A Lethal Legacy (8 page)

"The Stonewall?
Why do you want to go there?" Gary asked when I suggested it.

"Because I want
to see what's the big deal that the police have to go in and harass these
folks."

"I don't think
it's a good idea, Ed. What if the police come while we're there?"

"Then I'll see
what happens. I've heard they get a little rough with the guys in there."

"I think we'd
better stay out of it. I can't afford to get arrested."

"Maybe you're
right. Where do you want to go then?"

I did go visit the
next night on my own. The police didn't show up, but lots of other people did.
For the first time in my life, I saw men openly affectionate with one another.
I felt a little like a voyeur, so after one drink I left, wondering why the
police would find it necessary to come in and disturb such a peaceful setting.

At two in the morning
in late June, my phone rang, waking me up.

"Ed, is Gary
staying in the city with you tonight?" Pam asked.

"No, I haven't
seen him. He's not home yet?"

"No, and he
usually at least calls if he's staying with you. Will you call me if you hear
from him?"

"Sure, Pam,
don't worry. I'm sure he was held up with a client after dinner. You know how
it goes."

"Yes, that's one
thing for sure, I know how it goes." She hung up the phone.

I had just drifted
back to sleep when the phone rang again.

"Ed, you
awake?" Gary asked. There was a great amount of noise in the background,
and I had difficulty hearing him.

"Gary, is that
you? Where are you? Pam's worried."

"Listen, can you
come down to the precinct station around the corner on 10th Street? Bring your
checkbook. I'll make it right when I get out."

"Have you been
arrested?"

"I'll explain it
all after you bail me out, Ed. Please come right away." Gary sounded
scared and angry at the same time.

The Sixth Precinct
house overflowed with hysteria when I arrived. There were probably two hundred
men and women herded into the lobby. An officer greeted me at the door.

"You here to get
someone?" he asked me as I tried to find Gary in all of this mess.

"Yes, Officer.
I'm here to pick up my cousin. What happened?"

"A riot, outside
the Stonewall Inn. A bunch of queers started throwing rocks and bottles at us
when we were just doing our job. What's your cousin's name?"

"Gary Townsend.
I see him over there."

I made my way through
the crowd to Gary who sat on a bench against the wall with his head held
between his hands. I noticed some blood on one fingernail, but otherwise, he
seemed unharmed. He didn't fit with this crowd in his suit and tie, but here he
was, right in the middle of it.

"Gary, hi,"
I said when I reached him.

"Ed, let's go.
We have to go to the desk over there and sign some papers. They didn't put us
in cells; they just want our money." He jumped up and began pulling me
toward a very haggard looking woman sitting at a desk in the corner arguing
with a rather ugly female dressed in a tight evening gown. When I approached
the desk, I suddenly realized that the gown actually housed the body of a man.

"Please, just go
sit in the corner, Sir. I can't help you right now."

"That's m'am to
you," he said as he flounced over to the benches under the windows.

"Yes, may I help
you?" the officer asked.

"I want to get
my cousin released. Gary Townsend."

"That'll be
$250, please. Make the check out to 'New York City Police,' and I'll need one
form of ID."

I handed her the
check and signed all of the papers before guiding Gary outside into the fresh
night air.

"I called Pam
and told her you got a little drunk and would be sleeping it off at my
place," I said as we headed back to my apartment.

"Thanks, Ed,
thanks for everything." We walked in silence the rest of the way.

"Aren't you
going to ask me?" Gary finally broke the quiet when we settled on my couch
with our beers.

"Ask you
what?"

"Damn it, Ed.
Why are you always like this?" Gary said.

"Like what? If
you have something to tell me, Gary, tell me. Otherwise, it's none of my
business."

"You're not even
curious about why I was at the Stonewall tonight?"

"Yes, I guess I
am since you refused to go with me."

"If I'd gone
with you, then you would have figured out that I'd been there before," he
said.

"This wasn't
your first time?"

"No, Ed, it
wasn't the first time. I go down there about two or three times a week, and I
meet people there."

"People?"

"Homosexuals."

"What are you
saying?” My question hung in the air until Gary finally lifted his eyes to meet
mine.

"I'm a queer,
Ed," he said. "What do you think old Philip would make of that?"

I watched Gary for a
few minutes as I tried to absorb his news. He began picking at his finger where
I had noticed blood earlier. For some reason, I wanted to find a bandage for
his wound rather than responding to his news.

"Gary, I don't
understand. What about Pam?" I asked.

"I've told you
before about how it was with girls, right? That never changed, even with Pam.
It was a miracle she managed to get pregnant because I've only managed to
complete the whole act with her a few times since we married. And believe me,
Ed, it's always been just an act for me." Gary continued to pick at the
finger.

"What
happened?" I asked pointing at his hand.

"Nothing, just a
hang nail."

"Quit picking at
it, or it will bleed," I said. I knew without a doubt Gary would make it
bleed.

We sat up until dawn
as Gary explained what happened with his life during the past decade. He told
me as a teenager he pushed all thoughts of homosexuality from his mind because
of his father. The closest he’d ever come to discussing it with someone had
been on those walks with me. However, he never could go further than those
meager attempts. 

He suffered
immeasurable guilt all through high school and college when he developed
crushes on his best buddies. He never enjoyed sex with his female partners
unless he fantasized about one of his male friends. In Chicago, he met a man
who finally forced him to admit the truth. They fell in love. However, Gary
still couldn't face the truth publicly, so in order to hide the reality from
everyone else, he married Pam who had been a friend of a friend. He confided
the terror he felt whenever he imagined someone finding out. Yet he couldn't
stay away from places like the Stonewall.

"Are you
involved with anyone now?" I asked.

"Yes, sure, I'm
involved
,
as you say, with about a hundred nameless, faceless young boys. A new one every
night, Cuz." His hair usually combed back smoothly, fell over his
forehead. His gaze rested on the carpet in front of him.

"Does Pam
know?" I asked.

"No, but she
doesn't understand why I don't find her attractive. She tries to get me into
bed and when she fails, she drinks. She drinks a lot. And she's a lousy mother.
And I blame myself for it all."

"Gary, quit
being so hard on yourself. You've been caught in an intolerable
situation." I said. "Are you sure staying married is the right
thing?"

"You know when I
moved here, I thought it would all work itself out. There were actually places
for me to go where I could meet others like me. Then the raids began, and even
though I got scared, I still kept going back because for once in my life, I
felt like I could manage both areas of my life."

"What happened
to the man in Chicago?"

"He didn't think
I should marry Pam. He also didn't like the fact that I found it impossible to
be faithful to him. Once I admitted I was gay, I couldn't get enough. So he
decided to leave when I got married."

"What now,
Gary?"

"I think now I'd
like to try again with Pam and the baby. I don't have anyone special in my
life, and I can't go back to the Stonewall. Maybe I can succeed at being a
better father than Philip."

"Are you sure?
You can shut off the other just like that?"

"I can damn well
try, Ed. I certainly can't let anyone else know that I'm a homosexual. I know I
don't have to ask you to not tell my big bad secret."

"Of course not.
If you do give it one more try with Pam, promise me one thing. The minute you
know it's not going to work, leave. Don't hurt Pam anymore."

"But if I leave,
what happens to Kristina?"

I didn't have an
answer to that question. What would happen to Kristina if she was left with a
mother who didn't love her, at least not the way a mother should love a
daughter.

As light began to
edge its way into the windows, Gary and I prepared for sleep. I looked over at my
cousin lying on the couch. I suddenly realized I hat was wrong with my novel. The
story belonged to Gary, not to Pam.

He sits at the bar
alone with his thoughts when he notices him sitting at a table, also alone.
Their eyes meet for a split second, and they know. He picks up his drink and
moves closer.
As he sits down at the table to introduce himself, the front
door of the bar slams open and several blue-suited policemen enter. He pushes
his chair back and tries to sneak out the back way, but he is caught with no
escape.

Kristina and I sat
for a long time holding one another. I broke the spell when I reached for the
lamp on the table next to us and turned it on.

"Ed, you know
you told me about your first marriage. But what about your second one?"
Kristina asked.

I sighed. This
creature before me was not going to let me forget the past. Why not tell her?
After all, without her knowing it, she sparked a memory from my wedding to
Kelsey that involved Kristina as a young toddler; a memory I relived when she
touched the side of my face gently in an effort to comfort me.

I went back to
Michigan in August of 1969 hoping everything would work out for Gary and Pam.
After Gary's arrest, I saw them frequently that summer on the weekends when
either I would take the train out to their house for a barbecue, or they would
both come into the city for a show. Then afterwards the three of us would have
a slumber party in my one room apartment. As far as I could tell, Gary never
stayed in the city without Pam after Stonewall.

Pam even slowed down
on her heavy drinking, although Gary seemed to have more than his usual amount
when I was at his house. Kristina was an adorable and happy toddler, but Pam
still didn't display the same type of mothering skills used with Gary and me as
we grew up. She did everything correctly from changing diapers to feeding her
on schedule. However, any special cuddling or cooing seemed fundamentally
lacking in her interactions with her daughter. Gary made up for that missing
ingredient. He absolutely doted on his daughter and mentioned once or twice to
me during that summer that he hoped for at least one more child.

Whenever I spent time
at their home, I also indulged the pretty baby. It wasn't difficult to do.
Kristina seemed to thrive when given attention. She even began to recognize me
when I visited. I eagerly held her and played with her on the floor as she
crawled about chasing the cat.

When I got back to
Ann Arbor in late August, the winds of change seemed to have permanently blown
into this Midwestern college town and taken up residence. After the images of
Woodstock, the concert I had heard about all summer long, hit the national
consciousness, very little would remain from the leftover stagnation of the
1950s. In Ann Arbor, the first noticeable change occurred in the dress of the
college students. No longer did the sorority Peter Pan collars and fraternity
button-down shirts of the Eisenhower and Kennedy years exist. Instead they were
replaced by brightly colored T-shirts, often tie-dyed, and jeans, the uniform
of the new youth. Instead of cute dress shops on Liberty and State Streets,
bead shops and head shops and small dark cafes became the fad. And everywhere I
went that year, I smelled the sweet, leaf-burning odor of marijuana. I even
smelled it in my classroom. My students were suddenly aware of things like
Vietnam and the politics of Nixon who had been president for almost a year. No longer,
did I have to prod them to write; they had plenty to say and many of their
pieces made it into the school newspaper.

Teaching became a joy
as well as a challenge as I attempted to keep pace with the world around me. I
had never really been political before, but now I watched as those younger than
me began the protests that have come to mark this period indelibly as the one
in which much of American society became radicalized. Even sweet little mothers
like my own became political as they took to the streets to protest the Vietnam
War. Some of these women had sons, who had been drafted, but others had young
sons at home, and they hoped to make a difference before they became eligible
for the draft.

Women, blacks, and
students took to the streets trying to make the world a better place while
attempting to give corporate and governmental America a social conscience. One
group, who also began organizing and politicizing after June of 1969, didn't
receive the same amount of publicity as those other groups. I read with
interest everything I could about the formation of the gay and lesbian rights
organizations. Unfortunately, nothing much was written unless the news reports
were slanted to make it seem as if the police were being harassed by a
disgusting group of individuals.

Right after Gary's
arrest, protesters rioted every night on Christopher Street after the bars
closed. For four nights, the same ritual occurred.

My writing remained
stuck because I didn't know how to express Gary's torment. I wrote about a
character who wandered endlessly looking for his place in the world. At this
point in my life, that character could either be Gary or myself.

My teaching seemed to
be the only satisfying part of my life that year. I couldn't get published even
though I tried every summer to get something in print. So far, I had only
managed a letter to the editor in the
Ann Arbor News
.

I was lonely. I’d
been officially divorced for more than a year, and I had met no one else. The
sexual revolution swirled all around me, yet I found it difficult to
participate. One of my friends from work tried several times to get me to go
out on the town with him, and I tried. I even went home with a girl one night,
but since I didn't know her, I found the whole experience distasteful. However,
it did give me a release for a short while.

One cold and cloudy
Saturday in early December, I was walking around town after breakfast at the
Fleetwood, an old-fashioned diner on Ashley Street. As the rain began, I
slipped into one of the new co-op stores cropping up on the west side of town.
The smell of fresh baked bread assaulted my senses as soon as I opened the
door.

"Hey, come on in
and get dry," a friendly voice greeted me from behind the counter.

I looked up while
shaking water off my jacket and found myself gazing into the biggest set of
brown eyes I had ever seen. When I investigated more, I saw that the eyes were
attached to a very open and welcoming face. Blonde hair cascaded down to the middle
of her back. Her tight white t-shirt would leave nothing to the imagination if
she should step into the rain outside. I noticed right away that she wore no
bra.

"Hi, yourself. I
guess I got caught in a downpour," I said.

"How about some
coffee?"

"Sure," I said
as I looked around the warm room. The ovens dominated the back part of the
store along with long tables covered with bread pans and large bowls. The soft
lighting in the retail section showed off the bread-filled glass cabinets now
separating my beautiful rescuer and me. Yeast-rising bread aroused me, as I
felt surrounded by female fertility and tranquility.

 "I'm
Kelsey," she said as she brought me a small cup of steaming warmth.

"Ed. Nice to
meet you." I extended my hand.

"What brings
you here on this bleak day, Ed?" She pulled up a stool next to mine. The
customers weren't exactly knocking down the door to get inside.

"Just ate at
the Fleetwood and decided to take a walk. How come there aren't more people in
here on a Saturday morning?"

"We had a rush
about two hours ago, but nothing since. Most people don't like to come out in
weather like this." She grinned at me.

"But see what
they're missing? The chance to sit in here with you and drink the best coffee
in Ann Arbor." I grinned back.

"That's right!
They don't know what they're missing, do they? What do you do when you're not
walking in the rain?"

"I teach
English at PHS," I said. In the past, this admission had brought
unpredictable reactions from disdain to awe to fear, but when I looked at Kelsey,
I saw her friendly smile widen.

"Great! I loved
English in high school. I had the biggest crush on my teacher, too. When he
read Wordsworth, I would swoon."

"Lucky
guy," I said. "Kelsey, are you married?"

"Married? Me?
No way. What about you?"

"Divorced last
year. Would you, I mean, do you ... Let me start again, it's been awhile,"
I said.

"Ed, let me
help. I'd love to." She put her hand on my arm, which helped to settle my
nervousness.

"That's good;
that's fine. When?"

"I'm not busy
tonight. We could catch the new movie at the Michigan."

"Great. Where
do you live?" Girls sure had changed since I had been a part of the dating
scene. I found it exciting.

"Here,"
she wrote her address and phone number. "Call me later, OK? I'll be home
after four."

"Adams Street?
That's right around the corner from me. I live in one of those big rambling
houses on Main Street across from the stadium."

"No kidding?
Aren't you glad football season is over for another year? What a crazy mess! I
have a feeling we were destined to meet."

I grinned foolishly
at her and then bought a loaf of bread before heading out into the darkened
streets covered with the rain of a few moments ago. As much as I wanted to stay
near the warmth of Kelsey's personality, I decided that now would be a good
time to make a break for it.

We began seeing one
another exclusively from our first date that ended at my place. And our second
date began there the next morning over the
Detroit Free Press
and
Ann
Arbor News
and bagels with cream cheese.

Kelsey reminded me
nothing of Allison for which I was grateful. It probably intensified my
attraction to Kelsey. I still felt the failure of my divorce and I was determined
not to repeat my past mistakes.

She came from
Fowlerville, a rural community thirty miles from Ann Arbor. Her parents barely
made it on their century-old farm growing corn and raising dairy cows. Kelsey,
the oldest of seven, received a scholarship to attend Washtenaw Community
College and then because of her excellent grades, received a full tuition
scholarship for her last two years at U of M where I met her in her first year.
She worked at a west side bookstore in the evenings and on the weekends, and
she volunteered at the two food co-ops in exchange for food.

Her major in
business belied her interests in causes swirling around us at the time. Often
at night, while I hacked away at my typewriter or sat at my desk grading
papers, Kelsey would sit on the floor lettering signs for one of Ann Arbor's
latest causes. Sometimes a cause might be serious, like a protest of the Vietnam
War; other times frivolous, like promoting the Ozone Parade, the hippies'
response to U of M's homecoming parade.

We grew content with
each other and even enjoyed one another's families. My father and mother had
never been comfortable around Allison, although Allison and Aunt Claire hit it
off the first time they met. Claire even mentioned that she and Allison had
played golf a couple of times since the divorce. She wanted me to know, she
said, instead of hearing it from someone else. She wondered if I was upset, and
I assured her that she could play golf with whomever she pleased without
upsetting me.

Kelsey and I decided
to make it legal in the summer of 1970. We wanted a small wedding and party
with little fuss. Even though it was Kelsey's first marriage, she didn't like
the formality of large weddings. Besides her parents couldn't afford it and
neither could Kelsey. She wanted to do the whole thing herself from baking the
cake to sewing her dress. Again, Claire and Philip offered to host a wedding in
their back yard, and we accepted.

Gary, Pam, and
Kristina all came for the wedding. I couldn't be married without Gary standing
up with me.

"Are you sure
you want me to do that again? Maybe I jinxed you and Allison," he told me
quite seriously, when I asked him over the phone.

"Allison and I
jinxed us. Come on, Gar, I can't do it without you," I said.

The day of the
wedding held the promise of a lasting relationship with bright sunshine giving
its blessing on our nuptials. We kissed under a flower-strewn gazebo brought in
by the florist and greeted our guests with large flutes of champagne provided
by my aunt and uncle.

"Ed, I hope you
two will be very happy," Pam said as she kissed me. "Kelsey's a
doll."

"She is kind of
cute, isn't she?" I grinned foolishly.

Pam jabbed me with
her elbow at my understatement. We both turned to watch an almost two-year-old
Kristina waddle toward us. Kristina's black curls framed her small face and
were only upstaged by her bright blue eyes.

"Now there's
the real doll," I said as I held out my arms for Kristina. I picked her
up, and she reached up to touch my face. With her hands on either side, she
brought my face close to hers and gave me a big smack on the lips. "That's
my girl," I said as I gave her a big hug.

Kelsey pulled me
into the kitchen for a private plea. "Ed, keep your uncle away from me,
please."

"Why?"

"He keeps
coming up behind me and touching me or pressing his body against me when he
thinks no one sees," she said.

"Philip? Come
on, Kelsey, he's just had too much to drink." I tried to make light of the
situation, but I also remembered nearly the same request at my first wedding.

When I walked back
outside, I looked around for Uncle Philip and vowed to keep an eye on him for
the rest of the day. I found him in the closed garage when I went to get more
beer out of the spare refrigerator. Or rather, I heard him.

"Pam, please,
you know you want it. My son can't do for you what I can." I paused at the
door when I realized who was speaking.

"Philip, no,
not here. I do want you, I do. But Gary's been better, so please, stop,"
she said, and then I heard her sigh. I couldn't see them yet because my eyes
hadn't adjusted to the dark of the garage.