Girlish
Page 31
The bikers Girl knew in the Fifth Chapter called their wife or girlfriend “Old Lady” and if they were really serious about them, the biker could buy their Old Lady a “Lady Patch” she could wear on the back of her jacket to show she was the property of the club and deserved a higher level of respect than hang-around girls. Girl wanted one so badly, but she didn’t let on. She even picked out her biker name: Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. After all, Belle had brown hair and brown eyes and always had her nose in a book. Samson’s temper made him a Beast, but a loveable one, in Girl’s eyes.
The guys liked to talk about “passarounds” and a class of girl called a “house mouse” who were granted the privilege of living with a bunch of bikers in exchange for having sex with whomever wanted it, but Girl never actually met any of these women. She only saw a bunch of guys in their forties riding around feeling tough, sometimes accompanied by nice, normal wives.
Samson soon gave up the bike club scene entirely. He said he joined because he needed family, but after he met Girl he didn’t need them anymore. Girl was more than happy to fill the void, though she secretly longed to go on the big rallies and poker runs he talked about so often and which were now consigned to his past.
ryan
fall 1992
Ryan and Girl sat in his car in a church parking lot. It was bitter cold outside, gray and un-wedding-like, though it was only the end of September. They had finished setting up for the service, but instead of leaving for the next stop Ryan lit a cigarette.
“We’re running ahead of schedule,” he said. “Let’s talk for a minute.”
“Okay,” Girl said. During the summer they rarely talked much at the shop—everyone was running in different directions. She was glad to have time alone with Ryan.
“T-cells are like soldiers,” he said. Girl knew all about T-cells from William, but instead of being her usual know-it-all self, she let Ryan talk.
“Infections are like bad soldiers in your blood, and T-cells are the good soldiers. A normal person has like five hundred to a thousand T-cells. My last count was seventy-five.”
Girl knew what he was telling her. Although William had said Ryan was HIV positive, Girl still clung to that comment he made on her first day at work—I don’t got AIDS. She had so hoped those words were true.
“I’ll die of lung cancer. No one is to ever mention that I have AIDS. I don’t want my kids to have to live through that stigma. Lung cancer isn’t so bad.” He flicked an ash out the window. Ryan only owned two coats—a black leather jacket and a long 1970s raccoon fur coat. He wore the leather jacket, because it was more masculine, even though it was so cold and he was so thin.
“How long have you been sick?” Girl asked.
“Two years.”
William lived five years, Girl thought. There was still time.
“I’ve picked out my funeral home,” Ryan said. “They have these emery boards with their name and phone number printed on them. I told them I want the emery boards out in bowls so everyone can have a souvenir.” He coughed his deep hacking cough with which Girl was so familiar and flicked his cigarette butt out onto the ground, rolled the window up, and put the car in drive.
A few weeks later Girl came into work and everyone was quiet.
“Ryan is in the hospital,” Tony said. “But he doesn’t want visitors. He says he needs to rest.”
No one talked much at the shop, and when Ryan returned no one mentioned it. He went back into the hospital again a few weeks later, then was sent home on oxygen. He never returned to work after that second hospital stay.
“You need to go visit him,” Tony said one day. “This is it.”
Girl didn’t want to. More than anything, she didn’t want him to die. Her first semester in college Brother’s best friend had died in the drunk driving accident. Second semester, it had been William. Now it was her third semester, and she couldn’t go through that again, not now. It was too many deaths. Girl didn’t think she could take any more.
She knew she had to, though. After work Girl went to the grocery store and got some Pedialyte in what Tony had told her was Ryan’s favorite flavor, and a dozen Sonia roses—his favorite color—tied with a pale peach ribbon. Girl stopped at the fancy soup store on Park Avenue and bought some soup and crackers, then drove over to Ryan and Mike’s house. She rang the bell, but no one answered, so she set her brown paper bag on the steps and left.
Ryan called her later.
“You should have called first! I can’t hear the bell over the oxygen, and besides, there needs to be someone to let you in because I can’t get downstairs anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think about that.” She was nineteen.
“Well, thank you for the flowers and the Pedialyte. It cheered me up.”
Girl had a dream a few days later that Ryan was talking to her. You have to pull yourself together and face this, the dream-Ryan said. It’s time. Girl woke to the telephone ringing in the kitchen, telling her what she already knew. Ryan was gone.
Girl hadn’t spoken to Sharon in months, not since their lease ended. They had fought for months leading up to it, and after they moved out neither of them wanted anything to do with each other. That night, after dark, Girl rang Sharon’s doorbell.
Sharon’s boyfriend answered the door. Girl had always liked Phil. He went upstairs to find Sharon in their second-story apartment. When Sharon came down the stairs, her face was both angry and indignant, but she opened the glass door anyway, arms folded across her chest, leg out in the pissed-off stance Girl had seen so many times lately.
“Ryan,” Girl said, and started to cry. Sharon put her arms around Girl and they sobbed together.
Ryan had wanted a closed casket, but the funeral home had a private showing just for immediate family, and South Wedge employees were considered family. Ryan was dressed, as always, in black dress pants, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a bolo tie. Girl was glad they hadn’t put him in a suit. He had always been thin, but she hadn’t noticed how skeletal he had become. Girl thought about how her biker boyfriend had thumped him hard on the back in an overenthusiastic hug the last time he saw him and sent Ryan into a coughing fit. Girl should have told Samson how fragile Ryan was. She should have protected him. She thought of Ryan’s long raccoon coat that he always wore to parties. She wished it was in the casket with him to keep him warm.
The South Wedge employees worked all day at the shop, servicing the weddings still on the schedule. The phone rang so many times with friends and customers wanting to send flowers to the funeral home that they had to turn them away, and eventually just left the phone off the hook. After work, they all went to the viewing together.
Every tabletop and mantel in the whole first floor of the funeral home was filled with vases of Casablanca lilies and Sonia roses. There were so many people you could hardly move. Girl took an emery board from one of the bowls and put it in her purse, like Ryan had wanted.
The day of the funeral they had to set up a wedding. When Girl got there, the bride was furious.
“I specifically requested regular eucalyptus, not seeded eucalyptus! This is the wrong green! And there was supposed to be silk eucalyptus in my sister’s bouquet because she’s allergic! I should never have let them hand my wedding over to Bob. Where is Ryan anyway?”
“Ryan is dead,” Girl said. “After I’m done here I’m going to his funeral.”
The bride’s face got all crazy-looking as the anger and shock fought for control over her features. Shock won.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” she said. Girl just walked away. She shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have told the bride that Ryan died just five minutes before she walked down the aisle. Girl knew she had spoiled the woman’s wedding, but she couldn’t help it. She knew Ryan wouldn’t have approved.
Tony, Bob, Mike, and Girl drove together, racing to get to the funeral on time. They were always late. When they passed a hearse on the expressway, Tony laughed.
The obituary said that Ryan died of lung cancer. He was thirty-eight. Two months later the shop closed. According to the Internet, his partner Mike died in 1997, though Girl never saw him again after the shop closed. The online entry says he never married, the twenty years he spent with Ryan unrecorded.
Girl couldn’t bear to work around flowers after Ryan died. Instead, she went to work for a veterinarian for less money—cleaning cages, assisting with surgeries, and mopping floors. When an animal was euthanized, Girl had to bag the still-warm body in a garbage bag and take it to the freezer, tears flowing down her cheeks. Perhaps Girl would have been better off finding a new gay family, but she couldn’t stand to watch them die, too. At least here she had live animals to take care of most of the time, and death was sporadic, not guaranteed.
christmas
december 23, 1992
Girl picked up Samson at midnight and they drove to the grocery store. The night was crisp with a hint of expectation that always materialized with the snow in late December.
“When do you want to do gifts?” Samson asked.
“I don’t know. We could bring everything to Mom’s, or we could do them alone ahead of time,” Girl answered. She was really excited about their first Christmas together. She had bought Samson a black sweater with black leather trim and bottles of both his favorite cologne and a new one she had liked at the store as well. She had bought the nut-driver tool set he asked for, spending all of her extra money on presents, as she did every year. Samson had warned Girl that if he found any presents hidden in the house that he would open them right away. Girl wrapped his presents and then hid them under the seats in her car and piled old McDonald’s bags on top of them. Samson always called her car the “B. F. Dumpster” so she knew he would never think to look there. She was proud of her trickery but she didn’t know how she was going to wait two more days. She loved Christmas.
They were having the three Chevy siblings that lived in town—Timmy, Carson, and Cindy—over for dinner Christmas Eve, then were going to church with Girl’s parents for the late service.
“I think we should open them at home Christmas Eve,” Girl said. She really didn’t want to wait any longer.
“I think we should open them tonight, so it’s just us,” Samson said.
“Okay!”
They stopped at a red light, waiting for the left turn arrow, when Samson looked at Girl strangely—his mouth was somehow wrong and his eyes looked watery.
“I want you to be my wife,” he said, pulling a box from his pocket.
It wasn’t really a question, but she said “yes” anyway and started to cry. The ring was a small marquis-cut diamond that he had picked out with his sister that afternoon, while Girl was at school. Girl thought it looked like a glittering snowflake plucked from the Christmas air and set on a fine gold band. Married. It was all she had ever wanted in the world.
clash of the titans
Girl finished her associate’s degree that summer and joined Sharon at St. John Fisher, a four-year college. She and Samson had been engaged for a year but were waiting for Girl to finish her bachelor’s degree to get married. Father, Stepmother, and Mother were all contributing to her expenses: paying tuition, making her car payments, and giving Girl enough child support so that she could go to school full time and work only part time. Girl had lunch with Mother nearly every week, and on Sundays she went to their house for family dinner.
“Mother, I like having lunch with you, but I don’t want to come to family dinner anymore. I just can’t deal with Stepmother,” Girl told Mother over the phone.
“That’s fine,” Mother said, her voice evenly modulated. “But Stepmother pays half of your tuition and car payment. If you refuse to see her, don’t expect her to continue to support you.”
Girl was sick of them holding money over her head. She did the math during class—now that Samson was collecting unemployment plus working under the table at the bike shop, they had more money than they ever had before. Girl was working part time at a new flower shop, and they liked her there. If she worked full time instead of part time, they’d only be short about $100–$200 a month, and she could still take a class or two at night. Girl wanted to be a real grown-up, not dependent on anyone. She wanted to have her own family. She wanted a wedding. She wanted to be Mrs. Somebody.
If Girl stopped taking Stepmother’s money, she wouldn’t have to play “happy family” anymore. So what if it took her as extra year or two to finish? She told Samson her plan, and he agreed. He had only gone to college for a few semesters and then dropped out, so he didn’t see a four-year degree as essential, and she already had an associate’s degree. They decided to push the wedding up to the next summer, just under a year away.
Stepmother’s parents—Girl’s grandparents—were in town from West Virginia. Even though they were not thrilled that their daughter was gay, they always acted like real grandparents toward the children. They were somewhat conservative and profoundly religious, so everyone agreed not to tell them that Samson and Girl were living together. It seemed easiest.
Girl and Samson went to her parents’ house for dinner. They pulled extra chairs from the dining room to make places for everyone in the living room. Everyone was sitting around and talking, and Samson was needling Stepmother. She had made her living selling life insurance, though she had been receiving mental-health disability for years, selling policies under Mother’s name. Samson was collecting unemployment from his factory job, but working six days a week at the bike shop. They were both scamming the system, as far as Girl was concerned. Samson was going on about how insurance was all a racket, and that people who sold insurance were even worse than used car salesmen. Girl was in a side conversation with her grandmother and not really listening. Samson liked to provoke people when he was bored, and he and Stepmother had no great love for each other. Stepmother looked down on his lack of education, and he looked down on her lack of couth. He might have chosen a blue-collar job, but he’d been raised in the country club set. When Samson and Girl went to leave at the end of the evening, Stepmother got up and followed them out.
Girl and Samson had made it as far as the sidewalk and Stepmother was at the top of the kitchen steps. Her face was red and taut, her hands on her beefy hips. She was only five foot two but outweighed Girl by at least fifty pounds. While female, she exuded masculine strength and, at that moment, anger. She called down to them, “You need to know that before you can marry my daughter, you need a full-time job with benefits!”
Girl just stood there. She was five inches taller than Stepmother, but when Stepmother yelled, Girl turned small. It made her lose her words.
Samson didn’t pause for a moment—he unleashed a tirade on Stepmother that ended with “I’m going to rip off your head and shit down your throat!” After which he slid into the driver side of the car, Girl hastily hopped into the passenger’s side, and they drove off. Girl was shaking like a naughty puppy, like she always did when people fought, but inside, she was overflowing with exaltation. She had waited her whole life for someone to not just stand up to Stepmother, but to win. Samson might have been too aggressive, but he protected Girl from all the people she was afraid of, and the number one person she was afraid of was Stepmother. He had slayed Girl’s dragon.
“She came at me. She was above me, looking down. She was trying to intimidate me by staying up on the steps where she thought she was safe. I showed her!” Samson crowed on the car ride home.
“You didn’t even do anything to deserve it!” Girl said, defensive of him.
“Sure I did. Didn’t you hear me needle her about what a scam insurance is? She thinks I’m Johnny Lunch Bucket, but she’s no better than me. I was provoking her and she knew it, and she wasn’t gonna let us leave till she pissed on her territory
. She wants to act like a man, I’m going to treat her like one.”
Mother called Girl the next day.
“We were up all night terrified that Samson was going to come and kill us. Every time we heard a noise Stepmother would grab her gun. You know we really need to talk about Samson’s anger.”
Girl didn’t see it that way and said so. She didn’t think Samson had done anything worse than Stepmother had. It was just that for once, someone had out-bullied the bully.
“Girl, he threatened us,” Mother said. “How can you think that’s okay?”
“Come on, Mom, that wasn’t a real threat. Ripping someone’s head off is superlative.”
“No, I meant it,” Samson said when she relayed the conversation to him later. “They were right to be scared. But I was just defending myself.”
Girl and Mother didn’t speak for two months. They had never gone this long without making up—they had always spoken at least a few times a week on the phone, even after she ran away back in high school. For Girl, every day was marked with an undercurrent of sadness. She missed her mom. She didn’t know what to do. Christmas came, and they made up just enough for Girl to go over to their house on Christmas morning, but without Samson.