Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle

by Michael Thomas Ford

  I have been with Thayer, and only Thayer, for many years now, and so have not acquired any new friends through carnal means. However, I continue to be connected to a number of men whom I did first meet because we bedded one another. In most cases, it's been so long since the original encounter that I don't even remember it. In others, I do remember, and now can't imagine what I was thinking at the time. Sometimes in conversation these friends and I refer to our early couplings, usually in disbelief followed by laughter, but by and large we leave the experiences in the past. As you age, I've found, even the most spectacular highlights of one's sexual history pale in comparison to the other connections made during a lifetime.

  Although I still regretted not being able to make more of my feelings for him, I was nonetheless able to worry about things like wishing Andy could find a suitable man. I did still love him, and would have jumped into his bed if he'd asked me. But he didn't. Neither did Jack, who was so immersed in his schoolwork that he had little time for chasing cock. With his degree in sight, he was looking forward to graduation and what would come after. I teased him sometimes that his dick was going to shrivel up and fall off from lack of use, to which he would half-jokingly tell me I was welcome to lend him a hand in that department.

  I did sometimes look at him and see the boy who had made my heart ache. But that boy was mostly gone, replaced by a man who resembled him only in appearance. The dewy magic that had surrounded us as children had evaporated in the sun of adulthood, and now I rarely thought about Jack in that way. When I did, I took care of it quickly and with a vague sense of irritation, so that when I saw him later I wouldn't be tempted to try and go back.

  It was, I admit, an unusual arrangement, but not terribly so, at least for the time. After years of being secretive about our lives, we were now free to live them any way we chose. The multitude of options was dizzying, as if we'd been handed a menu featuring every possible delight and told to order freely and without worry as to cost or consequence. Because everything was so new to all of us, we were figuring it out as we went along. It would take many years before we realized what had truly worked and what hadn't, what choices we'd made that were perhaps not the best ones. For the moment, though, we were doing the best that we could.

  "Do you want to go to a movie tonight?" Burt asked, drawing my attention away from the rain. He'd traded his People for the newspaper, which he had spread open on his desk. "What are the options?" "Let's see," he said, running his finger down the page. "Well, we've got The Way We Were at the Coliseum, Sleuth at the Castro, Touch of Class at the Four Star or…" He looked up and raised an eyebrow. "We can head over to the Nob Hill Cinema for a Jim Cassidy triple bill. All Night Service , Manpower , and Desires of the Devil ."

  "Hmmm," I said, tapping my finger on my chin. "Oscar nominees or your favorite porn star. That's a tough one."

  "I wouldn't say Cassidy's my favorite ," said Burt. "Anyway, I think I'd rather see Glenda Jackson. Interested?"

  "Jack and I saw Touch of Class ," I said. "But go. You'll like it. George Segal will make you forget Jim Cassidy."

  "Really?" said Burt. "Is George Segal hung like a mule, too?"

  "You'll have to ask Mrs. Segal," I said. "Because I'm not telling. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do." For the rest of the morning I went through folder after folder, each holding the story of another man searching for answers to what had happened to him. It was fairly clear to me that the cause lay somewhere in the one thing they all shared—time spent in Vietnam—but I had no idea where to begin looking. I hadn't the skills to unravel the mysteries of either the body or the mind. I could only record and archive the growing phenomenon and hope that someone would eventually figure out what, if anything, was going on. I'd heard rumors that the doctors believed the various complaints to be psychosomatic, physical manifestations of feelings that soldiers couldn't process. This was disturbing, but not unbelievable. I myself hadn't experienced anything to worry me, but as the files in my office had begun to pile up, I sometimes wondered if it was just a matter of time. By three o'clock, I had worked the stack down to only a handful and was feeling slightly better, although a day of making phone calls to people whom you must inform that you have nothing more to offer them is hardly uplifting. I was considering taking Burt up on his offer of a movie, thinking it might boost my spirits sufficiently that I could come back the next day less inclined to moodiness. I wondered if I might be able to talk him into The Sting , which I'd yet to see. Watching Paul Newman and Robert Redford, together for the first time since they'd thrilled me as Butch and Sundance, was exactly what I needed to shake the winter blues.

  I was about to ask him if he was interested when my phone rang. I picked it up, expecting the caller to be an unhappy client upset by my delivery of bad news.

  "Ned?" a woman said.

  "Yes," I answered, trying to place the voice, which sounded familiar but not immediately identifiable. "It's Patricia Grace," she said. "Jack's mother."

  "Mrs. Grace," I said, understanding now why I'd recognized her voice. "How are you?" "I'm fine, dear. I'm actually calling for your mother."

  "Mom?" I said. "Is she all right?"

  She didn't respond right away. During the pause, I had time to realize that her calling me was probably not a good thing. Both Jack and I spoke with our parents regularly. If Mrs. Grace was phoning me, it had to be because my mother was unable to do it herself.

  "Your mother is fine," she said, calming me down. "It's your father."

  "Dad? What about him?"

  I heard her voice falter, as if she was holding back a sob. "Oh, Ned," she said. "I'm so sorry. Your father is dead."

  CHAPTER 34

  Winter is a lousy time for funerals, and of the winter months, I think February must be the worst. My father's service was held on February 28, a day so bitterly cold that even had burial been an option, I don't think the living could have endured the weather for the time it would have taken to lower his casket into the frosty ground. As it was, only a handful of people were scattered around the sanctuary of Ebenezer Lutheran Church, which I'd last visited seven years before during that bittersweet Christmas Eve service. The warmth that had filled the church on that night was gone now, extinguished by the icy breath of death. Sleet lashed the stained-glass windows and the sun was swallowed up by dirty gray clouds as we gathered to mourn the passing of a man only 50 years old when an aneurysm in his brain burst, resulting in a cerebral hemorrhage. My father had died at his desk, just after witnessing the signatures of Garth and Claudette Perkins on their newly-purchased life insurance policies. Among those in attendance at the funeral were my paternal grandparents, Canton and Wilma Brummel, who had flown in from Arizona, where they'd retired some years before. Now in their late seventies, they were not in the best of health themselves, but it had never occurred to them that they might one day have to bury their son, and so they were unprepared for the occasion. My grandmother sobbed silently while my grandfather, never one for displays of emotion, glared fixedly at a spot halfway up the rear wall of the chancel, as if his stare was the only thing preventing it from crashing down. Seated next to them was my mother, and I was beside her. We were a quartet of grief, each playing the song of mourning in our own manner. My grandmother's staccato heavings were countered by the largo of my grandfather's stolidity, while my mother had opted for a kind of legato sostenuto , as if the middle pedal of her heart had been depressed and she was holding a long, low note of infinite sadness. My own mood was difficult to define, as it changed frequently. The overarching feeling, naturally, was of loss. But also there was fear mixed with confusion. Always before I had believed that my father would be around to take care of everything, everything being my mother, our house, and the details associated with money and responsibility. With his death, these things had suddenly been thrust upon me. I had spent the previous day in the office of my parents' lawyer, who had informed me that while my mother would be well taken care of due to my father's life insur
ance policy (he'd apparently been his own best customer), there were matters that would require ongoing attention. We both agreed that my mother was in no condition to take them on herself, and so the burden fell upon me. Given that I rarely had more than a couple hundred dollars in my bank account, this was not welcome news. I felt I was being asked to grow up in the space of a day, and while I was saddened by my father's death, I resented being asked to take over his role in my mother's life. As I sat in the pew, only partially listening to the pastor's words of consolation, I thought about the changes that might be wrought by this turn of events.

  At home following the funeral, visitors came and went, bringing with them condolences and casseroles. Every other person who entered the front door seemed to carry a dish, as if the making of tuna noodle surprise and angel food cake was the natural antidote to death. Needing to get away from the constant stream of sad faces and lowered voices, I escaped into the quiet of the kitchen on the pretense of putting into the refrigerator the latest offering in a Fiesta ware bowl. When I went in, I found someone was already there, bent over and peering into the icebox.

  "Where's the beer?" Jack asked, looking back at me. "If this is going to go on all afternoon, I need at least two."

  "In the back," I told him. "Behind the roast chicken from Mrs. Cousins."

  He fished around for the beer, then reached for the bowl in my hands. "What's this one?" he asked, lifting the aluminum foil that covered the top. "Pea torture salad," I said.

  He laughed. "I haven't heard that one in a long time."

  "Pea torture salad" was a term he and I had coined to describe the ubiquitous potluck dish consisting of pasta shells to which cold peas (and often mayonnaise) have been added. It seemed to be a favorite of suburban Philadelphia housewives, although I'm sure its existence is universal. The peas were always a nasty surprise, hard and unpleasantly bland, and we'd developed an aversion to it early on. Jack took the bowl and placed it in the very back of the refrigerator.

  "I'm so glad you came," I told him after he'd shut the door and we both had a beer in hand. "This would have been an even bigger nightmare by myself." "No problem," said Jack. "He was kind of my dad, too, in a way, plus, it was time for me to come see the folks. Can you imagine what kind of shit I'd get if my dad kicked off and I hadn't seen him in two years?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I can. I'm waiting for my mom to blame this on me not coming home for Christmas."

  "How do you think she's doing?"

  I shook my head. "She's on so many tranquilizers, who knows? I can't tell what she's feeling, if she feels anything. She just gives that sad little smile whenever anyone asks her anything." "My mom will take care of her," said Jack. "Don't worry."

  "I don't know," I told him. "I'm thinking I might have to move back."

  "You're not serious?"

  "She can't live alone, Jack. What if something happens to her? My dad took care of everything."

  "She'll learn," Jack said. "Look, one of the things we learn in grief counseling is that people are a lot more capable than we think they are. Right now you want to take care of her the way she took care of you when you were a kid. But she's a grown woman. You have to let her do this herself. You can help, but you can't do it for her."

  "I think I liked you better when you were stupid," I said.

  Jack tipped his beer at me. "I still am," he said. "I just know the right things to say. That's something else they teach you." We finished our beers and returned to the living room, where my mother was ensconced on the couch. She looked drained and weary, nodding politely as people took her hand and mumbled words of comfort. Beside her, Jack's mother was perched like a bird, doing what my mother couldn't and thanking everyone for coming. She kept glancing at my mother, and from time to time she put her hand on her back, as if reassuring a child of her protective presence. Watching them, I saw how much they meant to one another, and it occurred to me that if it were Patricia's death we were marking and not my father's, my mother's level of sorrow might have been even greater. No one, I thought, knew her as well as her best friend, not even her husband. Seeing Jack across the room, talking to his high school baseball coach, who had also been a friend of my father's, I felt a great affection for him, and for everything we had been through together.

  By early evening, everyone had left, gently herded out of the house by Patricia and myself. Only my grandparents, Jack, and his mother remained, his father having gone home earlier with the excuse that he had a report to finish before the next day. Finally alone, we ate a subdued supper pulled together from the many dishes in the kitchen. My mother picked numbly at a piece of fried chicken, while Patricia encouraged her to try the ambrosia whose donor's name had been forgotten but was believed to be a secretary from my father's office. "It has mandarin oranges and Cool Whip in it," Jack's mother said encouragingly.

  With dinner over, my grandparents settled into the living room with my mother, while Patricia and I did the dishes. Jack hovered in the background, putting things away as his mother handed them to him. As we worked, I could hear the sounds of The Waltons coming from the television.

  "When do you have to go back?" Mrs. Grace asked.

  "My ticket is for Monday," I said. "But I'm thinking of staying."

  "I told him he doesn't have to," Jack said. "I said you'd look after his mom."

  Patricia handed me a wet plate, which I dried as she talked. "Of course I'll look after Alice," she said. "She can stay in our guest room as long as she wants to if she doesn't want to be alone here." "Thanks," I said. "That makes me feel better."

  Mrs. Grace was quiet as she washed a glass. "You know, when you decided to join the army, she would have done anything to have you here with her," she said. "She was so worried about you." "So much for feeling better," I said.

  She smiled. "But," she said, "she realized that you had to have your own life, even if it was one that made her afraid for you." She handed me the glass and our eyes met. I nodded, understanding what she was saying to me. "I'll talk to her," I said. "And thanks."

  Jack and his mother left soon after. My grandparents weren't far behind them, excusing themselves midway through Ironside and retiring to their room upstairs. My mother and I sat in silence, watching the television but not speaking. I had planned on waiting until the next day to talk to her about anything serious, but all of a sudden she turned to me and said, "I'm not going to fall apart."

  "Who said you were?" I asked.

  "I can tell what you're thinking," she answered. "You never did hide things very well." "Well, you caught me," I said, humoring her but also surprised that she was so aware, especially given the number of pills I knew she'd been taking. I'd looked at her latest prescription. The bottle was half empty, despite being filled only a week before.

  "Don't tease me, Ned," she said. "I'm serious."

  I took her hand and held it. "I'm not teasing you," I said. "You're right. I am worried. And if you want me to stay, I will."

  She shook her head. "No. Go back to San Francisco. Go home." I was struck by her choice of words. Home . She considered San Francisco my home. Until she said it, even I hadn't thought of the city as my true home. That was a position held by the house we were currently sitting in, the one that had always been home to me. But she was right. That house was no longer my home. It was hers. Mine was the apartment on Diamond, with its creaky floors and high ceilings, its big bay window, and the fireplace that coughed smoke back in our faces when we tried to use it. Home was also the whole city, and the people in it.

  "Are you happy there?" my mother asked.

  "Yes," I said. "I am."

  "And are you happy being…" She hesitated, turning her attention back to Raymond Burr and Barbara Anderson. "Being what?" I prodded.

  She squeezed my hand. "Nothing," she said.

  "You were going to say something," I said. "What was it? Am I happy being what? An employee of the United States government? A college dropout? A veteran? What?"

  "A homo
sexual," she said.

  I froze. I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. Well, actually, I was sure I'd heard her correctly. She'd said it slowly and clearly. Homosexual . Like it was a nationality.

  "I don't know what you mean," I said, trying to sound convincing.

  "What did I tell you about not being able to lie?" she said. "It's all right, Ned. I've known for some time. Well, I've suspected."

  "Why?" I asked, wondering what particularly nelly trait had given me away, and when. "A mother knows these things," she answered. "I can't tell you how, but we do. Patricia knows about Jack, of course." "She does?" I said, genuinely shocked.

  "Don't sound so surprised," my mother said. "It's not like your generation invented it. I knew a few queer boys when I was growing up. Girls, too, although I think we girls do that sort of thing more naturally than you boys. Most of the girls I knew experimented with their girlfriends at least once or twice. For heaven's sake, Becky Zawitski and I learned how to French kiss by practicing on each other."

  I was dumbfounded. My mother had never even said the word sex in my presence. Now she was talking about her foray into teenage lesbianism. For a moment I forgot that my father was dead, looking over at his recliner to see if he was overhearing anything she was saying. Then I remembered that he was gone, his chair sitting empty in the glow of the television.

  "Well, are you happy?" my mother asked again.

  "Yes," I said uncomfortably. "I'm happy." Maybe, I told myself, it was the tranquilizers that had put her in a sharing mood. If so, maybe she would forget the conversation when they wore off. "Good," she said. "You should be."