The Peggy Lee Rose

Somebody once said that with Peggy Lee, less is more. Although it may just be the raising of an eyebrow or that snap of the fingers during “Fever,” she could do more with one tiny movement than many people did with their whole body. Her vocal range was not that broad, but it had such nuance you believed she was doing more than she actually was and I found her sultry, sexual approach fascinating.

This may be an odd analogy, but a friend told me the key to reading Charles Dickens was to realize it was all about the individual moments of the journey, not the culmination. I felt similarly about Peggy Lee. It wasn’t about the whole. It was about those moments, delicate on the surface but strong underneath.

Although this is going to be an offbeat segue, the same could be said about the pink rose named after her and like everything else, I’ve got a story about it. As Cyril Connolly once said, “He would not blow his nose without moralizing on conditions in the handkerchief industry.”

In the fall of 2001 I got a weird urge to grow roses. No idea why, I was never a gardener before, even though I love the outdoors and flowers. It was October, but when I get an urge, I’m on it like flies on shit, so I figured I’d get them started inside before moving them out to the balcony in the spring. Maybe that’s the reason I was never a gardener, my timing was obviously way off on the growing season.

I purchased some large pots and being a gay man, looked for three different types of roses. The Judy Garland Rose, the Minnie Pearl Rose and the Peggy Lee. I found Judy and Minnie easily, but the Peggy took a little searching.

As I looked on the internet and in various floral catalogs, the other two plants bloomed like crazy inside. The Minnie Pearl was a small little tea rose, and the Judy, well, you couldn’t kill that one if you tried. Judy started out as a bright yellow, then, as it matured, slowly turned into a burnt orange, one of the most vibrant colors in a rose I’ve ever seen.

I had absolutely no luck finding the Peggy as the months went by, apparently it wasn’t as popular as it once may have been. Nobody at the florists across the country I talked to knew of it and they all wondered why I was so gung ho this time of year.

Finally I figured, well, let’s try the fan sites of Peggy Lee, surely one of them could help me. Some of the “Divas” had fans so involved if you wanted to know what time of day the person sneezed in 1958 they’d be able to tell you.

I emailed the most prominent Peggy Lee website I could find, hoping a fan and/or webmaster would respond. I mentioned my own enjoyment of Peggy Lee’s music and that I was looking for the rose if anybody should know where and if one could be found.

Finally, on Sunday, January 20, 2002 I received this email.

“Dear Terry, Thanks so much for the compliments about my grandmother. She was pleased to hear such nice things and that you are interested in the rose. Attached is the address of a nursery in Sacramento that carries it. Again, thank you very much for your email, I know she appreciates it. Sincerely, Holly Foster-Wells.”

I almost fell off the chair after reading that email. I had no idea I was actually mailing Peggy Lee Enterprises. I thought it was just some guy with horned rimmed glasses who liked Peggy Lee. After doing a little investigating, I found out Holly was one of the people in charge of her grandmother’s businesses. I was touched, but thrilled at the same time.

The very next day at work, my boyfriend called me. “Have you looked at the news yet?” he asked.

“No, why?” I answered.

“I think you’d better.”

“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”

“It’s going to be sort of ironic. You’d better just check yourself.”

So, I did. Pulling up the internet, the headline read, “Peggy Lee, music legend, dies at 81.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather, what were the chances?! Now I felt a bit embarrassed I had bothered the family while Peggy Lee was dying. Who knows if she ever actually saw my email, from what I heard later Miss Lee was fairly bad off. I imagine Holly was just being nice, but still, I was touched she had taken the time to respond in such a kind way.

I sent the family a condolence card and three weeks later, two items came in the mail. One was a large box containing a rosebush. Once planted, it bloomed light pink with full petals, quickly catching up to the vigorousness of Judy and Minnie.

The other item was a thank you card from Peggy Lee’s family, mailed, I imagine, to everyone who sent flowers or cards. On it was a drawing of a light pink rose, delicate on the surface but I found out, from experience, strong underneath.

Possessions - A Prince? Or a Pauper?

“That man didn’t have a pot to piss in!” This was another one of those sayings my family used so often while I was growing up I actually thought there might be some bathroom fixture in existence shaped like a coffee pot people used for that obvious purpose.

Stupid? Perhaps. I still haven’t been able to find one in the plumbing section of Home Depot because all these years later, I don’t have a pot to piss in myself.

Assets? What the hell are they? Sounds like a girl group, “Motown Mavis and the Assets”. Well, I don’t have any of those either.

Throughout the years I’ve walked away from tens of thousands of dollars when leaving relationships. Acres of cash have blown through my hands having fun and more or less surviving, that not only do I not have a pot to piss in, I don’t even have a Tupperware bowl.

But that’s okay. I’ve got acres of memories. Four decades worth that could put three normal lifetimes of most people to shame. Possessions have never been all that important to me. Well, perhaps books, but even those would get left behind if need be. Experiences mean so much more and that mindset I trace back to my adoption and the feeling life was going to be taken away from me.

Perhaps that’s a stupid way to live, and as I’ve grown older I’ve gotten much better at saving money and investing, but that’s because I’ve calmed down considerably.

I had one book reviewer make the insane comment that I must be independently wealthy since I never wrote about taking the Chicago Elevated Train, I only spoke of cabs. He concluded I must be rich. What the hell that had to do with my writing I have no idea, but he must have lived in Bumble, Idaho if he thought Chicagoans didn’t take cabs every once and awhile.

I am rich in experiences though and rather than spend $200 on a pair of designer jeans I would spend it on a plane ticket to Colorado or Key West, wherever. Even if it meant that when I got home it would be Ramen noodles for a month, but hey, I like Ramen noodles.

The only assets you could say I have are my autograph collection, which if sold could be worth thousands, and a little sculpture of an elephant I named “Conway” by the artist Loet Vanderveen. I suppose these items are investments and whoever ends up selling them after I kick off is going to take a lot of taxis, but why would I sell something I care about?

Conway was the first and only piece of art I’ve ever bought, at a designer gallery specializing in animal pieces. A little green pachyderm with very little detail, almost Inuit-like, he has a slight smile. The salesgirl who talked me into buying him said the Queen of England had a few Vanderveen pieces.

The woman could have spared me the sales pitch since the minute I saw that smile looking back at me in the window I was entranced and now there’s more than one Queen who owns a Vanderveen. Actually, there are at least three since I recently visited my friend John’s apartment and he had about ten of them displayed. So much for me and trendsetting.

(In case you’re wondering, I named him after Tim Conway. On the Carol Burnett Show, during a Eunice/Mama/Family sketch he told a hilarious story about two Siamese elephants joined at the trunk and when they sneezed their eyes bugged out.)

The reason I’m writing such a trivial little essay is because I passed by Conway a few moments ago and remembered how he had once sat on my dresser next to the first piece of furniture I ever bought that really made me feel like an adult. A cast iron sleigh bed I’d saved up for…and I was thirty-seven years old. At that age, most people had big homes, full of furniture with lots of pots to piss in.

To some that may seem pathetic, but what do I care? I was proud of that bed, just like I was proud of Conway. He was a small piece of stone carved into something beautiful, not actually alive, but my heart was alive when I looked at him.

Sometimes it takes very little to keep me intrigued.

Things are much better now since my priorities have changed a bit. A walk through the park is almost as exciting as a night at the bars once was. I still don’t like designer jeans so I continue to travel as much as I want.

And Conway reminds me that even though he is a possession I don’t need much more than I already have. I have more inside than I ever hoped to acquire…and a lot of Ramen noodles.

Now, if I could only find that pot…

1700 Bikers and One Porn Star

As I headed down to Halsted St. on Saturday, June 14^th, 2008 to join my friend Richard for a night on the town, I thought it was going to be a normal evening, if you can call any evening on that strip “normal”.

I don’t suppose the corner of Main and Oak St. in Hooterville, Ohio has nearly as much activity as Chicago’s Boystown. Perhaps, but I somehow doubt it. 

Being as how I’d started a new workout program, I refrained from any libations. Not only would it help my program, it would also give me a chance to judge others drinking in my own inimitable way. Richard was always an interesting subject to analyze and compare Darwin’s theory to, once he got going on the alcohol. He’d usually piss off so many people walking down the street with his comments you’d half expect someone like Jane Fonda in 9 to 5 to come after him with a shotgun.

At one club we only stayed for about half an hour, but in that time I once again managed to make an ass out of myself. An acquaintance I knew named Denny, was hauling out his latest stash of gay porn while sitting on his normal corner stool. He burned more DVDs each week than Microsoft.

“Got this one yesterday,” he proudly exclaimed, handing me a burned disc with felt marker writing on it. I don’t remember what the title was, probably Soldier Boys on Furlough or Zookeepers Holiday, something like that.

Just then one of the strippers who regularly performed at this bar walked to the center station and ordered a drink. Denny pointed him out.

“See that guy over there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, looking at the tattoo covered muscle man just a few feet away.

“He’s in that DVD I just handed you.”

“Really,” I said.

“You should go over and ask him to autograph it for me.”

Thinking I was being oh, so polite, I agreed to do it. Probably make the guy feel good to have someone recognize him. Thinking he was just some stripper and that he’d only made the one film, I assumed it was probably a pretty obscure, cheaply made porn, one of thousands that filled the shelves of Boystown video stores these days.

I marched right up to him and said, “Hi, would you mind signing this?”

How kind of me, I thought.

Fully expecting the guy to blush and excitedly say thanks for actually noticing his work, he simply raised one eyebrow and looked at me like this type of thing happened all the time. He actually made me feel I was being a bit of an inconvenience.

For God’s sake, I thought, it’s not like you’re Elvis…

Borrowing a marker from Adam, the bartender, he signed it, smiled, handed it back and moved on like he was leaving the stage door of Carnegie Hall.

A little put off, I walked over to Denny and handed his DVD back.

“Well, here you go. Since when did small time strippers get so uppity around here?” I commented.

Adam, knowing a good opportunity to twist a knife really deep, sauntered over about ten minutes later, realizing I had no idea what I had just done.

“You really endeared yourself to him, you know that?” he said.

“Whaddaya mean? He should be thankful somebody was interested in his little movie.”

“His name is Ronnie and that movie is his tenth porn. He has an exclusive contract with one of the biggest studios around. He told me, ‘Gee, I really love it when fans ask me to sign bootleg versions of my movies…’”

Dumbfounded, I almost smacked Denny upside the head, realizing he asked me to do it on purpose, just so I’d look like an idiot.

Adam continued, “Yeah, I told him you’re a writer, so he’s gonna Xerox your book, bring it in and ask for your autograph.”

I was about ready to crawl under a rock. So much for me and my high horse.

 Hightailing it out of there due to my embarrassment, I grabbed Richard and we decided to check out another club down the street.

Now, in Chicago’s Boystown, on a Saturday night, the sidewalks are packed with people, but we didn’t get half a block when we noticed a huge commotion that seemed to be traveling towards us. People suddenly stopped in their tracks and were staring down the street. Off in the distance I noticed the southbound cars braking, horns honking, screams building and what appeared to be acres of skin coming towards us in a group.

“What the hell is that?” Richard asked.

“I have no idea,” some stranger next to us answered, just as mystified as we.

As it got closer, the shapes came into focus and my hand to God, over a thousand naked cyclists began streaming by, one after another, not a stitch of clothing on most of them. Men and women, boobs and crotches swinging to the left and right for everyone and their mother to see, people whooping and hollering as they rode by.

I have never seen the entire street of Halsted on a Saturday night stand still with their jaws on the pavement. Where the hell did this come from? Did somebody collectively slip every one of us bystanders acid?

It took a good ten minutes for 1700 nude bikers to ride by us. A few had jockstraps, some had bras, many were only wearing a helmet. I laughed at that one. They aren’t too concerned about the family jewels hitting the pavement, but by God, some of them are wearing a helmet?!

“What the hell is this?!” I asked another man next to me.

“They do this every year,” he answered. “They’re protesting oil dependency by gathering together in a park, taking their clothes off just as they start the ride and biking around Chicago.”

I didn’t quite know what to say and Richard, of all people, was speechless for the very first time since I’d met him.

As the last biker rode by and waved at us, a little short man in his sixties with horn rimmed glasses and a beanie on his head, I remarked, “The jury is in…I have now seen it all…”

The hundreds of people now lining the street were pretty much thinking the same, and after everyone got their bearings, things slowly returned to normal, all of us advancing just a little bit slower than before, laughing and bug-eyed.

Finally Richard managed to say something. “Maybe next next year we should do it?”

“You gotta be out of your mind! I ain’t baring my fat ass to half of Boystown!”

“I heard you already had…” he answered.

“Bitch…yeah, I can just see it, Richard and Terry come pedaling down the strip on a bicycle built for two wearing big turn of the century Molly Brown hats and nothing else.”

“Hey, at least if I was doing it, we’d have an extra kickstand…”

“More like a flat tire…” I dryly replied.

 The next day I went online to see what the hell all this had been about. Sure enough I found a website for the event. I had to laugh at a comment from one of the straight participants.

He wrote, “The route covered fourteen plus miles and we surprised a lot of people, but the biggest turnout were the throng of fans watching us at Belmont and Halsted! The crowd seemed to be exceedingly massive and we arrived there fashionably late. For some reason they seemed to be the most enthusiastic of any group we passed?”

 Hello, it’s Boystown! We’re a bunch of gay men! You think we’re not gonna stop and look!?

How the hell had I missed hearing about this? I’d lived in Chicago for fourteen years, surely someone would have mentioned 1700 naked bikers traveling through the gay section of town on a Saturday night?!

 So much for sobriety. Sober, I insult a well-known porn star, then run smack dab into a pack of nude bicyclists.

“Get me a drink!” I told Richard.

Blame It On My Youth

Like most people, my life has not been a constant bed of roses and I’ve been no saint, but then again, I’ve never, ever implied I was.

Although it’s not a very easy thing to admit, I’ve had two serious affairs, both times cheating on the same person. One affair was passionate and beautiful, the other a complete mess I would rather not be reminded of. As a matter of fact, the boyfriend I cheated on was someone I don’t care to remember either.

Usually, whenever something negative happens to me, down the road I come to terms with it, forgetting the bad things and keeping the good locked in my memory. My first serious relationship is not something I carry much baggage over, but it wasn’t one of the shining moments of my life, that’s for sure. The memories of that period I tend to just ignore, chalking it up to being young. Having been around the block, I’ve lived just about every role in life there is.

 I was about twenty-four, I believe, and we dated for three years. He was a bartender and get this, a part-time drag queen. I’ve got nothing against drag queens, but usually I’m attracted to more of the cowboy type. This relationship was certainly a result of my co-dependency. I settled since this guy cared about me and I was scared of being alone. A truly stupid route to take but at least I can admit it.

He wasn’t a very good drag queen. Matter of fact, he looked like a man in a dress. He didn’t do it often, but when he did I can’t say I was happy about it. Not because it was drag, but because he lip-synched like one of those dubbed Japanese Godzilla movies, his lips moving a good half second after the words were already heard. Not being able to dance to save his soul, he was just awful even though he was very popular, probably because he was a bartender, but he was also a handful. Extremely jealous and controlling, I let him control me.

I will say he was a lot of fun sexually, and perhaps that was one of the reasons I first started dating him. In an odd way, he could be very masculine when he wanted to be, having grown up in a rural town with only older brothers who hunted, fished and played sports. He was also extremely tough and cocky, probably a result of having to fight so hard being the runt of the family. A decent person, his traumatic childhood brought anger to the surface he should have been in therapy for.

Because we were young and way too involved in the Des Moines gay bar scene, alcohol played a large part in the drama of our lives. Knock down drag outs, broken plates, screaming…you want to talk about dysfunctional?

My friends and I used to joke about that scene in What’s Love Got to Do With It where Tina Turner walks into the hotel lobby, white suit covered in blood and a black eye. “I’ve got forty-five cents and a Mobil credit card, but I promise if you give me a room I’ll pay you back!”

Been there…done that.

 People who know me now would be surprised I was involved in something like that, but hey, I finally wised up, got the hell out of there and moved onto the next level of co-dependency, each tier not nearly as negative as the one previous. I lived and each time I certainly learned, never quite making the exact same mistake twice.

The first affair happened a year and a half after we first started dating. We had moved down to Nashville for my singing career and by this time, I knew hanging onto this nowhere relationship wasn’t honest, but I didn’t know what to do, whining about it in my own head rather than taking control, as I should have.

And so began the cheating, the cruising around gay areas at night, every once and awhile sneaking out to some late bar, since my boyfriend worked the graveyard shift. It was at one of those one a.m. turn around areas that I met James, a young man from Little Rock who had the most beautiful eyes, a charming smile and light blonde hair. He was about 5’ 10” and a year younger than I.

It started off as just a sexual fling, but soon grew into something more, although the physical always has a great deal to do with it at that age. I saw James every week for at least three months and usually the encounters were in a car, sometimes at his place when his roommate was out, sometimes we’d just go for walks in the country, ending up alongside a winding stream, blanket spread on the ground. Although it’s difficult to condone any of this, it was very romantic and beautiful. A respite from all the baggage I carried around being with someone I didn’t love.

James didn’t seem to have any issues with me having a boyfriend, but oddly enough, it was James who did all the chasing, calling to ask me to dinner, talking into the night, things I wouldn’t necessarily call strictly a “fling”. As hypocritical as it sounds, I remember one day when he showed me a Faberge egg given to him by an older wealthy man he was seeing at the same time. Although I didn’t verbalize or show it, I was jealous, and that was the point I knew I was getting in too deep. Lord, the drama I’d have to deal with if my boyfriend ever found out, the screaming, the physicality, the guilt landing my way.

 One afternoon, my boyfriend and I were walking down a long deserted corridor inside a mall on the south side of town, and soon, right around the corner came James, walking towards us, purely by accident. Nervous and scared as he walked past, I was sure the cat was going to be let out of the bag. But, James gave me a sidelong glance with no expression, my boyfriend didn’t notice a thing and he never found out.

 I ended it one night in the spring when James called and asked to meet in a park, everything always seemed so sneaky and wrong when it came to our encounters. He sat in his car, waiting for me to extend an invitation to go for a drive or to suggest going back to his place, but I couldn’t.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes, I guess so…I mean, well…I don’t really know what I mean, sorry,” I replied.

He looked so sad and sweet right then, but I couldn’t let this go any further. With my boyfriend we had an apartment, checking accounts, furniture, all the little things that make a foolish co-dependent person too scared to walk away from something they don’t want to be involved in.

James was just a fantasy, albeit a wonderful, fulfilling one, but still, a fantasy. He wasn’t with me every day when I made coffee before going to work, he didn’t watch TV with me when I was tired, he didn’t wrap presents for me at Christmastime and vice versa. He wasn’t “life”. My boyfriend was “life”.

Summoning up the courage to tell him what I was feeling, I simply couldn’t verbalize it and took the coward’s way out. “I can’t see you anymore James, I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” he asked, his eyes starting to mist.

“I just can’t do it. I’m really sorry, it’s not you,” I answered, knowing I was giving him little to understand.

“But I really like you…” he replied. Man, this was getting harder and harder for me.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got to go,” and with that I smiled at him and said goodbye. Soft raindrops had been falling during this short conversation between us and I could see his teardrops mimicking them. He looked at me with a confused sad expression and I immediately felt like the unkindest person to ever walk the earth. How dare I hurt such a sweet soul? Some people might not think of him as sweet since he was having an affair with someone already taken, but I certainly did think he was, and my memory still feels that.

As I drove away from his car in the parking lot I turned on the radio. It was a Friday night and the Opry was being simulcast on WSM. I always found it soothing to drive around Nashville and listen to the show. As I caught my last look at James, Roy Acuff was on the radio singing “Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain”. I’ve never forgotten that, or that beautiful boy who helped me forget the bed I had made myself, with this boyfriend I didn’t really like much.

I’m not ashamed of the affair, it was everything romance and escapism is supposed to be. But I am ashamed of having been in the relationship and staying there when I should have simply ended it. But that type of strength and adult responsibility wouldn’t come until many years later, when I left another relationship, this time a very wonderful and loving one, for the right reasons. The reasons I should have been cognizant of in this first relationship.

We stayed together another year and a half, moving back to Des Moines a few months after I stopped seeing James. The relationship back in Iowa was just as tedious as it had been in Nashville, just as violent, just as dysfunctional.

I began to spread my wings a little more, going out with friends again, and slowly, very slowly, maturing into my own person. As I got stronger and more certain of what I really wanted, our fights increased, mainly since I started arguing back, angry at my boyfriend for wanting to control me and tell me what to do. More certainly, I was angry at myself for having let it go on like this in the first place.

 One August, my car was in the shop so I borrowed my mom’s little Ford Escort to get around. We decided to go out on a Saturday night and while socializing at the bar, my boyfriend proceeded to get drunk, getting very belligerent with me. Another friend of mine, Tom, was also pretty tight, so rather than let Tom drive home, I took him back to his place in the car, dropped him off and headed back to the bar to find my boyfriend.

Out he came from that bar, foaming at the mouth, literally beet red with anger. “Where the fuck have you been!?” he demanded. I reminded him I had taken Tom home since he was too drunk to drive.

“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed. “I’ve been sitting in that damn place for a half hour waiting for you. We’re leaving, now! Get out of the fucking drivers seat, I’m driving home!”

“But you can’t, you’re drunk, it’s my mom’s car and if anything happens…”

He interrupted me with, “I said, get out of the fucking car now!”

I was scared, yes, but I was also weak. Giving in, I moved to the passenger seat, while he kept ranting and raving, screaming at me as we drove the five blocks to the interstate on our way home.

The closer we got to the interstate the more fearful I became, not so much of him anymore, but of us killing someone else or ourselves in a drunken accident. He was swerving all over the road and I knew once he got up to high speeds it could be dangerous. Two blocks from the on ramp I told him, “Please let me drive, you’ll wreck the car!”

“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed at me.

“Please…please…stop the car, I’ll drive, I’m sober, you’ll wreck my mom’s car…” I pleaded.

“No! I’m going to drive this fucking car all the way home and you can keep your damn mouth shut…”

Just then what little sense I had returned, knowing a decision had to be made and that I had been stupid to be so timid before. Now it wasn’t just about us, there was a real possibility he was going to hurt somebody else on the road.

After one more pleading and one more “Fuck you!” from him, I grabbed the steering wheel and flung my left leg over the area dividing the driver from the passenger seat.

I said, “No! You’ll kill someone like this!”

He started screaming and hitting me, the blows raining down on my head one after the other, but I didn’t notice them. All I could think of was I had to stop this car from moving and get it away from him.

Putting my left foot on the brake as he punched me right in the jaw, the vehicle came to a sudden stop. His body lurched toward the steering wheel I held with my right hand as the left one tried to shield myself from the blows. Luckily, he was so drunk he wasn’t as agile as usual, so I managed to reach in front of him, quickly open the driver’s side door and yell, “Get out of the car! I can’t let you drive this car!”

I don’t remember what all he screamed at me, but he kept hitting me as I managed to push him out of the driver’s seat and onto the pavement. Since the car was stopped, he managed to raise himself up rather than fall, all the while pulling at my arm trying to force me out of the car. I managed to move over to the driver’s seat, foot still on the brake as he took my left arm, just below the bicep and sank his teeth into it. Although it was painful and his teeth cut the skin, I managed to push him completely out of the car, slam the door shut, put it in drive and speed off towards the nearest lot so I could park. Then I’d come back to get him, hoping I’d be able to calm him down without the danger of this vehicle nearby.

As I kicked the car into drive he grabbed onto the side of the trunk, then the bumper and the momentum of the vehicle pulled him down onto the pavement, dragging him a good ten feet before he finally let go.

Through the rear view mirror I could see him rising from the pavement, his face covered in blood. I drove another two blocks, saw a lot on my left, pulled in, put the car in park and locked it, throwing the keys in my pocket where he hopefully wouldn’t try to get them.

While I was intending to go back for him, it wasn’t necessary, since he came stumbling up the lots entrance within seconds. Weaving back and forth and out of breath, he’d obviously been running the whole way after me. The right side of his face was so banged up and swollen from the fall I could hardly recognize him.

The shock of the accident must have sobered him up, because now he was crying, no longer screaming at me or angry. He was now scared.

Just then, a police car pulled into the parking lot. They must have seen him stumbling down the street towards the lot.

For having been such a lunatic before, he now calmed down considerably, telling the police there was nothing wrong, he’d fallen down and was just coming after me because we were supposed to drive home. It was obvious to them this was a domestic dispute after talking to both of us. I was worried about him getting arrested and about myself getting in trouble too. I never told them what really happened but they did ask if I was okay to drive home. When I said yes, I was telling the truth. I had not drunk much that night and was fine.

“You need to get him to the hospital,” they told me. “He’s in bad shape.” By now, my boyfriend was sitting on the passenger side of the car slowly going into shock. He had stopped crying once he saw the cops but now he looked as if he was going to pass out.

“Are you okay?” they asked, and I still remember how concerned and nice they were to me. Obviously shaken up, I tried to handle the police in a calm way, containing the emotion, but I must have looked like a scared little boy.

“Your arm is bleeding” one of them said and I looked down to see a large open wound on my lower bicep, not gushing with blood, but certainly a mess.

To this day, I don’t know why the police didn’t press this matter further. They probably didn’t want to get involved and I seemed on the level. I said I would take him to the hospital, so they asked if I wanted them to follow us. I replied, “Yes, could you please follow me all the way, please…” I did not trust my boyfriend even though he seemed too scared and worn out to do anything more to me. The police must have sensed the fear because they assured me it would be okay and they’d stay right behind us.

As I climbed into the car and shut the door he started to cry again, almost pleading, “Don’t leave me, I know you’re gonna leave me...please don’t.”

I kept my head on this time, now I was the one with the power. I lied, telling him, “I’m not going to leave you. We’re going to the hospital emergency room.” For the rest of the ride he drunkenly leaned against the door, every once and awhile sniffling away the tears.

Thankfully, the police did follow us to the emergency room and I got my boyfriend inside where the staff immediately took him in. He was in awful shape and needed stitches on the side of his face. When he fell and got drug by the car, the pavement and gravel had cut him extremely close to one of his eyes. If he had held on longer he probably would have lost one.

I washed my own arm in the hospital restroom and waited for two hours in the waiting area before the nurse told me to go home and come back in a few hours, my boyfriend was sedated and there was nothing I could do. Why nobody said anything about my arm I don’t know, and I also don’t remember why I didn’t say anything about it either.

I went home and took a shower, putting alcohol and iodine on the bite mark, a fairly serious cut about an inch long. I couldn’t sleep at all, making up my mind I was going to leave this son of a bitch, perhaps even right now. Should I pack some things and just get the hell out of there?

A friend of mine came over to talk and said not to be rash, I was too keyed up to make a realistic decision. “How about waiting until the morning?” he suggested.

Four hours later I was back at the hospital and my boyfriend was in his room. Calm by now, he was also ashamed of himself, telling me he was sorry, it wouldn’t happen again, he was just drunk, he didn’t mean any of it, he never wanted to hurt me. His face was still a mess. Although cleaned up with no more blood visible, the left side was swollen like a grapefruit and his black eye was completely shut. As he started to cry in the hospital bed, the salt from his tears made his cuts sting even more.

“I’m sorry I tried to hurt you,” he told me as I sat on the bed, looking at this man I sometimes hated, sometimes needed just because I wanted somebody, anybody, by my side.

I seriously thought to myself, “But I’m the one who actually hurt you.” I didn’t say it out loud, but he was the one in the hospital bed, he was the one who’d probably need plastic surgery, he was the one who almost lost his eye. I was the one who had walked out of there and returned a few hours later with only a deep bite mark and some bruises on my face where his fists made contact.

I can’t leave him right now, I thought. I can’t just walk out on him while he’s pleading with me and apologizing. I did this to him, so I can’t leave him.

I know now, and actually knew then, deep down, it wasn’t my fault. It was his fault. But still, the little boy in me felt very guilty that morning on a hospital bed looking at the broken man I’d been with almost three years, most of them unhappily. God, I was an emotional mess then, never knowing what was right for me.

 I did stay with him for another three months. All my codependency came back after I felt sorry for him, but it didn’t last long. Two months later, after he’d healed a little, the screaming started once more and my self-loathing for remaining in this relationship began again.

And what did I do? What did that co-dependent young idiot who was always afraid there was “no tomorrow” do?

I had another affair, this time as simply a way to get the hell out of this awful mess on my own emotional terms. If I left my boyfriend when someone else cared about me, then I wouldn’t be alone at all now, would I? Someone would still be there for me and therefore, I wouldn’t be crying half the time because I was unhappy.

We had one more incredibly huge blow up, this time without fists and cars, but still, enough to make me backtrack on those first feelings of pity on a hospital bed. Alcohol was once again involved and he got belligerent, this time throwing in my face, “I’m probably fucking scarred for life because of you!”

 Enough. I stayed with my best friend that night and returned to the apartment the next morning, not saying a word. When he awkwardly apologized I went about my business and didn’t answer.

“You’re leaving me, aren’t you?” he calmly asked.

“Yes I am,” I replied.

“I’m sorry, please don’t go, we can work this out…”

“No, we can’t and I don’t want to work this out. I’m very sorry, but it’s over.”

He had tears in his eyes and told me he would leave and that I could keep the apartment. He’d stay at his brother’s house. He said, “I love you very much,” and walked out the door.

 Because of the violent way things had always worked out with him, I was surprised it ended so quickly and calmly on his part. Two days later, when I came home from work I discovered my little dog, Kiri, gone. She was a sweet little blonde mutt who loved me unconditionally but my boyfriend had gotten angry again, come into the apartment while I was gone and taken her.

Great, more drama, only this time he had really gotten back at me, hitting me right where it hurt. I called on the phone asking for the dog back, but by now he was in his “sly and coy” mode, as if he were holding all the cards, thinking he still had power over me. He had only taken Kiri out of spite, and admitted so, very much gloating over it on the phone.

“I’ll think about giving her back. Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.” I never saw that little dog again.

The reason he was so mad this time was because he found out about my second affair since I told him point blank about it. To him, he now had a reason to be vengeful.

 I’m not proud of this section of my life, but it happened and there’s nothing I can do about the past. The only reason I was able to leave that man was because I had another waiting for me. All this drama, with me not taking one ounce of responsibility.

The guy I left my boyfriend for was simply a means to an end, perhaps I knew it at the time, I don’t know, but that next relationship only lasted three months before I ended it, this time a little more like an adult. The second guy was not even close to what I wanted in a partner, but it got me out of that previous dysfunction, so it must have served a purpose. You can’t go back and change things, but you can damn well make sure you grow up enough so they don’t repeat themselves.

 And to this very day, I have a scar on my lower bicep. You can make out the curve of teeth in it, about an inch long. I would have preferred a photograph as a reminder, but in a way, I suppose every time I look at it I know I will never, ever go through such a thing again. 

The Little Boy and the Old Broad

“I’ll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said ‘Miss Davis, I’m Ava Gardner and I’m a great fan of yours.’ And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. ‘Of course you are, my dear.’ She said. ‘Of course you are.’ And she swept on. Now that’s a Star.”-Ava Gardner

Driving into Vegas on a warm spring morning, I wasn’t expecting much. For some odd reason, the person who loved the smells of the circus, the romance of the Caribbean sea spray, the man who got teary-eyed when Happy Days went off the air, suddenly decided to act like a crotchety old fart.

They aren’t going sucker me into this neon crap, I thought. The only reason I was there in the first place was to see Hoover Dam. I had been to Vegas thirty years before as a kid, but back then there wasn’t much for a child to do other than play by the pool. Although I had visions of shooting craps and having a showgirl hand me a drink with an umbrella in it, my mother was not very impressed when her seven-year old suggested it to her.

Everyone told me I would love the new Vegas, but I held out, saying, “Why the hell would I waste money on that? I don’t gamble. Too phony for me.” But I did want to see Hoover Dam, may as well stay in Vegas and see some shows while I was at it.

I drove down the strip when I arrived, big mistake. Traffic backed up for miles, Midwesterners crossing the street against the light, yelling at their husbands to grab the kids and hurry up! Oh, shit, this place was worse than I thought.

As giant castles and pyramids loomed over me I was reminded of what Edna Ferber once said, “What littleness is all this bigness hiding?”

I got to the hotel, the only gay resort in Vegas and checked in. Looking at the brochures stacked near the wall I amused myself trying to count how many images of Elvis I could find while the handsome clerk smiled and mildly flirted with me. Well, I thought, guess I can handle that side of Vegas.

Once settled, I decided to see what else there was to “bitch about around here” and headed out. Within fifteen minutes what started out as “That’s a stupid idea, putting a pirate ship next to a sidewalk!” turned into, “Oh, well, the lights are going down, maybe I’ll just watch all these hicks get into it.”

Then “That was sort of impressive.”

Then “Okay, that was quite a swing on the rope he took getting to the other mast.”

And finally, walking away with the crowds after the show finished, “My God! That was fun!!”

Guess I never would have made it in espionage, I caved at the first interrogation.
A little ways down, the Dancing Fountains revved up to the sound of Sinatra’s “Luck Be A Lady” and the smile naturally forming on my face showed the world I was simply a ten year old who needed an attitude adjustment. Another sucker was born that minute.

Having no tickets for anything that night, I went to some half price booth and got a ticket for the Rat Pack Impersonation show, not really expecting much, but I loved the Rat Pack patter and thought it would be a good way to get into Vegas with a capitol V, pal. Since the nut had been cracked, may as well have a swingin’ time, baby…

I wasn’t disappointed, the hotel showroom looked like the Vegas I remembered from my childhood and the old Oceans Eleven film. My table was in the very back of the showroom and an older couple near me said the room was about the same size as the Sands with the same look.
I had a ball and halfway through the show ordered a Jack Daniels, silently toasting Sinatra. From the very back, if you squinted your eyes just a little, or better yet, got a little drunker, the performers looked and sounded like the originals. The patter was not cleaned up, thank God and I howled and clapped along with every other cheesy tourist in that audience. Hell, I was a cheesy tourist. Who was I, coming into this town with a chip on my shoulder? I was just as corny as it was.

I swinged, I ringed and I dinged coming out of that showroom, baby, pallie. I took a pull on my cigarette as I walked into the lobby from the show room.
Standing there looking at glossies of the performers, a sixty-year-old lady from Indianapolis started up a conversation with me when her husband went to the bathroom.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
I told her Chicago and knowing that was pretty Rat Packish itself, got a little carried away when she asked what someone so young was doing at a Rat Pack tribute show.
I looked at her and said, “Booze and broads baby ... booze and broads.”
Somehow she failed to see the humor.

Yeah, I saw Hoover Dam and was impressed but I couldn’t wait to get back to the next aquarium, the next roller coaster, the next gondola pulling out into the canals of Venice.
Enamored with it all, I extended my stay for two days so I could see Debbie Reynolds. A lady who definitely still had it, as witty and ballsy in person as on Will and Grace she was exactly what I expected, in fact, wanted her to be, a little dynamo with the mouth of a sailor, the legs of a thirty-year old and the sentimentality of an Irving Berlin song.

She wasn’t performing on the strip, she was way out at one of the casinos on the north side and was only there one night. Led to a seat right next to the stage, my hand to God, I was the youngest person there. Now, I was thirty-seven at the time, I wouldn’t call that young. It’s certainly not old, but when the average age of an audience is seventy-one, then yes, I was the equivalent of the Gerber baby to them. The person nearest to my age was maybe forty-five, a woman sitting by herself at the table next to mine holding a bouquet of roses with sort of a blank look in her eyes. The place was sold out.

Talking to a couple in their early sixties, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a short flash of light and when I looked over, stage right, I saw all these sequins walking toward the control booth back stage and a silhouette. Well, either the soundman is a drag queen or that’s Debbie Reynolds. I didn’t expect her to be wearing a potato sack or a Gap jogging outfit, although many in the audience were wearing jogging outfits with matching sun visors.

When Debbie Reynolds came out, there was the usual applause and she sang some showstopper type of opening number, lots of hands and big notes at the end. She looked great, just like I’d always pictured her, wearing a red sequined gown with a long slit up the side to show off the assets.

After her first number she walked around talking about how old everyone was, herself included and how her boobs were hanging a little lower than normal these days. She was saucy, sort of like my grandmother, only better looking and with blonde hair. As she was pacing the stage she stopped, looked at me and said, “What the hell are you doing here?!”

I didn’t exactly know what to do other than just shrug and smile when I heard, “Were you just passing by this place and somebody grabbed you and said ‘There’s this old broad singing in the lounge’ ... do you even know who I am? ...”

She bent down, pointed to herself, and said very slowly, “I’m Princess ... Leia’s ... mother.”

The place erupted in laughter and from that moment on I was made a small part of her act. Every five minutes or so she’d come over and explain what she was talking about and the senior citizens would cackle until you thought an oxygen tank would explode somewhere in the room.
Fine with me, I was loving the attention and having the chance to have an MGM star look me straight in the face and give me a hard time.

She said, “Do you watch Will and Grace?”

I should have looked myself up and down and said, “Helloooooo??” (you know how brilliant we all are in hindsight) but I simply smiled and nodded.

She said, “I’m on that show.”

“How old are you?” she asked. When I told her she cracked, “Christ! I’ve got cellulite older than you!” An eighty year old lady next to me almost blew her drink out of her nose.

Her whole act was terrific. She sang a Patsy Cline song, a Judy Garland tribute, played clips from her movies and sang along with them, every once and awhile telling me, “This is from a movie you’ve never heard of ...” More cackles.

At one point she even said, “Well, now that I’ve thoroughly embarrassed the little boy down front here I’m going to sing another song ... hell, I’ll sing all night. I played this place when it first opened and they didn’t even have a wall closing this room off from the casino. All that noise!? I absolutely refused to play here again! ... So ... I was back in a few weeks and did another show. Hell, I’ll sing anywhere they’ll pay me. I even did a set in the ladies room once. When I die they’ll stuff me like Trigger and put me up onstage ... “

I laughed and she stopped again, looking at me. “You know who Trigger was?”

I nodded.

“Roy Rogers… you’ve heard of Roy Rogers?”

I nodded and smiled.

“You must be one of those old movie buffs ...” (To this day, that’s probably the only time the word buff was associated with me.)

On stage she told of going to a press conference with Dolly Parton a few weeks earlier and that “this tiny little woman has the biggest titties I’ve ever seen. Yeah, she looked at me and said ...” and she put on a high pitched southern accent, “Debbie, honey ... you know why my feet are so small? Cuz things jest cain’t grow in the shade ...”

There was just something about hearing Debbie Reynolds say the word “titties.”

She had no shame, thank God, and was so real. Disappearing at one point, she came back onstage with a Streisand wig and a huge fake nose, singing “People”. Now that took guts. Hollywood royalty and she’s down to earth enough to come out and do that. Hell, she’d probably pass gas and it’d come out a new routine, my type of gal.

At the same time, she was also very gracious, introducing a couple in their eighties who had just gotten married and of course, making the comment “Don’t expect fireworks every night in the bed department. Thank God for Viagra!”

Then, the forty-ish woman next to me held up her bouquet of roses to Debbie, almost not even blinking and said in a monotone voice, “I’ve seen you in person forty-seven times.” The first thing that went through my mind was “Stalker.”

Debbie raised an eyebrow. “Forty-seven times? Don’t you have a life?” then smiled and told the woman thank you, shaking her hand.

At the end of the show she thanked everyone once more, the woman with the roses, the old newlyweds and then she said, “And I’d especially like to thank the little boy down front here for letting me have fun with him and for coming out to see an old broad.” Leaning down, she kissed me and whispered in my ear, “Thanks honey, you’re a doll.”

I was in heaven as I walked out of that hotel. Four elderly couples passed me saying, “There’s the little boy from the front row.” Middle age my ass. If Debbie Reynolds says I’m young, then dammit, I am young.

This was one of the few times when my dad was actually impressed by me having met someone. Of course, I noticed the dirty old man in him came out too, “She looks pretty damn good, doesn’t she? A dress slit up the side? How were her legs?” probably salivating into the phone too.
When I tried to bring the conversation around to his horses, he kept wanting to talk about Debbie Reynolds. How the tables had turned, when I was in college he couldn’t have cared less.

“Dad! I met Pearl Bailey! She called me Honey!”

“Oh, yeah…well, bought a new goat today….”

I was so thrilled I missed the turn off to the strip, ending up in old Vegas. Screw it, life is short, I’m gonna have some fun! Walking around, I bought one of those yard long mai-tais, put a quarter in a slot machine and won seven dollars. Listening to the bands playing on the sidewalks, I talked to complete strangers who were acting as touristy as I was and I did not want to leave this place. Hell, I even bought a two foot neon “Welcome to Vegas” sign to take home.
Another lesson learned, “lighten up already and get off your high-horse.”

Edna Ferber could act like an old fart for all I cared, now I remembered something Cleo Laine once said, “I enjoyed a lot about Las Vegas. First, the fact that it didn’t pretend to be anything more than an American money-making city that twinkled like an overdressed Christmas tree with a fairy on the top without a bra.”

And us little boys couldn’t get enough of the old broads either.