A Fine Bromance

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  Andy shook his head and put his finger to his lips. “I didn’t tell them about any of it. They have a hard enough time thinking of me out there in the cold, cruel world. They don’t understand that I can handle it, that I have to handle it. For my whole life. If I told them, they’d be at the school in a flash demanding justice and discipline and equal rights and all that stuff. Nothing serious has happened. People are learning.”

  Putting a hand on Andy’s shoulder, Robby said, “I just hope it stays that way.” He squeezed. “Now I have to go home and find out what Mom thinks of what Claire did.”

  “Take one on the chin for me,” Andy said, grimacing. Then he grinned. “Good luck. And happy Thanksgiving.”

  Back at his family’s apartment, Robby found his mother sitting in the living room smoking the first cigarette she’d had in years.

  “Where’s Claire?” Robby put his jacket and hat away.

  “In her room. You and I need to talk.” Robby’s mother sat, looking stern.

  Robby sighed and sat down on a chair across from the couch. “I can’t share private things, but what do you want to know?”

  The look on his mother’s face was strained. “Robby, are you gay?”

  Gay? Is that what she thinks? He shook his head. “No, Mom, I’m not gay.” To himself he said I wish I knew.

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS early December, and Andy sat in the lunchroom with a notebook, pen, and a big sheet of newsprint in front of him.

  “What are you doing?” came Robby’s voice.

  Andy looked up, startled out his concentration. “Planning part of a New Year’s Eve party,” he said somewhat vaguely.

  Taking a seat next to him at the cafeteria table, Robby looked at the large piece of newsprint. “Oh, PFLAG! I didn’t know they did parties.”

  Andy confirmed, “Oh yeah, people in PFLAG want to get together, but there’s not always a place conducive to all our differences. I mean, there are gay guys and lesbians, genderqueer, transgender people, their parents and siblings, a minister or two, and a rabbi. That’s a pretty mixed group, and when the festivities start up, it’s a blast.”

  Robby considered. “I suppose when it’s midnight you’ll get a lot of different kinds of people kissing.”

  Andy gave him an appreciative smile. “Yeah, exactly.”

  Robby appeared to think for a while, then looked at the people at their table and in the room. “So you’re okay with people seeing you work on this in here?”

  Rather than being at all offended, Andy nodded. “I figure people know there’s something different about me, and this just lets them guess. They probably think I’m a gay guy or a lesbian, anyway. But I could be an ally.”

  Robby gave him a wry look. “Yeah, right.”

  Laughing, Andy punched him in the shoulder. “Hey, that’s some muscle. You’re still working out?”

  Robby struck a pose, flexing his bicep with a big shit-eating grin on his face. He said in a Sylvester Stallone voice, “Yeah.” He went on, “Yeah, I figure if I get real pumped, there’s only a couple of ways it can go, and either way it’s all good. I can take out anyone who hassles girls or gay guys or you, or I can get so butch, I’ll….” He trailed off, blushing.

  Andy gazed at his red face. He decided not to pursue it, since Robby had always respected his privacy, and he wanted to respect Robby’s. Instead he said, “Oh, I see, you plan to defend me against the big bad bullies? What makes you think I can’t handle them myself? What a dick you are.”

  Starting to protest, Robby stopped and considered his friend. “You’re right.”

  Andy laughed aloud. “What? That you’re a dick?”

  Robby said, “I’m thinking about going out for wrestling.”

  Andy decided to keep his mouth shut about the intimate contact with other boys that Robby would have to endure. “I wish they did coed wrestling.”

  Looking at him with a sardonic lift to his eyebrows, Robby said, “What do you care? You’re in boys’ gym class.”

  Andy’s face took on a look of pleased surprise. “Oh yeah, that’s right!” He jumped up from the table and mimed a wrestling stance.

  Robby couldn’t help but laugh uncontrollably.

  He gestured to the notebook. “So what’s your role in all this?”

  Pulling the notebook to him, Andy said, “I’m sort of the youth team planner. I get to decide what the kids and teens are going to do.”

  Robby nodded slowly. He tilted his head to look at Andy. “Want help?”

  Andy’s eyebrows went up. “You?”

  “Why not me?”

  “You aren’t gay!” Andy protested.

  “How do you know? Besides, I could be an ally. Or a family member. Maybe Claire’s a lesbian.” He joined Andy in a laugh at the very idea.

  “You never know.” Andy shrugged. “Okay. You’re on. The next support meeting is on the nineteenth, but the party committee is sooner. Can you come over at six thirty on Tuesday? My mom will give us a ride. Of course she’s on the party committee. She plans all parties all the time. Mazel tov!”

  BACK AT Robby’s home, tensions were alternately ignored and very much in evidence. Claire kept giving Robby sideways looks. Their mother didn’t speak to Claire at all about her recent choice of friends, as far as he could tell. He was angry—Claire could always wrap her mother around her little finger—but he decided to drop it. Maybe nothing would come of it.

  THE NEXT Tuesday Robby presented himself at the Kahns’ front door. Andy opened it and greeted him with a really broad smile. “I’m so glad you’re here.” He led Robby into the kitchen, where Mrs. Kahn was packaging a plate of cookies.

  “Oh, Robby. Andy said you were coming. Welcome! Someone always brings cookies or brownies. I always do too. Better to err on the side of generosity. We can always bring the extras home.”

  Andy snatched a cookie and gave it to Robby. “Here ya go.”

  He took it and said to Andy, “Your mom is so nice.”

  Mrs. Kahn looked at him oddly. “I’m sure your mom is too.”

  “Well, she never makes cookies.”

  Andy took one for himself and started to munch. “Mmm, peanut butter. With chips. I love them.” He looked again at Robby. “Does your mom know you’re coming with us?”

  Shrugging, Robby said, “No. She wasn’t home. Neither was Claire. So I just left a note on the fridge.”

  Mrs. Kahn gave Robby the plate of cookies to carry out to the SUV. He asked, “Doesn’t Gabe come to these things?”

  “He isn’t on the party committee. But he and my dad will be at the party itself.”

  They arrived at the First United Methodist Church on 108th in plenty of time. There were lots of parking spaces in the lot. They went into the basement of the church and found the minister and a couple of kids setting up tables for the meeting.

  A woman came in with a cardboard box full of things for the team to go through.

  “Hi, Amy,” Andy said. “This is my friend from school, Robby. He wants to help.”

  She smiled and put a hand on Robby’s shoulder. “Cool.”

  Others started to come in. There were a couple of teens, a parent or three of either gender, a young woman who could have been a man, and just as they were about to sit down to talk, a man arrived with a big white beard just like Santa. When he spoke he had the “accent” that people often ascribed to gay men, so Robby accepted him as gay.

  He sat listening to everyone, growing more and more comfortable as the group went around and introduced themselves.

  “I’m Reverend Ronald Lucas. I’m straight. I’ve been a member of PFLAG for about sixteen years.”

  “And he’s the pastor of this church,” added a woman sitting next to him. “I’m Pat, Ron’s wife, and I’ve been a member for just as long. Oh, and I’m straight.”

  Each person gave his or her, or in the case of the man/woman, zer name and orientation and said how long they had been involved with the group. Robby was intrigued by
the genderqueer person who asked for the unusual pronoun. He had heard of genderqueer people but didn’t think he had ever met one.

  He noticed that Andy introduced himself as an “FTM” or “a trans man” and said he and his mother had just joined this particular PFLAG the past summer when they moved to the Eastside from Olympia. Mrs. Kahn introduced herself as Ruth, said she was Andy’s mother, and mentioned the peanut butter cookies.

  Then it was Robby’s turn. He went pale. “Um, I’m Robby. I’m Andy’s friend from school, and this is my first meeting.”

  The genderqueer person, whose name was Phoenix, piped up, “So what are you? Gay or straight or what?”

  He looked blank. “I don’t know yet,” he replied truthfully.

  Phoenix said, “Oh. That’s a new one.”

  The minister, Rev. Lucas, inserted, “Not so new. We’ve all been there at some point.”

  Robby noticed that Andy was looking at him strangely. He realized they had never talked about his confusion about his own sexuality. He gave him a smile, and Andy nodded, then turned to the group to start the activities.

  After, as they waited by the car in the parking lot for Mrs. Kahn to finish talking to two of the other parents, Andy said to Robby, “So was that true? You really don’t know? It wasn’t just a way to avoid saying you were gay or whatever?”

  He gave him a strained look. “It’s true. I really don’t know. And maybe we can talk about it some other time?”

  BESIDES PLANNING the PFLAG party, the two boys were getting ready for Christmas and Hanukkah with their families. Robby didn’t know anything about the Jewish holiday, but Andy knew all about Christmas, though his take on it was decidedly commercial.

  “I remember going to the department store to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him all about the gifts I wanted him to buy for me.”

  “Buy for you?” Robby asked, acting surprised. “Santa doesn’t buy presents. The elves make them.”

  Andy just shrugged. “I didn’t know that. And I thought Santa was some old Jewish teacher from Hebrew school. I didn’t go there. I refused. But it was a terrible shock when I found out that Santa Claus was goyim. Explained why he had a Spanish accent that one year, though.”

  Robby chuckled. “Did your mom and dad take you to see Santa?”

  “Oh yeah, every year. How about you?”

  “Not very often. We used to go sometimes when Dad still lived with us, but Mom was too busy after the divorce. Claire and her friends went by themselves. I just didn’t see the point.”

  Giving him a sympathetic look, Andy said, “That’s kinda sad.”

  Robby looked back, surprised. “It wasn’t sad. I just grew out of it early. Claire was so mercenary about it. She would take a list, typed and organized by priority, and once she was on his lap, she would expound on all the things she wanted and what stores she had seen them at and which ones were better quality, though having brand names seemed to be what made them better quality.”

  Andy was laughing. “Did she get what she wanted?”

  Robby shook his head. “Nope. Mom couldn’t afford it and was just too busy anyway. She always got me underwear and socks and one year a matching scarf and mittens.”

  “Wow….”

  The two worked steadily at the party planning, getting together to make favors and practice songs. Mrs. Kahn baked and baked. Gabriel joked about spiking the punch with Manischewitz wine. Mr. Kahn gave him a stern, admonishing look, to which Gabe cried, “I was just kidding!” Then he winked at his older brother.

  When it came time for the actual holidays, Robby and Andy decided to split the difference and just do the winter solstice for their own gift giving. Robby had money from chores he did for Aunt Ivy, but she suggested he give Andy something from her own odd collections. He chose a pocket watch she assured him was not worth a great deal. He decided it was a good idea and just promised more chores.

  When the two went out to McDonald’s for their winter solstice event, Robby opened his gift first. He was delighted to find it was a book about the history of scholastic competitions in the United States.

  When Andy opened the ornately wrapped box with the watch in it, he was flabbergasted. “Robby, this is too expensive,” he protested.

  “Don’t ruin it!” Robby said in reply. “Gifts are from the heart, not from the cash register. Besides, all it cost me were some snowy sidewalks shoveled, and who knows how long it will be before it actually snows and sticks here in the Northwest.”

  The night of the New Year’s Eve party, the Methodist Church basement was festive with evergreen bows and a highly ornate Christmas tree, with tables set with a variety of treats and punch. The gay Santa had decorated the tree with all sorts of miscellaneous ornaments, including rainbow flags, discs with funny sayings on them like “Don we now our gay apparel”, a silhouette of a unicorn, and rainbow and lavender bows.

  The group played various games and listened to Christmas carols. Rabbi Cohen led them all in a few rounds of spin the dreidel that almost turned into a kissing game. Robby noticed a couple of girls who kept making goo-goo eyes at each other and whom he saw in the darkened hallway later wrapped in a passionate embrace. He averted his eyes as he headed for the men’s room.

  At midnight everyone gathered with glasses of punch and did the countdown to twelve o’clock. Andy told Robby that the tradition was whoever you kissed at midnight was the person you would be with the same time next year. They looked into each other’s eyes, Robby’s a little narrowed, but when twelve was struck and the others were proclaiming “Happy New Year!”, he and Andy found themselves with their lips locked together.

  Afterward Andy looked at Robby, curious. “Anything?”

  Robby shrugged. “Nothing, but it was really, really nice.”

  Andy smiled.

  WHEN ROBBY got home that night, he found himself completely alone. He knew his mother hadn’t gone out. He looked for a note but didn’t find one anywhere. He debated going to bed or staying up to find out what happened.

  At about 2:30 a.m., as Robby was dozing in front of the living room television, he heard the key in the front door lock. He looked up and saw Claire, her head down, scurry across the room and into the hallway. He heard her bedroom door open and shut with a slam. He glanced back at the entryway and saw his mother putting away her coat and hat. She turned toward him, her hands on her hips, and said, “I need a drink.”

  She headed into the kitchen and got herself a neat Scotch. Robby followed her in and looked nervous as she gulped the drink down. “Mom…,” he began. “I didn’t know there was any booze in the house.” There hadn’t been since his mother had come to grips with the fact that she was drinking too much.

  His mother shot him a fiery look. “Ask your sister about it, why don’t you? She’s the one who got arrested.” She slammed down the highball glass and said, “I’m going to bed.”

  Robby stood in the kitchen, stunned. Arrested? How? What? He didn’t know how he was going to get to the bottom of the situation.

  Chapter 9

  THE NEXT day Claire hung out in her room. She was so grounded it wasn’t funny. Robby never spoke to her, and their mother was out all day, so he learned nothing.

  He was about to pick up the phone to call Andy when it rang. He answered it to find Max on the other end of the line.

  “I was going to text you, but I figured I’d take a chance on your being awake. How was the party at PFLAG last night?” Max asked.

  Robby of course had told Max, Luis, and Rhonda about his and Andy’s working on the PFLAG party. Rhonda had been vaguely interested, Luis was too focused on some big family do he was going to, but Max had been unusually quiet about New Year’s Eve. So Robby was surprised he had been the one to ask the next day.

  “It was great. Very relaxed and fun. There were lots of cakes and cookies and punch, and we played various games.”

  Max made generally approving noises, then went on, “So what kind of people go to something like that?�
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  Robby was unsure at first what Max meant. Then he remembered that what had started to become normal and everyday to him would seem strange or exotic to someone else. “Oh, well, Andy, of course. And his mom. There were other younger people, their parents and siblings, and there was one guy who looked just like Santa Claus and was very gay. There were other gay guys and lesbians and someone I think is genderqueer.”

  “Gender what?” Max asked.

  “Genderqueer. That means you don’t believe you fit any particular pigeonhole, male or female.” Robby marveled at how fluent he was with all these issues he had known little or nothing about at the beginning of the school year.

  Max said hesitantly, “Like bisexual?”

  Robby shook his head, even though Max couldn’t see it over the phone. “No, it’s different. You might be bisexual or you might be something else. It’s kind of hard to explain. I suppose the best thing I can do is say you’re kind of neutral.”

  “Oh,” said Max, though he didn’t sound like he understood anything. There was a pause in the conversation. Then he asked, “And this Santa Claus guy? You say he was gay? How old was he?”

  Robby thought awhile. “Gee, I don’t know. Sixty? He had white hair and a long white beard.”

  Max said “Oh” again, but this time he sounded surprised. “I guess I hadn’t thought a gay man could be old. You’d think your interest in sex would die down by the time you were sixty.”

  Fighting the urge to laugh aloud, Robby said, “He didn’t bring a lover, but I don’t know if he has one. He just works with the kids at some center for gay and lesbian and transgender youth. He’s a really nice, fun guy. He brought most of the decorations for the tree from the charity store at the center.”

  “And he didn’t hit on you or Andy?”

  Now Robby had to laugh. “No, why would he?”

  Max took a while to answer. “Oh, I don’t know. Don’t gay men go for boys?”