by Ros Baxter
Emmy pushed the gelatinous green stuff aside. ‘Screw that,’ she declared. ‘If we’re moving on to Lolly’s story, I’m going to need real calories.’
She pushed her chair back and made for the chocolate. As she got up, she trailed her fingers across Luke’s back and gave his buzz-cut a little ruffle. She even broke a piece of chocolate off for him when she sat back down. A small piece, but it still made me feel warm and safe and like I was exactly where I should be, with the right people, doing the right thing right now. For the first time all day, I felt my shoulders untangle.
Anyway, the chocolate was my cue to share about my day. And, despite the fact that Emmy had already heard it, it felt really good to lay it all out like some insane jigsaw puzzle. For the first time in living memory, no one from my family interrupted for at least twenty minutes. It was like the apartment was a bubble, and we’d been taken out of our lives and histories for a few moments. I talked and talked and talked.
When I finished, everyone was quiet for a moment. I played with a little piece of chocolate wrapper and looked around at the three faces watching me. Luke spoke first. ‘You know what?’ His face was dark and intense. Three curious pairs of eyes swivelled to meet his serious brown ones. ‘I found the third best urinal in the world tonight.’
Luke hiccupped and Emmy was swift to the attack. ‘And that,’ she hissed, ‘is why people don’t invite you over. Because you are a genetically shallow fuck.’
But I was curious. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘How do you know?’
‘Huh?’ Luke tapped his head, like he was willing it to remember something.
‘How do you know it’s the third best urinal?’ I prompted him with my eyes. ‘You know, like... Is it verifiable?’ Place order is one of my favourite mathematical playthings. ‘Where was it?’
Luke’s eyes glazed and he made a thinking noise. ‘Oarrrgghh.’ He tapped his head again and then clicked his fingers. Sort of. ‘Yep. Got it. Over at The Vibe.’
Three pairs of eyes once again turned on Luke.
‘Er, Luke,’ Vera started. ‘Did you mean to say The Vibe?’
Luke nodded, and looked at all of us without blinking. And this time I was sure he was sobering up. And he was still doing this. Still telling us.
‘Luke?’ I looked at him with a question in my eyes. ‘Are you…?’
‘Yep,’ he nodded.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ Emmy breathed. ‘The original GI Joe is queer.’
We all sat still as the cogs of our brains tried to start working again. I’d always assumed Luke never had any girlfriends because he was such a no-fun Freddy.
Finally, Emmy spoke. ‘That is just the best news I have heard all day. Oh, Luke.’ She actually reached over and hugged him. ‘Mom and Dad are going to be so happy.’
‘Yeah’ I agreed, rolling my eyes. ‘Something they can finally be proud of. But, Luke, how long?’
Vera was studying him quietly. ‘Forever, I guess. Want to talk about it?’
Luke nodded. ‘I always knew, I guess. But not, you know. It was only a few years ago that I...’ He suddenly became fixated with a piece of fluff on his trousers, until Emmy clicked her fingers in front of his face. ‘Huh?’
Emmy sighed loudly. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Luke, focus. You. Gayness.’
‘Oh right, yeah.’ Luke looked up and his eyes seemed clearer. ‘Last couple of years I...dated some guys. Hard, of course. You know. “No gays in the military.”’
Emmy made a sputtering noise and spat wine all over the coffee table. Vera handed her a serviette. ‘Go on,’ she said gently to Luke.
‘I was scared,’ he said quietly. ‘And...’ Luke stared up at the ceiling and I thought we’d lost him again. ‘And confused. And relieved. All at the same time.’
Oblivious to Luke’s conflict, Emmy charged right on in. ‘Well, I guess you’ll be leaving the marines then, yeah? They can stick their “don’t ask, don’t tell” crap right up their collective asses. No point staying around offering to give your life for a bunch of assholes who don’t even like what you are, is there?’
But of course, nothing with Luke was that easy.
‘Lolly, Emmy,’ he looked at us with big, brow, red-rimmed eyes, ‘I really don’t know shit.’ He hiccupped and I put a hand on Emmy’s arm to stop her agreeing with him. ‘But over the last couple of years I’ve worked some things out.’ He poked the coffee table viciously with his pointer finger. ‘The main thing...’ He poked again a few times. ‘The main thing... The main thing.’ He hiccupped and shook his head. ‘Where the fuck was I?’
‘The main thing,’ Emmy snapped, looking like she wanted to reach across the table and strangle him.
‘Oh yeah,’ Luke smiled, poking the table again. ‘The main thing is, you have to be true to yourself. To whatever your life means. That’s why I’m here. To tell you. But it doesn’t mean I’m leaving the marines. I’m gay, sure, but I’m also a soldier.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Emmy countered. ‘You’re not a soldier, baby. You’re a soft-ass lawyer. It’s really not that radical, Luke. There are a million gay lawyers in this town.’
‘I am a soldier.’ Luke suddenly looked quite sober. ‘Being a marine is the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s part of my meaning.’
‘Jesus,’ Emmy breathed. ‘I think I liked GI Joe better than Son of Freud.’
‘Emmy,’ I silenced her. ‘Stop it. I actually get it. At least Luke knows what he wants to do. He knows what he’s here for. It’s all a bit wrong, and not going to be easy, but it’s a start. I wish I could work out my meaning. That’s what I was starting on about before, you know, when the buzzer rang.’
Emmy snorted in disgust.
I turned on her. ‘It’s all right for you, Emmy. You’re a superstar. And you’ve always known what you were going to be when you grew up…and who you were. And it was all always going to work for you.’
‘What a load of crap,’ she disagreed. ‘Life isn’t about some divine calling. It’s just about guesswork, and luck. And bullshit. And hoping you get it close enough to right. This is New York, not the Chapter of Revelations.’
Maybe she had a point. My head was spinning and I didn’t know what was right. I turned to Vera. ‘What do you think, Aunty V? What’s it all about?’
‘We-ell,’ she said softly. ‘I think it’s different for everyone. For me it’s about beauty. And pleasure. And not hurting anyone else. And being with people I love.’ Emmy giggled at this and Vera winked and added, ‘Even if I only love them for a little while.’
I huffed. I wished I could go look up a dictionary and find the answers under ‘A’.
Vera patted my hand. ‘Lolly, I’m a simple soul. I always have been. So of course my meaning’s going to be pretty simple. The fact is, you’re the farthest thing from simple God ever created. So it’s going to be harder for you.’ She hesitated a minute, then kept going. ‘You just need to keep feeling your way, exactly like you are. Keep turning from what feels wrong, and turning towards what feels good. Think of it as a game of “colder, warmer”. You know, like you guys used to play when you were kids? You’d say colder if you were far away from the thing you’d hidden, and warmer as you got closer. And boiling hot when you were right there. If you follow that basic principle, you’ll work it out eventually.’
Huh, I liked that.
I liked the idea of slowly working out how I could best use myself to make the world better, through some process of elimination. Some ‘colder, warmer’ of the soul. I felt like Vera was giving me permission not to have a lightning bolt event, telling me what I was supposed to be doing. The whole concept was neat, precise. Methodical. It appealed to the mathematician in me.
But Vera wasn’t finished there. ‘So I guess the first question you need to ask yourself is “what the hell feels so wrong about Wayne?”’
‘Yeah,’ Luke chipped in. ‘And, while we’re at it, what feels so right about Clark?’
Was I mistaken, or was GI Luke suddenly the ga
yest man in the universe? He had actually eaten his portion of chocolate, and started nibbling on Vera’s. And now he was giving me relationship advice. Add him turning up drunk to the whole thing and I hardly recognized my brother.
‘Shut up, Liberace’, I said.
‘No way, Spongina,’ he countered.
Oh, yeah. Now I recognized him. That’s where it all went wrong between us. That’s what Luke had started calling me, way back in Junior High. After the whole Boycott Sanitary Pads thing, and those sea sponges. You know, Spongina. Rhymes with vagina. Kind of.
‘I thought you liked Clark,’ I said tightly. ‘You know, the whole lawyer thing.’
‘Of course I like him,’ he agreed. ‘What’s not to like? But…’
Oh no. I was absolutely not going there. Not tonight.
‘I know,’ I suggested to the assembled crew. ‘Let’s dance.’
I turned pointedly to Luke. ‘C’mon you big queen, here’s one you’d better get used to.’ Like lightning, I was on my feet changing Billie Holliday for the Village People.
Emmy finally shut her troublesome mouth and did the right thing, opening champagne and jumping on the couch singing ‘Go West’ at the top of her lungs.
‘Your dancing better improve too, Luke,’ she added. ‘Or no gay boy is going to touch you with a barge pole. Or even his barge pole.’
And so the night took off. After a while, the bitter bits were forgotten and only the strong, warm sense of being somewhere where you were okay remained. It was so good, in fact, that I stopped watching the time, and was taken completely by surprise when the music suddenly stopped and a sweet, low voice broke through the sudden silence.
‘Feeling better, Lola?’
Humble pie — Our apartment, East Village; the next day
Okay, so I’ll admit I’m not very good at saying sorry. I blame my lineage. I once saw my Mom crash into someone’s car and do such a thorough job of not saying sorry that after about half an hour the poor woman actually apologized herself for all the inconvenience.
Clark had looked so affronted when he walked in — taking in the empty champagne bottles, thumping music and general party detritus. Actually, let’s be honest here, he’d looked hurt, and it made my tummy feel watery. We’d gone to bed pissed at each other. Him for obvious reasons and me because I felt bad and didn’t know how to fix it.
I couldn’t let it go on. I was a sucker for that wounded look in his eyes.
So I did this thing I do in lieu of apologizing. Heidi calls it my ‘acts of contrition’ — she was raised Catholic so she knows all about that stuff. Anyway, while not technically apologizing, I kind of grovel around and be really nice to the other person for a period of time, generally until they start acting like they’ve stopped hating me.
So that’s what I did for most of Saturday with Clark. I made him breakfast and vacuumed the apartment when there still seemed to be some lingering animosity. I even tried to seduce him, but he turned me down. I wasn’t worried, I got it. Clark had never had much of an appetite in that direction. Luckily, he seemed to forgive me after a few hours, because I can’t keep the contrite thing up for very long. And God knows I certainly wasn’t going to do any more housework. I only picked the vacuuming because it was loud and showy, the housework equivalent of special effects.
I knew he would have preferred we ‘talk’ about it, but I also knew I was way too fragile for heavy discussions about his political ambitions, his parents, or even Wayne.
Especially Wayne. There was too much to say and I didn’t know where to start.
Anyway, suffice to say that by the time we headed off to Heidi’s birthday party at seven pm, things were pretty much back on track between us. I made a special effort not to chat to anyone on the subway, even when I saw the old crazy bearded guy with the Ramones t-shirt looking like he’d love a chat.
The train lurched and whirred. ‘So how was it?’
Clark shifted in his seat to look at me. ‘The fundraiser?’
I nodded.
‘I told you,’ he said, eyeballing Mr Ramones like he might make a lunge for us. ‘It went well. We announced. Dad shook a lot of hands, made the party bigwigs really happy.’
I squeezed his hand. ‘I’m glad,’ I said. I exhaled slowly, feeling the weight lift from my shoulders. ‘So, I’m excited about tonight.’
‘Yeah.’ Clark smiled in a way that didn’t quite make it to those nice blue eyes. ‘A dinner party, hey? Pretty grown up.’
‘Yep,’ I confirmed. ‘Eight. Us, them. Sarah and Joe. Maria and Max.’
Heidi’s Party — Heidi and Steve’s apartment, later that night
As Clark and I made our way up to my old apartment for Heidi’s birthday party, I reflected that Heidi and Steve had been an item about as long as Clark and I.
And now, here we are, about to go up and play grown-ups at a dinner party.
Weird how life happens.
We were the last to arrive. Fairy lights were strung everywhere and candles flickered prettily, making the place look kind of starry. Some mouth-watering smells were drifting out from the kitchen. I made a beeline for it and found Heidi and Steve pottering away.
‘Hello, jail-bird,’ Steve said, wrapping me in a huge bear-hug. ‘You okay?’
‘All in one piece,’ I confirmed, hugging him back. ‘But then, I am sleeping with the Public Defender. Who can hurt me?’
Clark wrinkled his nose, and gave me The Look. ‘Hi guys,’ he said.
Heidi came over and gave both of us a hug, accepting a gift-wrapped box from me. She rattled it. ‘Dildo?’
I nodded sagely. I would never be the first to buck our decade-old tradition. ‘Only the very best for you, my dear,’ I confirmed with a very serious look on my face. ‘All kind of gizmos on that baby.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Steve.
‘Shut up, Steve,’ I hissed. ‘You know I hate thinking about you two...y’know...together. Makes me sick. Like thinking about your grandma having sex. In fact, I hope Heidi only uses it with the student volunteers at the shelter. Oops, sorry Heidi. Wasn’t supposed to tell him, huh?’
‘Go away,’ said Steve. ‘Go talk to the real guests. We only invited you because you know the date and would have showed up anyway. Remind me to get the key off her before she leaves tonight, Heidi.’
I smiled and Steve flicked me with a dishtowel as I made my way out.
I was still the unofficial third housemate. Heidi still bitched ceaselessly at — and about — Steve. Steve’s life was marginally less disastrous since Heidi had started to manage key elements of it — finances, laundry — but he still managed to end up in ridiculous scrapes that provide wonderful entertainment. Even getting with Heidi had been a bit of a mess.
Heidi and Steve, as it happened — Our apartment, April, 1998
Just after my first arrest, back in 1998, the weird stuff simmering between them had first boiled over into real intimacy. It happened one night when we’d all been cooking in the apartment, which was pretty much a guarantee of disaster. Heidi had been project managing, with Steve chopping things and me trying to follow the intricate stirring or sautéing or simmering instructions she’d been barking at me. For such a nice person, Heidi has no patience, so I have no idea why she’d decided we should attempt nouvelle cuisine in some bizarre group bonding cook-off.
It had gone something like this.
‘Owww!’ Steve had cut himself. Again. It was the third time in seven minutes, and, while it was annoying me a bit, it was pretty clear that it was making Heidi crazy.
‘What is wrong with you?’ She rounded on him. ‘It’s like you’ve got freaking Parkinson’s disease. You’re 27, Steve, not 87. Reminds me of my grandma. Just chop the carrots. If you cut yourself one more time, you’re not getting any dinner.’
Steve had looked wounded. ‘Heidi,’ he pleaded. ‘Please. I need a Band-Aid. I’ve cut myself really badly this time.’
She picked up the offending finger and inspected it. ‘It
’s a scratch. I can’t even see it. It’s not even bleeding. Now chop.’
‘Er, Heidi,’ I interrupted after a few minutes. ‘I do think he might be bleeding. What’s that red stuff dripping into the potatoes?’
‘What?’ She was distractedly examining her cook book and peered briefly over the top. ‘Where?’ I pointed to the steady drip-drip, spreading into an ever-larger pool in the creamy creation at his left. She exploded. ‘Steve, move your hand! You’re haemorrhaging into the velvet mash!’
Steve lost his patience at this. ‘Well, I am sooo sorry. Pardon me for ruining the mashed potatoes while I bleed to death here.’ He started going red in the face and I could tell he was getting really mad. ‘You are so unsympathetic, you…you…Nazi.’
Heidi looked momentarily stunned. ‘What did you call me?’
Oh no.
Despite the Catholic upbringing, Heidi claimed some Jewish heritage and took her role as a persecuted minority very seriously.
‘I can’t believe you called me a Nazi. Have you got any idea what my family suffered…’ She was off, and I could almost feel Steve’s internal groan echoing my own. Something in his face changed as he scooped up a dishcloth, bound his bloodied hand, grabbed Heidi by the shoulders and kissed her.
Right there. In our kitchen.
It was pretty wild at first. She was still kind of struggling to continue her diatribe behind his mouth, and he was valiantly pinning her back with his good hand and his lovely big lips. But soon she relaxed into it, stopped the muffled squawking and returned the kiss.
I was left, mid-stir, watching this bizarre spectacle.
Actually, it looked pretty good.
I would never have suspected Steve had that sort of kiss in him. They’d been at it for a full five minutes when I finally decided my role as innocent bystander was descending into voyeur, and that some throat-clearing was required.
And as quickly as it had begun, it stopped.
I’m not sure what I expected once the clinch ended, but, released from his vice-like grip, Heidi simply straightened her clothes, disappeared, returned seconds later with a sticking plaster and bandaged the offending hand with a ‘do try to be more careful’ for Steve and a little pat on his hand.