Crush (41 page)

But what are we
waiting
for?
Mom is always here, cooking, cleaning, fussing over both of us, and Jamie knowingly says, or rather writes,
She’s lonely. Let’s have her move in with us
.
“I don’t think she’d want to give up that house…it’s hers, free and clear.”
But you’re not there anymore
, writes Jamie.
“I wasn’t there for sixteen years…and she did okay, didn’t she?”
She’s getting older. She’s lonely, I can tell. She needs us
.
Besides, you said yourself you get along better with her than when you were a kid. She loves you, Tammy.
Unexpected tears gather in my eyes. I didn’t realize how much I missed her when we were so estranged, how cut off I felt when she put that wall between us after what happened with Cotton.
Jamie’s right…it’s not easyto let go of your guilt. It’s not easy to ignore the Devil when he taunts and torments you about things you can’t change. You have to rebuke him every time he comes around to bullyon you.
We’ve both been seeing Doctor Halliday once a week for therapyas a couple, and twice a week individually.
She’s nice. It helps. We learn…
She suggests that an antidepressant might help me to better cope with the things I encounter in this difficult calling I’ve followed. I listen as she explains that it can help me focus without feeling so helpless and angry and tortured. “It won’t make you stop
caring,
” she stresses.
It’s with some trepidation at first, because I worry about “needing” antidepressants, and I worry about the stigma, the ignorami who think they’re for “crazy” people. But after sixweeks or so, I can see that they’re working, and I know neither Jamie nor I have anyreason to be ashamed of them.

I’ve helped Jamie with his demons, and he’s helped me with mine. I know I’ve said a million times that I wasn’t sure there was a God up there looking after everything, but I’m changed. No, I’m not into radio preachers or people telling me mymarriage is a sin, but I do believe in God. I’ve been raised to believe in Jesus Christ, and I still do in a lot of ways, but I admit, I’m reallynot sure what all I believe in. I only know that there is a God. I asked Him/Her to save Jamie’s life, and Jamie was given back to me. I don’t relyon manmade books to help me figure it out. To me, God is a Great Spirit, something beyond my knowledge, but always there for me, always with an answer, even if it’s not the answer I want or expect.

I’m still in the process of forgiving myself for all the wrong things I’ve done. God forgives. Once I asked Him/Her to forgive me, He/She did.

In April, Jamie turns thirty-two, and we celebrate by going to The End.
He still can’t bring himself to tryand sing.
I can’t!
he writes on his pad.
“Just try…maybe your voice is just hiding…maybe it’ll come back!”
No! I can’t sing!
“Maybe it will come back once you’re up there!” My frenetic optimism kills him.
It won’t just come back! It doesn’t work that way!
So I get up and sing with Stacy, “Our DayWill Come” byRuby and the Romantics, a sweet, antiquated tune that saves us from a night of sullen silence.

At the trial in June, Jamie’s three attackers sit stone-faced and unrepentant as the damning evidence is presented one piece at a time: the blood-encrusted towel bar, the cotton rag with Jamie’s blood and saliva on it, copies of the fingerprints belonging to the three defendants that were found inside and outside of Jamie’s car, a shredded black garbage bag with both Cantrell’s and Ray’s fingerprints on it, and the testimonies of Officers Howard, Lord, and of course Bloom, along with Mrs. Cooke’s invaluable information about what she saw and heard in her doughnut shop earlythat morning.

In spite of our air-tight case against them, the defense tries to call myDad, Pastor Asshole, up to the stand, hoping to get him to speak about my violent past and the Cotton matter and smear me with the jury. They also try to mention the journals when Officers Lord and Howard are up there. Each time the defense brings up something completelyirrelevant to steer suspicion away from their clients, the DAhollers, “Objection!” The judge ends up reprimanding the defense attorneys veryseverely.

Anyway, when Jamie gets up on the witness stand, which he has been dreading for months, he uses a computer keyboard and overhead projector because of his inability to speak. When he does open his mouth, the jury cringes at his screechy, tattered voice. I’ve never heard his voice sound so exhausted. Theysee the scar on his forehead and he lifts his shirt to show the dark pink scar sprawling from the left of his chest all the wayinto his middle back, where they had to repair the kidney Ray ruptured with the towel rack. The jurors get angrier and angrier as they read what Jamie’s attackers said and did to him. His memories of that awful night are crystal clear, and I both appreciate and hate that as I watch him crysilently.

When he’s not testifying, he’d rather not be there at the courthouse if he can avoid it. He thinks he will either cause a riot or be traumatized all over again by the details of the police testimony...or worse, be peppered with obnoxious comments by the hate-mongers roosting outside the Yolo County courthouse, those who support and condone what Lydia, Ray and Cantrell have done. Asinine as it sounds, it looks even worse. Demonstrators from various churches and groups can be heard shouting their hate-filled slogans, holding up signs saying the same. “God created AIDS to kill faggots!” “Death to faggots!” and of course, “The BIBLE says to put them to death!” Rage boils my blood as I think of Jamie, as I think of how these insane, evil idiots believe Rayand the others were right!

He stays with Mom, Aunt Sharon and Natalie at Mom’s house, and spends all of his time cooking wonderful meals and desserts for all of us, and cleaning and scrubbing the house over and over, to thank all of us for being there for him.

But he does show up the day the jury returns with a “Guilty” verdict for all three of the kidnappers. I’ve asked to speak to the court, all my thoughts handwritten on a wrinkled page from a notebook of lined yellow paper, my hands trembling and staining the sheet with sweat:

“I met Jamie sixteen, almost seventeen years ago. We were in high school. It was on a Sunday in church. I wasn’t much on church. I would rather be anywhere else, even having a root canal at the dentist’s.” The court laughs quietly. “The pastor asked everybodyto hold hands together while we had prayer. Jamie was holding my right hand. I looked over at him, and there was just… something so familiar about him. Not long later, I began to remember who he was…he was the little boyI talked to in line at a grocery store when I was no more than four years old. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.And now Jamie remembers that daytoo. I loved him and wanted to be his friend forever, but I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. The supermarket was in Sacramento, and I lived in Sommerville. It’s like hoping to run into the same person twice in Los Angeles or New York. But we met again in high school.

“I don’t want to talk about how Jamie came to live in Sommerville. It’s a very sad story, but what matters is, he was adopted by a very kind gentleman named Lloyd Tafford, an officer of the Sommerville police. He began high school when I was a senior, and that’s how we met again. It really happened, and it shows me how God, or fate, or whatever, works.

“This is not the first time Jamie has been beaten because of who he is. It’s not even the second. It’s the third.”
The jury shakes their heads, not having been privy to that knowledge. It was not allowed during the trial because it was “irrelevant.” That’s what the pond-scum defense lawyers thought, anyway.
“I was in love with him, but for reasons you can probably guess, I was afraid…I didn’t have the courage I needed to be with Jamie, so I ran away. I couldn’t face who I was…who I am. I deserted him and ran away from home, and I stayed away for sixteen years. Sixteen years squandered. I was a coward, simple and plain.”
I’m not afraid to admit it now, because my cowardice is a thing of the past. I look outside now, and separated by a human buffer of the Davis Police are our supporters, local chapters of groups like GLAAD, PFLAG and the Human Rights Campaign. Theyare using bible scripture too. Their signs say, “God said thou shalt not judge,” “God said thou shalt not kill,” “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” and the Golden Rule, “Do unto others…”
They’re giving me strength. I’m feeling the strength in their numbers. I feel empowered. I feel alive. I feel proudly gay today. When I have a moment, I’m going to take Jamie, Mom, and Stace out there, and we’re gonna let them know that we are so grateful for what they’re doing.
“In December,” I continue, my hand more steady around the yellow paper I’m clutching, “my Mother fell and broke her pelvis and had to be hospitalized. It’s how I met Jamie again. For weeks he took care of Mom and I fell in love with him all over again.” My voice begins to catch. “No…I had never
stopped
loving him…I had never stopped thinking of him…all the time I was gone from home.
“We spent about a week…just a few days…together…we were happy…we were so happy…and it was like, this is meant to be…and then, they…” I point at Lydia, glaring at me through obsidian eyes, Raysitting silent and expressionless and Cantrell, forever the ambiguous one, eyes flitting from me to the jury. “They grabbed him in his own front yard, tied him up, threw him into the trunk of his car, drove him out to an orchard on a dirt road, beat him with a broken towel rod, and left him to die.
“Let me tell you, really, who Jamie is,” I sob, my eyes never leaving the three accused. “Because you haven’t heard it yet, really…Jamie is absolutely the last, the very last person on this planet, who deserved to have that done to him! I’m not going to go into detail, but I change mymind about telling you what this young man has lived through. You need to know
who
he is. Forgive me,” I say softly to Jamie, who is sitting in the back between Mom and Stacy. “When he was little, his parents abused him…you don’t need to know the details…and I’m sure
some
of you know already...They abused and starved him…for seven years. Imagine…seven years, from the time he was six till the time he was thirteen, seven years, of abuse, of starvation, of not even being let out of his room to go anywhere. They locked him in his room!
“Nobody knew he was alone,” I shudder, vicariously feeling that for the first time. “He was alone, crying, begging, praying for someone to help him. None of us can begin to imagine what he went through, how he lost anyhope for escape or rescue.
“Finally, somebody called the police. And Jamie survived. Officer Tafford rescued Jamie and adopted him.
“Jamie is a survivor. He’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. He has to be…to put up with
this
kind of crap,” I flick myhand at the defendants. “The only…the
only
consolation I have right now…is that Jamie’s attackers are going to be punished.
“A survivor…but that’s not all Jamie is,” I continue. “He’s smart, funny, gentle, kind, loving. He loves to sing, but when this happened, he lost his voice…He loves to cook. He loves to take care of sick people. He loves cats.And he loves me. We love each other. He’s my lover and the best friend I’ve ever had. We could have been together, all these years, but because certain people think that he and I are evil, that our love is evil, we’ve had to hide our feelings, deny our feelings. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. I’ll tell you something…evil is sitting right over there at that table…and they’ve put us through hell…
“And those picketers outside with their ugly signs saying, ‘God kills fags.’ How dare they think that kidnapping Jamie, beating him, and leaving him to freeze and bleed to death
pleases
God?! How can they have the gall to profess to be Christians? What sort of God do theyworship anyway? Sounds to me like they worship Satan, not God!
“Look at those other signs out there…the God
we
know is about love, not hate. There were a few times when Jamie struggled, as I used to struggle, with whether or not our love angered God, and I am the one who reassured him that if it is God’s will that we live alone and miserable and unhappy, that we deny the fact that we are soul mates, just because we’re both men, then He isn’t a God I care to worship.
“But I know better. I love God.And I believe God loves me…a lot! God made Jamie for me and gave him to me…God orchestrated everything, right down to how we met each other.
“I’ve spent much of my life believing that this world is a cold, dark, cruel and evil place. That’s one of the hazards of my side profession, working with homeless and unwanted animals in shelters. It gets to me so much sometimes that I have to take breaks from working with them…it seems endless sometimes, the helplessness and hopelessness I’ve felt as I’ve written articles about animals who are homeless, beaten, stomped on by the world.
“The world is cold, and cruel, and evil, but when Jamie looks at me, when he touches me, or kisses me…” (I don’t care what anyone thinks of my out-loud love for him.) “…when he simply talks to me, I know there is goodness and love in this world. I know it, and I know there is a God, because I see Him or Her in Jamie. I was a lonely child, and I was an even lonelier adult. Except when Jamie was there. I’ve never been lonely with him near me.
“Jamie is a person, a human being. He’s somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband. He is my family, and my Mother can say the same. He’s her son. Try to imagine your own child, your own brother, your own husband or wife in Jamie’s place. Don’t insult Jamie by giving these murderers, because that’s what they are, even if they failed to kill him, anything less than the harshest sentence allowable.”
When we exit the courthouse, Jamie hugs me and croaks, “Thank you.”
“I didn’t saytoo much?”
“No,” he whispers. “I loved what you said.”
I curve my arm around him, shielding him from the surging reporters thrusting their microphones into his face, asking ridiculous questions. Mom and Stacy cover us from the front and back, screaming, “Let us through! We’re done!”
The rallies of hatred with their heinous signs and venomous shouts don’t escape Jamie. One deep, harsh scream rings out, “God spared you so you can repent of your filthy sins, you sodomite!” I hold him closer to me, eyes closed tight as I fight to hold down the volcano of rage, and my tears of fury and despair roll down.
But I hear Jamie say, in his croaking frog’s voice, in audible, musical notes I’ve never before heard, “Look, Tammy!” He points to our supporters, who are shouting, “God hates hate!” and proudlydisplaying their rainbow colored signs. The spirit of love in this side of the courthouse crowd banishes my fear and fury as Jamie walks over to them, reaches out to them, shakes outstretched hands.
For a long time, theytalk to him, and to us. Mom, Stacyand I introduce ourselves. Their hands clasp around mine and I feel more of my strength returning. I see tears in their eyes as people gently push back Jamie’s hair and look at his healed scar. He hugs some of them. Theycall him a hero, and he says, “No, those men who called 9-1-1 and stayed with me, the police, the paramedics…they’re the heroes…and this guy right here…” He grabs me. “He’s a hero…he prayed for me to survive…”
They surround us almost worshipfully, their eyes glistening as Jamie introduces his family. I’m his husband. Mom is his Ma. Stacy’s his sister.
By the time we get into our car and ride away, we’ve each gotten a long list of names, numbers and invitations to meetings and functions, all within driving distance.