by Nick Poff
“Uh, yeah,” Ed said, trying to shift mental gears. “I don’t want to have to pee the minute I see your folks.”
“Don’t worry, baby,” Rick said absentmindedly, rolling back into the right lane. He gave Ed’s leg a quick pat, then turned up the volume on the tape player.
Ed turned his attention back to the bare fields they were passing and listened with half an ear to Spanky and Our Gang’s “Like to Get to Know You.” He felt an uneasiness in his stomach, suspecting Rick’s complaints about work had more substance than he was willing to admit. He looked at Rick. He was singing softly and tapping the steering wheel with his fingers. He had his sunglasses on, so Ed couldn’t see his eyes, but something in his face troubled Ed. He considered pursuing the subject, but decided against it. He didn’t want to upset Rick in any way before seeing his parents.
He searched his brain for a non-work-related topic. “Living in Indy, did you ever get to see any of these groups in concert?” he asked, surprised, actually, that he’d never thought to ask before.
Rick smiled. “I saw Spanky and Our Gang once, heard them do this one live.”
“Cool,” Ed exclaimed. “Tell me about it.”
Rick went into an anecdote about that particular show, then told several others. Ed watched the tense look disappear from Rick’s face, happy to have distracted him. Still, Ed found himself, for the first time since meeting Rick, a little worried about his mailman.
When they were a few miles north of the city, Rick refreshed Ed’s memory on his parents. “Dad’s name is John, and he teaches high school history and does some college counseling. Don’t let him get started on that. Mom’s name is Vera, and she teaches fifth grade, and no, neither Claire, nor I, ever had to deal with them in school. They purposely moved into another district when we were small to avoid that.
“Anyway,” Rick continued, “as you know, they’re quite liberal, bleeding-heart liberals, actually. They support about every cause you can imagine, and even went to Washington in late ’69 for that big peace march against the war. I mean, there I was, a freshman in college, and my parents were more radical than the guys in my dorm. That was weird, let me tell you.
“I came out to them when I was working out of the Nora post office in northeast Indy. I had gotten my own place, so if they decided to disown me, I wouldn’t be on the street. I didn’t think they would, but you never know, right? They took it pretty well, but I could tell they were disappointed, and things were, well . . . a little rocky for a while. I realize now that was my fault. I was so off on my Harold and Maude trip, so concerned with being true to myself, that I was kind of belligerent about the whole thing. Once I realized I was being a real asshole, things got better.
“I also happen to know,” Rick said, his warm and tender special in place as he glanced at Ed, “that Claire and the kids spent part of Christmas Day raving about how wonderful you are. So don’t worry. Your politics match theirs, and you’re a kind, generous, intelligent man. I would add that you’re also the most handsome man in the world, but I don’t think that will impress them the way it does me.”
Ed sighed, still nervous. “Yeah, a kind and generous man with nothing more than a high school education, who will probably spend the winter shoveling snow for old people. That’ll impress ’em.”
Rick frowned at him. “Does Mrs. Penfield look down on you for that?”
“No,” Ed admitted.
“Well, then. They won’t either. Not all smart people go to college. Sometimes I think the smartest ones avoid it. There’s something to be said for learning what there is to learn from life, as opposed to sitting in some lecture hall, letting someone just tell you about it. That’s kind of the way I’ve felt these past few years, anyway,” Rick added, as he turned off the cassette player.
“Why’d you do that?”
Rick smiled. “’Cause the next song on the tape is the one I want to be playing when I roll into our neighborhood, you by my side, baby.”
He piloted his old Monte Carlo confidently off the interstate and onto surface streets unfamiliar to Ed, who’d spent little time in Indiana’s capital city. Rick turned onto Keystone Avenue and pointed out the Glendale Mall.
“That’s where I bought my records, baby,” he said with a grin.
Rick turned the tape player on, and Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up” was soon blasting from the speakers.
“This song was big around the time I was trying to accept being gay. I think it helped me as much as Harold and Maude did,” he shouted over the music.
Ed shook his head in amazement, as he had always felt the same way about the song, and still did. Forgetting to be self-conscious about his awful singing voice, he sang along with Rod Argent and Rick.
Rick reached for Ed’s hand. “Remember what I said last night about healing? Your love has done more to heal the wounds I have from those years—and those years with Jack—than anything else I could have found. Not only do I love you, baby, but now I really can hold my head up high.”
Ed thought back to when he had first heard “Hold Your Head Up” on the radio years before. He’d been a nineteen-year-old factory worker, alone and afraid, wondering how it would feel to be close to—let alone be in love with—a man. Somehow, that song had given him the courage to believe he wasn’t the only person struggling with being different.
“I feel the same way,” Ed said, and turned down the music. “I think maybe you’ve healed some of my wounds, too. You know what? I didn’t think there was anything you could say to me that would stop my being nervous, but that did. I love you too, darlin’. More than you’ll ever know.”
Ed put his hand on Rick’s leg and left it firmly in place until Rick pulled up in front of an attractive, two-story brick home in a quiet, tree-filled neighborhood.
“Well, this is it,” Rick said, shutting off the ignition. “About one-third the size of Mrs. Penfield’s brick pile, but it’s where I grew up.”
“Looks nice.”
Ed reluctantly took his hand away from Rick’s leg. He wanted to hold Rick’s hand as they approached the front door, but was afraid his parents might disapprove.
As they climbed the front steps the door opened, and a tall, slender gray-haired woman appeared, smiling.
“Rick, honey,” she cried, reaching out to him for a hug. “And this must be Ed. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
“You too, Mrs. Benton,” Ed said, smiling into her warm brown eyes, so much like Rick’s. “I guess we’ve both heard a lot about each other.” He had practiced that line to himself all the way to Indianapolis and was pleased now to hear her chuckle.
“Oh, call me Vera, please. I get enough of ‘Mrs. Benton’ at school. Come in! Come in!” She ushered them into a small entryway, urging them to take off their coats. “I’m so glad it was a clear day for your drive. Do you suppose we’ll get much snow this winter? I understand that’s something you’ll have to deal with, Ed.”
Vera continued to chat with Ed in a pleasant manner and soon had them seated in the family room. Ed looked around with appreciation. The room was paneled in pine, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining one wall.
“I don’t think Rick ever mentioned what a cozy house you have,” Ed murmured, studying a beautiful landscape over the fireplace.
Vera beamed at him. “Cozy—isn’t that just the word? I like you already, Ed. That’s exactly what I’ve aimed for all these years.”
Rick gave Ed an I-told-you-so look. “Ed’s good at cozy, Mom. You should see his place.”
The sound of footsteps on the stairs was followed by John Benton’s entrance into the room.
“Sorry I wasn’t here to meet you at the door, boys,” he said, a sheepish grin on his face. “I was taking care of some important business.”
“Oh, John,” Vera scolded, with a look at her son.
Rick and Ed rose to their feet. John crossed the room to shake hands with Ed.
“Good to meet you, Ed. Sit down, sit down,” he sai
d, waving them back to their seats.
Ed looked at John, wondering if he was seeing Rick in twenty-five years. John had the same thick hair, but it had gone from dark brown to gray at some point. He was almost as tall as Rick, but not quite so broad through the shoulders. And—Ed’s mother would be horrified—he had a graying beard, similar to Rick’s as well. Much to his relief and astonishment, Ed felt immediately at home with him.
Conversation resumed; the usual polite process of people getting to know one another. Vera disappeared for a few minutes, then returned with a coffee tray.
“If you’re a tea drinker, Ed, I can put the kettle on.”
“Oh, no, thank you. This is fine,” Ed said, accepting a cup from her.
Rick frowned at him. “Actually, Mom, Ed isn’t a coffee drinker, but he’s too polite to say so.”
“Rick,” Ed groaned, embarrassed.
Vera laughed. “No, I’m glad he said something, Ed. Do you drink tea?”
Ed nodded, blushing as usual.
“Well, I’ll just boil some water. Earl Grey?”
Ed nodded again, not entirely sure who Earl was, but assumed it had something to do with tea. He put the coffee cup back on the tray, as Vera returned to the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about it, Ed,” John said jovially, lighting a pipe. “The extra exercise will do the old girl good, since she talked herself out of doing any cooking today.”
“I heard that, John Benton,” Vera called from the hall.
The men shared a good laugh. John asked Ed what kind of food he enjoyed.
“Oh, I’m pretty much a Hoosier meat-and-potatoes kind of guy,” Ed said. “As Rick can tell you, I don’t care much for fish or other seafood, but I’m willing to try about anything else.”
“I’d like to give his palate a little more education,” Rick said, glancing at Ed fondly. “But can you believe it, Dad? There’s not even one Chinese restaurant in Porterfield. The most ethnic thing we have is a pizza place.”
“You must be going through withdrawal,” John said, still trying to get a good light on his pipe. “Every time we’d go to his old apartment,” John said to Ed, “it smelled like Chinese takeout. He told us he did a lot of his own cooking, but I never saw the evidence.”
It was Rick’s turn to blush, as Ed laughed. “Well, I’ve seen the evidence. He certainly knows his way around eggs and pancakes. I think I’ve put on weight, eating his breakfasts. They’re great, believe me.”
“I was thinking we’d go out for lunch,” Vera said, reentering the room. “Would you like to try one our favorite Chinese places, Ed? I know that’s terrible, but with all the holiday hubbub, I just didn’t get around to any extra shopping.”
“Oh, Mom,” Rick groaned. “Don’t worry about it. She gets nervous, cooking for company,” he said to Ed, his mischievous grin on his face. “That’s just her cop-out, that she was too busy.”
“Richard . . . ,” she said with a warning smile.
“Uh-oh. If she calls me Richard, I’m in trouble,” Rick said, laughing.
Ed said, “I think that would be great—Chinese, I mean. My mom used to make chow mein for my sister and me when we were kids, but I’m guessing it was a lot more Indiana than China.”
John, finally satisfied with the draw on his pipe, turned to Ed once again. “So, Ed, tell us about your job. How did you get to be Porterfield’s finest handyman?”
Ed felt himself blushing again. “Well, I don’t know about ‘finest,’ but I do my best.”
“He is the best,” Rick said confidently. “Some of the folks he works for are on my route. They think he’s wonderful.”
“It’s kind of a long story,” Ed began. “I didn’t want to go to college after high school, because I didn’t really have a goal in mind, so I went to work for Marsden Electric. That’s a factory in town that makes electric motors for appliances and such. My dad was a plant manager there. Anyway, I just stuck with it, thinking I could work myself up to a job like my dad’s, but then the recession hit, and all the people who didn’t have seniority were laid off.
“So, I sat around home for a couple of months, getting on my mom’s nerves. Then one day a friend of hers called and asked if I could fix a lamp of hers that wasn’t working right. I’d always been good with that sort of thing, thanks to watching my dad tinker around with that stuff, so I did. Next thing I knew, I was doing odd jobs for her, then for her mother, who told a friend of hers, and pretty soon every old lady in town was calling me. I decided the heck with waiting to go back to Marsden, and went into business for myself.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” John marveled.
“You do more than fix things, though, isn’t that right?” Vera asked.
“Oh, yes. I shovel walks, as you know, help clean out attics or basements, whatever they need done. I help one woman with her grocery shopping every week. She can only get around with a walker, and she says my help keeps her out of a nursing home. I even”—he glanced at Rick with a grin—“put up Christmas trees. I do quite a bit of painting, too. Whatever. No two days are ever the same, and I really like it. It’s constant variety, and it never gets boring. The people, for the most part, are great. Especially the old ones. I really get a kick out of them.”
“I think that’s wonderful,” Vera said, smiling at him. “You’re performing quite a service for those elderly folks. There really should be more people doing that.”
“I keep telling him he should incorporate and start some kind of a chain,” Rick teased.
“Oh, I’ve got enough to keep me busy as it is. That, plus my mom calls a lot, getting all her work done for free.”
“Ed’s mom is quite a character, let me tell you,” Rick said, shaking his head.
“Rick,” his mother said, disapproving.
“Oh, no, she is,” Ed said hastily. “But she really likes Rick. Thinks he’s better than I deserve. At least that’s what she keeps telling me.”
They all laughed comfortably.
“You should meet Mrs. Penfield,” Rick said. “One of Ed’s clients is his high school English teacher. She lives in this incredible Victorian home, and had us over for tea a few weeks ago. So don’t worry so much about us, Mom. They do have civilized people in Porterfield.”
Vera shook her head, lips pursed. “I’m sorry, but I do worry. When Rick first moved there,” she said to Ed, “I worried about him being exposed to bigotry and prejudice, but I’ll admit it’s going better than I thought. My mistake, I think, was judging the town by our son-in-law.”
“Oh, Porterfield’s not so bad,” Ed said. “I think there are a lot more folks like Mrs. Penfield than Hank Romanowski.”
“That’s good to hear,” John said, raising his coffee cup. “However, before we journey down that particular unpleasant road, let’s get back to Ed’s job. Do you think you could do anything about that fluorescent light in our kitchen? I changed the bulbs, but it still isn’t working right.”
“Dad! This is Ed’s day off,” Rick protested.
“That’s okay,” Ed said, eager to show off his skills. “I’d be happy to take a look at it.”
They all trooped into the kitchen. John flipped the light switch. The ceiling light flickered, shone brightly for a moment, then flickered again before one of the bulbs went completely out.
“Hmm,” Ed said, stroking his chin. “Something’s loose up there, I’ll bet. Do you have some tools? And a stepladder? I want to see what’s going on.”
John fetched his toolbox, while Vera pulled a stepladder out of a kitchen closet. Rick watched Ed climb up the ladder.
“Be careful, okay?” Rick murmured, looking anxious.
“I’m not gonna burn your parents’ house down,” Ed said, removing the bulbs, feeling totally confident for the first time that day. “I do this sort of stuff all the time.”
Ed handed the bulbs down to Rick, then climbed down from the ladder to inspect the tools in the box John had brought up from the basement. Ed wished he had his ow
n toolbox. John’s was a jumble of mismatched tools, and Ed prided himself on stocking an efficient toolbox.
“You know, boys,” Vera said, turning off the gas under the whistling tea kettle, “I think unless he needs some help, we should all go back to the other room. He might get a little distracted with an audience. All right, Ed?”
“Umm-hmm,” he mumbled, already engrossed in the chore.
John, Vera, and Rick left the room, Rick glancing back nervously on his way out. Ed, screwdriver in hand, climbed the ladder again. Soon enough he found the problem. It was a loose connection, as he had suspected. Someone had probably slammed the kitchen door a few too many times, he thought. He easily tightened all of them, then replaced the bulbs.
“Now, how’s that for impressing your prospective in-laws,” he whispered to himself, smiling. “Didn’t even need to flip the circuit breaker. Talk about easy.”
He turned to climb down the ladder, but somehow lost his footing. Before he knew what was happening, he somehow managed to kick the ladder out from under his feet. The stepladder skidded across the floor, and Ed went crashing down after it with a muffled yelp. Fortunately, he landed square on his ass, but it was quite a shock.
The other three ran into the kitchen and surveyed the scene in surprise. Ed looked up at them, his earlier confidence swirling down the proverbial drain. That’s what I get for being so cocky, he thought.
“Light’s fixed,” he said, grinning in embarrassment.
Vera rushed to help him, while John and Rick began to laugh.
“John! Richard!” she scolded. “It’s not funny.”
“Yes, it is,” Ed said, beginning to chuckle himself. He got to his feet and dusted himself off.
“Are you all right?” Vera asked anxiously.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Nothing broken but my dignity.”
“We’ve all broken that at one time or another,” John said, flipping the light switch on and off. “But you’ve certainly fixed the light, Ed. Thank you. That flickering’s been driving us crazy for weeks. I don’t want to offend you by offering you money, but how about some hot and sour soup?”