and she sounds very lonely. She’s a lovely woman. She keeps telling me you’re divorcing because you have different goals. What does that mean?”
“I’m not reconsidering.”
His mother clucked with disappointment. “If the two of you would only try counseling. Our church does that, you know. Pastor Saenz even runs couples retreats. Now, your father says those retreats are claptrap, but I think they sound nice. They’re held near Lake Tahoe, I believe.”
“Mom. Lisa and I are over.”
This time she sighed. “Young people today expect everything to be perfect all the time. It isn’t. It never is. We have to make sacrifices. But if we work very hard at it and pray hard too, the Lord will lead us down the right path. He never fails us, William.”
William squeezed his eyes shut. His parents knew he’d lost his
faith long ago, but they kept hoping he’d return like a lost sheep to the fold. Their own personal Prodigal Son. Sometimes his mother mailed him church flyers, and every birthday she sent a card full of Bible verses and promises to pray for him. He’d given up arguing about it; there didn’t seem to be much point.
The tin box felt very heavy in his lap.
“Mom, I need you to listen.” He spoke slowly, as he might to a small child. “I am not going to get back together with Lisa. Counseling and prayers and trips to the mountains won’t help. I don’t love her the way I need to. I’m gay, Mom. I’m attracted to men.”
There was a heavy silence. He knew she hadn’t hung up, so he waited. Finally, in a strained voice, she spoke. “We’ve discussed this, William. You can move away from this lifestyle. There are organizations—”
“That’s bullshit.” She probably gasped at his profanity, but he continued. “The American Psychological Association and everyone who knows a damn thing about psychology, they all say you can’t cure homosexuality. It’s who I am, Mom. I can’t change who I love any more than I can make myself shorter. I can… I can stoop down. I can pretend to be short. But it’s a lie.”
“We can’t accept this decision! Your father and I won’t accept this.”
“It’s not a decision, Mom. It’s who I am. It’s me… your son.” His voice almost cracked but he got himself under control.
His mother was a strong woman and she didn’t waver. “As long as you insist on embracing the homosexual lifestyle, we cannot have you in our lives.”
He almost laughed. The homosexual lifestyle? So far that had meant a total of four kisses, one evening of voyeurism, and a little porn. The average high school kid had a more active love life than he did. When his parents’ preachers railed about the evils of the homosexual lifestyle, were they really thinking about guys finishing their doctorates while holed up at former mental institutions in the middle of nowhere?
“This is it, Mom. This is me. I’ll always be gay.”
“We cannot have this in our lives.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Do not—” This time her voice cracked. He shouldn’t have been pleased to hear that, but he was. “Do not contact us unless you are ready to pray for salvation.”
“Okay, Mom.”
She hung up.
He should have been devastated. His mother’s rejection should have made him sad or at least very angry. Strangely enough, he felt neither of those emotions. In fact, he realized after several minutes of introspection that what he mostly felt was relief.
He stood, put the tin box back on the shelf, and went to read Dr. Ochoa’s e-mail response to his queries.
Thirteen
WILLIAM was aware that he couldn’t build an admirable physique in three days. Nonetheless, he stuffed his face with protein-rich calories, jogged for hours through the hospital hallways—too warm and sunny outdoors—and started weightlifting. He vowed to buy some more exercise equipment during his next trip to Mariposa. In any case, by Tuesday afternoon he was as scrawny as ever.
He also hadn’t accomplished much on his dissertation. He’d tried, but his attention kept wandering. He read all three of the books he’d borrowed from Colby, however. Maybe they weren’t great literature, but they were fun and better written than he’d expected. He watched two more videos starring his favorite performers.
He was startled when the landline rang on Tuesday afternoon and felt a frisson of worry as he picked up.
“Hi, William. Jan Merrick. I’m glad I caught you in.”
“Oh. Hi.” He didn’t intend to sound rude, but he remained concerned that something was wrong. What if she had called to can him? He knew the funding for the caretaker position was a little iffy, relying mostly on donations and some state grants.
“How’s everything going, William? You must be pretty settled by now.”
Well, that didn’t sound too ominous at least. “It’s great. The apartment’s really comfortable and I’m enjoying the peace and quiet.” And one of the townies, he didn’t add.
“Isn’t it amazing how much you can get done without a million interruptions? There are times I wish I could have the job again. But my husband and kids probably wouldn’t be very thrilled. The loneliness isn’t bothering you too much?”
“No, it’s okay.”
“You do make it off the grounds now and then, right?”
“Sure. I’m a regular at the general store and I’ve explored the delights of Mariposa.”
She laughed. “I’m glad to hear that. And the hospital itself, it has so many stories to tell. I really hope someday we can scrape together the funds to really use the space. Maybe turn part of it into a museum. It would be great to educate the public on the history of mental health treatment.”
William thought about the treatment Bill had received within these walls and grimaced. “Yeah.”
“Thousands of patients lived there. Hundreds died. I wish we could tell their stories.”
“I think most of those stories are really sad.”
“They are. That’s why they need to be told, William. So we can learn from them. Oh, and now I’m lecturing at you! Sorry. Bad habit. I do it to my husband and kids too. Anyway, I was just calling to make sure everything was all right, and to see if there’s anything you need.”
“Thank you, Jan. Everything’s good. Oh, I saw some ants in one room.”
“As long as they’re not in your apartment, ignore them. They’re impossible to get rid of.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up. William was relieved to know he wasn’t losing his job, but he also found himself thinking about what Jan had said. From what he had gleaned from the letters, Bill seemed a private man. Would he want his tale shared with others?
William sat at his computer and did a fairly quick search of academic literature on the treatment of homosexuality. As expected, he found quite a number of articles about conversion therapy and other modern attempts to straighten gay people out. He only skimmed those because the details would have brought back painful memories. He found some early writings on the supposed causes of homosexuality, such as Stekel’s 1922 treatise The Homosexual Neurosis, which claimed that homosexuals were narcissists who hated and feared women and were incapable of loving anyone but themselves. What he didn’t find, however, was much on how gay people were forcibly incarcerated in places like Jelley’s Valley and subjected to abuse and deprivation. William knew Bill’s tale wasn’t unusual, yet few people seemed inclined to write about it. Were they ashamed, he wondered? Or did they think that people like Bill didn’t matter?
Speculating on these matters allowed him to temporarily ignore the other knowledge that had been nibbling at his brain for days: the pile of unread letters in the tin was quickly dwindling. There weren’t many papers left. He really did not want to think about what that might signify.
A FEW minutes before six, William pulled his Toyota to a stop in front of the general store. There was another car in the lot, an elderly brown Ford with one primer-gray quarter panel. When he stepped indoors, he took a moment to appreciate the coolness of the air conditioning. But he startled when he noticed a woman behind the cash register. She was leafing through a magazine and hadn’t looked up when he entered.
William stood uncertainly for a moment and was relieved when Colby appeared from the back room of the post office section. “Okay, it’s all— Hey, Will!” Colby waved before vaulting the counter. He ran over and gave William a one-armed hug. He was wearing his Total Dance Whore shirt and his tightest jeans.
The woman behind the counter finally looked up. The first impression William had of her was that she was someone who’d led a hard life. Her face was lined, her eyes tired. She looked as though she was used to disappointment and didn’t expect anything else. But then William noticed the color of her eyes, the shape of her chin and nose. He wasn’t especially surprised when Colby said, “Mom, this is my friend William.”
He
r expression didn’t change and she didn’t say anything.
Colby bounced in her direction, tugging William with him like a reluctant puppy. “Will, meet my mom.”
“I have a name, Colby.” Her voice was deep and raspy.
“Complains the woman who named her only son after a cheese.” Colby grinned impishly and hopped out of the way of her swinging hand.
William couldn’t help but smile too. Colby was always youthful, but at the moment he was acting like a wayward twelve-year-old. Colby gave a deep, theatrical bow. “William Lyon, I’m pleased to introduce you to Camilla Marie Owens.”
“Cammie,” she growled.
“It’s nice to meet you,” William said and received a curt nod in response.
“So the PO’s all shut down and everything else is set. You remember how to close out the cash register, right Mom?”
She scowled at him. “I been workin’ this place since I was six, Colby. I don’t need baby-sitting.”
“Yeah, but it’s been a while.”
“I haven’t forgotten. Get the hell out of here.” As gruff as her words were, there was a little sparkle in her eyes when she looked at her son.
“Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait! Hang on, Will.” Colby zoomed around the counter and through the door to the back room.
William and Cammie looked at each other.
A series of muffled banging noises came from the storeroom, but Cammie didn’t turn around. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and dropped her voice to a coarse whisper. “Don’t break my baby’s heart, you hear?”
William gaped at her. “I… uh…. We’re just friends.”
Her expression didn’t waver. Colby came sailing out, a plastic bag held triumphantly in one hand. “Almost forgot this. And then I almost forgot where I put it.” He paused long enough to kiss his mother loudly on the cheek. Then he came around the counter, grabbed William’s hand, and pulled. “Let’s go! I’m starved. Bye Mom!”
She gave a dismissive wave. William mumbled a farewell too, but she might not have heard it.