It's All Relative (22 page)

Incidents like this shake Gary to his core. He believes they serve as signs: signs of impending doom. “She was so negative about relationships and romance. She might as well have spit in our faces.”

“Can it still be considered Amish friendship bread since you didn't bake it in a bonnet over a copper urn, and you no longer like her?” I asked.

I knew I needed to change the subject before this ended up turning bad more quickly than a cup of clam chowder in the Sahara.

But it was too late.

“I'm serious,” Gary said. “It's sad. But then again, you don't believe in anniversaries either, do you?”

Ahh, the question that had no answer, like “Do I look fat in this?” and “What do you think of my mother?”

But he was right. I didn't. I believed in marriage. I believed that my parents and grandparents stayed married for fifty years because of the simple yet undeniable fact that they worked like hell at it every single day, not because they bought each other a commemorative teacup every year.

I mean, I had worked in retail. I saw what men did: They used gift buying as a ruse. Buying a gift bought them time. They were perceived as romantic. And so they could slide.

I believed that if you loved someone, you showed them every day. I believed that it was the small gestures—opening a door, taking Gary's hand in mine every night before we fell asleep—that meant the most. You didn't buy the one you loved a happy-anniversary spoon rest and then receive a free pass for the next 365 days.

Gary was my antithesis. He had also worked for a number of years in retail, selling Tommy Hilfiger and Polo in a large department store. He believed that a $145 cotton summer sweater with an American flag on the front not only conveyed love but also had the power to change a man's life.

Gary believed that gifts, the bigger the better, spoke volumes.

What made our schism even more cavernous was the fact that Gary knew every single anniversary, kind of like he knew the names of every member of DeBarge. It was an odd ability, but one that came in handy every so often. Especially when he wanted to drive home a point.

“Do you even remember what anniversary gifts I've gotten for you over the years, while you've gotten off scot-free?”

For some reason I pictured Gary as an Amish woman, in a bonnet, getting banged over a hot copper urn by a man with one of those freaky Amish beards that for some reason is always missing the mustache part.

Free association and fantasy: That's how I—and prisoners of war—survive.

“Let me remind you,” Gary said, “since you seem at a loss for words.”

We stopped on the sidewalk in front of our house and Gary began recounting his anniversary gifts to me:

“First anniversary … paper … I got you a journal for your writing. Second, cotton, romantic sheets for the bed. Third, leather. You got Kenneth Cole slides and a Dolce belt. Fourth, flowers. I planted an entire anniversary garden of your favorites, from peonies to hydrangeas. Fifth, wood.”

Here I interjected. “I'm sure I gave you some wood on our anniversary.”

Gary didn't laugh.

“You're disgusting. I planted a birch in the front yard in your honor.”

“Okay, okay, I get it.”

“Do you? Do you know what anniversary this is for us?”

“Yes. Eleven.”

“Very good. Do you know what the theme for eleven is?”

“Rubies?”

“No, steel.”

“Steel? What are we buying each other this year, rebar?”

“Use your imagination,” Gary said. “Surprise
me
 … for
once
.”

He walked inside, looking back at me for dramatic effect. Still, I hated when he told me to surprise him. It meant his expectations would be elevated, on par with Mars—when shooting for midcalf, whenever surprise and I were involved, seemed much more appropriate.

That week, during my lunch breaks at work, I began shopping to find inspiration.

I looked at watches and stainless-steel appliances. But those seemed either boring (“A
watch
?”) or exploitive (“You just want me around to bake for you?”).

So I shopped for myself, a bad habit of mine. Whenever I did something nice for somebody else, I usually did something even nicer for me.

Which is why I was browsing through too-tight T's at Abercrombie & Fitch when a clerk approached and asked if I needed help picking something out for my son.

Now, if I hadn't been so absolutely mesmerized by the clerk's youthful splendor, stupefied by his tousled blond hair, and intoxicated by the Abercrombie scent that made him smell like beach, sweat, and denim, I would have bitch-slapped him into next Tuesday.

The clerk was, of course, beautiful—just like every Abercrombie clerk, just like every Abercrombie model who smiles flirtatiously and flashes one perfectly pert, tan nipple from the side of a shopping bag.

So I assumed this pretty-boy clerk was stupid, simply because I needed something—besides the fact that I had health-care coverage—to make me feel superior.

“What size is your son?” the clerk asked me again.

“I'm shopping for
myself
,” I said indignantly, but in a whisper.

“There's, like, a Macy's at the end of the mall, and, like, a Brooks Brothers just across from us,” he said to me.

“
Brooks Brothers
?” I hissed.

“Umm, yeah, you know, for, like, guys … your age.”

I stormed out of the store, out of the mall, and into the parking garage, lost in my own world of misery, when a sleek, black, brand-new Honda Pilot honked before screeching to a stop inches from my aged face and brittle bones.

It was a sign.

Steel.

Anniversary.

Car!

For once, I thought, I would go big or go home.

So I decided to play hooky from work one day the next week, telling everyone, including Gary, that I was sick. And, as fate would have it, I indeed got sick, a hideous summer flu that invaded my lungs and turned my once tan face into some sort of swollen mass. I was a hacking human tick.

In the midst of my Ebola outbreak, I sneaked to a local Honda dealership after Gary had left for work, looking as if I had left my oxygen tank at home.

Now, I am not a car man. I do not believe they connote status of any kind. I view cars as purely utilitarian. I want one that works. I don't need a leather interior, a sunroof, a jazzy stereo, spinning chrome hubcabs.

We have a friend who owns two Vipers—one red and one yellow. I thought, until he told me, that they were Camaros. He wanted to punch me in the sternum.

I have driven, since I was twenty-two, just three cars: a white Toyota Corolla with cloth interior and no power anything—windows, car seats, locks. It had only AM/FM. I traded that in for a forest-green Honda CR-V with cloth interior. I would still be driving it today if it hadn't been totaled by hail. I now drive an orange Honda Element, which you can literally hose out. It's my dog car.
It's my beach car. It's covered in sand and filled with workout clothes and bottled water and dog toys and hundreds of Post-It notes filled with spur-of-the-moment writing ideas.

Now, in the eleven years Gary and I have been together, he has had six cars. He has been robbed and screwed by more bad cars than a Vegas hooker. But his obsession continues. He now desires an SUV that connotes luxury but isn't ostentatious. He wants it in black to connote mystery and sexiness. He wants leather because he deserves it. He wants XM and a nine-hundred-disc CD player and surround-sound stereo and conversation mirrors.

So I decided to get it all for my man.

I stepped out of my Element at the local Honda dealership and was immediately greeted by a young man with all the teeth and annoying earnestness of Matt Damon.

“Hello! I'm Dave! Looking to buy a car today?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That! Is! Terrific! You've! Come! To! The! Right! Place! Great! Weather! We're! Having! What! Can! I! Do! You! For!”

Everything! Dave! Said! Ended! With! An! Exclamation! Point!

I had never been this excited in my life.

“I want to buy my partner a new Honda Pilot,” I said.

“Your business partner?”

“No, my partner partner. My lover. My husband. My boyfriend.”

“Oooohhhh, well …”

At least Dave's enthusiasm had waned.

“Your partner …” he said again to himself.

“Yes.”

Dave looked as though he just learned that babies aren't delivered by storks.

“Your partner …”

At this point I wanted to scream, “Yes! Dave! My! Partner! My! Boyfriend! My! Husband! My! Better! Half! The! One! Who! Will!
Most! Likely! Bang! Me! In! The! Third! Row! Seat! When! He! Sees! I've! Bought! Him! A! Car!”

“Can you excuse me for one second?” Dave said.

I watched Dave disappear into the dealership, where he proceeded to stand in the center of the all-glass showroom and tell his associates that He! Has! Been! Talking! To! A! Faggot!

A pretty but hardened woman—think Lynda Carter but with way more makeup—approached me next.

“Good morning, sir. Dave had to deal with an emergency. My apologies. But I'm Margot, and I'm here to help. What are you looking for today?”

“A new Honda Pilot for my partner.”

Margot was dressed in a sleek black pantsuit, heels, and loads of gold. She never made it out of the
Dynasty
era, it seemed. She smelled like Paloma Picasso.

She looked me over, slowly, from head to toe, in a dismissive sort of way.

I looked down. I had forgotten that I was wearing a mustard-yellow sweatsuit that my parents bought me that made me look like a walking hot dog, and a South Carolina ball cap a friend gave to me that simply said
COCKS
on it.

“You want to look at Honda Pilots?” she asked.

“That's right.”

“Do you know how much Honda Pilots run?” she said, as if I was a third-grade girl who wanted to buy a Vera Wang wedding dress for her Barbie.

“Yes, ma'am. I'm well aware.”

OMG! She thinks I can't afford it because of how I'm dressed
.

“Why don't I show you some of our used Civics?” Margot suggested. “They have a few miles on them, but they're great, affordable, reliable cars.”

I suddenly thought of the story a friend of mine—a retail lifer who now worked as a manager and buyer—once told me, a story
she liked to share with her new employees. It seemed a man in dirty jeans, muddy boots, and a ripped T-shirt had walked into a Jag dealership one afternoon to look at cars. After cycling through three or four sales associates, all of whom dismissed him because of how he was dressed, he left, went home, and bought the dealership that night, firing everyone who had refused to help him. Turns out he was one of the richest men in America, had been working at his ranch all day, and had gone out to buy his wife a new Jag as an anniversary present.

Folklore or not, it was a great story.

“Would you mind if we went to your office and talked for a moment?” I asked.

Margot looked me over again, head to toe, very slowly and cautiously, but agreed.

I walked into the showroom, sunlight streaming through the clean windows, pulled out my checkbook, and began waving it about while saying very loudly, between coughs, “I was going to buy a new Honda Pilot today, but no one wanted to help me. I was going to write a check. Cash deal. No trade-in. No bartering. Easiest transaction you would have had all year. But I'm going to leave now. Have a wonderful day.”

As I retreated to my dirty Element in my yellow sweats and Cocks hat, I heard Dave yelling, “Gays! Always! Have! The! Money!”

I headed directly to see my retail friend—the last remaining great retail person I knew in the world—and she helped me pick out a stainless-steel watch at a great price, which I wrapped up beautifully and gave to Gary on our anniversary with a card that stated, “IOU … One Honda Pilot.”

To say he was surprised on our anniversary would be a mammoth understatement.

And Gary did get his dream SUV the next year, just prior to our silk/linen anniversary. But I knew the stickler for anniversary themes didn't mind the confusion: He liked his delayed steel way better than linen pants from J. Crew.

“Yes, it was only a dog, and dogs come and go in the course of human life … It was a dog, and yet every time I tried to talk about Marley to them, tears welled in my eyes.”

–JOHN GROGAN

O
ne of the first things that Gary and I purchased together as a couple was a Barbie doll.

It was a mutual investment, and one that made us both very, very happy, more so at the time than, say, a new Land Rover, or even a trip to Greece.

It was the one gift we had both always wanted but never bought on our own.