by Joni Cole
One of the kids cranked up the music on the CD player, and they all started playing Twister on the porch. Seeing their youthful, entangled bodies made me yearn for some physical contact; the warmth of a human touch. It also made me painfully aware of how I would look if I were to play Twister in a bikini. I thought about looping my arm through Steve’s, or making him hold my hand, but he was absorbed in the newspaper’s crossword puzzle. No doubt he would indulge my affections for a few minutes, and then manufacture some excuse, like needing to pencil in six down, to extricate himself from my hot, sweaty palm.
By now, maybe because of the pressure not to make my pig face, or maybe because I don’t do well in the sun with a glass of wine in my system, I was feeling rather weepy and morose. Forget about children who grow up and see you as an embarrassment, I thought. Forget about husbands and their hand-holding charity. Forget about cats, too. I watched ours dart across the backyard, no doubt intending to kill some poor, pathetic creature, but only after making it suffer.
As I wallowed in my gloom, an idea occurred to me. I would get myself a dog, I decided, a lap dog that would be all mine and no one else’s, except for in the mornings and evenings when Steve would have to walk it. And this lapdog—maybe I would call it Pootchiegoo or Pootchies for short—would have soft, charcoal fur and big eyes, and he would live for my hugs and kisses.
Eventually, the kids abandoned their game of Twister and started running around the yard again, squirting each other with the hose. My daughter dashed over to me to ask if I would fetch more towels. Her pretty face radiated happiness and I almost slipped and said, “I love you,” but caught myself just in time. When I get Pootchiegoo, I thought, traipsing up the stairs to the bathroom, I will tell him that I love him all the time, and he will wag his cute tail, and make those little yippy noises I taught him that sound remarkably similar to, “I wuv you, too.”
In the bathroom, I grabbed some towels then took a moment to check my appearance in the mirror. I look ridiculous, I thought. My straw-colored hair frizzed out beneath my baseball cap, and my face had a whitish cast from the sun block cream, except for my red nose, which always managed to get sunburned. Heading back to the party, my flip flops smacked on the stairs. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop.
And that’s when it occurred to me. Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. This must be how my kids see me all the time, the same way I see Bozo the Clown and his size 83AAA shoes.
Outside, the party-goers eventually grew tired of their water games and spread their towels on a dry patch of lawn, luxuriating in the late afternoon sun. Steve had retreated into the house and I started tidying up the yard. The hose had been turned off, but the Slip ‘N Slide remained slick with grass-filled water. I remembered my daughter’s list of Dos, which included this activity.
“Hey, boys and girls, look at me!” I imagined myself calling out to the party-goers, as I dove onto the slide head first, skimming its surface on my belly. “Aren’t I hilarious? Do you want to be my pal?” But of course this would have been more creepy than funny. So I continued with my clean-up, picking up bits of balloon pieces scattered across the yard, like a massacre of wiener dogs the children had already forgotten.
Oh, Didn’t I Tell You?
I’ve recently started watching the Showtime series Queer as Folk on DVD, and now I can’t seem to stop watching it. The series originally aired between 2000 and 2005, and revolves around four, thirty-something gay friends in Pittsburgh who have sex with their partners and total strangers about ninety times a day, in between dealing with life’s daily dramas.
Will Michael, the adorable, comic-book-loving “boy-next-door,” come out to his co-workers at the Big Q-Mart? Will Brian, the gorgeous advertising executive, use his considerable creative talents to help the homophobic police chief get elected as mayor? Will Teddy, the doe-eyed accountant—and the last one anyone would peg as a drug user—be able to beat his addiction to crystal meth? And last but hardly least, will Emmett, dear, funny, flamboyant Emmett, ever find true love (and not with that hypocritical, engaged-to-a-woman pro-football star who is clearly just using him for sex)?
In many ways, Emmett reminds me of my best friend from college who also was gay and funny and lived in Pittsburgh. Emmett, however, favors fishnet shirts and works as a party planner, while my friend Jeff preferred polo shirts with the collar turned up, and worked as the editor of Out, Pittsburgh’s gay and lesbian newspaper.
A few weeks ago, Jeff phoned me out of the blue to catch up. We only talk every few years, but he’s still one of my favorite people for all the same reasons that Emmett’s friends love him for his big heart and fabulous wit. As soon as I hear Jeff’s voice on the phone, I automatically smile.
Jeff and I graduated from college in the ’80s at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, located in Indiana, Pennsylvania, the hometown of the actor Jimmy Stewart, and supposedly the inspiration for Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life. This was not the best recommendation for two restless college kids who loved disco and Donna Summer, and shared the same career aspiration—to one day write for People magazine.
Jeff loved the story of the first day we met at a meeting for journalism majors our freshman year. I don’t even remember this interaction, but, as Jeff tells it, he asked me for a piece of paper, so I ripped off a tiny corner of a page from my notebook and handed him, literally, a piece of paper. Who knows why, but Jeff thought this was funny, and maybe I was trying to be funny. Or maybe I just didn’t have any paper to spare.
Before Jeff came out to me, or to anyone at our school, he dated my roommate, Debbie. Despite the fact that both he and I were going out with other people, this didn’t stop us from spending most of our time together. We made a point to take the same classes, and wrote each other sentimental notes—You’re my best friend forever . . . I’d be lost without you! In truth, Jeff and I so preferred each other’s company that we often alienated our other friends, not unlike Michael and Brian in Queer as Folk, who have been best friends since they were teenagers and truly love each other, just not in that way.
By our junior year of college, Jeff had broken up with Debbie and started spending a lot of weekends in Pittsburgh, which was about two hours—and a universe—away from Jimmy Stewart’s hometown. Jeff told me he shared an apartment in the city with some guy he knew from high school who was a couple years older than us. On Saturday nights, they usually went dancing at a disco named Heaven.
One weekend, Jeff asked me to come along with him to Pittsburgh. His roommate was going to be out of town so we could have the apartment to ourselves. When we arrived, Jeff fixed us each a rum and Diet Coke. Then he put a Donna Summer album on the stereo and went into the bedroom to change. I rummaged through some magazines stacked on the coffee table: GQ, People, and several unfamiliar publications that showed a lot of shirtless men in provocative poses, most of them young Richard Gere clones.
When Jeff came out of the bedroom, he was wearing his tightest pair of Levi jeans with, as he liked to brag, a 29-inch waist. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up above his biceps, and he had slicked back his recently permed hair with gel.
“Jeff,” I said, pointing to a cover photo of some hunky guy wearing little more than a police whistle and six-pack abs, “why do you have all these magazines?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Jeff hesitated, finishing off his drink. “I’m gay,” he said casually.
It seems hard to imagine now, but until that moment I didn’t have a clue. This was a time after all, when mainstream America still thought of Rock Hudson as a ladies’ man. The word “faggot” popped into my head. Guys at school called other guys this all the time; it was an accepted slur, a catch-all insult. Jeff is a faggot, I thought. My best friend is a faggot.
“Well?” Jeff prompted. “What are you thinking?” He watched me from across the room.
How was I supposed to feel about this revelation? Betrayed? Angry? Grossed out? What little I had heard or read about gay people, these seemed to be the u
sual reactions. Come to think of it, these were the same type of reactions Michael anticipated from his co-workers at the Big Q, even though, supposedly, times have changed.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” In lieu of a real answer, I simply mimicked Jeff’s words, struck by how casually he had announced he was gay. Later, this line would become part of our standard comic repertoire whenever we caught up on big life events. (“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I got married.” “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I had another baby.”) At that moment, however, I just didn’t know what else to say.
“Hmm . . .” I pretended to be searching my memory, “I guess you forget to mention you were gay these past three years.”
Jeff laughed, obviously relieved. “I knew you’d be okay with this,” he crossed the room and gave me a hug. Apparently, Jeff had heard acceptance in my response, whether it was there or not. Looking back at that time, I think I was too young or too distracted by my own insecurities to recognize my strengths or my prejudices. Maybe that’s why I craved Jeff’s friendship so much, and why I still love him to this day. Jeff always said I was the funniest girl he knew, and so I was funny. After he told me he was gay, he assumed I was a decent human being, and so I decided to act like one.
That night and many more nights, Jeff and I went dancing at Heaven, which, if memory serves, looks pretty much the same as Babylon, the gay club where Michael and Brian and Ted and Emmett hang out and dance, among other more provocative behaviors.
When Jeff and I talked on the phone a few weeks ago, he complained about his paunch, and told me he dyes his chest hair with Clairol. I suggested Natural Match—that’s what I sometimes use on my grey roots—but he preferred Clairol because one pack lasted him at least three dye jobs. Jeff seemed more wistful than usual during our conversation, talking about our careers and how we’d succeeded, more or less, at making a living as writers and editors. He also told me he was planning a trip to San Francisco for his upcoming fiftieth birthday.
What Jeff didn’t tell me the last time we spoke was that his partner of two decades had recently broken up with him. He also failed to mention that he was drinking too much, and feeling depressed. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I can almost hear him saying in that same casual tone he used thirty years ago to let me know he was gay. “I’m going to kill myself, so this is goodbye.”
Of course, Jeff didn’t say this, at least not to me.
But that’s okay, I tell myself, and pop in another Queer as Folk. Because when I watch the show I’m reminded that Teddy hid his crystal meth addiction from Emmett, his lover at the time, but Emmett still forgave him. And when Brian was first diagnosed with testicular cancer, he didn’t even tell Michael, who would have wanted to help him through it, but it didn’t matter anyway because a few episodes later they were back on the dance floor, as close as ever. And when Michael’s uncle Vic, a self-proclaimed “Old Queen” with HIV, was killed off in season four, he still appeared in the show from time to time in flashbacks and dream sequences, looking happier and healthier than ever.
But that’s the beauty of TV, and cable to boot, where anything is possible, and you can always bring people back by replaying earlier episodes.
A Vermonty State of Mind
I should have known that Vermont and I would be a peculiar fit the first night I arrived over fifteen years ago. My husband Steve and I had moved here so that he could go to graduate school and I could be a “spouse.” Because our university housing wasn’t available the day we arrived in town, we splurged on a room at a bed and breakfast advertised as having “a cozy atmosphere and charming décor.” After all, if we were going to live here (just for a few years, or so we thought at the time) we might as well immerse ourselves in the Vermont experience. And what was more Vermonty than a bed and breakfast?
The colonial-style inn was indeed a charming B&B, but having never stayed in one before, I’d gotten caught up in the romance, rather than the reality of what this actually meant. While I had envisioned a Marriott that smelled of scones, this inn was actually an extension of somebody’s home. The owners, Brenda and Wayne, were youngish retirees clearly devoted to two things: amassing collectibles, and lavishing attention on their guests.
But here is the thing. I hate collectibles, which might as well be called breakables, given my heavy caffeine consumption. Yet here I was surrounded by hundreds of them. Glass figurines. Porcelain dolls. Herds of miniature carved elephants roaming the fireplace mantle and antique end tables. What’s more, when I travel I like to be anonymous, or at least not feel guilted into looking at my hosts’ photo albums of their nature walks through Northern New England, as they (and their elephants) hover nearby.
This first (and last) B&B experience should have raised a giant red flag—leave Vermont and live someplace else, someplace less “cozy” with three-star motels owned by impersonal corpglomerations, where you can toss your cheap bottle of wine and People magazine in the bedroom trash and not feel ridiculously self conscious.
Still, all these years later, I find myself settled in the Green Mountain State, having bought a house here after my husband finished his dissertation and received a good job offer. Over the years, I have come to appreciate Vermont—its natural beauty, its quiet smugness over all those other states that legalized billboards. Yet once in a while I am reminded of my misfit status.
A few Saturdays ago, I was visiting my friend Ellen who lives in a neighboring town. En route to her house, I saw a pick-up truck with a bumper sticker reading, Don’t New Jersey Vermont. I am not from New Jersey, but having grown up just a few hours from there, I have spent enough time enjoying its over-crowded shores, and later playing the slots in its smoke-filled casinos, to want a little more of that action.
“Do you ever feel like an outsider in Vermont?” I asked Ellen as she fixed us one of her special, healing herbal teas in the sunny kitchen of her restored farmhouse.
“No,” she answered, which didn’t come as any surprise. Like me, Ellen was a city transplant, only unlike me she had taken to all things Vermont with the zeal of a convert. Once a Type A executive, she now enjoyed contra dancing, wore all-natural deodorant, and had become a committed locavore, a term defined as “a person who eats only food grown and produced close to home,” but that always makes me think of vampires.
“Do you feel like an outsider?” Ellen asked, setting a plate of fresh-baked strawberry muffins on the table.
“It’s just that sometimes I don’t feel Vermonty enough to live here,” I explained. “It’s like one of these days I’m going to be found out and asked to leave to make room for a real Vermonter; someone who has fortitude and who gets excited about raising chickens.”
“Don’t be silly,” Ellen countered. “All kinds of people live in Vermont.” She took a sip of tea, prompting me to do the same, but there were flecks floating in the liquid and it smelled funny, like a urinary tract infection. Why couldn’t Ellen just settle for normal, unhealing tea, I thought meanly.
“I have the opposite of a green thumb,” I announced, noting the vase of lovely flowers on Ellen’s kitchen windowsill, plucked from her lovingly-tended garden. “Vermonters are like one big, happy garden club, to which I don’t belong.”
Ellen laughed. “No one is going to kick you out of the state just because you kill houseplants.”
“I also can’t ski,” I argued. “Plus I’m thin-blooded, which means I’m always cold, and spend at least five months out of the year here wrapped in one of those fleece body bags, with a wad of damp Kleenex tucked in my sleeve.”
“I don’t ski either,” Ellen reminded me.
“No, but you snowshoe,” I helped myself to a second muffin. Naturally, Ellen had picked the strawberries herself. “Plus you’re good at baking and you’re crafty, both of which are completely Vermonty. I tried to knit a scarf once,” I added, “and the whole time I was slaving away on the stupid thing, all I could think of was, Why not just go to K-Mart and buy a better-looking one for fifteen bucks.”
“You’re missing the bigger picture.” Ellen retrieved her latest knitting project from a tote and began clicking her needles. “Being Vermonty isn’t just about what you can or can’t do. It’s more a state of mind,” she explained.
Huh?
Before I left Ellen’s house, she insisted I take some leaf lettuce from her vegetable garden. Normally, I eat lettuce from California that is triple washed, then sealed in an airtight bag. This fresh-picked stuff would take tedious rinsing to rid it of whatever bugs thrived in organic conditions. Still, I appreciated the freebie, and set the clump of frilly greens on the passenger seat. At the least, I thought, I could use it to ward off locavores.
The drive home was pretty—trees in mid-summer bloom, and picture postcard scenes of grazing farm animals and country towns. As I drove, I mulled over Ellen’s comment—Vermont is a state of mind. I didn’t exactly know what she meant by this; Ellen and I had been friends for years, but we often spoke different languages. Still, the more I thought about her words, the better I felt.
About twenty minutes later, I turned down Route 14, which runs parallel to the White River and intersects with my road. I followed the familiar path of the water, admiring, as always, the river’s curves and sparkling beauty. No, I wasn’t Vermonty, I concluded, and likely never would be, given the fact that I would rather raise the dead than chickens. But despite this reality, Vermont still felt like home, and I knew that I didn’t want to leave here.
The Rest Home
People say youth is wasted on the young. I don’t know about that, but I do think nursing homes are wasted on the old. What I wouldn’t give to move into my dad’s skilled nursing facility, a lap of luxury known as Garden Spot.
I am sitting with my dad in his private room, demarcated from the other residents’ rooms with a wooden door decoration that reads, Be Nice to Your Kids, They Choose Your Nursing Home. Of course, here, “private” is more loosely defined, given that doors, including bathroom doors, are usually left open as aides come and go, cheerfully asking about bowel movements.