Chapter 15
Tim’s dreams got worse as the night wore on and his mother was in all of them. He felt searing pain. He was at the doctor’s office in bandages. He was a little boy and he was scared.
Tim’s tossing and turning woke Nick. “Snowman… what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
“Hmm? Nothing. I don’t know. Dreaming. What time is it?”
Nick sat up far enough to look at the digital clock on the dresser. “Six forty-five.”
“Oh.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah… I mean no. Come with me. We’ve got to get dressed.”
“Where are we going?”
“Over to Collingwood. I have to check on something at Aunt Ruth’s.”
“Can’t we have coffee first?” Nick moaned, but he was already pulling on his jeans.
“I’ll take you to breakfast later, I promise.”
Ruth leaned over in the deck chair and took another sip of her coffee. A young mother at the pool was letting her kids run in circles and scream what sounded like an Indian war cry. Ruth thought she must feed them a steady diet of sugar. They were in #5 at the opposite end of the motel from Ruth’s room, thank goodness. She’d had her first good night’s sleep in a long time, even though it was in a strange bed. Now it was time to make some phone calls.
“Sam? Yes it’s me. Sweetheart, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m so sorry. You were out of town so long and I was sure I’d be back in the city before you got home and… He is? Well, I’m planning to call Tim just as soon as we’re done talking. I didn’t even know you were back from Europe already, so I wasn’t sure… No, my cell phone probably wouldn’t have been… I’m still getting used to this new one and yes, I forget to charge it sometimes, I suppose. Oh, darn it! Hold on a second, Sam. I won’t be able to hear a word until I can get this poor little girl to stop crying.”
One of the little demons was screaming at the top of her lungs. Ruth saw a big yellow ball under the chair next to hers. “Is this what you’re looking for, honey? Is this your ball? Don’t cry. Here, I’ll bring it to you.” Ruth set her phone down on top of the Good Housekeeping she’d been paging through. The magazine rack in the knotty pine office held a Newsweek from the Clinton administration, three very old National Geographics, four faded Good Housekeepings and a half-dozen tattered copies of The Reader’s Digest. On the rickety coffee table there was one called Christian Home and a yellowed issue of Wine Country. Ruth leafed through them all before she picked up the Good Housekeeping. She might at least find an interesting recipe.
“Yes, Sam… I’m at the Wagon Wheel Inn. It was the first place I could find after I got Betty admitted. They must get a lot of business from people in my situation. The sign says Free Cable—Swimming Pool—Horseback Riding—Adult Movies—I haven’t checked those out yet. I haven’t seen any horses yet either, but I think I heard some. It’s quite the place!”
Tim still had keys to Ruth’s apartment on Collingwood Street. It was Tim’s apartment for a long time and she insisted that he keep a set, just in case. When he put his key in the gate he remembered that Arturo had recently changed the lock because of that homeless woman who’d gotten into the building. Tim wanted to think she’d left the Castro by now and moved on to some other neighborhood, but in the back of his mind he knew better.
“Now what?” Nick asked. “It looks like Ruth’s front window might be open a crack. Should I boost you up?”
“Nah… I’ll buzz Teresa.” Tim pressed the top right hand button. “Even if we wake her, she owes me one.”
There was a long silence and then a tinny voice came through the speaker. “Hllllo! Whbyzzzit?”
“Hey, Teresa! It’s Tim. Nick and I need to get in. Can you buzz the gate please?”
“Sssstresa’s nagrombssssss.”
“What the hell? Arturo needs to replace that intercom. I couldn’t understand a word she said.” Tim leaned into the speaker again, “Will you please buzz us in, Teresa? I need to check out something in my Aunt Ruth’s apartment, but I don’t have a key to the new lock on the front gate.”
Nothing. Two more minutes ticked by without another sound from the static-ridden squawk box. “I hate to ring Arturo and Artie’s buzzer this early, but it would serve them right.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to boost you up, Snowman? Maybe we could get in from around back… you know, by the garbage cans?”
They heard a creak as a window opened high above them and Birdie Fuller stuck her head out. “Hi guys! What can do for you?”
“Where’s Teresa?”
“Seattle. It was short notice, so she asked me to housesit for her… and your Aunt Ruth’s cat. What’s up?”
“I need to check on my Aunt Ruth’s apartment, but I forgot Arturo changed the lock. Sorry to wake you, but could you buzz us in, please?”
“I guess it’s okay, but if someone calls the cops I could get into a lot of trouble, especially since I am one.” Birdie laughed at her own little joke. “Where’s the button I need to push, anyway?”
“It should be on the wall in the hallway, just to the right of the intercom.”
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
When they got inside, Birdie was leaning over the railing looking down at them. “Hi guys!”
It was the first time Tim had ever seen her out of uniform. “Hi Birdie, have you met Nick?”
“Hey, Nick!”
“Good to meet you, Birdie.” Nick waved.
“What’s up with Teresa?” Tim asked.
“She went to Seattle for her class reunion. She wasn’t gonna go, but her ex-husband Lenny is going and he’s bringing his husband Teddy along. They talked her into it. She can visit her mother, too.”
“I know them… … Theodore and Leonardo. Don’t call them Lenny and Teddy to their faces or you’ll be on their shit list.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Birdie smiled again and gave Tim the thumbs-up. She seemed awfully jolly for this hour of the morning. “Teresa went by the restaurant yesterday to tell Artie she was going, but he was busy with the Italian superstar.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Anyway, Leonardo asked Teresa to come along for moral support. He figured if his ex-wife was cool with him being a big old homo it would be easier to face his old classmates… oh, sorry… no offense.”
“Hah, no problem, Birdie. Have you ever seen Teresa’s ex?”
“No.”
“Well, he sure doesn’t have to worry about getting beat up. I’ll bet those two will be the biggest guys at the whole reunion.”
“Bears, huh?”
“Yup. Nobody’s going to pick on them, at least not to their faces.”
“Well, Teresa’s mother is getting up there in years too, so she can kill two birds.”
“Thanks for letting us in, Birdie.”
A little boy came out of room #5 to see what his sister was screaming about. He wrestled the yellow ball away from her and kicked it back into the pool. Then the mother appeared, holding an infant. Ruth said to her, “Excuse me, but you really need to keep an eye on your children out here by the pool. There’s no lifeguard, you know.”
“You really need to mind your own damned business, lady!”
“Did you hear that, Sam? She swore at me. I feel sorry for those kids, growing up with a mother like that. I wonder where the father is… Where was I? Oh yes… Betty. This all has to do with my sister, you see. Tim’s mother is my only sibling and she’s here. Well, she’s just up the road. You’ve heard of the Redwood Valley Ranch. They have those TV commercials: Stop the downward spiral of addiction! Call today. We can make you feel like your old self again. I think they should make you feel like your young self instead of your old self and they’d do a land-office business!
“I should start at the beginning, I suppose… remember when they saw that woman in my building? The first time Teresa found her in the garbage room. She was drunk… no not Teresa, the homeless woman. That gate never did lock prop
erly, so nobody thought much of it. Yes, I think Artie still is…
“Well, it was conceivable that a homeless person crawled in there to sleep. But she’d been snooping around at Tim’s house too. She scared your daughter Jane half to death, peeking in the windows. She didn’t realize Tim lives upstairs on the second floor—”
“Hold on. I’m getting to that part, Sam. You see, I was the next one to spot her and I didn’t even recognize her first. She was on the bench outside Buffalo Whole Foods—you know the health food place on the corner of Castro and 19th. I thought she was begging for spare change and I rarely give money to people on the street unless it’s a musician I like. You never know whether they’re really who they appear to be—
“Yes, I remember that was in the papers, Sam. I also remember a boy panhandling in front of the restaurant every Friday afternoon. He’d smoke joints and collect quite a lot of money. He was cute, in a way, or so the gay boys at Arts all said. Then his mother would come and pick him up in a limousine. I wondered if she was his pimp! But Betty… in front of the health food store that day… she was sitting there clutching her Bible. Her hair was filthy. Her clothes were torn and ragged. When I realized she was my sister, I froze in my tracks! I don’t know whether she recognized me right away. My very own sister, dressed like a vagabond.”
Tim opened the apartment door and turned left into the kitchen. He’d lived here so long that the place still seemed like home, but it was strange to be here now without his Aunt Ruth. The refinished hardwood floors glowed a deep honey-brown color in the early morning light. Tim remembered that the big belt sander was still sitting in the middle of his kitchen floor on Hancock Street. The work ahead seemed daunting, but it would all be worthwhile if his floors came out looking as good as these.
“Does your Aunt Ruth have a housekeeper come in?” Nick asked. “This place is spotless.”
“Nah, she does it all herself.” Tim opened the back door onto the patio and picked up the watering can. “It’s clean alright, but what this place needs is some fresh air. I’m surprised she didn’t give the plants a good soaking before she left. She could have asked someone to do it… like me!” Tim was hurt that she hadn’t confided in him where she was going.
“You could eat off this floor.” Nick had a look around the kitchen. “And she didn’t leave any dirty dishes in the sink or any science experiments in the refrigerator. I guess she didn’t leave in any hurry.”
“She’s always been pretty anal about housework. She wasn’t so fussy when I lived here and she was visiting me, but when I lived with her and Uncle Dan in high school she was meticulous. I’d almost forgotten about that.” Tim filled the watering can again and again. Then he glanced at the refrigerator. When he lived here it was covered with pictures. Now there was just the South of Market Bare Chest Calendar his Aunt Ruth must have bought at Under One Roof to support the AIDS Emergency Fund.
“Do you want to look in here?” Nick was outside the closed door to Ruth’s bedroom. “What are we looking for, anyway?”
“I’m not sure, but if anything was out of place, it might give me a clue. Maybe she just needed time to think before she marries Sam. Maybe she wanted to talk things over with an old friend. I think I know her so well and then sometimes I have to admit there are secrets in everyone’s life, even secrets they keep from their closest friends.”
“Now you’re sounding mysterious, babe…”
“Don’t worry, I’m not that complicated.”
“Well Sam, you can imagine the ordeal it’s been to hide her, especially from Tim. And she’s so noisy when she’s drunk—even in her sleep, she cries out like a monster is attacking her. The boys upstairs must have heard her moaning a couple of times. Oh Sam! They’ll think it was you and me. Ha-ha-ha… the next time they see you I’ll bet they give you a long hard look! Oh, God! I shouldn’t be laughing! It’s to keep from crying, I guess. You know what the Romans say, ‘In Vino Veritas.’ Well, that was sure true in Betty’s case. She told me some things I would rather not have known, horrible things she did to Tim when he was just a little boy… no, … I have no reason to doubt them now. She hadn’t drawn a sober breath in years! And if Tim has blocked any memory of all that, it’s a relief. I don’t want to go into all the details on the phone, Sam, but the worst part is that she doesn’t regret a bit of it! Her mind is so twisted, between the alcohol and some sick interpretation of the Bible, that she thinks she was doing the right thing all along.
“No… no… I don’t care what else happens. I mean, I hope this place will do her some good, but even when she gets out of there and she’s sober, hopefully, I still don’t want her coming after Tim. She has no right to his house or his money. After what she did to him, she doesn’t even deserve to call herself his mother!”
Tim started thinking about the old pictures that used to be on this refrigerator. Now they were in a box on a shelf on Hancock Street. He remembered some of the beautiful men who’d been in this apartment, some of them several times, some for just a night or only an hour… or less. Where were they now? Some hadn’t even made it as far as the bedroom. A couple of times someone followed him home from Collingwood Park in the wee small hours. When he didn’t want to worry about his valuables, just inside the gate was far enough. The rest of the tenants would be asleep by that time. No one would ever know.
He remembered a sexy PG&E repairman who’d been working on the pole out in front when Tim came home from an early morning run. Teresa had almost caught them in the laundry room. Tim told her he was just showing the guy where the circuit breaker was, but both of them were still fastening up their pants. He’d told the guy he had a uniform fetish and to leave the tool belt on. Tim wondered how many loads had been finished off in that laundry room that had nothing to do with clothes.
Times sure had changed, now that Nick was part of his life. Maybe it was time to admit to the changes. Outside of Tim’s dreams, he hadn’t had sex with a stranger in ages. He didn’t think of them as strangers at the time, of course. To whatever degree, some part of him fell deeply in love, if only for a moment. Sex was always easier than “dating” and Tim would never believe there’d been anything wrong with learning to love as many other men as possible while he was on his way to loving Nick.
Tim headed toward his Aunt Ruth’s bedroom – his old bedroom – and tried to remember the last time he’d made love with anyone else but Nick with as much trust and honesty, closeness and comfort and still so steaming hot! He couldn’t remember anyone else. Nick had been pressuring him for a stronger commitment. Maybe it was time.
“Gosh, it’s a relief to lie here in the sun and relax. I’ve been reading a Stephen King paperback the last couple of weeks, but I must have left it in my car. It’s one of those books where he takes thirty pages to move the plot along by about five minutes. At the rate I’m going, it might last me all summer. Sometimes I just want to throw it across the room and scream, ‘Get on with it, already!’
“No, I didn’t buy it; someone left it on the bar, a lovely couple from Cleveland visiting their gay son. They were staying at Family Link. It’s a place for people from out of town who are visiting loved ones who are sick. It started with AIDS families, but I think it’s broader now. They did a benefit a while back at Arts; that’s the only reason I know. It’s just a couple of blocks from the restaurant. Anyway, they left the book on the bar. I would have returned it if I could, but they already told me they were on their way to the airport. Their son was doing much better and the father had to be back at work on Monday morning… back in Cleveland. Maybe they’d already finished the book…
“Oh, you’re so funny. You’re right, I’m digressing worse than Stephen King. I didn’t mean to go on and on like this, monopolizing the conversation and I still haven’t explained everything, but it’s so good to hear your voice. I just wish it weren’t over the telephone.
“I’m sure you’ve been to this part of California, haven’t you? When I was in college we drove up he
re once or twice, but I’d forgotten how lovely it is, all the sunshine and the trees and the warm smells of nature. I went for a long drive yesterday after I got Betty settled in and I even toured a couple of wineries. I tasted a Petit Syrah and ended up buying a case. It’s in the trunk of my car. I hope it doesn’t boil in this heat. I’ll cook us a nice dinner to go with it. Maybe lamb? It seems funny that people come to the Redwood Valley Ranch to dry out in the heart of the wine country.
“I ran into Terry and Chris, some customers I know from Arts. You met them both that day at my surprise party. They’re the sweetest guys and both of them were born female, you know? Yes, the opposite of what Marcia went through. I got to know them over the bar a bit before they told me. I’d never known anyone before who was, either, but I felt flattered that they confided in me. I guess it’s because the bar is just like an analyst’s couch for a lot of people, but I like to think that I always listen with an open mind and a certain degree of empathy. I hope I project that.
“No, Sam… I think they’re just the best of friends, going through something like this together. Yes, like Chastity Bono… ‘Chaz’, now. By the way, they told me they don’t much care for her, I mean him, being a spokesperson for all of them. Each of them is an individual and has his own story to tell. Friends come in all forms, don’t they? The whole idea of sex-change surgery planted the seed of an idea… Oh, goodness no, Sam, not me! I couldn’t be happier being a woman, but I’ll tell you one thing, if I woke up one morning in a man’s body, I’d do everything I could to make things right again. And if I’d felt that way my whole life, that I was stuck in the wrong gender, I can hardly imagine it, but that’s what these poor souls are going through. Wouldn’t you do everything in your power, Sam, if it were you?
“Exactly. Anyway, this whole thing got me to thinking how some people will never understand anyone who’s different—gays, even—or people from different religions, other than their own, and that we’re all just human beings at heart. Well, they insisted on treating me to lunch and it was so nice to see them. They had fascinating stories, both of them, and all the while they were telling me about their families and their childhoods and their backgrounds, I was coming up with a little plan of my own. I can’t go into it all on the telephone, no… They were staying at one of those resorts over in Guerneville for a long weekend and wanted to make a little side trip for some wine-tasting too…”
Wedding Season Page 12