It's All Relative

by Wade Rouse

  You could even see Barbie’s barren plastic goody box all the way from the chalkboard.

  My masterpiece was greeted with great fanfare by the friend from whom I had borrowed Barbie. When she saw her beloved doll tortured, dismembered, and hanging from my mailbox, she screamed a scream that still reverberates in my head.

  That prompted our class bully, a kid who simply and scarily used an empty Camel cigarette carton to gather his Valentine’s loot, to free Barbie and then open my mailbox and announce, “What have we here?”

  What he discovered was three valentines that had been given to me by a male classmate with a high-pitched giggle and penchant for dribbling in his Garanimals whenever he got nervous. The “topper” was an exquisite card—a real, adult valentine, not one of those mini, childish cards—that pictured two cupids kissing. In fact, my stalker had even gone to the effort to stencil our names above each cupid’s head.

  My Valentine’s massacre led to a long winter of humiliation, highlighted by the daily ritual of the class bully interlocking the arms of my winter jacket with those of my stalker’s on the coatrack in the back of the classroom, a silhouette that, from a distance, made it look as though we were about to embark on a long, romantic walk together through a snowy forest.

  The next year I decorated my mailbox in a Speed Racer theme, but that didn’t stanch the bloodletting of future Valentine’s massacres.

  In college I remained closeted and tragically drunk, stringing along endless girls, dragging them to Valentine’s dances—them in red formals that longed to be hiked up, and me flirting with death by imbibing a punch bowl full of red Kool-Aid and Everclear.

  As a result, I hid from Valentine’s—from love—throughout my twenties like a turncoat Cupid in holiday Witness Protection.

  And then, at thirty-one, I met Gary.

  And I fell in love.

  Cupid actually should have been fashioned after Gary: a winged man with a big swoop of hair and a tragic weakness for buying anything from Target that was red, dipped in chocolate, or came in the shape of a heart.

  The first Valentine’s after Gary had moved in with me, I walked into my house after work and found it glowing, awash in red, like it was on fire.

  “I did a seasonal switch,” he explained.

  A “seasonal switch,” I came to learn, applied not only to every season but also to every holiday. Thus a seasonal switch included an all-out home overhaul.

  For example, when late September rolled around, fall took full hold, with dinnerware in bright summer colors changed out for a more autumnal palette; mums were installed, pumpkins and gourds were artfully arranged on the front porch, and cotton sheets with beach umbrellas were switched out for flannel featuring oak trees and brightly colored sugar maples.

  A Valentine’s switch-out came complete with heart-shaped candles, red lamp shades and heart night-lights, glasses featuring Sweethearts candy, dish towels decorated with chocolate candies, and pottery that resembled open candy boxes.

  Gary baked heart-shaped cookies, dyeing the dough red with food coloring and then icing them pink. He made red velvet cake. He wore red sweaters and turtlenecks and socks.

  Basically, I was banging Cupid.

  And yet I knew nada about the most romantic of all holidays.

  My Capone-esque massacres of the past made me flinch whenever I thought of Valentine’s, and so as I approached my very first Valentine’s Day in love, I made the tragic error of turning to my married, straight fraternity brothers from college for romantic gift advice.

  “Okay, dude, here’s the inside scoop,” one my best friends, who was recently married, explained to me over beers. “I never buy my wife chocolates, because she will eat them and then accuse me of making her fat. I never buy her perfume, because it won’t be the right scent for winter, or it will conflict with her pheromones, or she’ll be allergic to the floral undertones, or something stupid like that. I never buy her clothes, because I’ll get her an eight, and she’ll be all, ‘What makes you think I wear an eight? Do you think I’m that big? Are you even attracted to me?’

  “So what I always do is take her to her favorite restaurant, and I always give her a sexy gift, like panties or lingerie. In a small. And she loves it. And I love it. It’s a win-win.”

  I left our brotherly beer bash buzzed but emboldened, not realizing that I had just been given quality advice, actually shown something great, yet something that I would completely misinterpret, which I always do, much like when I see a Coen brothers movie.

  I immediately made reservations at Gary’s favorite restaurant in the city, a very romantic spot in a historic brick building that served just a few nightly chef specials. I wrapped Gary’s gift in shiny, expensive paper, topped it with a giant red velvet bow, and dropped it off before our dinner at the restaurant so it could be “specially delivered.”

  I did, however, due to Gary’s love of chocolate, go against my friend’s advice and buy him a two-pound milk-chocolate rabbit in a foil suit and bow tie, sporting a rather mischievous grin, which I hid under the bed as a surprise after we got home and got busy.

  The evening unfolded beautifully. The restaurant was romantic, the food was fabulous, and when the waiter brought over the dessert cart, he had already positioned my gift, as instructed, in the middle of the tarts and brulées.

  Gary gasped.

  “You are soooo romantic!” he gushed. “You are … perfect!”

  “Can I stay and watch?” the cute, gay, very young waiter asked, impressed, wondering, I’m sure, if I might have a clone.

  Or, at the very least, be interested in a three-way.

  I looked around the restaurant. People had stopped eating and were staring, transfixed, women nudging their husbands in that irritated manner that seemed to imply, “Thanks for the wrist corsage, you jackass. Leave it to the gays to always do it right!”

  Everyone was watching, wondering what amazing gift this amazing man had purchased for his sweetheart.

  A ring?

  An island getaway?

  A vacation home?

  Suddenly I felt this overwhelming pressure—like the emergency door on a plane had suddenly been thrown open midflight over the Atlantic.

  Gary furiously untied my bow.

  “The box is sooo beautiful!” he gushed.

  Gary unwrapped the tissue paper—dotted with hearts.

  “It’s so pretty!” he gushed.

  And then he pulled out a three-pack of Hanes underwear.

  Gary stared at me.

  The waiter stared at me.

  And then laughed, thinking it was a joke.

  “Good one,” the waiter said. “Keep looking, sweetie,” he prompted Gary, who began sifting through the box, gingerly at first and then furiously, like a dog in the trash. His actions said it all: There’s got to be something better in here somewhere.

  There wasn’t.

  No matter how hard he searched, Gary didn’t find any bling.

  “Hanes?” Gary finally gasped, fuming, very loudly. “Hanes Her Ways? Are you kidding me? You got me … underwear? From Penney’s?”

  He yanked a sticker off the plastic bag.

  I had forgotten to remove the price tag.

  “They’re boxer briefs,” I purred, trying to sound turned on. “In black. Your favorites. And they’re very sexy.”

  “Hanes ARE NOT SEXY!” he began yelling.

  The entire restaurant was staring, as though we were a strolling mariachi band.

  “What this says to me,” Gary continued, standing up, knocking his chair over, “is that you are the type of man who will buy me a vacuum for Christmas and a robe on my birthday. You are the type of man who will microwave anniversary dinners and buy used cars that smell like other people.”

  “And travel to Mexico in July,” the waiter whispered.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “You are not romantic!” Gary screamed, throwing his pack of underwear into my lap. “No, I take that back! You are n
ot even … human!”

  And then he left.

  To a smattering of applause.

  And I don’t know if I was more humiliated by the fact that everyone in the restaurant knew I had just bought my lover Hanes for Valentine’s, or by the fact that he had summed me up perfectly.

  When I got to the car, Gary was waiting. We drove home, not a single word exchanged.

  When we walked in the front door, our silence was oddly amplified: Our new puppy, Marge—only a few months old—did not charge the front door as usual, barking and whining, to greet us. Instead we found her passed out on the bed, literally in a coma, tinfoil spread all around her on our candy-inspired sheets.

  “Oh, my God! What’s wrong?” Gary said. “She’s dead!”

  “No, she’s breathing!” I screamed. “Are you okay, baby? Margie, wake up.”

  “What did she eat?” Gary said, studying what looked like dried poop all over her mouth.

  Marge had eaten the two-pound chocolate bunny I had hidden for Gary.

  We rushed her to the emergency room at the animal hospital, where we waited an hour to see if our baby was going to survive.

  Finally, the vet emerged. “She’s going to be fine. Give her two or three slices of bread tonight, more tomorrow, and then watch for uncontrollable diarrhea.”

  And then, as if things could not get any bleaker for me on this Valentine’s, the vet went ahead and added, “Marge is a very lucky girl. Just be glad it was cheap chocolate. If she’d eaten two pounds of the good, dark stuff, she’d be dead.”

  On the drive home, Gary, tenderly nuzzling our moaning puppy, finally looked over at me and said: “I guess it pays to be an unromantic cheapskate every now and then.”

  I opened my gifts from him late that night—cologne and clothes and concert tickets—and realized that the importance of Valentine’s Day—any day, mind you—was not only heightened when you were a gay man but also when you realized you were finally, blessedly, in love.

  The next year on Valentine’s, I did two things: I bought a pair of kiddie valentines featuring kissing cupids and sent them to what I believed were the two addresses of my childhood bully and stalker. Inside each card, I wrote: “I hope you’ve found love. I have.”

  And then I surprised Gary with a trip to Puerto Vallarta.

  And he packed his Hanes.

  MARDI GRAS

  Bead Me Up, Scotty!

  “Wade, get your ass out here!”

  I inhaled deeply, peeked out my kitchen window, and saw four of my best friends, all in their thirties, sitting in an SUV, chugging beer.

  It was seven A.M.

  It was a Saturday in February.

  It was Mardi Gras in St. Louis.

  My friend Martin, who was driving, happened to catch a glimpse of my cheekbone through the kitchen shutter and laid on the car horn.

  I flew out the door so the neighbors wouldn’t get pissed.

  “You’re … ready?” Martin said, somewhat in shock when I got in the car.

  I was wearing funky jeans to show off my booty, a new leather coat, and a formfitting black turtleneck. Around my neck was an awe-inspiring array of high-end beads I picked up at a party store, including bejeweled alligators and mini–Mardi Gras masks, beads in blue and green and purple and yellow and silver, finished by a strand of pearlized white Barbara Bush beads that hugged my throat.

  I was not out of the closet yet, but I was coming out in other ways. I had lost weight, I was dressing better. Now I just needed to tell my boys that I liked boys.

  Just not today.

  Mardi Gras was one of my straight-guy rituals, one of the manly-man things I did to fit in with my fraternity brothers, like Super Bowl parties and fantasy football and watching Entourage.

  I hopped into the SUV and looked at my straight friends: They were wearing baggy Levi’s, tennis shoes, ball caps, and college sweatshirts.

  “So … you’re ready?” Martin asked again.

  “Dang right, he’s ready!” Mark yelled from the backseat.

  Mark was already blindingly drunk, sipping Jack straight out of the bottle while gnawing on a bagel he had adorned with a layer of Doritos.

  Mark was one of my insane college friends. Mark was always ready: ready to run naked and scale the goalposts after a college football game; ready to wander into strangers’ parties, crap in their toilet, and not flush.

  But now Mark was older. Mark was an accountant. Mark was married. Mark had kids. Mark and Mardi Gras now seemed a more unlikely combination than Stephen Hawking and Dancing with the Stars.

  “Are we ready to see some jugs?” Mark yelled. “Are we?”

  Mark was ready, it seemed.

  He grabbed my shoulders and began poking his index fingers directly into my temple.

  “And this, right here,” he said, the constant poking and shaking indicating me, “is the man to do that! Who wants a shot?”

  Mark the accountant turned the bottle upside down and screamed, for some reason, “Fight the power! Who’s with me?”

  He handed me his bottle.

  In college, I was a drinker of great notoriety. A twelve-pack served as my happy hour. A case made me forget I was gay. But my mythical drinking did help our fraternity finish its first-ever keg during Greek Chug when two of our chuggers went out early after being disqualified for puking in their cups and trying to continue by chugging their own vomit.

  But it had been years since I pulled sixteen hours of hard drinking.

  “Drink! Drink! Drink!” Mark screamed. “Chug! Chug! Chug!”

  I took a tiny sip, which immediately clashed with my recent coffee and OJ, and asked for a bagel. Mark handed me his.

  It was seven fifteen A.M.

  We headed downtown to St. Louis, blinded by the early-morning sunshine reflecting off the Arch, and parked in a lot miles from the parade, the roads blocked off in every direction.

  Everyone emerged.

  Except for Mark.

  He was immobile.

  “Mark?”

  I nudged the accountant.

  He was passed out.

  Cold.

  We left him in the car, just like we would have in college, with a note in his pocket explaining what had happened and a Bic-pen drawing of a dick going into his open mouth.

  We hopped onto a bus filled with drunks and headed to the parade route.

  The Mardi Gras parade in St. Louis was huge—second only in attendance, I believe, to New Orleans—and it took place in Soulard, the funky French district, akin to New Orleans’s French Quarter, that butted downtown.

  The bus bumped along Soulard’s cobblestone streets, past its restored row houses, alongside its jambalaya of tiny bars and restaurants, the constant, pungent odor of hops from the nearby Anheuser-Busch brewery tingling everyone’s nostrils.

  We were dumped off near the parade route, and my group of drunks fought our way through hordes of other drunks, eventually making our way to the front.

  People were already screaming, “Beads!”

  The overriding goal of any Mardi Gras parade is to accumulate as many cheap plastic beads as possible. Acquiring beads is of the utmost importance for straight men because they can be used later—when women are severely wasted—as bartering chips.

  Beads for boobs.

  Which was not a fair trade whatsoever in my book, kind of like the Indians selling Manhattan for twenty-four dollars’ worth of trinkets.

  And yet I knew that my expensive, store-bought beads provided me with a certain cachet and early advantage over other men—kind of like when an average-looking guy drives a Bentley. People think, “Who is he? How’d he get that? He must be someone very important!”

  My beads served as a diversion. They were my manly fashion facade.

  Which is why the entire duration of the parade, women begged me for my beads. They flashed their chests, they tossed their hair.

  But those were all things I could do—with significantly more flair and drama—so their eff
orts went unrewarded.

  That is until I ran, quite literally, into Big Red.

  While standing in the alley of a bar waiting in line for the Porta Potty after the parade had ended, someone plowed into my back like a semi with failing brakes. I turned to find a very big girl with a crimson mustache. She was chugging a hurricane, which was a highly dangerous act, along the lines of putting out a fire with gasoline.

  “I was here first,” she said, swinging her weight toward me, ready to rumble.

  Her endless supply of hurricanes had turned the rim around her mouth red, like a kid who’d eaten too many cherry Popsicles. And then she stepped back and looked me over hungrily, ogling my crotch. “Oooh! Well, well, well … Bead me up, Scotty!”

  Jesus Christ. It’s not bad enough that she’s a big straight girl who could throw me over her back, carry me away, and then sit on my face while she finishes off a chicken skewer, but she’s also a Trekkie.

  “Good one,” I said as my friends popped into the alley and began to whoop and wail.

  I was getting drunk, but not drunk enough for this.

  “What’ll it take for you to give me those alligator beads?” she slurred, licking her red-stained lips. “How ’bout you be Captain Kirk, and I’ll be your Uhura?”

  I would’ve murdered her on the spot, right then and there, and gotten away with it, too, if I had only known for sure that my case would be heard by an all-gay jury led by foreman Neil Patrick Harris and my verdict rendered by Judge Kathy Griffin.

  Instead I said, “I have to pee … really badly.”

  “Why don’t we do our business together?” she asked.

  Okay, I’m wondering if it’s even possible for her to squeeze her own body into the Porta Potty, pivot and hover, much less for the two of us to “do our business together.” We weren’t circus clowns trying to cram into a VW.

  “Pee-shy,” I said.

  “How cute! Okay, you can go first … if you give me those alligator beads,” she said sexily, dropping her head, her brown hair falling across her face.

  And then she reached down and touched my wiener.

  Which immediately inverted, like a turtle’s head.