“I think I just need a good night’s sleep,” she lied. “I have some Valium. That should help.”
“Okay, but be careful with that stuff. Chamomile tea is really better for you,” he advised.
Her bleary, bloodshot eyes looked him up and down. Here was the sweetest guy, offering her a handkerchief, a shoulder to cry on, and advice on how to get a good night’s sleep. Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone like him instead of wasting my time on that boy? She could just imagine what Mark would say if a woman were pregnant with his child. He would surely offer marriage or at least a hand to hold during the procedure. This was a man who could be counted on. A mensch, as Bubbe would say. He never knew that she began falling in love with him at that moment.
Perry also proved to be a mensch, checking on her constantly throughout the summer. Once she returned that fall, they never spoke of the situation again.
Now they sat at the Chug-a-Lug, as they had so many times when they were younger, splitting a pitcher of margaritas, crying, and laughing over details of their lives. Except now they felt rather out of place, being the oldest patrons among a sea of students and young faculty. Other than the bar owners, it seemed no one over the age of 40 came to the Chug. They joked about getting busted for being over the age limit to drink. But being with Perry made Jane feel young again. They ceased to be two graying, wrinkled old scholars, retro-aging into two young teachers, newly arrived on campus, dreaming of one day achieving tenure.
As they laughed together, Perry revealed confessions of his own. “Justin wants to make an honest man out of me.”
“Excuse me?” Jane asked, almost choking on her drink.
“Yep. He wants us to fly to Iowa and get married, then honeymoon in San Francisco just to spite the state of California. He’s never been to Frisco. Can you believe that? A 31 year-old gay man whose never made a pilgrimage to the queer Mecca! What is this world coming to? It used to be a rite of passage. You weren’t really gay until you had crossed the threshold. ”
He smiled at the sweet memory of his hedonistic young adventures. “Oh. I remember those days, the pre-plague days, when I was still in the closet. I was fascinated by that city’s decadence. The West Coast Sodom! I submitted a paper to every conference held in that town, just for an excuse to be there. That should have been my first clue that I was gay. Well, that and all those men I was boffing in the bathhouses. Of course, I always pretended San Francisco sex didn’t count. You know, when in Rome, do as the Romans!”
Jane allowed him a moment to savor the reminiscence, much of which she had heard before. The revelation about Justin was new, however. At this point she had drunk just enough of the sweet-salty tequila elixir to lose her inhibitions. “So are you going to accept Justin’s proposal? Take a stand for gay rights?” she quizzed.
“I’ve done enough standing for the cause, thank you very much!” Perry replied, then grimaced, as if the mere thought of a proposal caused him physical pain. “Oh, Janey, I just don’t think I’m the marrying kind. ‘Been there, done that. I don’t think it‘d be any different with a man. This younger generation is so different. Back in my day it was all about expression.” She gave him a knowing look.
“Okay, it was all about sex, but it was free sex!” he insisted. “We didn’t just screw around because we were horny, we were celebrating our freedom to screw around with whomever we chose to. It was liberating!”
She could not let that comment go unchallenged. “Oh, there’s some revisionism if I ever heard it!”
“Oh, shut up! It was liberating. These young queers, they want to settle down, have all the trappings of domesticity. Trust me, soon enough Dana’ll be searching for her ‘Ms. Right,’ get a white picket fence, babies, the whole shebang. You’ll still have to pay for a wedding, I guarantee it. Oh, hell, I’ll even donate sperm for the grandkids if that’s not too weird for her. It’s the only way these genes’ll get passed on, believe me!” He took a large swig of his drink.
Again, that pained look crossed his face. “Damn that court system! It was easy to avoid the marriage talk when it was illegal everywhere, but now we confirmed bachelors get harangued for a ring, just like the heteros! Pretty soon it’ll be legal everywhere and then we’ll really be in for it! I never realized how liberating discrimination could be until now.” He sighed with an air of resignation as Jane raised her glass.
“Here’s to equality!” she cheered. “May it give me grandchildren and make an honest man out of you!”
“Hush your mouth!” Perry replied as they clinked their glasses together.
Taking another swig, Jane squinted, carefully assessing her old friend. “Would you have married Brian?”
“I did marry Brian,” Perry replied matter-of-factly, quickly downing another swig of his margarita. Jane remembered. The couple had held a commitment ceremony just a few weeks before Perry’s lover died, attended by Brian’s sister, Jane, Mark, and a Unitarian minister willing to officiate and sign an unbinding marriage certificate. Brian had already given Perry his power of attorney. At that time, it was the closest any gay couple could come to legalizing their relationship. After the funeral, Perry moved his wedding band from the left to his right hand, where it still rested more than 20 years later.
She was not sure when it happened, but some years ago they had simply stopped talking about Brian. She couldn’t remember the last time Perry had even mentioned his name, though she knew his spirit was always among them. Jane persisted. “But if you could do it again—legally this time—I know you’d marry Brian.”
A long-forgotten sadness filled Perry’s eyes as he carefully stroked the gray whiskers on his chin. “Brian was different,” he admitted quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Jane said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. I know you still miss him.”
“Everyday,” Perry said in a melancholy tone. “Not a single day goes by that I don’t think about him. Do you know that I still remember the way he smelled?”
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the long-lost scent of his lover. “It’s been over 20 years and I still remember how he smelled. That blend of godawful Polo cologne mixed with his sweat and hair gel. It was so intoxicating! I’ve never been that enraptured by the smell of another man.” He opened his glinting eyes. “And believe me, Janey, I’ve smelled up a lot of studs trying!”
Jane grabbed his hand as the memories unleashed their power. He continued, “You know, I think I have a thing for younger men because I’m still looking for Brian. Justin’s now the same age that Brian was when we met. That’s how I’ll always remember him: young, handsome. Not how he was in the end, but how he was before, in his prime. I keep thinking I’ll find him again, reincarnated into one of these young things. But it’s not the same. Nobody smells like him. Besides, I’d never want to saddle some young buck with an old fag like me. By the time Justin figures out what he wants to be when he grows up, I’ll be ready for the old queers’ home. I don’t want him wasting his best years wiping drool off my chin. I know what that’s like and it ain’t pretty.”
“But it was worth it, wasn’t it?” she asked, knowing the answer. He nodded silently and took her hand. “Don’t you ever wish you had a mate to grow old with, Perry?”
“I’m already old,” he said gently. “We’ve grown old together, you and I, and I expect to spend many more years growing old together. And if, by some chance, you should die before me, and my parts get too feeble for cruising, I’ll gracefully do a Judy Garland with vodka and an amalgam of antidepressants. My young, beautiful Brian will be waiting for me on the other side, as perfect as the day I first took him into my bed.”
“So there’ll be sex in heaven?” she asked dryly.
“Humph,” he laughed. “There better be, or that’d really be hell!”
After their guffaws died down, both friends sat quietly absorbed in their thoughts. Then Jane asked softly, “Do you really think Dana will be okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” he responded e
mphatically. “Oh, Honey, it is so much easier being gay today than when I came out. It’s positively chic! Especially for the lesbians.”
Jane nodded. “I know. But she’s had a tough time with it. I think it’s easier now that everything’s out in the open. We just had no idea how much she was struggling.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he responded knowingly. “But coming out is the hardest part. Just keep loving her and she’ll be alright.”
“We’re all in family therapy,” she revealed. “It seems to be helping. Dennis knew, of course, but we had no idea. I mean, it makes sense now, but I just didn’t see it.”
“Well, it’s not stamped on our foreheads, ya know.” He playfully slapped his head. “How’s Mark taking it?”
“Better now,” she answered, “but not as well initially as I would have expected.”
“It’s tough to absorb,” Perry noted. “‘Not the way you think things’ll turn out with your kids, but he’ll adjust to it.”
“That’s what he says. He says he just needs time and that I expect too much of him.”
“You probably do,” her friend confirmed, to her surprise. “Oh, come on, you know you can be a real hardass sometimes. It’s no wonder your kids call you ‘the Borg Queen.’”
She chafed at the nickname, but knew it was true from overheard conversations. Meanwhile, Perry continued in defense of her husband. “I know Mark. He’s not a ‘God hates fags’ kind of person, just someone whose been sitting on the sidelines because he didn’t think the subject had anything to do with him, present company excepted. Having a gay child is the best cure for apathy.”
“You’re awfully understanding,” she noted.
“Believe me, I’ve seen every reaction to coming out that you can imagine,” he stated with the authority of one who had spent many years in the cultural war trenches. “Remember, I was never brave enough to tell my parents, though I think Mother always knew. I’ve had friends disowned, beaten up, treated like crap by people who supposedly loved them before they came out. It’s a vicious world out there, but it’s getting better. Mark’ll move ahead with the times.”
“I could never understand parents who reject their kids for being gay,” she said. “It seems so counterintuitive to the parental instinct.”
“Some people would rather live in denial than accept that life doesn’t fit into neat little packages,” Perry summarized.
Jane found his choice of words ironic, leading her to reveal Mark’s erasing of his mother’s wartime memory. Perry offered his own clear-eyed analysis. “Funny how some people think if you erase the evidence, you erase the reality. But the truth always comes out to bite you in the ass eventually.”
Jane’s knee jerked reflexively.
The truth.
That’s what had been coming between her and Mark. He kept alluding to it. She kept wanting to deny it. He knew. Somehow all the tension over Dana, his mother, and even Lewis Burns, had brought out long-held resentments over something she never even told her husband. But somehow, he knew.
Perry could see wheels turning in her mind. “What is it?” he asked.
“Something. . . . something Mark keeps alluding to lately.” She paused. “Perry, tell me the truth. Did you ever tell him about . . . about my abortion?”
“Oh, Honey, no! You swore me to secrecy, remember?”
“Well, I know, but—
“I know, I’m a big ole gossip queen,” he admitted, “but you know I don’t spread juicy stuff about people I love. I’ll take that secret to my grave. I can’t believe you actually said it out loud.”
Jane looked away, now doubting her suspicions.
“But . . . I think he found out somehow,” Perry confessed, taking another sip. “He asked me once if I knew anything about you ever having one. It was sometime after the twins were born. I told him, ‘I have no idea and if it mattered, she would have told you herself.’ End of discussion.”
Jane furrowed her brow. So somehow Mark had found out. What else did he know? “He’s also implied he knew about my affair with the student,” she said.
“Oh, everybody knew about that,” Perry laughed. “It was all over campus. That’s why you wanted me to fix it, remember?”
She blanched. “Mark never said anything. He must’ve hated me.”
“Oh please,” Perry replied with a wave of his hand. “That man loved you from the moment he laid eyes on you and he’ll love you until the day he dies.” The first part she knew was true. Not long before their wedding, Bubbe had confided to Jane that Mark had called his parents on the evening of the mixer and told them he had met the one. That knowledge went a long way towards explaining why the Straussmans had been so quick to accept Jane when she and Mark became engaged.
“That’s why I know he’ll adjust to this news about Dana. After all, he got over you being a slut.” Perry smiled as she shot him a joking dirty look. “No, seriously, he didn’t care a fig about your little dalliance. And once I got involved, I took care of everything, remember?”
“You never told me how,” she admitted.
“Mmhhmm.” Perry poured himself another drink, and asked ominously, “Do you really want to know? It’s been over 30 years. Ancient history by now.”
She nodded slowly.
“Well,” he began, “here’s my oral history of the events: you asked me to do something about the rumors, so I started listening in on what was being said and who was saying it. Most of the stories seemed to originate from the druggies, but you know how gossip is, or was, I should say. Nowadays all the good stuff is posted on the ‘Net, there’s no nuance to the good homespun tale.”
He caught himself digressing. “Anyway, you didn’t know then about my clandestine activities, but sometimes through such encounters I had occasion to come across some rather unsavory characters. Guys skulking about in the park at 2 a.m. are either looking for sex or drugs. You gain an understanding of one another. So, anyway, I used these contacts to start a counter-rumor: I spread the word that your young man was an undercover narcotics cop.”
“You didn’t!” she replied.
“Oh, yes I did,” he announced rather gleefully. “I dropped the hint to some of the campus stoners as well. I imagine it cut into his business quite a bit.”
Jane smiled at the thought that the young man could be done in by a rumor.
But Perry wasn’t finished. “Then there was the pièce de résistance.”
She stiffened, unsure now if she really did want to know the truth.
He continued, “After revealing your unfortunate predicament to me, I had to do something more to help out. You were in so much pain. I hated the thought of you running into the bastard on campus. So I determined to get rid of him.”
She lowered her eyes suspiciously.
“No, I didn’t put a hit out on him,” Perry insisted. “I merely did a bit of creative grading. You may not have realized it, but the young man was on academic probation that semester. You also didn’t know that he was in my 315L class. I didn’t know it myself until I looked at the roster. I mean, there were 500 students in that course! His final exam had yet to be graded when I found out about your delicate condition, so I made sure that his test was in the batch I graded myself. Apparently he had done very little work in the class. He needed at least a ‘C’ on the final to pass. I made sure he got a "D,” thus flunking the course.”
“Did he deserve a ‘D’?” she asked, exposing an inflection of guilt.
“I have no idea,” Perry admitted.
“Perry, you know that’s not ethical!” she lectured. “You could’ve been fired!”
The expression on his face was one of resignation. “It’s certainly not the worst sin I’ve committed. At least it was for a good cause. And you know so much of our grading is subjective, it’s easy to justify any mark. I went with a ‘D’ instead of an ‘F’ to make it less obvious. Of course, he didn’t bother to protest. Apparently he flunked another course as well, forcing a year off. B
etween that and his reputation as a narc, I’m sure he had plenty of incentive to leave.”
“You drove that young man out of college because of me!” Jane protested, numb from the revelation put before her.
“Drove ‘im clean outta town, just like the Texas Rangers, yee-haw!” he slurred in an exaggerated cowboy drawl. “Nobody messes with my gal Janey! Besides, you asked me to help you. I helped, and out the door he went like the garbage he was.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asked.
“Oh, you had too much to deal with at the time, and somehow it seemed more chivalrous not to reveal my good deeds.” He smiled proudly, still pleased with himself.
Jane was having a hard time computing the meaning of these new facts. She felt nauseous, excusing herself to go to the ladies’ room, her mind swirling from a mixture of alcohol and revelation. Suddenly, her personal narrative was rewriting itself.
Chapter 28
Rewriting the Narrative
Jane’s story had always portrayed her as the aggrieved party, victim of an oversexed, nameless drug addict who manipulated her, tried to rape her and ruin her reputation, then left her to deal with an unwanted pregnancy alone. But was that the way it had really happened?
In her mental autobiography, the young man never had a name. But, of course, he did have one. Try as she might to forget it, she remembered the name too well: Scott Lamour Jackson. He once told her that his unusual middle name reflected his father’s love of Louis L’Amour novels. Scott often mentioned his parents, always with a respectful tone. Despite his youthful rebellion against their conservative values, it was clear he loved them and wished he could be less of a disappointment to them. Jane could have sympathized with this need and helped the student try to improve himself, but she never wanted to acknowledge that he was someone’s child. She preferred him as a blank slate. His parting shot to her had been true: she never really cared about him, only about his body.
Tenure Track Page 39