by Greg Johnson
It was 1983, Reagan was president, and Thom was cruising through his sophomore year at Mercer. Unlike his first year, when homesickness had prompted trips to Atlanta every weekend, by then he stayed in Macon for weeks at a time, studying or hanging out with his straight roommates. A couple of times that fall, he’d gone out with a girl from his accounting class named Lisa who seemed neither surprised nor offended that he didn’t try anything before taking her home. Thom had known he was gay at least since eighth grade, but no one else knew—not even Abby—and that was fine with him. Even telling Abby would be a mistake, he’d decided, since the recent firestorm of publicity about AIDS. Thom knew he couldn’t talk about that: he couldn’t have found the words, not then, to say he’d done nothing to put himself “at risk,” so naturally she would worry.
And she would worry alone, with no one to talk to, and he knew what that was like.
So the night in mid-October when his sister called and asked him to come home for the weekend, to help celebrate her friend Chrissie’s birthday with Chrissie and her new boyfriend, he couldn’t disappoint her. He’d heard an unaccustomed note of pleading in her voice. During high school, she’d dated regularly; for more than a year, a period encompassing her senior prom and her first few months as a college freshman, she’d even had a steady boyfriend, a handsome but clunky boy named Justin who had attended the same Catholic schools with Thom and Abby since first grade. Thom guessed he was a boyfriend of convenience, and he hadn’t been surprised when they broke up during Abby’s first semester at Emory. Since then, the number of her dates seemed to have tapered off, which Thom attributed to her involvement with her studies—she was a wildly enthusiastic English major—and with new friends she’d made at school. At the same time, she seemed to have difficulty letting Thom establish his own life: she couldn’t quite let him go. All this went unspoken but he’d felt it in the urgency of her voice as she described all the fun they would have with Chrissie and her boyfriend, someone named “Jim” whom Thom had never met, and in the obvious relief she’d expressed when he agreed to come.
“Oh great, Thom. That’s just great!” she cried.
He’d stood in the little hallway of the tumbledown frame house he shared with Derek and Shane, shifting his weight back and forth, hunched over the old-fashioned telephone stand they all used, since there were no phone connections in any of the three tiny bedrooms. While using this hall telephone he tended to whisper, even when Derek and Shane weren’t home. That night they’d gone out for a pizza, but still Thom glanced over his shoulder, made uneasy by his sister’s voice but not understanding why.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” he said, awkwardly. “Great.”
When they hung up, he pulled a folded-over scrap of paper from his wallet and dialed Lisa’s number and broke the date he’d made with her for Saturday night. He explained the situation, and she didn’t seem upset.
“OK, Thom, you have a good weekend,” she said. “Call me next week, if you want.”
“Sure, I will,” Thom said, feeling his own warm breath against the receiver. “Monday or Tuesday, all right? I’ll call you then.”
(But after he’d recuperated and returned to campus, he would drop his accounting class, though he was making an A, and would never see or speak with Lisa Spradlin again.)
Driving home that Friday morning in his ancient black Firebird, he’d felt enlivened by the brisk autumn weather. Fall had been his favorite season, always; he loved the blazing reds and oranges of the huge trees in the neighborhood where he’d grown up, and he associated the brisk gray weather with the energy and excitement he felt when returning to school after the heat-heavy doldrums of summer. He’d been one of the few kids he’d ever known who preferred the regimented life of school to the formless, ever-shifting summertime intrigues among the neighborhood kids—a sentiment that even Abby, herself an excellent student, had never quite understood.
In high school, among the black-veiled nuns and the half-dozen, equally strict lay teachers, as they were called, Thom had been one of the popular boys, liked by everyone for his energy and high spirits, his ability to be “good” without being nerdy or antisocial. Though he hadn’t played sports, he’d been elected president of his junior class, vice-president of the student council all three years, and had belonged to the drama club, the French club, the Honor Society. St. Jude’s was the city’s most “elite” Catholic school, and the year Thom graduated, there had been only thirty students in the senior class. During his time there, he’d dated virtually every pretty girl in the school at least once (but no one girl for more than a month or two), and even one of the homely girls, occasionally, if he found her interesting, or when the stifling conformity of St. Jude’s, an excellent but not very progressive school, made him feel rebellious. Popular, “cute” boys did not go out with despised, “ugly” girls, but sometimes Thom Sadler did, and he enjoyed those evenings more than the obligatory movies and proms with bouncy cheerleader types people expected him to date.
One obese and pimply girl named Janie Pridgen, in particular, had a wicked, hilarious wit that she revealed only when they were alone, never at school. During his first year at college, feeling bored and acutely lonesome, he’d been tempted to call Janie in Atlanta, just to talk, to hear her dishy gossip about the current goings-on at St. Jude’s, and yet he wanted the kind of long, giggly conversation you had lying in bed, propped against several pillows with the phone cradled between ear and shoulder, not standing in a drafty hallway where your roommates might overhear. Anyway, he reasoned, high school was over, and he couldn’t go back; he was too sensible not to accept this dismal fact.
His freshman year at college had been the loneliest of his life. No one on the Mercer campus knew Thom Sadler or seemed interested in knowing him. He’d gone through rush, attending one party after another, but he’d been turned off by the fraternities and their boisterous, self-conscious bonhomie, their jeering scorn of professors and classes, their immersion in alcohol. His being gay, in fact, was the least of it; those yearnings he was accustomed to suppressing, and pondering in solitude. But he’d had little in common with the other students he met, including his roommates (Derek and Shane were best friends, leaving him the odd man out), and it was only this year he’d begun to feel a sort of pleasure in his isolation, the promise and excitement of a new start. He’d always had the ability to sit back, like someone viewing a movie of his own life, and watch eagerly for what might happen.
He’d begun looking around inquisitively at other guys in his classes. He found it exciting rather than frustrating that he couldn’t guess which of them might be gay (except for the flamboyant ones, who didn’t interest him) and when he came across arch references to “gaydar” in a magazine he’d started buying, The Advocate, hoarding copies in an old canvas bag stowed in the trunk of his car, he smiled but didn’t quite understand. Operating much of the time on automatic pilot, Thom still noticed girls—their smiles, their shining hair, their plain or pretty features—as though imagining he might wake one morning and find that all his emotional longings toward men had only been a phase, after all. The distinction between what he felt and what he’d been taught to feel seemed graspable but now wavered in his vision, as a solid object submerged in water will start to ripple and change its shape, confusing the eye. In someone less patient or thoughtful, such confusion might have led to experimentation, the full-scale sexual abandon about which he read and sometimes heard whispered about among his new acquaintances at Mercer; but instead Thom stayed idle, in a kind of bewildered chastity that he found not only bearable but pleasant, since it demanded so little of him.
That October day when he turned onto Friar Tuck Road and saw his father out front raking leaves, he was pleased and relieved, the same emotion he felt when he called home and his father, rather than his mother, answered the phone. Sometimes when Thom arrived for a weekend visit, his mother glimpsed his car from the kitchen window and came running out, already complaining how sel
dom he visited or called.
His father propped his rake against the side of the house and shook Thorn’s hand. Southern propriety demanded that father and son shake hands rather than hug, which was fine with Thom. His mother’s histrionic greetings usually embarrassed him.
“How was the drive?”
“Fine. I love this weather.”
“School going OK?”
“Not too bad. Haven’t flunked out yet.”
“You doing all right for money? If not, just let me know.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’m fine.”
They had essentially the same conversation each time Thom came home, speaking in a familiar, slow-paced rhythm he found soothing: it was this rhythm, along with the smiles and crinkled, friendly glances they exchanged, that mattered, not the forgettable words they spoke.
Thom and his father went inside. His mother, bearing a small stack of towels out of the laundry room, gave a small cry of surprise, dropped the towels, rushed over to hug him.
“Abby said you were coming, but I didn’t think you’d get here this early! Come sit down and I’ll fix you some lunch—you must be starving.” She stepped back, looking him up and down. “Honey, you’ve gotten thinner since the last time. Aren’t you eating right?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I ate just before I left.”
He and Lucille likewise conducted the same conversation when he came home, but with her the exchanges were not soothing.
He crossed to where she had dropped the towels and bent to retrieve them.
“Never mind that!” Lucille cried. She hurried over, wrested the towels from his arms. “Come sit down, honey. Is tuna salad all right? I just finished making it.”
Thom stared after her, balefully, as she carried the towels back toward the kitchen, accompanied by the brisk slapping noise of her fluffy pink flip-flops. His mother dressed casually at home—an ordinary cotton house dress with deep pockets in the skirt where she kept wadded-up Kleenexes and the TV remote control; flesh-colored panty hose; and always a pair of flip-flops in her favored colors of red, pink, or white, supplemented in cold weather with a pair of thick white socks. Yet her wispy reddish hair was always carefully done (that year in a short, teased style similar to Nancy Reagan’s), her lipstick and mascara freshly applied, and for years her routine had included a manicure once a week, a pedicure once a month. Although she mostly stayed home, with only a few minutes’ notice Lucille Sadler could change her clothes and be instantly presentable as a reasonably attractive Atlanta matron. She kept the house (working especially hard when her twice-a-week maid, Latonya, was there), read magazines, watched television, took care of her husband, and monitored as closely as possible the lives of her adult children.
His mother had passed out of view, but her voice was clearly audible: “Thom, are you coming? Do you want milk or sweet tea?”
Thom and his father exchanged a smile, and to Thorn’s surprise his father touched his shoulder. “Abby’s in her room, working on a paper. Why don’t you go back and say hello?”
“What about—”
“I’ll take care of things in the kitchen. As long as somebody’s eating, she’ll be happy.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” Thom said.
Before turning away, George Sadler paused in surprise. Usually, Thom called him “Dad.” For some reason the “Daddy” had slipped out.
When Abby opened her door in response to Thorn’s knock, she gave out a brief cry of pleasure and hugged him.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he said.
He stepped back, taking in her pastel-blue angora sweater and beige wool slacks; she wore pink lipstick and had done something to heighten her pallid complexion, which seemed to glow with health. Her wavy auburn hair fell freely to her shoulders, the style she’d worn throughout her high school years. Though less outgoing than Thom, she’d been equally popular, known as a girl who “got along with everybody.” She was pretty, but not pretty enough to inspire jealousy from the cheerleaders or prom queens; she was intelligent, but didn’t retreat into the snobbery affected by the plain, insecure girls who joined the math or chess clubs and spent their free time talking earnestly with teachers instead of their peers. Thom most admired Abby for treating all the other kids at St. Jude’s with a cheerful friendliness, which contained a reserve that Thom could see but others could not. She gave the same eager smile and bright greeting to the school pariahs as she gave to the adored football players and social arbiters at St. Jude’s. She had many girlfriends, but no best friend; many dates, but rarely a steady boyfriend. Only in the last year had Thom worried that she’d begun to isolate herself; that she’d had far more trouble than Thom in adjusting to college life.
Yet today she looked radiant.
Cocking her head to one side in a mock-critical look, she said, “So, I hope you brought some other clothes? It turns out Chrissie’s having this big party at Ginger’s house, and you’re going to be my date.” She added, quickly, “We don’t have to stay long…”
She must have glimpsed the disappointment in his eyes; he didn’t feel like a big, boisterous party. He glanced down at his stained sweatshirt and corrupt blue jeans. “I didn’t bring anything fancy,” he said. “I guess I could run over to Rich’s, get a shirt or something…”
Abby leapt forward and hugged him again. “Don’t bother,” she said. “You look fine the way you are. I’ll tell everybody you’re in a Jack Kerouac phase—that you’ve been on the road for three weeks, stopping every few hours to jot down a poem or something, and you can’t remember the last time you had a bath.”
“Yeah, very funny. I’m sure they’ll buy that, won’t they?” He paused. “By the way, who’s going to be there tonight?”
“Everybody who’s in town, I imagine. Why, is there someone you—”
“Including your great love, the brilliant Lawton?” he asked, with affected slyness. It was an old joke between them—initiated and kept alive by Thom—that Abby nourished a hopeless infatuation for Lawton Williams, a gorgeous blond hunk from one of Atlanta’s oldest families. Of course, it was Thom who had endured this intense attraction throughout his junior and senior years.
“Lawton? Honestly, Thom, when will you give that up. No, he won’t be there. He has a new girlfriend—she goes to Vanderbilt. I heard he drives up to Nashville every weekend.”
“In his beloved Porsche,” Thom laughed.
“But of course,” Abby said, smiling. Yet she looked a bit puzzled, too.
“Poor Abby,” Thom said, with a small downturn of his lips. “No Lawton Williams to ogle tonight.”
He felt such vast relief that his spirits lightened at once, and the rest of the afternoon they chatted and reminisced, going back and forth between their rooms as they got ready for the party, doing their best to avoid Lucille’s constant efforts to “help” them. She offered to style Abby’s hair, to choose Abby’s dress, to iron a shirt for Thom (he’d found an almost-new one in his closet), to have dinner ready at six o’clock instead of seven, so they wouldn’t be late…. “Are you going to drive, Abby?” she asked. “You’re a much better driver than Thom, you know, and if he has something to drink at the party—”
“Mom, Thom has to drive,” Abby said, tartly. “The boy always drives.”
“I’m not going to drink anything, Mom,” Thom lied. “Don’t worry about it, OK?”
“What time will the two of you be home, do you think? You’ll probably want a snack or something, won’t you?”
“Please don’t wait up,” Abby said, mechanically. The request was futile, of course; never in all their high school years had Abby or Thom returned from a date and not found Lucille hovering near the front door. Their father always went to bed at 11:30, after watching the news, but on the nights her children had dates Lucille stayed up no matter how late, sometimes until one or two A.M., saying with fake nonchalance to her children as they came in, “Oh, I can’t believe how late it is! I just had a litt
le housework to catch up on.”
Finally, after rushing through Lucille’s dinner of meat loaf and twice-baked potatoes, and hurrying back to their rooms to brush their teeth, Thom and Abby escaped out the front door. Lucille followed them onto the porch, not ready to let them go. “Didn’t you want some ice cream or something? What’s the rush, you two?”
“Thanks, the dinner was great!” Thom called over his shoulder. Abby, always more annoyed by their mother’s nagging than Thom, didn’t turn around; she lifted one hand and wiggled her fingers in the air.
Half an hour after he’d arrived at the party, Thom found to his surprise that he was enjoying himself. He drank a couple of beers, he chatted with old pals from St. Jude’s (even Janie Pridgen was there; she’d come with one of her girlfriends), and he danced with Abby, and with Janie, and with Chrissie, and with a couple of other girls. The kids were a mix of recent graduates now dispersed among colleges across the state and others still at St. Jude’s; it occurred to Thom that each group probably wasted a good deal of time envying the other. The party was at Ginger Bishop’s house in Ansley Park, a big two-story colonial on Beverly Drive. Since Ginger was the “rich kid” at St. Jude’s and her parents were often out of town, this huge high-ceilinged house with its thick moldings and dully gleaming antique furniture had been the setting for many of their high school parties.
Around ten o’clock a few of Chrissie’s girlfriends brought some brightly wrapped packages out of a closet, and Ginger came in from the kitchen carrying a lighted birthday cake, and they all sang “Happy Birthday” and watched Chrissie open her presents. There were pieces of jewelry, mostly earrings, and tiny glass decanters of perfume; from several of the boys there were bottles of champagne, which were brandished gleefully amid cries of “Open it! Let’s have a toast!” But Chrissie, a petite but strong-willed blonde who tended to get her way, made a little wry movement with her lips and shook her head.
“You guys are already drunk,” she said smartly. “I’m not wasting good champagne on you. Just have another beer.”