When You Don't See Me

by Timothy James Beck

  I stared at her. Back to familiar territory.

  “What about dessert?” the waiter asked, and we both jumped. He wouldn’t look at me.

  “No, thanks. We’re not done here.” She waited until he was out of earshot. “You think I don’t understand how miserable you were? I know they picked on you. I know how bad it was, Nicky. That’s why I brought you to New York in the first place. But to Chuck, it’s as if all your bad behavior was rewarded. You disrupted our home. Kept things in turmoil. Then you got to go away to a private art school and live in New York City with your uncle. There were no athletic or academic scholarships offered to you the way there were to Tony and Chuck. Your father had to pay the full amount of your tuition to Pratt. Buy all your supplies. We sent you money, clothes, whatever you needed. Then, without a word to us, you decided it wasn’t for you and dropped out.”

  “Okay. I know. I suck.”

  “You don’t suck. I told you I understand. I’m an adult. I’m your mother. I love you and want to protect you. I know all that acting out came from your fear and unhappiness. But Chuck was a kid, just like you. How was he supposed to understand?”

  “You just don’t get it, Mom.”

  “No, you don’t get it.”

  “This is where we always end up. Tony hates me because he’s like—” I stopped myself. It was pointless to say that my father hated me. She didn’t want to hear it. She’d never agree with it. “Chuck is scared that since I’m gay, he could be, too. He does whatever it takes to distance himself from me. For that matter, who in our family doesn’t?”

  “Blaine doesn’t.”

  “Of course not. He went down this road before I did.”

  “All I wanted was for my children to be happy and healthy. Would I rather you weren’t gay? I used to feel that way. But the point came when wishing for that was like wishing you away. I can’t do that.”

  “I know I’m a disappointment—”

  “Please stop putting words in my mouth. What do you want from me? It’s as if our family has been hemorrhaging for years. How do I stop the bleeding?”

  “Can we please get out of here?”

  As soon as she looked around, the waiter rushed up with our check. It was okay, though. It made us smile at each other again, which broke the tension.

  Outside Oceana, she paused, and I realized she was disoriented. I took her arm and began walking in the direction of the Four Seasons.

  “When do you go back?” I asked.

  “I have meetings tomorrow morning and fly out midafternoon. You’ll be at work, I suppose.”

  “Right.”

  “So I guess we won’t see each other again this trip.”

  “Guess not.”

  We were quiet until we got to the hotel and she said, “Do you want to come up? See my room?”

  “Roberto’s mother works here,” I said. “I’ve been all over the hotel with him. Don’t tell hotel management that.” She smiled again, but she looked sad, too. “I’m sorry about…I probably sound like I hate you all, or blame you for my miserable life. But it’s not miserable. I’m fine. I didn’t want to waste your money on tuition when I’m not sure what I want to do. Working is the best thing for me right now, okay?”

  “Whether it’s okay or not, you can make your own decisions.”

  I hugged her again. She felt too thin. We’d always been alike that way. Two people who couldn’t eat when they were tense or scared. Maybe sometimes she felt invisible, too.

  “So, if I call you, will you answer?” she asked, pulling away to look up at my face.

  “Yes.” She wouldn’t look away. “I promise.”

  “I’ll check on that credit card—”

  “Noooo,” I said. “I don’t need money.”

  She heard what I hadn’t said: I don’t need his money. But all she said was, “Let me know if you do.”

  “I will.”

  I waited until she was inside the hotel; then I walked back to Park Avenue. I looked south for a minute, then glanced toward Lexington. It would make sense to take the 6 home. I’d get there faster.

  A crashing noise made my entire body jerk around. Then I saw the offending garbage truck and tried to convince my pounding heart that I was fine. After a minute, I began walking up Park Avenue.

  Roberto finagled permission for us to watch the Puerto Rican Day parade from a window at Drayden’s. Roberto’s sixteen-year-old brother, Ernie, and two of Ernie’s friends, along with Adalla, Isleta, and me, tucked ourselves in among the mannequins. I figured the boys would much rather be in the crowd on the street, but I was grateful to be two floors above the madness. Huge gatherings of people seemed like a target to me. I’d skipped parades for the last couple years, though I had to admit it was fun to have a bird’s-eye view of the brightly colored floats and cars. Plus I liked watching Adalla get excited about her first New York City parade.

  “I don’t understand a word they’re saying,” Adalla whispered to me as Ernie and his friends joked around. “I’m old.”

  “It’s not just you,” I assured her. “I’ve only been out of high school a year, and I’ve already lost all street cred. I don’t know if they even say ‘street cred’ anymore.”

  “We never did,” Ernie smarted off, but it only made me grin at him. Typical Mirones cockiness.

  “See anyone familiar?” Roberto asked as he slipped up behind me.

  “You gotta be joking,” I said.

  He nodded toward the street and said, “Look, a group from the Department of Corrections. You must recognize someone.”

  “Smartass.”

  “You’re so sensitive,” he said, ruffling my hair. Then he looked at Ernie, said something in Spanish, and left.

  “What’s that green froggy-looking thing on those flags?” I asked Adalla, who was using a cookie to bribe Isleta to sit still.

  “It actually is a green froggy thing,” she said.

  “Coquí,” Ernie said, forgetting for a moment to pretend he didn’t know us. I nudged the pack of cookies toward him. “I said coquí, not cookie. That’s the sound it makes when it sings.”

  “What makes?”

  “The tree frog.”

  “What tree frog? What are you talking about?”

  “The frog on the flags,” he said. His tone showed he was out of patience with me.

  “I believe Puerto Rico is the only place you can find the coquí frog,” Adalla explained, drawing from her wealth of all things trivial. “Maybe that’s why some people put it on the flag.”

  “Oh,” I said. I scooted next to Isleta and leaned forward until my forehead touched the glass. For a moment I felt dizzy, even though we were only on the second floor. I reminded myself to breathe the way Gavin had taught me. A mounted policeman looked up at our window. I gave him a halfhearted wave, and he winked at me. Then he lowered his head, and his helmet hid his eyes.

  “Doesn’t New York have a gay pride parade?” Adalla asked.

  “One of the biggest,” I said. “Although technically, it’s called a march.”

  “Oh. Is it on Fifth Avenue?”

  “Yeah. It starts at Fifth and Fifty-second and eventually ends at Christopher Street. There’s also a festival and a dance.”

  “Do you go?”

  “I went in 2001. Not last year,” I said.

  Adalla was quiet for a while, and I thought she was engrossed by the scene outside, until she said, “When is it? Can anybody go?”

  “Three weeks from today. You can go if you take your pink card.” I turned to see her frowning at me. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a pink card because you’re straight. Maybe you could get together with Kendra and watch it on public access cable or something.”

  “I’m not watching anything with your freaky roommate,” she said.

  “You’re getting them mixed up,” I said. “Kendra’s the one we like.”

  “I’m not getting them mixed up. Kendra’s the blond flake. Morgan’s all right, though.”


  “Morgan’s the one with the snakes!”

  “You sound like those people who say to me, ‘You’ve got a kid?’ So Morgan keeps strange pets. And she isn’t cute and perky like the other one. I like her.” She noticed that I was gaping at her. “I do! Kendra is sweet on the surface, but underneath…”

  “Kendra’s nice,” I insisted.

  “You know what Kendra reminds me of?” she asked, glancing down at the street. “Those people who sit in their big houses with a BMW and an Expedition in the garage. They work at companies like my mama cleans. They bitch all the time about somebody maybe getting something they don’t deserve. Immigrants taking jobs. Black mothers getting free milk for their kids. Like anybody’s ever taken milk from their refrigerators to give to somebody else’s kid. They act like any time somebody gets something, it takes something from them.”

  “You just described my parents,” I said. Then I felt guilty. “My grandparents. And my father. Anyway, Kendra works all the time, and she knows what it’s like to be broke. She’s not like you think.”

  “Give her a few years. What do you mean, I can’t go to the gay pride parade because I’m straight? I’m not Puerto Rican or Irish, either, but—”

  “I was kidding,” I said. “Of course you can go.”

  “Are you going?”

  “I don’t plan to.”

  “Huh,” was all she said.

  Over the next few days, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Adalla had said. Not her opinion of Kendra, which was irrational and inaccurate. I wondered if there was something wrong with me because I had no interest in the upcoming Pride festivities.

  During my first June in New York, Blaine and Daniel were still the darlings of the gay press, even after Daniel lost his job as the bad guy on Secret Splendor. They said his exit was “storyline-dictated,” but everybody knew it was because he’d come out. He stayed employed long enough to keep his producers from looking like assholes. Then his role got smaller, until finally he was written off the show. Everybody’s favorite villain became everyone’s favorite victim, and Daniel’s schedule was filled with a new round of interviews and appearances, especially during Pride month.

  I’d had my own friends to be with and places to go during Pride. I was barely aware of what Daniel and Blaine had going on, either then or the rest of that summer. Then it all became irrelevant in September. I still hadn’t felt much like celebrating in June of 2002. Plus I avoided crowds the way I did the subway, skyscrapers, and Lower Manhattan.

  I didn’t have to explain any of this to Roberto, who wasn’t surprised when I told him I’d decided to shun Pride again this year.

  “Maybe you could take Adalla if she wants to go,” I said.

  “Are you trying to hook us up?” Roberto asked.

  “No. But she hasn’t lived in the city long, and being at a parade with half a million people—”

  “Adalla can take care of herself,” Roberto said. “I’ll see what everybody else is doing. Once I know the plan, I’ll invite her. If you change your mind, you can always go with us.”

  “Not likely,” I said.

  As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. Apparently, however, I’d caused a disturbance in the force, as I first realized from Kendra.

  “You’re not going to Pride? That’s awful. It’s worse than when I decided not to go to the prom with the Shermans’ grandson.”

  She impatiently twisted her hair into a knot, as if a little air against the back of her neck might blow away a traumatic memory. I still hadn’t learned my lesson and waited for the rest of her story. Of course, it never came.

  “Plenty of people don’t go to Pride,” I finally said. “It’s hot. It’s crowded. You either have to get there hours early for a good spot, or you get stuck watching it with the haters near St. Patrick’s.”

  “What are you talking about?” Morgan asked as she walked in. She did a quick scan of the kitchen. Morgan, like the Terminator, saw the world through infrared sensors that triggered stolen food alarms even when she didn’t catch us in the act.

  “He says he’s not going to Pride,” Kendra said.

  “No!” Morgan gasped. She was wearing a shapeless black dress with big pockets on the front. She reached into one of these and took out a business card. “This guy writes a column for the Village Voice. He’ll probably want to interview you.”

  It was easier to ignore Morgan than my friends. I felt like I was part of an experiment on peer pressure. The more pressure I got, the more I resisted. Only I knew how guilty that made me feel, until I confessed to Isaiah.

  We were delivering a ceramic pink flamingo to a town house near Sheridan Square. No one was home, but the owner had left a key with his neighbor. When we went inside, both Isaiah and I recoiled.

  “Dios mio,” I imitated Adalla and looked around at ten thousand tchotchkes and a wall that was covered by a mural of Barbra Streisand. A rainbow flag fluttered from the ceiling. “So this is where 1970s San Francisco has been hiding.”

  Isaiah pushed aside strands of beads to glance in the kitchen. He turned around and said, “Trust me, you don’t want to look in there. Gently dock the flamingo, then exit the apartment. Make haste, young man.”

  Once we were back in the van, we burst out laughing, and he said, “I am one proud motherfucker! How ’bout you?”

  “Really proud,” I said. “Now I can stop feeling guilty about skipping the parade this year.”

  “It’s not mandatory,” Isaiah said, flipping off a cab driver who took offense when Isaiah intimidated him into another lane.

  “You’re the first person who’s said that. You’re not going either?”

  “Are you kidding? I’m marching with the Full Gospel Gay and Lesbian Choir. We’re gonna win the award for outstanding musical contingent.” He laughed when he glanced over and saw my expression. “Yeah. You may as well turn in your queer credentials now.”

  “I’m queer. I’m here. Fuck you,” I said.

  July 4, 2003

  Dear Nick,

  Today Adam and I are at this huge PFLAG cookout at his parents’ house. Every gay, lesbian, and bisexual person his mother knows is here, I think. I’m so disappointed in Aggie Wilson; she wasn’t able to find anyone transgendered this year, but she sure tried.

  You know how she is. Her theme: No One Is Free Until All Of Us Are Free. And to illustrate, her Weimaraners have been forced into costume: thus the American flag stovepipe hats and rainbow vests they are wearing in the enclosed photos. Usually I’m more than willing to indulge Aggie in her shenanigans. And so are the dogs, if there’s food involved. But have you ever seen two dogs look more embarrassed?

  Anyway, I made the mistake of telling her that you work with red and blue poodles. She immediately downloaded these photos and made me print them for you. Keep them if you think Sadie and Marnie may run for office in the future and they’ll be useful to you. God knows if I were a dog, I’d do anything to conceal these.

  And oh yeah—happy Independence Day. Now that we’re halfway through the year when Nick Dunhill declared his independence, I hope you’re celebrating!

  Love you,

  Jeremy

  10

  Young Offender

  Growing up in Wisconsin had taught me that cream of chicken soup, not variety, was the spice of life. Wamsley & Wilkes taught me that one spice, or one kind of soup, wasn’t enough. Because I was always doing something different, I loved my job. There was never a moment to feel bored. There was always something to do, or someone who needed an extra pair of hands on a project. Most importantly, I was always learning something new.

  I’d never used a sewing machine in my life, but I quickly learned how to thread a machine and follow patterns. I started to see the beauty in custom draperies, pillows, and upholstery. Terry, the self-proclaimed Fabric Bitch, lauded my newly acquired ability to identify fabric from twenty paces.

  I almost couldn’t wait to talk to Chuck on the phone again, because Jisella had t
aught me how to use a band saw. I still had all my fingers, to boot. Chuck had almost failed shop class in high school. So had I, but I decided that the teacher hadn’t made class interesting. Working with Jisella had become my favorite activity. If they needed me, everyone knew to find me in her workshop. Anytime there was a lull in my day, I’d walk in and she’d toss me a pair of goggles and say something like, “Okay, kid. Ever made coopered doors? No? Let’s get to it.” Or, “Okay, kid. Ever milled your own lumber? No? Pass me that six-quarter.”

  Helping Jisella build custom pieces of furniture for Wamsley & Wilkes’s clients became like assisting a postmodernist sculptor. At first I had trouble reading her blueprints. Every piece she made was carefully planned out to the finest detail. To me, it was like another language. Nothing but lines and numbers on paper. I never liked math. But the more pieces we made, the more the plans made sense. It wasn’t long until I felt brave enough to question the plans and wonder aloud if they fit the design scheme.

  “I know they asked for a scrolled base for this end table,” I said one day, “but wouldn’t bracket feet fit the overall scheme better? A parquet top would be really cool, too. Don’t you think?” I realized Jisella hadn’t answered and turned around to see her staring at me with a glazed look in her eye. “Paging Jisella. Jisella, please return to earth immediately.”

  She blinked and looked around, as if she’d just woken up and expected to find herself home, in bed. She glanced at the riffler in her hand and looked like she was trying to remember why she’d picked it up, and when.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just tired.” She sat on a stool at the workbench and used the riffler to scratch the middle of her back. “Ever get lost in a moment?”

  “Huh?”

  “Close. But not that kind of lost,” she joked. Jisella placed the riffler on the workbench and said, “When you were talking about the table, you sounded just like Lou.”