I said softly. “I know it doesn’t look so good, but I’m sure it’s good for you. You need to rally your strength, you know.”
“What for?” Lance said, opening his lips just enough to allow the words to escape. “I’m gonna die anyhow.”
“So die, already!” I shouted, slamming the spoon down onto the tray, causing the food to splatter, leaving a little sprinkling of orang-ish- brownish spots on my father’s hospital gown. “Don’t just lie there, staring out into space, talking through your teeth, throwing people out, and pointedly not eating anything. Die if you’re going to die. I’m sure they could use the room, and besides—I personally can’t wait to do the hokey-pokey on your grave and get on with what is laughingly called my life. So just die, okay?”
I was trembling by the time I’d finished that little tirade. I crossed my arms tightly over my ribs and waited for it to pass. When, to my surprise, Lance opened his mouth wide, eyes closed like a man about to have his gums poked by a particularly clumsy dental hygienist, I scraped up another spoonful of food and carefully introduced it into my father’s gaping mouth. Lance closed his lips around the spoon, frowning at the taste of it. When I had withdrawn the empty spoon, Lance said, “You talk just like your mother. You always did.”
I lifted another spoonful from the tray and said, “I’ll take that as a compliment, thanks. Open.” Lance took another spoonful of the indeterminate mush, then said through barely parted lips, “How is your mother?”
“She’s fine,” I said. I seriously considered adding something about my mother finally finding a man who treated her as she deserved, but let it go for the moment. Among the grab bag of ill feelings I was harboring for my father, I held a special grudge for the sexual infidelities— some surreptitious, others carelessly exposed, some spitefully flaunted—which had driven Clara Rousseau away from her husband after twenty-one years of marriage. Now, nearly fifteen years later, I enjoyed the idea that my father, no longer the handsome bronze charmer, without wife and decidedly without paramour, might finally have lived to regret his past actions.
“She still living with that Jew?” Lance said.
“Yes,” I said with some satisfaction. “She and Daniel are in Paris at the moment. Paris, France,” I added, hoping the thought of the wife he’d so stupidly allowed himself to lose, summering in the city of toujours
l’amour with a red-haired gynecologist seventeen years her junior, might cause my father some small pain. Nothing excruciating; a nice little sting would do. I smiled and said, “She’s very, very happy.” I watched my father’s jaw muscles tighten and knew the sting had stung. I’ve seldom been one for kicking a man when he’s down, but I have to admit I was really enjoying this.
The better part of a minute passed before Lance said, so softly I could just hear it, “I loved that woman.”
I failed to stifle a quick, high, Chihuahua-bark of a laugh. “Well, you always did have the oddest little ways of showing your affection.” I scooped up another spoonful of food, held it toward my father’s face, and said, “More?”
“No,” Lance said through his teeth, his eyes shut tight, as if the food ceased to exist as soon as he couldn’t see it.
A long minute went by. Then two. Lance lay there thinking thoughts I could only have guessed at: the loss of a good wife? the impending loss of life? the blandness of his hospital breakfast? For my own part, I spent the silence thinking about a question, one I’d waited years to ask. Just considering it brought on a case of the trembles so strong I had to lay down the spoon. I took a good, long breath and went ahead. “On the general subject of people you allegedly loved,” I said, crossing my arms again tightly across my front in a self-hug, “do—did you love me?”
“What?” Lance said, his expression unchanged.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, feeling a fool for asking, feeling frustrated for having to ask. “Never mind.”
Lance’s sudden attack of deafness, whether genuine or feigned, gave me the opportunity to backpedal, to approach the love question a bit more slowly and quietly, like a rabbit in your dahlia garden. “You always favored David so much,” I began. “Not that I blame you. What father wouldn’t have? He was everything a father could want in a son. Unlike some of us.” My heart beat like a West Hollywood dance club on a Saturday night, but I forced myself to continue. “And I know I never brought home any basketball trophies, but I did excel in some things— my grades, my clarinet. My singing. But I—” I felt my throat tighten; I swallowed hard. “God, I must sound like Tommy Smothers, here. ‘Dad always liked you best.’ But, see, I never quite felt like you valued the things I did as much as you valued what David did. I so wanted to feel like you were proud of me, too. For the things I accomplished. And that you loved me, too.” I paused a moment, waiting for some reaction from my father: if not some small morsel of belated reassurance, at least some knee-jerk denial of ever having withheld his approval or his love.
There I sat. Open. Vulnerable. Utterly unacknowledged.
Finally, I heard my father take in a breath through slightly parted lips.
“Proud of you,” he said, neither opening his eyes nor turning his face in my direction, his voice a harsh rasp, like steel wool against your skin. The phrase emerged without inflection, not quite a question, not exactly a statement. It occurred to me that my father might be attempting to tell me that he was, in fact, proud of me, and I felt a slight adrenaline kick at the thought.
“You made me sick,” he said, slowly, deliberately, his meaning quite unequivocal, each word hitting me like a roundhouse right to the stomach. “Come sashaying into my house,” he continued, his lips scarcely moving, “talking about ‘I’m gay,’ like you so damn happy you was a faggot. Like I’m supposed to be happy about it. Bringing some little sissified white boyfriend right in my house. Like it wasn’t enough, my son was taking some white man up the butt—I had to meet him, too.” He made a little snorting sound around the plastic nose piece. “Proud of you,” he repeated, then added, “shit.”
I gripped the sides of the stool I sat on, fighting the shakes, blinking rapidly against the tears. I was not going to cry. I refused to give him the satisfaction of making me cry. A minute, maybe ninety seconds, and several long, deep breaths later, the trembling subsided and I decided to trust my voice not to betray my pain. I decided to pass on the opportunity to mention that I was, in fact, quite happy to be gay; to remind him that the young man I so foolishly chose to bring home to meet the folks, was a strapping six-footer and anything but “sissified”; or to volunteer that, notwithstanding my father’s remark about my taking it up the butt, I’m basically a top.
I spoke softly, slowly, as evenly as I could manage.
“Why, you ugly old half-dead piece of an evil muthafucka. I have never in my life asked you to be proud of my gayness. I am neither proud nor ashamed of being gay. Being gay is not in and of itself an accomplishment. However,” and I swallowed around a lump of soreness, “let us forget the subject of pride for just a moment”—I sniffed a wet one—“and get back to this love thing. After all, whatever else I may be,
I am your firstborn son. Your only living son. And I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask, so I’ll ask it again, in case you missed it the first time around. Do you love me”—and I paused for a bit of dramatic effect before adding, “Father?”
Lance made no sound, save for the soft hiss of his slow, even breathing.
I waited.
Then I waited a little longer.
“Dad?” I leaned in toward my father’s ear. “Dad?” Lance’s only reply was his familiar, flutteringly glottal snore—a sound not unlike an old Volkswagen Beetle with serious muffler problems, taking a steep incline—the snore both David and I myself had inherited. While no longer the roar it had been in Lance’s robust youth (when it resembled a Mack truck with no muffler at all), it was still a formidable sound, more than capable of filling a small hospital room.
“Perfect,” I said alo
ud, taking my leave of Lance, the room, the snore.
Nigel looked up from a magazine as I approached. “How’d it go?” he asked.
“Oh, fine,” I said. “I force-fed him three mouthfuls of baby food, then sang him to sleep.”
Nigel’s thick, black eyebrows rose and Nigel followed them up to a standing position. “You sang?”
“No,” I said. “Could we go get some breakfast? I’d absolutely kill for a cheese omelette.”
“How ’bout Anna Lee’s?” Nigel said. I shot him a look—I was in no mood. “For breakfast, Captain,” Nigel said, raising a shielding hand, “for breakfast. Anna Lee can bum her some grits and eggs and she’ll sling it our way free-for-nothin’. Okay?” He smiled that smile.
E. LYNN HARRIS
[1957–]
AMONG THE MOST COMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL BLACK GAY novelists ever, E. Lynn Harris grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the integrationist period of the 1960s. In the midst of social unrest, his mother provided a loving and stable home for Harris and his four sisters.
In 1977, Harris graduated from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with honors, earning the distinction of being the college’s first black male cheerleader. He sold computers for thirteen years before quitting his job to write his first novel, Invisible Life. Failing to find a publisher for this overtly gay-themed work, Harris published the book himself in 1991. Anchor Books eventually “discovered” his novel, which had been sold through African American bookstores and beauty salons. The publication of Anchor’s first trade paperback edition of Invisible Life in 1994 formally launched Harris’s career.
Following the groundbreaking success of his debut novel, Harris continued to explore middle-class, black male homosexuality and bisexuality in the best-selling sequels Just As I Am (1994), And This Too Shall Pass (1996), If This World Were Mine (1997), and Abide with Me (1999). His next novel, Not a Day Goes By (2000), debuted at #2 on the New York Times best-seller list and was the #1 best-selling title in Publishers Weekly for two consecutive weeks. The author’s most recent work, Any Way the Wind Blows (2001), was released to similar acclaim. Harris’s writing also appears in Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America, Go the Way Your Blood Beats, and his gay novella “Money Can’t Buy Me Love” was published in Got to Be Real: Four Original Love Stories. His novels have been nominated for several NACP Image Awards, with If This World Were Mine winning the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence in 1998. Appropriately, Baldwin’s work has been the predominant literary model for Harris, whose career has been largely motivated by his desire to advance the African American gay male canon begun by writers such as Baldwin.
Harris gives voice to closeted and “questioning” African American gay and bisexual men who strive for self-acceptance, despite the social pressures that inhibit their growth. Invisible Life tells the story of Raymond, who, while in a loving relationship with his girlfriend Nicole, has been secretly involved in an affair with Quinn, a closeted husband with two children. Raymond, however, feels the need to settle down—to commit himself to a “twenty-four seven” relationship—and he even considers “giving up” homosexuality for his girlfriend.
from Invisible Life
[1991]
It’s interesting what roses do to women. I sent Nicole one hundred red roses the following day with a card saying a rose for each day she had made me smile inside. My being a jerk for the last couple of days was quickly forgiven. I debated all morning on what to say to Quinn about us cooling our relationship. As I came closer to making a decision about giving up the life for good, I wondered if it was at all possible. Maybe being gay was like being an alcoholic. That with willpower and a little counseling you could just stop, that you would still be gay but just choose not to practice. Nicole and her strong religious beliefs came to mind. Did prayer change things? Whenever I was worried about something, she would simply say, “Let go, let God.”
I sometimes prayed for a pill I could take to destroy my homosexual feelings. I would have taken it in a heartbeat. When I went to church with Nicole, I listened intently for answers to my questions. I wondered what you had to feel in order to be saved. Were you saved from everything?
I joined church and was baptized when I was twelve years old. It was not because I felt anything different, but because it was time. Like going to junior high when you finished the sixth grade. I accepted Christ during Vacation Bible School, partly because all my friends did. I remembered how proud my mom and pops had been the day I was baptized. I wondered why Christians just couldn’t understand that Christ sent about ten percent of us down the chute just to confuse things. Maybe He had a plan yet to be revealed. That maybe we were the chosen ones. With Nicole I learned how to let go with my faith, no longer being intellectual about religion. I believed that Christ loved me no matter what. That there were no degrees of sin and I would be judged according to my heart.
The things that I would miss about the gay lifestyle were few. If I were going to give it up, the thing that I treasured the most about being gay was still intact, my friendship with Kyle. My sensibilities as a man who respected women and my ability to feel and be sensitive were characteristics I attributed to my gayness. I wouldn’t miss the bars or the viciousness of the kids.
I understood that being vicious was just another defense. It was no accident that the most obviously gay men were the ones most vicious and with the quickest wit. Many times I felt sorry for those who couldn’t pass. The majority didn’t seemed to mind a bit. Many lived with the additional stigma the bulk of their life. They would read you before you got a chance to comment on their appearance. It didn’t matter if you were gay or straight. Nothing and no one were spared their tart tongues.
Grady buzzed to tell me that Quinn and two little ones were waiting for me in the lobby. Little ones, I thought, what can Grady be talking about? When I arrived in the lobby, there stood Quinn with his two children, Baldwin and Maya. Quinn was holding Maya in his arms and Baldwin was standing and holding Quinn’s legs. This was the first time that I had come in contact with any other part of Quinn’s life.
“I’m sorry. I have to drop them off at my sister-in-law’s up in Harlem,” Quinn explained.
“No problem. This must be Baldwin,” I said, reaching for Quinn’s son. “And Maya. What a beautiful little lady.”
They were both beautiful. It looked as though Quinn had spit them out. There was no denying that these were his children.
“Say hello to Uncle Ray,” Quinn chided the two little ones.
As the two gave me shy greetings, I looked at Quinn with a double look…Uncle Ray. What was that about? As we rode uptown, I felt like an interloper in Quinn’s world. He was quite the doting father, talking with Maya and Baldwin as though I weren’t there. A part of me respected that and another side of me begrudged him. After dropping Baldwin and Maya off, we drove to the Tower Video store, where we picked up a couple of videos, and stopped to grab a bite to eat at the Saloon. When we had finished eating, I stood at the cashier’s stand while Quinn paid the check. On the way out I heard someone call out my name. When I turned, I saw it was Basil. He was on his way into the restaurant with an attractive blue-eyed blonde who looked like a Playboy centerfold. We exchanged hellos and I introduced the two of them to Quinn. Quinn was polite but reserved. After a few minutes of nervous conversation, I told Basil it was good seeing him and nice meeting his lady friend, Elesa. As we were leaving, Basil said, “I’m still waiting on that call, Mr. Tyler.” “Yeah, real soon, Basil,” I replied.
As we walked toward the car, Quinn asked in an annoyed tone, “What was that about?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Ray. I didn’t know you knew Basil Henderson.”
“Well, I really don’t. I told you he was Kyle’s friend.”
“Well, he seemed to know you pretty well.”
“We did have drinks once.”
“Is that all…and why didn’t you mention it to me?”
>
“Quinn, come on now. It was just drinks. Besides, I do have a life the rest of the week.”
“Point well taken, Mr. Tyler,” Quinn said in a huff.
Quinn didn’t utter a word as we drove up Columbus Avenue and back to my apartment. I had never seen him behave like this. Was he jealous? The thought made me smile. When we reached my apartment, Quinn went directly into my bedroom. I grabbed a couple of beers and walked into the bedroom, where Quinn undressed in silence.
“Quinn, we need to talk,” I said.
“About what?”
“About this relationship,” I responded.
“What, Raymond, are you seeing someone?” Quinn asked.
“You know I’ve been going out with Nicole. It’s getting serious.”
“And?”
“Well, I’m thinking about telling her the truth. I’m trying to go back to the other side exclusively.”
“Are you crazy?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Why bring that grief on yourself? Are you trying to give me an ultimatum?”
“An ultimatum?”
“Well, I know you haven’t been happy with our situation lately. But you know how I feel about you, Ray.”
“No, I don’t know, Quinn. Just look at you. We don’t talk at all and you come in here and undress. It’s like saying, ‘Okay, let’s fuck, so I can get home to my wife and kids.’ How do you think that makes me feel?” “Raymond, it’s not like that. It’s just that I thought this was what you wanted.”
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