Bound South

by Susan Rebecca White

  How liberating to have another woman’s mouth against my vagina! Surely it meant that I would never have monogrammed towels or a subscription to Southern Living, let alone move back to Atlanta and join the Driving Club. And yet Miriam and I broke up after I had a series of dreams about living in a yellow house with a man and a baby. I didn’t know—still don’t know—if the dreams meant that deep down I was straight or deep down I was too scared of marginalization to let myself really enter a sexual relationship with a woman.

  Soon after I broke up with Miriam, Davis came into the restaurant where I was waiting tables, asked me out, and precipitated my exile from the land of San Francisco cool kids. None of my friends liked Davis. Wait. That’s not quite true. They liked that he would often treat at dinner; they liked that he would offer to drive people home after a play or a show; they liked that he always volunteered his apartment for cast parties. But they made fun of him behind his back, called him Pac-man (for Pacific Heights). Which he was. But also he was sexy and competent and had enough money to take me to Zuni every night of the week if I wanted to go. And after two years of eating vegetarian burritos and cheap Indian (and a few good meals with Miriam), it was wonderful to be so well treated.

  I never intended to stop acting when I got married. I was only twenty-two, certainly not the age to retire. From the very beginning I told Davis that acting was my passion, my calling, that I would still do experimental theater, that I still would do nudity if the piece called for it.

  “And I’m not going to stop watching football,” he said. So we shook on it and I went on an audition the day we returned to San Francisco from our honeymoon in Fiji. But with each audition I went to, I found myself becoming more and more critical of the scripts, of the “siege the palace” tone of them. Is it simply that money corrupts? I had access to so much more of it now that I was with Davis. I had an ATM card to our joint checking account, restocked twice a month with deposits from his hefty salary.

  Also, I had been unexpectedly affected by my father. When I described the plot of a play Davis and I had seen at the ACT as “just another piece about rich white people,” he said, “Caroline, do the rich not bleed?”

  It affected me, yes—His eye is on the sparrow, both fat and lean—but still I tried to defend my position.

  “Sure they bleed. And when they do they act like they are the only ones who have ever hurt.”

  “My little Bolshevik,” he said. “You are so much like your mother.”

  I was nothing like my mother.

  I was so far away.

  I was getting fat. My mother would never have allowed herself to get fat. When I was in high school she once warned me about the few pounds I had put on my senior year. I told her that my body was my own, to keep her opinions about it to herself. She snapped that aesthetics were important to her, that it was important for her to be surrounded by pretty things. Including her daughter.

  God.

  It happened quickly, the weight. It was as if my body—which, since that talk with Mom, I had underfed—suddenly resisted and pushed itself out, claiming space it always wanted. My hips grew and soon none of my jeans or pants fit. Men would stare at my (newly rounded) ass while I waited for the N train. Davis teased, “Baby got back.” (That was before he started eyeing me critically when I ordered dessert at a restaurant or put out cheese after dinner.) I thought what the hell, I’d go with it; it was sexy to be a little hippy. I started using butter when I cooked. I bought The Gift of Southern Cooking and learned to fry chicken after brining it for two days, first in salt water then in buttermilk. No butcher in San Francisco sold lard, so I fried the chicken in peanut oil instead. I made cheese straws with double the cheese and twice the cayenne pepper. I made Mom’s brownies with the three kinds of chocolate. One rainy night I taught myself how to make the baked buttered saltines they serve at the Driving Club.

  The fat piled on. Directors started asking me to audition for different sorts of parts, for the mother or the friend or (when I auditioned for Shakespeare at Stinson) the nurse. I was no longer ingenue material.

  There was a group of women, all overweight, who called themselves Fat Positive Actresses and performed pieces that included only big women. I did not want to join their troupe. Not that I didn’t think what they were doing was interesting, but God, I didn’t see being fat as my mission in life. I did not feel a need to proselytize pounds. (And would I even qualify? I was padded and curvy but I did have a waist.) What I was interested in was learning how to cook a goose so I could render its fat to fry potatoes.

  I read cookbooks at night the way I used to read novels. I dreamed of food. I figured that at some point I would join the gym and hire a personal trainer. Being fat would just be one of my many experiences, much as lesbianism had been.

  What I didn’t realize was, it was all leading up to something.

  You see, it was necessary for me to lose my girl self, my lithe body, my ability to get parts that kept the audience’s eyes riveted on me, all of their easy, superficial love anesthetizing my yearnings for something more.

  He had been chasing me for years but my girl self could not be caught.

  I had to be fattened before I was ready.

  IN THE DREAM that changed everything I visited a church, dark and hidden within a foreign city. The pews were filled with young people, most of whom looked like girls I went to school with at Coventry. White, well dressed, pretty in an understated sort of way. There were a few gay boys in the corner pews and one radiant black girl in the center aisle.

  The church was on its feet singing and the black girl’s voice dominated. She was large and her voice seemed to swell in her body before she let it out of her mouth. We sang softer so we could hear her. Everyone pressed up against each other to get a little nearer her spirit.

  And then it was later, another service, and I was at the church early. The pews were worn and scratched. One of the gay boys was at the church, his hair spiked the way Charles wore his the last time I saw him. He was thin, this boy. He seemed shy.

  “Do you like it here?” I asked. “Do they accept you?”

  “I like a challenge,” he said.

  I sat in the middle of the pews, hoping to be near the black girl. She came and sat in the pew in front of me. I could smell the oil in her braids. A group of girls wearing houndstooth coats came to the pew and glared at me. I was in one of their seats. I did not move, instead staring at the neck of the beautiful singer. And then people pushed in around me and suddenly we were up on our feet, singing. The minister came out, an Indian man with dark hair, and held above his head a garishly madeup baby doll with bright red cheeks and long gold earrings. And then we were moving, moving in a line up and down the aisles, worshipping and extolling the baby doll. I reached my hand out to touch the side of the pew and found it covered in something sticky. I looked down and saw that the pocket built into the back of the pews where the hymnals are kept was filled with dates and nuts and honey. I reached in and pulled out a handful. Everyone in the church was still moving and singing.

  I knew, holding the honey, that I was not supposed to eat it. That the pastor was supposed to tell us how and when to do so. But I knew also that the honey and dates were gifts from God, that they were abundant, that they were here for the taking.

  I lifted my hand to my mouth but woke up before tasting anything.

  And so I hunger for Him still.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  You Can’t Be a Fag and a Parker

  (Louise, Spring 2006)

  John Henry and I are sitting in the library after supper when we hear the doorbell ring. We’re not expecting anybody. We’ve settled in for the night, he in front of the TV and me with a lap full of catalogs to flip through. I consider not answering the bell. I don’t know a soul who would drop by unannounced after dark; in fact, now that Tiny is gone, I don’t know anyone who would drop by at all.

  The doorbell rings again. John Henry shows no intention of moving from the sofa
where he is stretched out, the newspaper crumpled on his lap, his hand holding the remote.

  “I’d get it,” I say, “but I’m worried it might be a burglar.”

  Without taking his eyes off the baseball game on TV he says, “I’ll come rescue you if it’s someone menacing.”

  Hmm. I’m willing to bet that if the Braves were about to hit a home run, John Henry would have a hard time pulling himself away from the game. Regardless of what was going on with me.

  Finally I stand up and walk to the front door. Before opening it I ask, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me.”

  It sounds like Charles, but that’s impossible because Charles is five hundred miles away in Chapel Hill, at college. Admittedly, his getting in there surprised us. His grades at Coventry, after all, were far from admirable. But his SAT scores were fabulous (he got a perfect score on verbal!), and he was a legacy going back to John Henry’s granddaddy. And so, as with Caroline, I had to take back everything I had said about him not living up to potential, setting himself up for great disappointment in life, letting down his father and myself, etc., etc.

  Probably my children should just ignore every word I say.

  I open the door and lo and behold, there is Charles, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder as if he were on leave from the army.

  “My God. Sweetheart, what are you doing here? Did something happen? Are you okay?”

  “Surprise,” he says.

  John Henry comes up from behind me. “Who is it, Louise?” he asks, but he reaches the door before I have a chance to answer.

  “Charles,” he says.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  “Gracious,” I say. It still doesn’t seem real that he is here, that I can reach out my hand and touch him. “When did you get here? How did you get here?”

  “I drove.”

  Neither John Henry nor I move from the door frame.

  I am thinking that something terrible must have happened. He must have flunked out of school or gotten a girl pregnant or—God help him—walked into his dorm room and found his roommate with his head shot off.

  (It was Wallace’s roommate, after all, who discovered him.)

  “Um, folks, can I come in?” asks Charles. “This bag weighs, like, two hundred pounds.”

  “Oh honey, I’m sorry. We’re just so surprised to see you. Come in! Come in!”

  I step aside to make room for him to walk through the front hall. He drops his bag on the floor.

  “God, I’m starving,” he says. “I drove this whole way without stopping.”

  “You drove your car?” asks John Henry. “The Accord?”

  “That’s the only car I’ve got,” says Charles.

  “From Chapel Hill to here is a pretty far drive. Your lease only allows ten thousand miles a year, you know.”

  Oh good God.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” I say, trying to put my arm around Charles’s shoulder but only reaching his upper arm. (Could he have grown even taller since the last time I saw him?) “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  I reheat the leftover butternut squash soup from dinner and make Charles a piece of cheese toast, his favorite food from since he was a little boy. I sit at the table with him while he eats. I let him have a glass of wine from the open bottle of pinot gris. I know that something must be wrong for him to have come home so unexpectedly, but I am so enjoying the experience of sitting with my boy, watching him eat food that I prepared, that I just push all concern and worry right out of my mind.

  “DARLING, IT’S TIME.”

  John Henry clicks off the TV with a sigh and follows me into the living room with the slumped shoulders of a man being dragged somewhere he doesn’t want to go.

  “I don’t understand this meeting,” he says.

  “Shush,” I say. I don’t know where Charles is and I don’t want him to overhear his father’s negativity. The living room doors—original pocket doors that slide to open—are perennially shut to guard against animal damage, even though our cat, who would have torn up the good furniture, died years ago.

  John Henry and I sit on one of the living room sofas, directly across from the Earl LeTrouve portrait of the Drag Jesus. John Henry is jiggling his leg like crazy, which is what he always does when he is agitated. It probably doesn’t help to have him facing the LeTrouve.

  Charles walks into the living room just as the grandfather clock strikes seven. He is freshly showered, his hair still damp. There’s no denying it. He has grown even taller this semester. He’s taller now than his father. I look at my husband, and I look at my son, and I feel astonished to realize that they are both men.

  Charles sits in the upholstered chair opposite our sofa. The expression on his face is as grim as his father’s. The two of them look as if they are about to be shipped off to war.

  John Henry, who brought the newspaper into the living room with him, continues reading it, even though we all are here for the meeting. I’m not entirely sure why he is being so hostile toward his son. Could he still be annoyed with Charles for refusing not only to pledge John Henry’s fraternity but to join one at all?

  “I just hate to think of all the networking he’ll miss out on,” John Henry had said.

  “Um, Dad?” asks Charles. “Are you ready?”

  John Henry holds up one finger, signifying, I suppose, that he needs a minute to finish reading his article.

  “Put down the paper, dear,” I say.

  “Just let me finish this last line,” says John Henry, stretching out the word last so he can sneak in more reading while he says it.

  “Okay,” he says. He puts the paper in his lap, close enough to him so that he can still read it if he looks down.

  “Well?” says John Henry. “What’s so important that you put five hundred superfluous miles on your Honda?”

  Why my husband can’t treat his own son with a little kindness, I will never know. John Henry’s own father, Judge Parker, was always jovial. (Although to be fair, he was usually drunk.)

  “Okay,” says Charles, rubbing the palms of his hands on the thigh of his jeans. “There’s something about me that I think you both should know. I just, I’m trying to be honest and I just, I just want to have an open relationship with you and so I thought you should know…”

  A bead of sweat runs from his hairline down the side of his face.

  And just like that, I do know.

  Oh my Lord. I know what he is going to say.

  What I can’t figure out is why on earth I didn’t guess it before.

  I remember him as a little boy, how sweet and open he was, how he looked at me with such unbridled adoration. And then I remember him in middle school, too skinny, with dark circles under his eyes and no plans for the weekend. He was even more miserable in high school, his dark hair dyed platinum, his smirks and sarcasm, the tight T-shirts he wore with ironic captions, the way he would jerk away anytime I tried to lay a hand on his shoulder, as if he couldn’t stand to be near me because he couldn’t stand himself.

  I squeeze his knee. “Honey, I think I know what you are going to say and I want you to know that your father and I always have and always will love you.”

  The tears in my eyes are about to spill over and run down my cheeks. I don’t blink, trying to keep them in. I don’t want Charles to think that I’m upset by his news.

  Charles turns toward me with a look of such gratitude that I allow myself the pleasure of knowing that yes, at this crucial time, I have done right by my child.

  Charles turns to his father and says, “I’m gay.”

  And then Charles starts crying, his shoulders shaking, wails coming from some choked place inside him that doesn’t want to let the pain out.

  He cried like this when he was a child, forgetting to breathe between sobs until he finally has to gasp for air, his mouth gaping like that of some wounded animal.

  John Henry looks at the newspaper on his lap, his expression flat.

  “Baby,” I say, “w
e love you. And we are so glad you trusted us with this.”

  I look to my husband to confirm my statement. He is silent.

  “Aren’t we glad he trusted us with this?” I ask him.

  John Henry stands, the newspaper falling from his lap onto the floor. “Is that all of your news?” he asks.

  Charles and I just stare at him.

  “Because if it is, I say we adjourn this meeting.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  Charles has not taken a breath since his father stood up.

  “I’m going to watch the rest of the game,” he says.

  And then he walks out of the room.

  SOMETHING ABOUT JOHN Henry’s callousness seems to calm Charles. Perhaps the familiarity of it reminds him how to cope. He wipes his eyes and straightens his spine and says, “That could have been worse.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “He’ll come around.”

  Charles shrugs. “Maybe.”

  Suddenly I feel very awkward. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do or say.

  “Do you want something to drink?” I ask. “Some iced tea or a Coke or something? Or if you want a beer I’ll get you a beer.”

  Does my son even drink beer? Fraternity boys drink beer. Gay men do what? Sip martinis?

  “I could make us gimlets,” he says. “They’re fun.”

  My God. A gimlet?

  “I don’t even know what alcohol is in that.”

  “Gin,” he says. “They’re fabulous.”

  My son says “fabulous.” My gay son says “fabulous.” I have a gay son. I have a gay son who makes himself mixed drinks. Oh Lord. Am I one day going to be one of those blue-haired old ladies wearing ancient Armani who gets taken out to lunch at the Colonnade by her son and his partner?