Encounters with Sir John and Dame Cleo

These two essays are ones I wrote a year ago, and since Sir John Dankworth passed away this last weekend, thought I'd post them here. Even though I was just a fan, it feels like I've lost a grandparent or something...

DAMES

 “Although she has spent much of her career being pushed as a British Ella Fitzgerald, the reality is that Cleo Laine’s greatest strength lies in her interpretive abilities. Her voice, with its endless variety of tonal colors, can convey a sense of hard-earned wisdom”   —    Mathew Bahl

 My favorite living singer is a jazz legend from Great Britain named Cleo Laine. I tried to see her in concert every moment I could and one year, I hopped on a plane to New York for a gig she was doing at Michael Feinstein’s supper club. A real swank, classy place, it featured great performers and was extremely intimate, only holding about 130 patrons. If there is ever an entertainer you admire and want to see up close, Feinstein’s is the place to go.

 I have never considered myself a groupie, and I don’t think I could ever be one, no matter how into the “divas” I may be. With Dame Cleo Laine, I was a bit different.

When you listen to her you’re hearing a great actress deliver a song with an incredibly rare and specialized technique. From a throaty whisper to a high-pitched trill, her four-octave range hits notes I imagine only dogs can hear. She can scat like a clarinet yet when she interprets a lyric you know you’re in the presence of someone who’s lived, really lived.

My passion for her sound started in college. I had been having a hard time my freshman year with consonants in the songs I chose. I would mush the lyrics together, making most audiences strain their eardrums trying to understand what the hell I was singing about. I certainly needed one on one training to produce words clipped and intelligible. I sounded like one of those adults in the Charlie Brown episodes.

My vocal instructor, rather than grill me herself, simply said, “Go buy an album called That Old Feeling by Cleo Laine. It’s her, piano and a bass. Study it and you’ll never have trouble being understood again.”

I got it, studied that thing day in and day out, wearing through three cassette tapes. (I hope Ms. Laine needed the money). Not only did it get my instructor off the hook of doing it herself, it gave me an excellent master class in technique and interpretation.

A month later, all us students were given tickets to Broadway Salutes the Lincoln Center, a benefit, and there I saw her live for the first time, singing “Bill” from Show Boat. I was stunned at her vocal control and acting.

That same year, 1986, she was on Broadway in The Mystery of Edwin Drood and I went to see her five times. When my parents came in to visit one spring weekend, I knew their Iowan tastes couldn’t handle most of the shows in New York at that time. If Minnie Pearl wasn’t involved, they wouldn’t understand it.

However, I knew they would enjoy the bawdy music hall humor of Drood, so I took them and I was right, they loved it. Dad even made the comment, “That Cleo Laine is a saucy lookin’ gal ain’t she?” a compliment from him if there ever was one.

During the run of the show on my way to work after school, out of Tower Records she came as I opened the door. Smiling, she said, “Thank you” but I was so young and shy I couldn’t even mumble out, “You’re welcome,” let alone tell her how much I admired her work. I just stood there as she walked away, in pink sweatpants, probably wondering why this American was so rude he didn’t respond.

All that studying of That Old Feeling and now I couldn’t even open up my mouth to form words.

 However, I had no trouble forming words once the cast album of Drood was finally released. I would not shut up to the customers about how much fun it was. I’d just go on and on about Cleo Laine, Cleo Laine, Cleo Laine! (I also had a slight crush on one the cast members, Howard McGillin, who totally threw me off guard one day when he walked up to me at Tower looking for a CD. Apparently, I can’t form words with anybody well-known as I just stared at him, moon-eyed and got a confused look back.)

My manager, Big Dan, later approached me, saying, “What the hell are you doing, moonlighting in the marketing department of Edwin Drood?!” When I shyly said sorry, I couldn’t help it, he laughed and said he’d been to a party the night before. Rupert Holmes, the creator of the show was there also and mentioned some young employee of Dan’s who wouldn’t stop shoving the new album down his throat.

He told Dan, “I appreciate the help, but come on ... I have my own copy.”

 Over the intervening years, I saw her in Into the Woods and in concert at least six more times. When I found out she was going to do Feinstein’s, I immediately got a ticket. An elderly friend of mine from Toronto named Fred was going to be in New York at the same time so he decided to go to the concert with me.

 He was arriving on a Thursday and we were to meet at his hotel, but his flight was delayed. He had barely enough time to change before we hopped in a taxi for the concert.

Still airsick from the flight, Fred got carsick in the cab. “Please don’t puke all over me tonight of all nights,” I told him.

“I can’t help it, I’m sick! That was the absolute worst flight of all frickin' time!”

“Uhhh, I believe Buddy Holly might disagree with you on that,” I said as he smacked me on the shoulder while the eavesdropping cab driver chuckled. For a minute I thought Fred was going to smack him too.

We had a nice dinner at the club, it looked like one of those intimate movie sets from the forties with tiny little tables, candles on them.

John Dankworth, who was Cleo Laine’s husband and a very famous jazz musician in his own right, came out first, playing a few numbers and romancing a pretty mean clarinet. Dame Cleo then walked through the crowd onto the stage wearing a long flowing orange and purple gown.

Fred perked up, “Oh, I recognize that dress! She passed by me in the hallway on her way to the ladies room!”

I just looked at him. “Atta boy, take you to a classy place and you have to bring up you stalk the entertainers while they’re peeing.”

 All of her concerts I’d attended were conducted by Dankworth and one of their most endearing qualities together was the way they’d joke and lovingly rib each other with their banter. They’d been together for years and acted like two old married folks you’d run into on the street. After the fourth song, Dankworth related to the audience a story about a film his wife had made with Judi Dench.

“That’s Dame Judi Dench,” she piped up from the back of the bandstand.

Doing a slow turn and giving her a look, he paused for a moment. He then turned back to the audience, saying, “Sorry ... Dame Judi Dench. You know how picky those Dames are ...”

Every once and awhile he would speak to the audience while she’d converse with the band about the next song. Whenever he’d make a comment to her, she would just say, without looking up or even acknowledging him, “Yes, dear ... that’s nice dear,” and go back to the sheet music with the pianist.

At ease enough to joke verbally, they were also comfortable meshing together instrumentally, making some of the most luscious sounds I’ve ever heard up close.

 Fred was impressed and after the concert couldn’t stop talking about how great she was. He walked out to the lobby of the Regency Hotel while I remained in the club chatting with the maître d. Around the corner, a billowy flash of orange and purple caught my eye and there was Dame Cleo. She gave me a smile as she casually walked by and said, “Good Evening, how are you?” in that clipped British accent of hers.

I could have kicked my college voice teacher in the ass, all that work studying the album went right out the frickin’ window again. This was my second face to face encounter with Cleo Laine and I still couldn’t form words. She caught me so off guard I’m certain there wasn’t one consonant in my reply, it was all vowels.

She kept going, probably once again wondering, “Why are Americans so rude?” while her husband stopped by the desk near me. With John Dankworth, I was able to actually form a conversation.

Five minutes later, I headed to the lobby. Once Fred saw me he backhanded me on the shoulder, saying, “Where the hell did you go? I spent five minutes talking to Cleo Laine.”

“I was talking to her husband and the maître d. I saw her, but I felt like a rabbit on the highway.”

Fred said Cleo had asked where he was from, and he had told her about me having seen her so many times, the whole spiel, the college recording, the Drood thing, all of it.

When Cleo asked, “Well, where is he? I would like to meet him.” she didn’t realize she just had.

I was the blithering idiot inside who couldn’t say, “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Her dress was so beautiful up close!” Fred mentioned. Being a designer in Canada, he never could keep his excitement for fashion in check. “I asked what material it was. It had such a nice feel to it…”

“You pawed Cleo Laine’s gown? This isn’t Bugtussle, TN and you’re not picking out gingham samples for Grandma Walton! She’s a Dame, you don’t paw her clothes! She’s one of Princess Margaret’s best friends!”

Fred narrowed his eyes. “She’s a living person who pees just like everybody else. I know, I saw her head to the ladies room. Besides, she was nice and didn’t seem to mind. She even liked my scarf and asked what material it was made out of. So, you can just put a sock in it, you obsessed groupie. I’m surprised you didn’t throw your underpants at her on the stage. She’s just a human being like me.”

“Yeah, but I don’t call you Dame Frederick. Sometimes I call you that damn Frederick, but never a dame. Although at times you do act a bit like Dame Edna…sort of look like her too.”

I was once again subjected to a barrage of words a sailor would have been hard pressed to come up with, and we headed out to a piano bar, since Fred loved to sing and cruise.

 Two days later, there was a photograph in the news of Cleo Laine at a Lincoln Center tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. In the Associated Press photo she was wearing the same purple and orange gown. I sent it to Fred with a note, “National news, and look at that gown, fingerprints all over it.”

 Coda

It’s amazing the things life throws you. Like a boomerang, you get popped in the head when you aren’t looking and those things come back full circle. Perhaps that explains my kooky behavior, I’ve got dents left and right where fate waited around a corner and bam, I got hit. If you ever see me walking around and I appear to be ducking, you’ll know why.

 On Sept. 3^rd, 2008, Chris and I headed to San Francisco for yet another round of hiking the national parks. This vacation was a sudden one, Chris’ natural mother had been diagnosed with liver cancer a month earlier so we had purchased the airline tickets when we found out.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not, considering how devastating and painful the disease can be, she passed away two weeks before the trip. Chris flew out on his own to be with her at her home on Castro Street, just down from the nation’s gay mecca.

Due to the emotional stress he’d been under, he thought it a good idea that we go out there anyway to relax and regroup… so, within a week of returning to Chicago, he was back on the coast, only this time with me.

The day before our flight I got an email saying Dame Cleo Laine would be in San Francisco for a series of rare concerts at a small jazz club. Now that she was eighty she seldom toured and I had assumed my moments with her five years earlier in New York would probably be the last.

She had popped up so many times in my life like that, unexpectedly, spur of the moment. There was one evening ten years ago when I was chatting with friends on a Friday afternoon. I opened up a local magazine and an ad stared me right in the face with Cleo’s photo on it. Fifteen minutes later I was in a cab heading downtown to a jazz club, and the maitre ‘d sat me ten feet away from the stage next to three lesbians. Once again, I heard Cleo’s creamy, soulful voice enrapture everyone around me.

Almost every boyfriend I’d ever had attended her concerts with me. My parents, various friends I’d known and lost throughout the years also. People come and go in one’s life, but it always felt Cleo’s beautiful voice provided the background music.

So, once again, there she was, in a tiny little jazz club two blocks away from our hotel in San Francisco and this time Chris was sitting next to me while Sir John Dankworth opened the show, proving once again why he was known as the Benny Goodman of British Jazz.

When he introduced his wife, she slowly walked by me out of the darkness, wearing another flowing gown and following a club attendant who was shining a flashlight on the floor in front of her so Cleo could carefully make her way to the stage.

Both Sir John and Dame Cleo were now a bit stooped over, but once they started making music together I was taken back to that night when I marveled at their sound in a sold out Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center.

They had both been in their mid to late fifties, then. I was eighteen and three years away from beginning my life as an openly gay man.

Now I was forty-one and they were both eighty.

So much had happened to me in between that time and as the concert unfolded twenty feet away in this tiny little club, it didn’t feel like a concert at all. With every song wafting across me I thought how lucky I had been to have shared two such magnificent artists with so many people who still meant a great deal to me, even though they were no longer part of my life.

Once again, it was literally two “married folks” onstage, ribbing each other with Cleo trying to tell a story and her husband interrupting.

“Would you like to tell this story?” she asked. When he continued on she walked over, handed him the mike and dryly commented, “Obviously you do…” giving both Sir John and the audience a good natured look of “I have to deal with him all the time.”

Their love for each other was a constant dynamic, just like that first time I saw them.

I was, literally, all smiles throughout the entire show and as Cleo sang “I’ve Got A Crush On You” it wasn’t until she finished I realized I had tears running down my cheeks. Not over the top drama queen tears, but heartfelt “What a beautiful life I’ve been given” tears. That song had been on the first album I’d bought, That Old Feeling.

Chris was enjoying the show almost as much as me and as I looked over at him, he was smiling too. The song took on so much meaning while I watched him fall under the Dankworths’ musical spell.

Leaving the stage, Cleo once again slowly moved through the crowd, carefully watching her steps as she passed me on the way out. Looking up at me, she smiled and for the first time, I was actually able to form words with her.

“Thank you.” I said, truly meaning it.

Looking directly in my eyes she paused and elegantly replied, “Thank you…” before moving on to the exit.

   I suppose this sounds so fawning and over the top, when one appreciates a star they should just say “Enjoy…your…work.” but to me, this wasn’t just a star. She was a living scrapbook of my own memories whose voice had always been there.

She didn’t know me from Adam, and it doesn’t matter, but I felt enormous contentment that I had finally been able to say something to her without appearing to be verbally challenged.

 In the lobby, after the concert, Chris walked up to Sir John, who once again was a thoroughly talkative, down to earth guy, full of humor. When he asked if I played any musical instruments I said, “Yes, acoustic guitar, kazoo and moonshine jug.” getting a heartfelt laugh in response.

After a nice conversation he introduced us to his wife and while I was still a bit in awe, this time I had a pleasant conversation with her.

When I mentioned my college teacher’s assignment, Dame Cleo laughed and replied with a lot of humor, “Well, did you learn anything?”

 As Chris and I walked away and other fans approached the couple, I wondered if I would ever see them again. I thought of another song from That Old Feeling.

“Every time we say goodbye, I cry a little. Every time we say goodbye I wonder why a little…”

 I took one last look as they disappeared amongst the other patrons and remembered something Cleo had said onstage about seeing the singer Adelaide Hall in concert some years ago.

She said “Adelaide was in her nineties and she gave me hope I’ll still be around singing when I get there…” while the audience applauded.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be goodbye this time. I mean, there were still ten more years to go until she hit ninety and I hit fifty-one. That’s enough time for many more moments of opening up an email or a magazine and finding her once again, just around the corner. And a lot more adventures with her voice in the background.

"Dancing With Tina" New, revised ending - Part Five-Forgive

I read a quote once that said, “If you cannot say what you have to say in twenty minutes, you should go away and write a book about it.”

I don’t remember the first time I got the idea to put all this down on paper, but I pro-actively began saving my emails from March 2004 on, after I found Kurt on that phone line, realizing this section of my life was one of major importance and only by looking at how the small individual moments combined to make up the big picture would I ever understand. Like that painting by Georges Seurat, “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte,” where the tiny dots are just dots up close, but stepping back you see exactly what he was painting. Life is like that, it’s unfortunate we usually can’t see past the dots.

The analogy I always used regarding Crystal Meth was I’d been dancing with TINA and the reason it hit me as such was it felt like one of those dance marathons from the thirties, couples going for hours and hours, even days, until they’d finally drop.

Coming out of the closet at twenty-one, there were a few months throughout the years I was single, but once I started dating, I never stopped. Constantly in a relationship, I never learned how to swim. Although maturing from one relationship to another, essentially I was co-dependent, always looking for acceptance and wanting to be loved. I suppose we all want that, we’re human, after all.

The very day Matthew broke up with me I walked into a movie musical of a romance that gave me everything I thought I wanted. A handsome, vibrant man who said he loved me, yet, since every other man I’d dated had been on the level, I still hadn’t the education to show love doesn’t come so easily and you can’t trust everybody. But, trust I did and I got hurt. This time however, co-dependency and I weren’t as tied together as in my younger years, I started to walk away first, but he beat me to it and my self-esteem was affected. With an operatic ending, I’d reached the deep end of the pool, flailing all over not sure what was going on.

Call it God, fate, guardian angel, whatever, but a hand took mine and led me down a hallway filled with doors. TINA the drug, lifted inhibitions and allowed me to see extreme behavior in others and myself, opening all those doors a little faster than they normally would have opened. Lessons moved logically from one to another and I was content being single. More than that, I knew I’d be okay no matter what happened.

Of course, shortly after the sunlight hit me, boom, a truly nice man plopped into my life and I must have been ready for it.

The most important thing I learned from all this was in order to get on with life and be happy, I had to walk away and let go. Once I love, I love in some small way forever, and it was always hard for me to stop dwelling on the past. While I might sulk about losing someone (and those emotional fears follow me still,) I eventually grew up enough to realize those people were not sulking over me. However they may have hurt me, be it intentionally or unintentionally, I had to lead my own life and be content with all the good things I had at the moment, not what I didn’t have.

As much as I may add humor into things, I want to make it clear this period was no joke for me. I may call it an “adventure,” but I wonder if I’m putting that spin on it to alleviate my own responsibility.
I did have a drug problem, no question about it, whether or not I was an addict, that’s for you to decide, but I was using drugs to get through my own insecurities and if you call that an addict, then I was.
Worrying at times I’ve been too light hearted about all this, at others I think I’ve been too negative and angry. Life will move on and many other things will come up here and there, but I’ll tell you one thing, TINA only complicates my problems, not solve them. It may start out as an escape, but it ends up as a dungeon. How long does it take to clean up the mess of one night, or twenty nights, or a hundred nights? Because I have no other choice right now, it has to have been worth it in the past though.

Because this is my story, I saw things in my own personal way. If you had been me, you may have seen them in a completely different light. There is no right or wrong here, no judgment about people’s choices. You do what’s right for you. I just hope I’ve conveyed that while drugs start out fun, they don’t necessarily end up fun.

What would I say to someone thinking about doing TINA for the first time? Of course I’d say, “Don’t do it.” Meth is some bad shit and in the long run the trap isn’t worth that one moment of feeling sexually or emotionally free.

It did not take courage for me to finally step out of that rabbit hole, far from it and I don’t deserve one damn bit of praise from anyone. Fear and cowardice drove me out of there, my emergency exit being a natural instinct to run away from being hurt. That’s not courage, it’s fear.
To me, this is what I see as real courage. To be addicted and have no reservations at all about what you’re doing, to actually love the confidence and constant sex you’re having, to have no moral issues with it.
Then, once you realize how over-powering TINA can be, you walk away because you realize you have to. To fall down, to get back up, to fall down again and again, yet keep at it until it finally works, that takes real courage.
And for that I applaud you, because I often wonder if I could be that strong.

I hem-hawed around, trying to come up with a decent ending for this journal/manuscript/soul-searching/self-involved introspection in pink, whatever you want to call it. Every time life reached a perceived conclusion or crossroads, another event or episode would intrigue me enough to write about it.
Shit, this could go on forever, I thought, I’ve got to have a happy ending…so, I’ll simply backtrack a few years to Halloween, 2005.
Two entire years had passed, almost to the week, since I heard the words “I’m afraid I can’t be your boyfriend anymore.”
For the first time in three years I wore a costume. I used to dress up every Halloween, but it took a back seat to “Peyton Place” which played return engagements in my head for several seasons. Now “Leave It to Beaver” returned to its regular time slot.
Chris pulled a renaissance outfit out of the closet for me, there were dozens he’d made over the years and I went as Hamlet with the skull, a frilly tunic, tights, the whole deal.
Tina dressed as an Elizabethan Tart, a cinched-up corset with her chest popping out like groundhogs in spring. Chris wore another Elizabethan outfit and Art, now I have to hand it to Art. There is nothing cooler than a heterosexual man so secure with his masculinity he doesn’t mind walking around in drag. Originally, he wasn’t going to wear a costume, but at the last minute I got the idea to put him in a tuxedo coat, hat, fishnet stockings and heels. Tina would do his makeup and voila! Judy Garland in the “Get Happy” outfit.
Not sure, he’d do it, when I sheepishly asked him, he replied, “Hey, man, it’s Halloween, why the hell not?” and he did, and more people recognized him than us. Guys yelling out of cars as we walked down North Halsted Street, “We love you, Judy!”
Running into a guy I knew from Des Moines who’d recently moved to Chicago, I introduced Tina, then said, “And this is her husband, Judy Garland.”
Art shoved his hand out, “How’s it going, Pal?” such a good sport. He still looked like a straight man in heels, but a good sport, nonetheless.
One guy asked, “Would you take a picture of me with your friend’s boobs?”
Sort of an odd request, but Tina was up for it, pushing the family heirlooms up and out, almost giving the guy a black eye in the meantime with them. Art asked me, “Why are gay men so obsessed with women’s breasts?” to which I had absolutely no answer.
Another bar patron looked at poor Yorick’s skull and asked who it was. I told him “My last husband.” Guess I’d finally come to terms with the word “role-playing.”
Barbra Streisand walked into the bar as Dolly Levi, to which I shouted out the obvious, and she yelled back, “Well, Hello Hamlet!” handing me her matchmaker card. Chris took the card away from me, saying I didn’t need it, uptight Elizabethans. Keep him in the twenty-first century and he’s fine with it, knock off four hundred years and he’s a prude.
Tina walked up to Aquaman, smacking his chest, sending him a good three feet back while complimenting his costume. Turning back to me, I asked her, “You know who that was you just belted across the room?”
“Aquaman, who else?”
It was the twenty-three year old paramedic, the first guy I hooked up with online after I took up oat farming full-time. Tina raised an eyebrow and asked if his hands had been webbed then, too.
Roman emperors, angels, devils, movie stars, we saw it all. In the future, I’d never miss out on that dress up fun again.

The following day we headed to our usual Sunday haunt, Side Track at North Halsted and Roscoe in Boystown. As usual, we had a blast, there was just something special and festive about that bar, I’ve never been anywhere quite like it. Scottie, Tina and I sang away, arms around each other, voicing the praises of Saint Judy and Our Lady of Merman. Toward the end of the evening a video came on and I immediately said “Oh shit.”
Tina asked “What’s wrong?”
“Just wait and see, I know what’s gonna happen.”
It was a clip of Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel from the original cast of “Wicked.” Now that the show had started touring and had one semi-permanent company in Chicago, everyone was loving it. We were no longer exclusive and couldn’t act like hick snobs anymore.
When we saw the show in New York, the final song had really touched all three of us and just as it did two years earlier, right before this whole weird adventure started, that song meant something to me, this time a great deal more.
“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, I do believe I have been changed for the better and because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”
The lyrics of the entire song summed up those final feelings of letting go and forgiveness, to Kurt, Peter, my parents, anyone who had been a part of my life over the last few years and…to myself. I had loved hard, I’d laughed hard, I’d hated, betrayed. I cried, I cared, screamed, abused, I had walked away and I had forgiven. I had finally lived…really lived.

As far as TINA the substance was concerned, I really don’t know if I’d
been changed for the better, I like to think I had, and by letting her go I had given myself new freedom. I don’t feel any shame for having waltzed with her, I learned a great deal about myself since she was such a frenzied partner. Still, my dance card was now booked up with other priorities and TINA had retreated to the sides of the ballroom, standing alone by herself like a wallflower.
Regarding life and recovery, I don’t know that time really matters to me anymore, my focus is on “today,” and all those little “todays” may add up to forever. Just like that painting with the little dots.
Always looking for happy endings, I realize now there are none.
Only hopeful sobriety.

Pride...

The best birthday I ever had turned out to be my fortieth. I was a bit nervous about it, not because of the forty thing, I thought it sort of cool I’d lasted that long, finally reaching the decade most of my other friends were at.

No, I was nervous about such a big milestone and not hearing from my family (which I didn’t), but by now, I was used to that. In the end it didn’t matter since my birthday always coincided with what I felt was the best celebration Chicago had to offer, the Gay Pride Parade. My Iowa family consisted of a couple of people, my gay family numbered in the thousands.

My best friends from Des Moines, Dan and David, came in as they did every year and that Saturday a bunch of us got together for dinner to celebrate. While I tried to make it as casual as possible, twenty of my closest friends showed up at the restaurant, some I had not even invited, thinking they would be too busy. No sense setting myself up for disappointment.

Absolutely floored and touched, I usually get embarrassed being the center of attention, but secretly I love it, who wouldn’t? As my table began to sing “Happy Birthday” the bar and grill crowd of fifty people joined in. It couldn’t have been more thrilling if Marilyn Monroe showed up and sang it to me.

After the crowd finished the song, Dan decided to reenact a moment from I Love Lucy. Standing up, he put his hands on his hips and said, “Happy Birthday! And I hope you live another seventy-five years!”

 Aside from my birthday, Pride Day always makes me feel good about who I am. It’s up there with Thanksgiving, Easter and Halloween for me, although on Halloween, who the hell knows what I’ll be.

That morning as we walked down Halsted on our way to the Pridefest street festival, I noticed a flyer taped to a street lamp saying, “Pride Day isn’t about being proud of your body, it’s about being proud of who we all are inside.” I liked that.

If you want to be outrageous, go for it. If you want to be subdued, have at it. If you want to be a loud drag queen or a Jock boy, more power to you, just be happy with who you are.

Walking into the festival, we came face to face with two men wearing skirts, wigs that weren’t quite on correctly and makeup that looked like they simply ran their faces into the compact rather than applied it. Purses like your old Aunt Myrtle would own hanging casually off their arms, nylons not quite smooth, they weren’t doing scare drag. They were cross dressers, and as the young gay boys walked around with their shirts off, looks were given to these two “ladies” as they sauntered by. There was no denying they were simply men who liked to dress up as women. They didn’t walk with a strut, like a drag queen would, they walked as if it were any other day, and you could see this was their life, not a costume.

As each muscle boy did a double take, then whispered to his friends as they passed by, these two simply ignored them.

“Good for them,” I told David. “If they’re proud of their appearance then who the hell is anyone to knock it?” Because they felt they looked good, to me, they did look good.

 I wasn’t ashamed of being who I was or of being gay. I also wasn’t ashamed of all the decadence I’d joined in throughout the years. If I was ashamed I shouldn’t have been doing it. I was a little embarrassed by some of the things, but if somebody asked me about it, I would have told them.

My family knew I was gay. It was just never talked about. My mother point blank asked me and would occasionally joke about it in a kind, funny way, but my father never once mentioned it. That’s common with a lot of rural families, probably a lot of urban ones too.

Coming out was fairly easy for me. I think the fact I was adopted helped. I could be anything I wanted to be, so why should the truth be such a hard thing to accept? I went through that period of sleeping with women in my younger days, thinking it was what I was supposed to do, and while I had fun, it wasn’t until I flat out threw open that closet door I found real happiness. I can’t necessarily say I had been living a lie by dating women because I believe everyone has an element of bi-sexuality in them, but, given the option, I would rather sleep with a man, and certainly fall in love with one.

 Walking to the parade the next day with David and Dan, the sidewalks were jammed with every kind of persona imaginable. Men and women with boas, a twenty year old guy with a pink Mohawk, conservative looking suburbanites, elderly people, the whole gamut of humanity seemed to be blocking the way to our favorite viewing spot.

We passed a man on a corner holding up a huge sign that read, “God says Repent!” Most of the crowd walking by looked at the sign and shook their heads, but such protests were normal at every Chicago Pride parade throughout the years, and although you shouldn’t have to get used to them, you do.

A block further we passed a gay traditional bluegrass band. I thought I’d seen it all at that point. A Pride Bluegrass Band!? The “gay” part couldn’t have been traditional, but the bluegrass certainly was. Five men playing Bill Monroe’s classic, “Uncle Pen”, mandolin and banjo picks just a’flyin’ as viewers on the street clapped in unison.

One more block to go until we got to our spot, now we had to pass two men from the Christian right holding a poster with the words, “Being gay is a sin! God wants you turn away from sin.”

Dan commented, “Turn away? Interesting…personally I always try to seek it out.”

Finally arriving at our usual viewing area, David pointed up and said, “Look at that, now they’ve even taken over the skies…”

I gazed upward to see a small rented plane flying by with a banner attached that read, “Jesus says being gay is wrong.”

I looked at David and said, “God says, Jesus says, how would they know? I think if Jesus came down right now he’d kick everybody in the butt at what’s being done in his name. How about what your heart says?”

I went off on a tangent, David knew to expect this every year. Secretly I think he just enjoyed stirring the pot.

“How dare anyone claim my love for another human being is wrong? They aren’t me! Any relationship I’m in can be filled with as much emotion and care as any heterosexual relationship. Hell, we’re all human, let us be human and drop the hatred and ignorance. If you don’t want to go to a Pride parade because it turns you off, then don’t go, but don’t tell me it isn’t okay for it to take place!”

I stood there waiting for David to cheer me on and force me even higher on the soapbox. He just smiled and said, “I love getting you riled up.”

 The parade started and like every year, the news cameras were trained on every outrageous person you could find, yet refrained from filming anybody who wasn’t wearing a wig or a thong. Have to shock the suburbs on the evening news, you know. God forbid they should actually show gay people who looked like their sons, or possibly, might even be their sons. “Billy, was that you on television today? Who was that standing next to you, your roommate?”

I think it’s great to celebrate all the diversity in our culture, but the news usually concentrated on only one side of that diversity.

 The corporate sponsored floats seemed to have increased this year, the politicians were out drumming up support as usual and we cheered Melissa Manchester as she rode by in an open convertible.

Two weeks earlier I had talked to a man at the bar who worked backstage at the theater where a musical, Hats! was playing with Manchester in the starring role. He told me, “Melissa is so excited about being in this parade. She will not stop talking about it! All I hear is ‘Pride parade! Pride parade!’”

“Surely she’s been in a Pride parade before? I mean, she is one of the ‘divas’ and I mean that in a good way. I’d think she’d been to several…”

“Believe it or not, she said she has never been in a Pride parade. I thought she was going to pee her pants when they asked her,” he replied.

As her car drove by I yelled an extra loud “Yeahhhhh!!! We love you!!” as she looked over, waved and just beamed from under a giant red hat with feathers.

 Soon came my favorite part of the parade, the PFLAG group marching by. It stands for “Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays”. Every year, no matter how I felt, happy or sad, bitchy or glad, I would get misty-eyed as they’d go by. Fathers wearing t-shirts saying, “I love my gay son”, parents with banners “My daughter’s a lesbian and I’m proud”, most of them holding their child’s hand, waving and showing off their love.

This year a trolley was directly behind the PFLAG group, carrying the elderly friends and families, the people who would have a hard time walking all the way. I don’t mean to get too maudlin with this, but my eyes teared up as I pictured my mom sitting there on that trolley, shyly waving, but smiling, flattered by the attention of people on the streets cheering. Towards the last few years of her life she had a very hard time walking and at the end was confined to a wheelchair, but I could imagine her plain as day sitting right there, smiling.

Although we had never talked much about my own sexuality, after she passed her best friend, who was gay, told me Mom had been pointing out good-looking male nurses for him while she was in the hospital. My reply to that was, “She never did that for me?!”

I wiped my eyes on my Rosemary Clooney t-shirt. Every Pride day requires a little camp, right?

“What’s wrong?” David asked.

“Nothing” I answered. “Just saw someone I used to know, that’s all.”

“Did you wave? Did they see you?”

“Naw, I didn’t wave, but I’m pretty certain she saw me.” I smiled and gave him a hug.

David looked up at the sky, “Look at the plane now! You’ve got to be kidding!?”

A half hour earlier it was dragging along an anti-gay banner, now it was advertising the local bathhouse down the street. So much for the power of the mighty dollar, we thought, as we pointed it out to everyone near.

David looked back at me, “Isn’t this the best damn birthday party you’ve ever had?! It took me months to invite all these people and arrange this!”

I answered, “Yes, this is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

 I don’t think God would have made us the way we are if He wasn’t proud of us. The only thing we should not be proud of is hatred. Let it go.

Remember “Dear Abby”, the advice column? There was a reader once who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood. Her response?

 “You could move.”

 

The Dysfunctional Family Past Segment

Let’s get real comfortable on the therapist’s couch right now and talk. Much of the reason all this happened was because of my feeling of inadequacy, physically, emotionally and sexually. I suppose it stems as far back as the most focused moment of my childhood, which stands out as clear as if it happened yesterday. I was about seven or eight and I don’t remember exactly what the context was, but it had to do with something normal to any child like playing with a ball in the house or accidentally breaking a lamp, whatever. I do remember my mother downstairs in the basement next to the washer and dryer, not even looking at me. I was slowly creeping up the stairs to get away from the anger and my mom said, “No wonder your real mother didn’t want you.”

The words hit me like a dart, and to this day I’ve never felt such lingering pain as then. To get away without being noticed I continued to crawl slowly to the first floor, ran to my bedroom and cried until I fell asleep, wondering why the person I had really been a part of hadn’t wanted me, seriously thinking I had done something wrong to make her let me go. Just a child, how could I not take it seriously?

I realize now my adopted Mom was just venting, that’d she tried the best she could, but was a child herself, a little girl who never really grew up.
Still, those words stayed with me and along with other dysfunctional childhood memories, accounted for many of the emotional needs and problems I’ve had. How do you forget and get away from those little memories? Every rejection, every time someone had looked the other way at someone else, every occasion when I wasn’t the center of a man’s attention, at least the men I cared about, those were products of my childhood, those “you are not good enough/they’re going to leave me” feelings.
My mother probably didn’t realize I was still sitting on the stairs watching her. She didn’t know I would remember those words for the rest of my life and that it would affect about every relationship, fleeting or otherwise I would ever have.

One day, at the age of ten, I forgot to mow part of the lawn, a small little area along the side of the house. Some friends walked by while I was mowing and talked me into playing ball in the park. When I returned home after dark, Mom was furious, sternly telling me, “Come in here” leading me to the front room. Picking up a little brown paper bag, she shoved it at me.
“Here, take this, it has some clothes in it. I’ve called the juvenile delinquent home and they’re expecting you, now go, we don’t want you anymore.” pointing towards the door.
Although I could be strong willed, that was a few years down the line, on this occasion I meekly walked out the back door, heading through the yard and into the park directly behind our house. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I remembered the juvenile detention home pointed out to me by my parents a year earlier, about four or five miles away. I have no idea why it was pointed out to me at the time, it’s not like I was out running moonshine.
Hanging my head sadly down, slowly walking across the park, I wondered what I had done that was so bad I was being sent away? It was only a lawn?
Halfway through the park I heard Mom yell out, “Terry, come back here!” Turning around, head still hanging, I went back to the house.
“Are you ready to behave now?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered, still not knowing what I had done that could be considered “mis-behaving”, but I gave in anyway.
She picked up the phone, pretended to dial it, (at this point, I knew she was just lying and performing bad community theater), said without even a pause, “It’s fine now, he won’t be coming over, he’s promised to behave,” and put down the phone without even a goodbye. (Did she think I was really that stupid?)
She took the bag out of my hand. While walking through the park I had looked inside, all it contained were a pair of underwear.
“Now, tomorrow when it’s light out, finish mowing the lawn.” and I was sent to my room.
At the time I found Mom’s performance a little comical, it seemed so over the top. Eventually I got used to such behavior, although it was confusing and sometimes made me question if the day would ever arrive they actually would abandon me. There were so many moments where my parents just dropped people, sometimes overnight. The words would be, “To hell with ‘em” and they’d move on, holding onto the bitterness for years.
Eventually my perception of my parents was they were like children and that I’d have to make my own decisions of what was right and wrong. But, to a ten year old, it was rough being told so casually you were being sent away, no matter how poor the acting was.

My dad had some horrific outbursts too, but those memories tend to be more physical in nature. He’d been a terrific father in some ways, full of colorful anecdotes, a wonderful sense of humor and a great love of history. Those hand me downs I’m very proud of acquiring but my Dad also had a temper, at times violent and impulsive.
The harshest thing he ever said to me was when he called me a “God damn bastard.” Now, I knew at the time what the term meant and no matter how much you’d like to cover up your past and make excuses for people’s behavior, that shit lingers, especially when I was not a difficult child or some smart-ass kid who talked back all the time.
Years later, he told me, “You were easy to control, all we had to do was just look at you funny and you’d behave. It was your brother who was difficult to get through to.” The fact my father used the word “control” says a lot to me now.

Although it was something of a family joke, my father would go through numerous hammers over the years when he’d get angry since he’d throw them through the walls, over a fence, wherever, cussing and lashing out at what was bothering him. That may have been funny as a story many years later… at the time it was terrifying to a child since it didn’t stop with hammers. There were a few memories it’s difficult to dredge up because they involved throwing people.
At times I operated on lonely terror as a child, especially one night when told to go upstairs to bed once my teenage brother got home late in the evening when I was about eight. I could hear screaming and physical abuse from downstairs. The words “you Goddamn son of a bitch!” coming out of my father as I heard my brother being slammed against the walls.
Instinctively I wanted to run down there and help my brother. I vividly remember the sound of slaps and wondering what he had done. I never did find out, but knowing my brother, it couldn’t have been that bad. Hell, as a teenager I was far wilder than him, perhaps I just hid it better, or maybe my father had calmed down. I do know that by the time I reached high school I was a lot stronger willed than my brother had been so perhaps my parents simply backed off, knowing I would emotionally fight them if I believed what they were doing was off base.
But, at the age of eight, hearing those beating sounds downstairs while huddled in my upstairs bedroom made me wonder when my time would come.

Around the same time something happened between my mother and father, and again I don’t know what, but it caused another serious blowup.
My mom collected little porcelain figurines, she called them her “old people”. Quaint, six or seven inch elderly figures sitting on a bench, knitting, churning butter, weaving… stuff like that.
In the middle of the night I was awakened by screaming. Hurrying to the top of the stairs, I couldn’t see what was going on, but heard Dad calling Mom names, and every once and a while I could see one of those little figurines flashing across my vision and shattering on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
“You like that?! How about that? Dammit!” One after another the crashes would come and I worried he was hurting my mother, but I was too scared to do anything other than stand at the top of the stairs, hiding behind the corner of the wall. Every once and awhile she’d scream back at him, her voice sounding as if she was begging. This was not their normal type of argument. He was in control this time, holding all the power, and was either accusing her of something or simply taking out his anger on her.
It seemed to go on forever and when Dad bounded over to the stairs, I quickly shot out of sight to my bedroom as I heard the back door of our house slam shut and Dad’s motorcycle fade into the distance.
Once sure he wasn’t immediately coming back, I crept out of my room and down the stairs to the family area in our basement. It looked like a tornado had hit. Shards of broken porcelain covering much of the floor, lamps were broken and in the middle, my mom sobbing on her hands and knees holding a large plastic bag, slowly picking up each little piece as carefully as she could without cutting herself.
Never before or since, did I feel so sorry for my mom. Wearing little Roy Rogers pajamas, I quietly tip toed over and watched her, confused at what had taken place. Dad was my hero for much of my childhood, how could a hero break my mom’s tiny “old people” and make her cry so hard?
I got down on my knees and said, “I’ll help you Momma.”
She suddenly saw me and in her embarrassment said, “No! Go back upstairs!” but wouldn’t look me in the eye. Her own were bloodshot and red. Stopping, she let go of the bag, put her hands on her knees and continued to cry.
Why I suddenly disobeyed I don’t know, but I just put my hand on her shoulder and said, “No, Momma, I’ll help you.”
Picking up the bag I helped gather the little arms and legs, every once and awhile a section of a wheelbarrow or a spinning wheel. After a minute of this, Mom was able to continue and we had the entire floor clean in about an hour with not one word said between us.
I kissed Mom on the cheek, silently went back upstairs to bed and never heard another word about that night for the rest of my life.
Who knows what skeletons in my family closet brought that incident to the surface, but again, I wondered when it would be my turn.

Dad and I were walking along a dike in Grand Marais, Minnesota while a particularly rough crop of waves came in from Lake Superior. Spectacular to see, the water was crashing against the rocks, the foam a turbulent white contrast to the grey of the cold water. Occasionally, the spray would leap higher than I imagined possible and I marveled at these aquatic fireworks.
At some point, I lost sight of my dad and didn’t know what to do. I looked all over, afraid he might have been washed away, but I couldn’t find him. Running the mile back to the hotel hoping he would be there, it never entered my mind to simply wait by the edge of the dike.
When I knocked on the motel room door my mother answered. Asking where Dad was, I told her what happened and oddly enough, she didn’t seem too worried about it. It’s not that she didn’t care, it’s just my parents sometimes took the wrong things too seriously, and the right things not seriously enough.
Ten minutes later Dad threw open up the door, madder than a hornet. He had lost track of me among the rocks and was just as scared as I about the possibility of the other being washed away. He gave me the worse beating I ever had. Honest to God punches and blows, hitting me so hard my head slammed against the wall, causing me to momentarily see stars. Trying to get away from the screaming and physicality, I actively headed the other direction as he came at me.
Finally he stopped as I slid down the wall of the bathroom and leaned against the tub, too hurt, dazed and scared to do anything but whimper. It never occurred to me to fight back, if I did the beating would probably get worse.
I had been as worried about him out by the lake and while lying there on the floor, I didn’t understand. After he calmed down and I was under the covers in bed, shaking and crying, he came over and kissed me on the head, saying he loved me. It’s the only time he verbally said those words.

I hope I don’t give the impression my father was a villain, he absolutely was not that, but there were many moments I can only describe as “immaturity” regarding my parent’s behavior.
To this day, I don’t know the answers behind some of the events, perhaps my dad simply had some bad days at work. For years he worked two jobs to support us, which had to be stressful. Still, he was always there for me on Tuesday nights to play ball outside, wrestle, go to the library or the movies. It wasn’t all bad.
I don’t think alcohol was involved, even though I don’t remember a day from my childhood Dad didn’t have a beer in his hand, yet I never saw him intoxicated. Years later, I even joked about it with him, saying, “I don’t think I ever saw you drunk, but maybe I just never saw you sober…” and we both laughed.
A therapist of mine once speculated my father might be a functioning alcoholic. Perhaps so, but I really don’t believe alcohol caused those bad times. I believe that, like children, my parents could never judge which emotions to contain and which to show.

At twenty-one, I read an article, I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like this.
“In the final scheme of things, there is no book on perfect parenting. All they could do was the best they could, if they loved you. And whatever mistakes they may have made, were probably not intended to hurt you. It’s up to you to forgive them and move on. Some people blame their parents for their issues for the rest of their lives, even into old age. But, the fact is, you are the only person who can control who you are. Your parents may have caused certain things, but it isn’t their fault you hold onto them. It’s up to you to let go of that and solve your own issues. It isn’t their fault you can’t let go. It’s up to you to be an adult and take responsibility for who you are.”

My Mom stood beside both my grandmother and grandfather during their failings and deaths, and I was proud of her knowing what she’d gone through as a lonely child, that she grew up feeling unloved. My uncle, the golden child, was living in Arizona so it was my mom who made the daily calls and visits.
My grandmother was a tough woman and a bit of a hypochondriac, loving the attention. As she began to fail Mom had a slight stroke and lost some of her ability to enunciate, especially when she’d get upset. At Christmas Eve one year, Grandma suddenly passed away in Mom’s living room, in front of the tree with all the family witnessing it. I attempted CPR, but it was too late. As the helicopter carried her body to the emergency room, my Mom reverted to a little girl crying and accusing her mother of doing it on purpose, for attention. I knew where all that came from.
After regaining her senses, she handled everything with strength and looked after Grandpa for another year until, he too, began to fail, slowly dying in the hospital. My Uncle came up from Arizona to check in and soon my phone rang with the call I was expecting, only Mom didn’t say what I expected. My Uncle had passed away of a massive heart attack that day. Once my Grandfather found out he demanded all the tubes be taken off him, “Goddammit, I’m ready to go!” and within an hour had willed himself to death.
I had the odd experience of seeing in the obituaries my Grandpa and Uncle, next to each other, same name, senior and junior. Mom had lost everyone from her childhood and the holidays would never be the same.
To this day, while other people’s faces may come and go in my mind, I can still picture my adopted mom’s mannerisms and face as strong as it was when she was alive.

I’ll always cherish my last moments with her. For years she’d dreamed of going to Hawaii and my father took her, even though she couldn’t walk very well by that time. Only fifty-seven, diabetes had taken its toll, yet whenever I came back home, she was full of smiles, although occasionally the little girl tantrums would come to the surface. My father had dealt with it for years and he loved her, even though it meant looking the other way and ignoring her at times.
She had been going through dialysis for a while, and once I went with her. She wanted me to understand what it was, technically, she was going through. She joked with the nurses and the other patients the entire time, and I will be honest about this, although she’d be embarrassed by my mentioning it. While sitting in the chair, for some God-awful reason, due to an awful mistake on the part of the nursing staff, the tube that connected her to whatever it is that does what it does became detached. Blood poured all over her smock, it was really quite shocking what happened. She was nervous I saw it, and I was doing my best to not let her see the shock in my expression. She handled it so well, joking about it, even when she was incredibly embarrassed by it, and I know felt like a burden to the staff. She kept apologizing for their mistakes while mopping up her own blood with a towel. In that moment, she was as strong as I have ever seen her.

Scheduled to have another surgery to help the circulation in her legs, she was optimistic on the phone, all smiles in her voice, happy she might be able to walk again without pain. I really believed, because of her enthusiasm, she would be all right. Dad took her to Hawaii, where she had a wonderful time, even though she had to spend much of it in a wheelchair.
Their flight back to Des Moines had a layover in Chicago with an hour to spare. Peter and I both went to O’Hare and when they got off the plane, my mother was in her wheelchair wearing a blue, flowered mumu, an enormous straw hat complimenting what could only be described as the stereotypical hick Hawaiian ensemble. Dad pushed her, both of them grinning, and he was wearing the exact same material she was with just as tacky a straw hat.
My first thought was, “Ma and Pa Kettle in Waikiki, they did this on purpose.” Full of joy, they had intense satisfaction at having made such a visual scene and I had no indication of the pain Mom was going through.
I wheeled her to the diner, we talked about trivial things, the Hawaiian waterfalls, the Pearl Harbor Memorial, how my father had gone to the wrong buffet and drunk all the mai-tais he could because they were free, yet when asked to pay for them, he grunted, “It’s your own damn fault you didn’t mark the buffet well enough. How the hell would I know it was the wrong buffet?”
We took pictures, and the last thing Mom said to me before Dad wheeled her on the plane was, “Mom loves you, you know that.”

A few days later, I called after she had the surgery. A bit groggy, she was still happy to hear from me and was very enthusiastic the operation had added some color to her feet. She kept saying how wonderful the get well balloon and flowers I’d sent were. At least three times she repeated, “The balloon is beautiful.” as she drifted off to sleep still holding the phone.
Later that evening, around midnight I believe, some friends were in visiting from Des Moines, and we went out to the usual bars tourists like to experience in Chicago. I had been out perhaps a half hour when Peter walked in the bar excitedly and said, “Your brother called, you need to go home and call him now.”
I left without even saying good-bye to my friends, took a taxi with Peter and called my brother. No answer. I called my mom’s hospital room and a nurse answered. She asked who I was and I told her. She started to cry and with great understanding, nervousness and compassion said, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your Mom had a heart attack in the middle of the night. I did the best I could, but I couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.” She was very upset.
After taking a deep breath, I said, “Thank you so very much for trying, I appreciate it.” and hung up. I sat on the bed for a few minutes staring at the wall. Peter came in, sat on the bed and held me as I let go of emotions I never dreamt of having to let go of. No matter how much you may think you are prepared for the death of a mother, you never are.

I went home the next day, and my father, while in shock, still maintained the family pigheadedness and didn’t want me to call my aunt, my great uncle, anyone who had been on Moms side of the family, all that is, except her cousins, Gary and Donna. Wonderful, real people, they felt more like an older brother and sister to me than second cousins. Of course I called them, and they were wonderful through it all, giving advice, talking of how my mom bragged about me. The strange thing was I hadn’t even gotten to know them very well until well into my thirties, yet they became more family to me than any of my aunts and uncles had been.
I told Dad I was going to call Mom’s side of the family regardless, it was only proper, and while he cussed a lot, he didn’t fight me on it.
My father didn’t want a funeral, people could show up at the graveside but by God, if they couldn’t visit when she was alive, they better not show up when was gone. I halfway agreed with him, but at the same time, we’d never had a death without a funeral, it seemed so incomplete. I walked into the viewing room on the second floor of the funeral home, where all our people had their funerals since before I was born.

Because there was to be no formal memorial there was no coffin. Just a table with a nice blanket over it, orange light flooding the room and Mom wearing the blue mumu I’d last seen her in. Since she was to be cremated later that night, there had been no embalming and she still had color to her skin. This is the only time I have ever said this, as cliché as it may sound, but she looked like she was asleep and at peace, without pain. I know everybody says that, but I’ve never once seen a person in a coffin who looked anything like they did in life. My mom was different.

Peter walked in with me, and after a few moments, left me alone with her and I remained for a short time filled with numb shock, leaving once I realized I had to look after my dad to make sure he was okay. I met him on the way back down the stairs, and while he had said he was going home, I knew he wanted to be the last one alone with her. I respected that, and it was only right, he had stayed with her through everything. He should be the one to say that last goodbye.
The next day, although sad with loss, he managed to deal with the details, and after the cremation placed my Mom’s wedding ring in the urn which was then placed in a plot where her daughter Debbie lay.

Gary and Donna came down from Minnesota. Donna held my hand, telling me how special and childlike Mom had been. Gary of course, did the typical guy thing. With tears in his eyes, he reached for my hand, then said, “Oh shit,” breaking down and giving me a hug. My father was so upset that when I reached out to embrace him, he turned and walked away from me in tears, unable to deal with the emotion of the moment.

After Mom died, I had no doubt someday Dad would remarry since he was so full of life and at that age, a good catch for many a widow on the lookout for a man. I just didn’t expect him to remarry as soon as he did, and he started dating a woman he worked with within a couple weeks of Mom’s passing. In a few more weeks they were living together and engaged. I tried to convince myself the dating thing did not bother me, since I’ve always believed life is there to be lived, but it did. He seemed to have jumped quickly to the first person who showed up and the realization also came I wasn’t the only co-dependent person in the family scared to be alone.

I was the replacement of the child my Mom had lost, the little girl she’d been buried with named Debbie who’d died of SIDS, a month old. As a child I used to unrealistically wonder if Debbie hadn’t died, what would have become of me?

Introduction to "Dancing With Tina"

I danced with TINA for over a year. Sometimes to a soothing waltz, more often than not to a frenzied Charleston that would have made Fred and Ginger cross-eyed. A sensual tango would occasionally unfold with any number of dancers, but at the end of it all, I was left with the slow, side-to-side swaying of emptiness. Of course, TINA always led. All one could do was follow and hope to keep up with her steps.

This is basically a story of three things. Co-dependency, coming out and drug abuse. By walking away from co-dependency, I realized I’d never completely explored gay life, even though I’d been out for sixteen years. I thought I’d been around the block, but not really. The drug abuse was an offshoot that helped my inhibitions disappear and brought on all sorts of adventures. Eventually, I came to see that my co-dependency to the drug was as serious as that to people.

Let me make it clear that the Crystal Meth world depicted in this memoir is a sub-culture of the gay community in Chicago (and hence, most other gay urban cities), not a reflection of the gay community as a whole. One acquaintance of mine, a rather odd man obsessed with Bob Mackie of all things, negatively made the comment that I shouldn’t even be writing about these experiences. He thought they depicted all gay men in a bad light and shouldn’t be discussed. Well, until something is faced head on with truth, it can’t be dealt with or even understood. To hell with sweeping such things under the carpet and ignoring them — they exist.

One thing that concerned me was I didn’t want to be crass. I say live and let live as far as anyone’s sexual desires and adventures go, but I do think there should be an element of class in people. To be honest, the gay Meth world consists of orgies, three ways, a virtual fantasyland of sexuality. Fantasies that actually happen, which is part of the reason Meth is so addictive and destroys many people. I know I certainly lived out desires I had always wanted.
Still, as “worldly” as I mistakenly thought I was, I wasn’t prepared for some of the things I saw or experienced at a Crystal Meth sex party. I’ll try to put some of the things in words, but others I don’t know how to. Keep in mind most of the things I write about I probably have done at one time or another. Crystal Meth is not an inhibiting drug, it gives you the confidence, or perhaps the stupidity, to do some fairly “out there” things. Maybe some are better left unsaid, but we’ll see. I think the only way to open people’s eyes is by honesty. I know through all this I wished there had been a Gay 101 book out there or a TINA for Dummies. I’m not trying to be funny with that, if I had known about things I’d eventually experience I doubt I would have picked the pipe up.
Hence, this is not simply a “laundry list” of my sexual encounters and is certainly not erotica. Anyone who refuses to analyze the sexual side of gay Meth use has no business even talking about the subject. Sex and Meth go hand in hand, becoming a circle of addiction. None of these adventures are meant to sensationalize, impress or shock people, so you’d better be open minded when you read it. I actually believe I was one of the “less active” participants within the Chicago scene, but that’s a matter of context.

I’ve changed all the names of people I came into contact with, for obvious reasons. Some of them would have a hell of a lot to lose, even if a few probably would deserve it (Bitter, party of one?). But, I really wouldn’t be that cruel, either. No matter how badly someone would ever treat me, I would not be the type to purposely get even or open up anyone’s private can of worms, not in the long run. It’s not in my make-up, and I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me either, although several have. Self-preservation is one thing, as is standing up for yourself, but revenge quite another. There are only six people whose names have been retained. The criteria were they have nothing to lose and gave me permission to use their names.

This piece started out as a therapy exercise for me, but once my therapist found out about it he thought there was a market for this sort of memoir. I haven’t seen many books out there about Meth usage specifically in the gay world, yet I’ve seen hundreds of posters and stickers exclaiming, “Say No to Meth!” “Meth free zone!” I know from experience there’s a hell of a problem out there, certainly in the little world I walked into, on purpose I might add, which I suppose was a stupid thing to do. Not in hindsight, though, as I’m wiser because of what happened. I can’t change the past, but I can at least learn from it and there’s no sense whining and groaning about how awful life was. It wasn’t completely awful, which is a component of Meth use many gay men are afraid to admit, that they had fun with it. You don’t do something because it makes you feel bad, you do it because it makes you feel good. Therein lies the danger of abuse, when your world unravels and you fight to maintain your sanity, Meth sneaks up like cheese on a mousetrap. When the trap snaps shut it does so unexpectedly and overwhelmingly. But if you don’t acknowledge the good times, how can you possibly understand the downfall?

I have tried to be extremely honest with this memoir and some of the events that occurred I admit I don’t have all the answers to. What caused them? Who caused them, what really happened, were they drug-induced? All I can say is everything I write about did happen. I’m not making any of this up or lying about what I observed. Why the hell would I want to? Some of my adventures were terrifying at times. I have certain suspicions about what happened at certain points. You hear rumors, you see behavior, you notice friends trying to protect you by what they say, then by what they don’t say. You also let a lot of oddballs into your life.

These are my experiences and I don’t mean to give the impression they are absolute. I don’t want to make blanket statements and assume everyone in the Meth world responds to the drug the way I saw people respond. For instance, not everyone barebacks, but almost everyone I met in that world did. Not every porn star uses drugs, but every one I knew did. Those observations are not meant to pigeonhole others, they were simply things I noticed. I don’t want to imply it holds true for everybody.

I began writing this book in June 2005 a few months after I walked away from Crystal Meth. I was driven to write it just to heal myself. I think as human beings we sometimes forget the tiny little moments that occur within the big picture and as time goes by we are in danger of repeating those same mistakes.
It was my therapist who suggested I consider having the memoir published since he thought I could possibly help other gay men who didn’t realize the progressions within the Meth world. Although this story is specifically about me, the stories told are similar the world over. Wherever you have a large concentration of gay men the Meth scenario exists.
My personal way of healing was to write about my experiences, usually through emails to friends in the hopes of clearing my head. I wasn’t necessarily looking for advice or even a reply, but as I printed out stacks and stacks of emails I discovered an entire period of my life in a sort of “diary form”. Actual word for word conversations that took place during encounters were right there in front of me. Usually written 2-36 hours after the occurrence, I realized I had been compiling this section of my life all along.

I finished the majority of this memoir by December 2005 and at that time was trying to detail the “what” in the hopes of finding out the “why”. At that point the memoir reflected October 2003 through October 2005. Since then I’ve waded through what I call the “vaudeville of recovery” and learned even more about myself and that roller coaster period. I’ve expanded the original healing (and a bit naïve) piece with new prose to flesh it out. However, I didn’t want to change those original writings much since I was in a very specific (and honest) mindset at the time. Once a few years pass by and you calm down and wise up, hind-sight brings in that thought, “What the hell was I thinking?!” when reviewing past adventures.
I don’t want to judge my initial reactions too much since they were authentic at the time I needed them to be.

As I started writing I realized it wasn't all about me anymore, since I cared for many of the people whom I met within that world. If I could perhaps educate gay men to make a more educated decision, then reliving the past was certainly worthwhile to me. There is no reason people should have such a tragic thing happen to them as drug abuse if it can possibly be avoided.
Notice I say "drug abuse", not "drug use". Although drugs aren't for me now, obviously, I will never judge anyone for what they are currently doing. Choices are up to the individual and who am I to judge when I haven’t been in their personal shoes? I did encounter a few people who could handle Meth and still maintain normal productive lives.

In the end, the “why” formulated like this in my mind. That drug abuse is never about the drug itself, it's almost always about something deeply emotional and psychological within the user. With me it was co-dependency, which was a product of the abandonment issues I had as a child, coupled with my own natural need to pull away if someone wouldn't let me be who I wanted to be.

I don’t have any answers on solving the Meth problem in the gay community. I simply want to tell my story and let it go. I wish it was a perfect world and that HIV and Meth could be controlled easily, but it isn’t, and they can’t. So many people want life to be all black and white, but it isn’t that easy, there is just too much gray area. Not everything is right or wrong, good or bad. It’s up to us to figure that out for ourselves.
It takes work, and I have no clue what the campaign would be to accomplish that. I’m not an activist, I’m not a therapist, I know me, that’s all.

And just to get this out in the open and show you there are no “happy endings”, only “hopeful sobriety”…yes, I have fallen down a couple of times since I initially walked away from Meth. Recovery is an ongoing thing and while I did beat myself up about it initially, I realize all one can do is learn from such moments, chalk them up to experience and use them to move forward. The difference this time is that you aren’t naïve when you fall down, you’ve been there before and are wiser because of it.

I hope nobody thinks any less of me for even having been in that world, but I’m a better adult because of what I went through and saw. I will say ... I never, ever tried to purposely hurt anyone. I was never overly dishonest with people, and some of the biggest things I need to account for are the times I backed away from someone or a situation without any explanation.
Some of the people involved probably deserved an explanation. It was self-defense on my part. I never meant to hurt anyone’s self-esteem or scare them by doing that. Once you’ve been bit in the ass once, you stop putting your butt to the dog.

Well, this is my story and I need to let it go. I soooooo need to let it go, which is what I’m doing by writing it. I held onto hurt, hatred, guilt, paranoia, embarrassment, low self-esteem, overblown self-esteem, love, you name it, for far longer than I should have. Now it’s time to forgive myself and everyone else. I walked out of that rabbit hole but I do want to write all this down and lay the past to rest.

So, this writing is closure for me. Get the hell out of here. Get off the cross because somebody needs the wood. Of course, I could also supply the replacement on that cross pretty easily, but we aren’t bitter, no ... never.