Leaving Salt Lake City

by Matthew Timion

  “Okay,” the bartender said, and then proceeded to pour the drink.

  “What!? You have a drink called the wet pussy!? Hey everyone,” she announced to our group of friends, “the bartender just gave me a wet pussy!” Tyson and I looked at each other. We were the only real outsiders in that group. He was never a Mormon and from out of state. Even though at that point I had been in Utah for almost a year I was also from out of state and I had only had a short lived Mormon phase.

  “Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer too,” he said to me quietly. We both snickered.

  Eventually we had to go to the last gay bar in the area, named Try Angles. Tyson told me that in New York there were bear bars, where big hairy men go, twink bars, where our Abercrombie Gays would end up, and other bars dedicated to every different flavor of homosexual. In Salt Lake City, however, there were only a few. Try Angles was a melting pot of all different genres of gay. Bears dancing next to twinks. Old men and young men. It was a Noah’s Ark of homosexuality with at least two of each kind in the room in case we ever needed to repopulate the earth with gay men.

  “I feel like I’m learning about gays for the first time,” Tyson said. His eyes were wide and his jaw gaped, almost falling to the floor. “These homosexuals fascinate me!” He said it in his best academic voice.

  Even though Tyson had always been gay, he had never before seen such behavior. Gay men with families of their own (some still married to their Mormon wives and some completely out of the closet) were at the club acting out on decades of Mormon induced sexual repression. “Wow,” were the only words Tyson could muster after watching a big hairy man in leather start grinding his crotch against one of our straight ex-Mormon friends. “Just wow, I feel like I want to come back here and study these people." I’m glad he said that. While I had known gay people my entire life, I had never been to a gay bar before I had lived in Salt Lake City. I thought that the gay bars I had attended were normal. I thought it was how gay men acted. “I don’t know what I’m looking at Matt, but I cannot take my eyes away.”

  And that’s how the short lived gay bar experiment happened. Jessica owned the room usually, and I felt like a prude for not kissing men. At least we were married and I still got to go home with her.

  Before Tyson had to leave for the next stop on his research, all three of us visited the Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City. Tyson was, after all, writing his dissertation in American History. We looked at relics of Mormon past including clothes worn by the actual prophets (modern Mormon prophets, not ancient Jewish prophets), personal property of Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s death mask, and an entire section dedicated to Emma Smith, Joseph Smith’s wife.

  Jessica, full of protest, questioned over and over again with increasing belligerence “Where is the section dedicated to Joseph Smith’s other wives?"

  In his book In Sacred Loneliness Todd Compton estimated that Joseph Smith had had at least thirty-four wives ranging from age fourteen to fifty eight. While Jessica had made a valid point, it was really just an attempt to try to be edgy. She was standing up to the church of her father while trying to make us laugh.

  Her behavior came across as initially funny, but ultimately annoying. I hated people staring at us because of her increasing loudness. My nine-year-old son does the same thing. He does something hilarious, and as soon as he gets a response, including a positive reaction, he drives that behavior into the ground. Jessica’s call for attention worked as we noticed Mormon security guards following us around for the rest of our visit at the Museum.

  “Screw this place, I’m bored,” she said. We left.

  The rest of Tyson’s visit with us was great. Jessica taught him to knit. We all cooked together. We watched television together. He was the perfect houseguest and served a valid purpose, reminding me that some of the behavior we saw was not normal. Had he not been with us during that time period, I am certain there were occasions I would not have known if what I was experiencing was part of normal life or completely insane. Tyson grounded me at times, and he continued to do so for as long as I knew him.

  “This is our friend Tyson; he’s living with us,” is how Jessica would always introduce Tyson to people. “And he’s gaaaaaay!” She had to throw that in. Once Tyson was gone we would no longer be able to introduce him as our gay live-in friend. Fighting the system by being so openly okay with homosexuality would lose its appeal with her. For a few months however, having a gay man in our home made her happy. She told me one night, “it’s like we have a gay child!”

  Jessica laughed at herself again; thinking she was hilarious. Her laughter made me smile.

  | NINE |

  Stability

  Winter 2005

  We sat in the cafe for our weekly brunch with the ex-Mormons. It had become a tradition for us. Our favorite place to go was Orbitz cafe, right next to the new mall built for the 2002 Winter Olympics. A sign outside the cafe described that area as a former brothel, and the existence of that brothel (among others) had been completely sanctioned by the Mormon Church. Our brunch location was one of historic value, even if the only hunger it fed was no longer sexual.

  What started as weekly brunches turned into weekly exercises. Jessica and I had taken our goal to become more healthy seriously, and we were exercising regularly. She had begun riding her bicycle to work, and on the weekends we would often take long bike rides on the Jordan River Parkway, a paved path running all along the Jordan River in Utah.

  Not everyone in the ex-Mormon group had a decent bicycle, but everyone did have rollerblades. We started rollerblading every Sunday. Occasionally someone in the group would stop and smoke pot. I had no idea how they did it. Rollerblading and pot was out of the question because every time I had ever smoked pot, I could barely sit on the couch. These people were either extremely gifted rollerbladers or gifted pot smokers. Either way I was impressed.

  And that is how our lives went on for a year. We rollerbladed with friends, had house parties once a month or so, and Jessica and I fell more in love. We began gardening together that spring. We spent our time with each other always, and it was spectacular. I was always reminded of what a great choice I had made when I married her. My first wife did not hold a candle to Jessica.

  One weekend, in an effort to become a bigger part of the ex-Mormons group, our friend Nadia was throwing a party at her house in Tooele, about a forty five minute drive away. We showed up, and then it was clear to me why Nadia lived in the middle of nowhere. Her house was huge and her monthly bills were less than we paid.

  At every party there was always someone new. The new members of the group were either people we all knew from online or someone who tagged along with a friend.

  A young eighteen-year-old girl made her first appearance at this party. I will be the first to admit that she was cute, in a weird if I were still in high school kind of way. A drunk forty-year-old man approached her with his wife seated only a few feet away. He began heavy-handedly flirting with the eighteen year old, who appeared to be too overwhelmed by the number of people to really acknowledge that the forty year old was undressing her with his eyes. Perhaps she did notice and just didn’t react. I can tell you however that she never came to one of those parties again.

  The drunken man and his wife had had an agreement. They could have sex with whoever they wanted. This idea of an “open marriage” was common to me at this point. Instead of being confused by such a relationship, I instead admired them for their openness and trust. They loved each other so much that sex wasn’t a part of it anymore. Their relationship was at a level of commitment I doubted I could ever get to, a point I could never reach. In our group many saw a stable, happy, open marriage as the ex-Mormon version of Nirvana. It was something we all strived for. If you could get to that point in your marriage then you were doing something right.

  During a weekly trip up the Jordan River Parkway, Brian, a regular rollerblader, began talking to me. Brian lived in a giant home all by hims
elf. It used to be his father’s home, but his father had died a long time ago from old age. I think that Brian’s father had been well into his sixties when Brian was born. “What you eat doesn’t matter,” he proclaimed.

  “Why not?" I was eating very healthily back then. I had stopped consuming soda and sugar. I had lost a bit of weight with diet and exercise. Brian was the same height as me but weighed easily twenty or thirty pounds lighter.

  “Take my brother for example, he only eats cashews and he’s as healthy as anyone I know." I was no doctor but eating only cashews did not seem like a good way to stay healthy and fit.

  These diet ideas were common among our group. Some would go for the cashew diet while others would go for the raw food diet. I will never stop being amazed at how a group of people smart enough to see the flaws in their indoctrinated belief system were unable to see the fallacy in their new diets or new chosen faiths. Their new beliefs usually involved lots of talk of sending “good energy.” This shouldn’t have surprised me considering how many of these people were high all of the time.

  Along with rollerblading, one of the newest fads in the group involved belly dancing and Jessica jumped right on board. She started buying outfits, bells, and scarfs. Her private weekly ritual altered to include belly dancing classes. According to Jessica, her instructor told her that she was the best student; she had real talent, and she should be in the advanced class. She opted not to join the advanced class, however, as she wanted to make sure she had the fundamentals down. She also did not want to embarrass the other students with her natural talent.

  Jessica went belly dancing, and I stayed home working on the computer or on my car. Before her belly dancing phase, she had had a craft phase followed by a baking phase. Since her phases only lasted a month or so, when the belly dancing phase was over, she took up smoking hookah daily. She then decorated the guest bedroom in very middle eastern decorations. She really embraced her new hobbies, as short lived as they were.

  Her new hobbies gave me time to start some of my own. There were so many things I had always wanted to learn how to do, and I was going to do them. I had the perfect life with amazing friends. I had never felt so popular. Life was mine for the taking, and I intended on doing exactly that. Nothing but good things could happen.

  | TEN |

  My Second Adolescence

  Spring 2006

  Jessica and I soon relaxed enough to really let our hair down. We went through a small phase of going to clubs all of the time. I guess it might be better to say that it was a phase that I went through, not her. In the past Jessica had spent a good portion of her military career going to clubs and partying. It was really no surprise considering how much she drank, how great of a party she could always throw, and how well she could dance. She would always relate these stories to me about “clubbing,” and how she would always be the queen of the room. I always saw it as going hand-in-hand with her popularity.

  Jessica was okay without clubbing for a while, but, like an alcoholic clean for years, she eventually had cravings. The nightlife was a part of her, and something she needed to experience every so often to get her fix. I happily tagged along with her in order to find out what the scene was all about. The only bar I had ever visited with any frequency was as a child tagging along with my father every day after work.

  As a married couple, we went to the club together. The only two clubs we really went to were both gothic clubs. For whatever reason there is still a huge gothic scene in Utah. “Goths” are people with white makeup, tall boots, eyeliner, and black clothes. Some trends never left Utah, which explained why I would occasionally see leg warmers while walking around. It would also explain why in May of 2012 Travel and Leisure Magazine ranked Salt Lake City as the second worst dressed city in the country, right behind Anchorage, Alaska.

  The clubbing would involve us going to a bar, drinking, dancing, and later coming home to be an intimate alcohol-filled married couple. This exposure to becoming a regular club attendee was something I absolutely loved. For a few months, we went clubbing every weekend.

  When I turned twenty-one, the age at which most Americans get drunk in celebration, I was a Mormon missionary in the Philippines. Mormons don’t drink alcohol and do not go to clubs. Even if I hadn't been a missionary, I still had my own set of prohibitions that prevented me from stepping into a club. My dedication to God and his commandments was too important.

  After leaving the Mormon Church I legitimately had no idea what was normal. I did not know how to interact with people unless it was in a church setting. The club “scene” was so new to me and so exciting that I looked forward to going every time we went. I enjoyed dancing with my wife and getting jealous looks from other guys. I enjoyed watching skinny guys wearing glow sticks, who were clearly high on something, dance around the room like they were on a different planet. I loved the energy and the freedom, regardless of the damage the music did to my hearing.

  We had a few drinks with friends, and then we spent the rest of the night at the club. We danced, groped, drank, laughed, and drank some more. We all had a great time. We took turns dancing in a cage located on the stage as well as buying rounds of drinks. This is what real adults do, I thought. I had no idea this world existed, and while I wasn’t too fond of dancing, I embraced the drinking and the eye candy all around me.

  One night a number of us went out to the club. Jessica ordered the first round of drinks, which I was told is customary. She said that everyone over the night was supposed to take turns ordering drinks for everyone. I was learning so much about how to be normal. We sat around and drank, making fun of the pathetic guys with their fake tans and flipped up collars. “Douchebags,” she would say. Sometimes she would yell it right in their face and then come back to us laughing hysterically. She could get away with anything.

  We danced that night. The lights were low and some sort of disco ball provided just enough light for us to see. She danced in her tight jeans, accentuating her supple thighs. I was tipsy, and I can only imagine I looked just like all of the other white guys dancing on the floor. I was never a good dancer. At that moment I didn’t care though. I looked at Jessica dancing to the beat, and for an instant I saw no one else. She was the only woman in the room. I wanted to take her home and make love to her all night. I wanted to feel what it felt like to be a part of her world. I wanted to have so much confidence that I could walk up to a frat boy and call him a douchebag. I wondered what it was like to be wanted like she was.

  These evenings usually ended with all of us going to a greasy restaurant to dilute the alcohol in our stomachs. The post-bar greasy food had become part of our ritual. In the year I had lived in Utah, I had more fun and more friends than I had ever had in my life. If my life were to have ended at that moment I would have died feeling complete. I would have died happy knowing that the woman in the nightclub was also the woman with whom I shared my life.

  | ELEVEN |

  Don Quixote

  Summer 2006

  Ever since I had seen the play “Man of La Mancha” on stage I was hooked. I loved the story of Don Quixote. Even though his character was clearly fictional, and a bit, well, insane, the message rang loud and clear.

  The character of Don Quixote was living life the way it was supposed to be, not the way it was. He fought for what was right even if he knew he could never win. That is exactly how life is supposed to be lived.

  Jessica and I both resonated with the message and with the character who lived life the way it should be. I looked out our window and saw my small 1989 Honda Civic. It was my small contribution to the world.

  When I moved to Utah I drove a giant Jeep Wrangler. It guzzled gas and was expensive. I loved the idea of getting great gas mileage and living without a car payment. Jessica loved that I was so passionate about it. So when I decided to sell the Jeep and buy a small car for all of the above mentioned reasons, she followed suit.

  She sold her much more modern car for an even smaller olde
r Honda. Her two-door hatchback drove like a go-cart. My four door sedan seemed giant in comparison.

  But just owning the car was not enough. I wanted to make it better. It had to be more fuel efficient. It needed a paint job and new tires! So I set out traveling to the junkyard on a regular basis to find discarded car parts. I was going to convert my car into something it was never designed to be.

  I ordered an engine online and over many months installed it myself. I redid the wiring for the car and put in a new computer. I painted it just the right shade of black to complement the right wheels. By the time I was done with it, I had taken one old car and turned it into something amazing. It was the perfect car. I could drive and easily get fifty miles per gallon.

  Jessica took it up a notch and started riding her bicycle to work. Together we were like Don Quixote with a monkey wrench and bicycle shorts.

  We were living life the way it was supposed to be lived. We recycled, put blood and sweat into projects that would help the environment, and loved with all of our hearts. It was some of the best times of my life.

  Just like I was trying to build my perfect car, Jessica and I were trying to build our perfect family. We spent all of our time together and also tried to have kids for a little over a year. Our attempts to get pregnant never worked. I had always been afraid that Jessica wouldn’t be able to have children because in her first marriage she had had two stillborn babies. Her stillbirths were six and nine months along, which understandably made it extremely difficult for her to discuss the matter.

  “I went to church a week after my first stillbirth. Before I lost the baby I was nine months along,” she told me. I had no experience with anything like this so the story was hers to tell. “A woman approached me and my husband. She had a big shit-eating grin on her face and asked us when we were going to have kids!” The story seemed so unbelievable, not because I didn’t believe her, but for someone to be so oblivious to her situation blew my mind.