by Ivan Coyote
I never understood this, but it is the way things are. The only homo on the block has to be careful when befriending the kids. Which is kinda sad, when you consider how much some of these kids could use a friend.
“Let me have a chance to meet your mom first, Mouse, and we’ll see.”
All day yesterday the kids were busy furiously constructing a fort in the bushes alongside the little river behind my building. When I loaded my bags and the dogs into the car to head into the city, they popped their heads out of the blackberry bushes to inform me that if I could guess the password, they would open the trap door and show me their fort.
“Open sesame?” I guessed, feeling old and kind of un-cool even as the words left my mouth.
“Ppfhhh.” The nine-year-old who is the older brother of Brendan snorted and scoffed at me. “Open sesame. How gay. It’s Yo Mama, dumbhead.”
Kristy stood up for me first. “Don’t call her that. She’s cool. She lives in my building.”
Schooled
Yesterday I spent the day in a high school in Burnaby, telling stories to the grade tens. I was surprised how nervous I was. I tell stories all over the place, often to people who in real life are much more intimidating than a couple hundred fifteen-year-old strangers should be, but right from the time the alarm went off it was there, the big ball of nervous. It hung there in my gut, between my ribs and my belly, all waxy and electric.
The face in the mirror looked pale and rumpled. “That’s just perfect,” I told my reflection. “A zit. Right in the middle of your chin. On the first day of school.”
It’s something about the hallways that does it to me, the way sounds are amplified by the polished tiles and painted lockers, all sharp edges and canned echoes. Just the sound of a high school makes me fifteen again.
It didn’t help much that all five of us poets and storytellers had to wait in the office for the English teacher to come and escort us to the auditorium. Lined up with our asses slouched in the plastic chairs outside the principal’s office, in between the photocopier and the water cooler, the rest of them joked and told anecdotes. I was the quiet one for once, trying to breathe around the inflatable lump in my throat and wondering why my toes were sweating so profusely.
The teacher that had organized the reading was cool; the kind of teacher who would think that poetry in high school was a good thing. Her classroom was the one with the beaded curtain, and the kids who were wrestling or kicking each other in the ass in the hallways didn’t straighten up or act like pretend angels when she came around the corner. She explained to us over her shoulder as we walked that the crowd for the lunch-hour show might be a little smaller than they had expected, because today the student council was auctioning off elves in the gymnasium, plus a representative from the community college was answering questions and handing out pamphlets outside the library. We had competition, she told us, but assured us we would have a good house for the afternoon sessions, when attendance was mandatory.
She took us into a place she called the dance room, which meant it looked like a small gym with mirrors lining the walls. She apologized for the fact that we were required to remove our shoes, because they marked up the floor. For some reason this made me uncomfortable. I was about to tell queer stories to a bunch of teenagers, and I wanted my shoes. My sock feet left little sweaty tracks behind if I stood in one place for too long. Two of the other poets were wearing odd socks, and this made me blush. We were here to prove that being a spoken word performer was a viable career option, and I felt that not owning a pair of socks that matched might undermine our position. Then I reminded myself that they had both just come off of a long tour, and I should be glad they were wearing any socks at all. The kids all had to take their shoes off too, which they did in an orderly fashion as they filed into the room. Quite a few of them had on odd socks as well. I changed my position on the matter immediately, thinking maybe it would be something we could bond with them over. Odd socks didn’t mean you were poor. Odd socks meant you were a non-conformist.
It turned out that the kids were great. They listened and laughed in all the right places, and asked really smart questions. One kid asked us what the meaning of life was, saying that he had read somewhere that if you asked enough people, one of them might just have an answer. Then he asked me what my favourite Led Zeppelin album was. I told him Led Zeppelin IV, and he nodded, like I had passed his invisible test.
Somewhere between classes I relaxed a bit and started to have fun. Sure, there was a couple of kids slouched along one side of the classroom at the back of the room who already could grow sideburns and snickered and rolled their eyes the whole time, but for the most part they were interested, and engaged. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t there to change the mind of the beefy guy in the back with the almost full goatee. I was there for the kid I couldn’t see yet, the kid who was seeing me for the first time. The kid who walked the edges of the hallways, one hand trailing the lockers and the walls, hoping they won’t be waiting for him at the bus stop today. The kid who hides his Muscle and Fitness magazines behind a ceiling tile in his closet, when his brothers can read them openly because they are not like him. For the girl who doesn’t know yet but her parents do. That was who I was there for.
The cool teacher escorted us through the woodworking shop in between classes to a patchy corner of lawn you couldn’t see from any windows in the school, so we could have a smoke. The shop was almost empty, because the bell hadn’t rung yet. There was a skinny boy with glasses screwing two bits of wood together with a cordless drill. He nodded at the cool teacher as we shuffled past.
“Hello Vanessa,” the cool teacher nodded back at the kid, and I did a double take. The teacher winked at me, and I smiled. All day, I had been searching for signs that things were different than they were when I was in school, that things were getting easier for queer kids, that we really had come a long way, baby. I had overlooked the most obvious sign. Of course things were changing. I was here, wasn’t I?
Home Sweat Home
Not one of my friends even feigned surprise when I announced I was moving back to Vancouver. Turns out they had a pool going: the piano player reckoned I would last until February, whereas the hockey player had her money on November. Some figured I would want to come back by Christmas, but pride and belligerence would force me to hold out until spring. When I found out my friends were placing bets on my return, I was tempted to stick it out, just to save a little face, but soon came to my senses. Having to be right was a terrible reason not to correct the wrong that was me living in Squamish. Maybe I had matured.
What was the final straw? Was it when the leaves all fell, revealing a summer’s worth of McDonald’s detritus strewn in a soggy donut around the park where I walked the dogs? Was it when the cute rock-climber girls all went back to school and the rednecks didn’t? Was it the gang of teenage boys that followed me home from the store that night, swilling something stolen from the parents’ liquor cabinet out of a two-litre Coke bottle, too close and too loud to be just being friendly?
It was two Friday nights ago, when the guy who lives right below me, whom I affectionately call the Missing Link, stopped me in the hall on my way up from the laundry room. He had a three-quarters-empty case of beer under one arm and was only looking out of one eye at a time, rattling his key ring around in one hand in the hopes of finding one that would work in his front door.
“Dude,” he said, “I gotta tell you, man, I thought you were a fucking faggot until I met your girlfriend. She’s hot.”
“Thank you,” I said, mostly because I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to a comment like that, and I was pretty sure he thought he was complimenting me. Anything else would have been, well, un-neighbourly, not to mention dangerous. I no longer risk angering men whose biceps are bigger around than my thighs.
I locked my door behind me and leaned up against it. There was no more pretending. I wanted to go home. I missed East Vancouver. Not only was I growing tired
of looking over my shoulder, my wardrobe habits were already starting to slide. It was starting to be okay to go to the video store with my boots untied. I knew what happened next, the evidence was all around me. I had to get out of Squamish before track pants became acceptable evening wear, or I got gay-bashed. I knew both were just a matter of time.
Me and my sweetheart began the process of searching for dog-friendly housing in Vancouver again. She had just been given the word that her landlord planned to renovate the entire house in April, and they were all going to have to move.
It seemed impossible, but the rents had gone up even in the five months I had been living in Squamish. It appears the yuppies have been buying up character houses in my beloved neighbourhood faster than you can say half a million dollars, renovating the basement, renaming it a garden suite, and getting the tenants to pay the better part of their mortgage payment for them. Some call this a good investment. I call it a crime. Wait until the yuppies find out that the artists and working people are being priced out of East Vancouver, and that all that “character” they moved to our neighbourhood for has had to relocate, in search of affordable housing. One day they will wake up and head to the coffee shop, to find only investment bankers and corporate lawyers to talk to. We gave them Kitsilano after the seventies were over, and just look what they did with it. Who will they rent out their garden suites to when that happens? All that beige paint and laminate flooring will have been for nothing.
Last year, after my house burned down – which prompted my move to Squamish – the last thing I wanted was another absentee landlord who didn’t care about his house. Now all I wanted was an absentee landlord who didn’t care about his house. A home where I was allowed to have dogs, cook meat, paint colours on the walls, and be a writer.
It wasn’t on craigslist, and it wasn’t in the papers. We found it the old-fashioned way, walking up and down the streets we liked and looking for For Rent signs. It didn’t look like much from the outside, and the inside wasn’t much better, at least at first glance. We had to squint, and imagine what a little paint could do, and how there were probably wood floors underneath the tattered carpet. Two bedrooms, the whole attic, and a sunroom off the back where I could write. I liked the landlord right off the bat; how he shrugged about the dogs and told my girlfriend how good-looking she was, like a movie star. How he winked at me, how one of the lenses of his glasses had fallen out and he had glued it back in with what looked like tub and tile caulking.
He showed us pictures of his kids, and bragged about how they all went to university, and gave us a card to get twenty-five percent off of dental work at his son’s practice in the West End. We filled out a lease that read NO DRUNKARDS PLEASE across the top, and then he insisted we drink some of his neighbour’s U-brew wine with him. He wouldn’t stop talking, and I couldn’t stop smiling.
“You girls can fix it up nice, just like the two ladies on the main floor did. You will like them, same lifestyle as you.” He winked again. “I don’t bother you, you don’t bother me, I don’t raise the rent, and we are all lucky.”
The Curse?
I called my cousin up the other day, and partway through our usual gab he informed me that Layla, his stepdaughter, had some very exciting news.
“Can I tell Ivan, or do you want to tell her yourself?” he asked her from his end of the living room couch.
I heard her almost teenage voice in the background, saying it was fine; he could go ahead and tell me.
“Layla got her period this morning.” He sounded proud, like she had won the science fair, or got straight As, something along those lines.
I was unsure how I should respond, but they both sounded happy on their end of the phone, so I asked to speak to Layla directly.
“Congratulations,” I told her. “It sounds like some sort of a celebration is in order. You have anything in mind?”
I couldn’t help but think back to my big day. My mom was out of town at the time, and when I called my Dad upstairs to ask him what I should do, he panicked on the other side of the bathroom door, emptied out my mom’s drawer in the other bathroom, whacked his toe on a doorjamb, swore profusely, and then tossed me a box of anal supposi-tories, mistaking them, I believe, for some sort of feminine hygiene product. Neither of us were proud of me, and we never mentioned the subject again.
“Can you take me to see The Corpse Bride?” Layla asked me. “And can we have popcorn?”
“That is an excellent plan,” I told her. “I’ll pick you up at 6:30. It’s a date.”
On my way over, I pondered whether or not I should discuss the merits of menstruation with my young friend. It was obvious that this was a brave new world, and that Layla was being brought up to believe that her period was not a dirty female secret like it was when I was twelve years old, and this was a good thing. But I wondered if it would be strange for her to chat about it all with her butch relatives, or if my silence on the matter would be noted.
“So, you got your period, huh?” I asked her as she did up her seatbelt.
She nodded casually.
“Cool,” I said, feeling like a gigantic dork. “Way to go.”
And that was the end of that.
A couple of days later, I got mine. I plodded through the slush on the sidewalks to the corner store for a box of tampons. I went up both aisles twice, and couldn’t find them.
Finally the guy behind the counter asked me if I needed any help finding something.
Normally, I would just shake my head and grab a can of soup, so I didn’t have to say the word tampon to the guy behind the counter at the corner store, but this was a brave new world. I needed to get with the times, and cast off my shame and embarrassment, for the sake of young girls everywhere.
“Uh, yeah, I’m looking for tampons,” I said.
“For what?” There were two other guys waiting to buy their cigarettes, and they both looked at me.
“Tampons.”
He shook his head again, and cupped one hand around his ear, signaling that he couldn’t hear me, I needed to speak up. I considered my options. I could scream out in a crowded corner store that I needed a box of tampons, or I could run for the door.
I chose the door.
The next corner store had an ample supply, and I let out a huge breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding in. I took the box up to the counter along with a couple of other items I didn’t really need, for cover.
I don’t know why I am uncomfortable saying the word tampon out loud, or acknowledging the fact that I, like almost all estrogen-based organisms my age, get my period. Maybe it is residual Catholicism; maybe it is because most corner store guys think I am a young man on a supply run for his girlfriend or mother. Or maybe I just don’t like to talk tampons with strangers.
“What brand is the best?” The guy behind this counter held up my tampons for the entire world to take notice of.
“I beg your pardon?” I was hoping I hadn’t heard him properly, that this was not happening to me.
“There are so many brands to choose from, and different sizes, too. I never know what I should order, so I ask my lady customers, which one is the best?”
There was another guy behind me in line now, holding a box of Kraft dinner and a loaf of white bread. He raised an eyebrow.
I felt a sudden rivulet of sweat in my armpits. Running for yet another door at this juncture would send the message that tampons are, indeed, a shameful topic. This thoughtful merchant had come to me for help in serving the needs of women throughout the entire neighbourhood, and it would behoove me to behave accordingly.
I took a deep breath and spoke in a calm, confident tone. “Well, I would say that it is definitely a matter of personal choice, similar to choosing the right condom for the job. A variety of sizes would obviously be a good thing, as there are many sizes of ... vaginas out there.”
He nodded and leaned forward, interested.
“And as for brand, I always prefer the ones without an appl
icator for, you know, environmental reasons, but again, I can only speak for my own ... I can only speak for myself. I guess as wide a variety as you can carry would be my answer.”
He thanked me and rang in my purchases. “Will you be needing a bag today?”
I nodded, and stuffed my tampons in, out of sight for the walk home. “You gonna watch the hockey game tonight?”
He shook his head. “I don’t follow the hockey. Myself, I like cricket.”
I shrugged. The guy behind me shook his head and stepped up to the counter as I headed for the door.
“Cricket, hey?” He was still shaking his head. “Well, each to their own.”
To Whom It May Concern:
I don’t want to sound like someone’s grandmother or anything here, but really, would it be so hard to pick up a phone and call? You don’t even have to call me, just call anyone, your brother, your dad, any of us, just to let us know that you are alive. We all talk, you see, hoping that one of us has seen you, or heard word, or even heard a rumour.
I’m not even the worrying kind, you know me, I get really busy too and forget to keep in touch and miss my cousin’s birthday or whatever, just like everyone else, and I’m definitely not usually the type to get on anyone’s case for stuff like this. It’s just that the last time I saw you, you had lost about thirty-five pounds and the crystal meth was starting to turn your back teeth black, and the newspapers and the streets are full of stories about irreversible brain damage and psych wards brimming with lost souls stricken by this addiction, and, well, I worry. It’s not like you’re backpacking in Europe and just forgot to send a postcard. I don’t care about broken promises or the money you owe anyone. I do care that your brother and your dad spent another Christmas wondering where you were, and that they are running out of reasons you haven’t seen your niece and nephew. I can’t help but care about that, but even that I would let slide.