Message of Love (11 page)

Chapter 16

April 1981

Thick spring air nearly hit me in the face as I almost tingled with anticipation while waiting for the bus. I didn’t want to run through the city blocks to get to the south entrance to Fairmount Park. I never liked dodging pedestrians and traffic.

But when I stepped off the bus with a gaggle of tourists before the entrance to the Art Museum, the almost endless hill of steps up to the monumental building daunted me. Could it have stated any clearer its foreboding inaccessibility? Surely there was a ramped entrance somewhere, “In the rear,” as Everett so often joked.

We’d made plans for a quiet dinner together following his afternoon with a few students in his study group. They were somewhere on the Penn campus, debating world affairs.

Ever since our pact on Valentine’s Day, conceding to his schedule yet again, knowing the occasional night would be ours together, I felt freed, released to spend an afternoon alone.

Nevertheless, his needs clouded any sense of solitude, and before I began my run in earnest, I found the handicap entrance to the museum, made a mental note, stretched my legs at the base of a huge circular group of bronze sculptures of a moose, buffalo, and what I guessed was some historic Native American, the city’s tribute to the people and animals whose fate its growth helped extinguish.

The path around the museum led into the park, and I began a steady jog, sometimes passing smaller or slower runners, men and women. Dodging parents with baby strollers and waddling walkers, I adjusted my old black-framed ‘Brad Majors’ glasses, the small fanny pack that held merely my house keys, wallet, a small water bottle and a few snacks.

I popped a piece of chewing gum to moisten my mouth, remembered to keep my lips closed for as long as possible, to avoid dry-mouth, and after a while, found a steady pace as the Schuylkill River passed to my left.

I should have been at ease, but with every pace, I thought, ‘
This is flat. Ev can do it,’ like some sort of rhythmic chant. I knew the terrain, had studied a map, and visited before, but not dressed for a run. Striding with comfort and ease, seeming carefree to onlookers, I found myself checking the pathway for bumps and cracks. I didn’t want anything to happen to him again.

Scuttling flocks of geese ambled along the expanding grassy lawns to my left, as opposite the roadway, oaks and elms in full spring bloom swayed in the light breeze.

I passed the boathouses while dodging slow-walking or photo-taking tourists. At a point further north where the path divided, I took an inland course, passed distant open baseball fields, more historic buildings with obscure pasts that failed to concern me that day.

As two kilometers became three, then five, I measured the distance by my fatigue and signposts, in the hope of estimating how long a trek Everett could endure, were he to one day visit the park with me again.

I’d mentioned it a few times, invited him, promising to keep a steady pace with him. He’d joked about rolling past me, saying it in that joshing tone that I felt betrayed his own doubts.

My pace slowed a bit as I veered off to Forbidden Drive, the popular wide path with a series of benches set along the tree-lined western side. To the right, the creek curved alongside. A few bicyclists zoomed past me. I trotted around to avoid some adorable little dogs on leashes.

But all the time, I remembered how the gravel path had slowed Everett down. He’d so often found some other reason to stop, or brush off an invitation, denying fatigue. I didn’t want to push him, but at the same time, I hoped my repeated invitations would encourage him.

Had I learned the difference between suggesting and pestering? He could react so differently, depending on his mood. Was this year spent being a bit farther away from each other better? His interests were so heady, while mine were so simple and earthly. He wanted to change the world, and I just wanted to make trees grow.

By the time I reached the sort of bottleneck of a white criss-crossed bridge that served a sudden influx of cars, and an open area that led to residential homes, I checked the map on a bulletin board. Yes, I could continue north, push myself, but what was the point? I’d already covered more of the park than Everett could manage at one time. Couldn’t I just enjoy this for myself?

No, actually. Collapsing to a grassy area, I panted, sipped water, wolfed down the dry trail mix and chased it with more water, and rested for the run back.

‘He can do this,’ I told myself. ‘Just don’t push him. Let him want to do it.’

“You have a nice day?”

“Yep,” said. “Ran up along the river in the park.”

“Cool.”

Everett was understandably distracted. His radio, set to a news station, reported updates on the assassination attempt on President Reagan, which had happened more than a week before. Some crazy guy had shot him in Washington, D.C.

“They said his press secretary’s still in the hospital, probably paralyzed for life.”

“Damn.”

I’d pretty much inhaled my food as Everett recounted his afternoon. We were seated on the floor of his dorm room with a few boxes of Chinese take-out food set before us. While he deftly managed a pair of chopsticks, I settled for a plastic spork.

“We didn’t get much done in study group. Everybody started arguing about gun control, and then politics, and mental health, and Reagan, and then violence in movies, and some of the guys know guys at Yale, and how the crazy shooter was stalking Jody Foster there.”

“It’s all so weird.”

“Some strange days.”

I nodded agreement, unsure what to say, except to eat, then try to change the topic.

“You should come with me again.”

“Where?”

“To the park.”

“Oh, right.”

“I promise not to drop you.”

“Okay,” he smirked.

“Okay, stop asking you, or okay, you’ll go with me?”

“Okay, I will go with you if you stop bugging me about it. I see you like the Szechuan chicken.”

“Mmm.”

“You want some of mine?” His shrimp something looked tempting. I forked a mouthful.

“So, when we move in together,” he said.

“Again.”

“Again, but off-campus.”

“I thought that was the plan.”

“Yes, well, remember, we have no idea yet where we can live.” We knew which neighborhoods were cheap, but they were also not the nicest, either.

“Mmfm.” Mouth full, I shirked off my concern that Everett was about to address something else, something that might separate us further.

“Can you cook?” he asked.

I swallowed. “Of course I can cook.”

“Have you?”

“I’ve helped my mom a lot. It’s easy. It’s just chemistry, backwards.”

“Ex-squeeze me?”

“Whatever takes the longest goes in first. That’s usually the meat. Then the starch, then the vegetables. And don’t forget the bread, which always gets forgotten. Mom always made a big joke about that. What, you don’t like cooking?”

“I love cooking; at least, I did in the old days, with Helen.” He gestured toward his legs. “But if we can’t find a place with a stove I can reach, that’s going to have to be your domain.”

“As beta male.”

“You would look cute in an apron.”

I set down my spork and flipped my wrist about in a sort of impersonation of Gerard. “Don’t impose your antiquated gender constructs on me, young man.”

“Don’t overdo it, Blanche.”

We took our time finishing off the food, then shared fortune cookies.

“This is perfect,” Everett said. “‘A fresh start will put you on your way.’”

I read mine. “Not sure about this one; ‘Every flower blooms in its own … sweat time.’”

“Sweat time?”

We giggled. It would have been another wonderful romantic evening, if the exhausting run that day, and the overload of calories and delicious food hadn’t made me sluggish by the time we cleaned up and settled into his bed. Despite his affectionate kisses and hugs, I dozed off in his arms.

About an hour later, a series of banging and knocking noises out in the hallway woke us.

Thinking it was some sort of fire alarm or emergency, I bolted up and opened the door just as, about to knock on Everett’s door, a tall, muscled and quite handsome guy, holding a stack of yellow papers, stood, surprised to see me standing dumbfounded in my undershorts, which was odd, since he was wearing a short skirt and had what appeared to be balloons under a tight pink sweater.

“You’re not Everett,” he said.

“You’re not a girl,” I replied.

“Here,” he handed me a flyer, then dismissed my protective stance in the doorway. He poked his head inside, grinning at Everett, who sat up in his bed. “Forrester! Mask and Wig tomorrow night! Ya gotta come!”

“Okay!” Everett replied, grinning.

The girl-man waved his cluster of flyers, then pranced off down the hallway to join his friends, who were stuffing more flyers under doorways, showing off more than a bit of thigh as they bent over.

Closing the door with relief, I joined Everett back in bed and handed him the invite, which promoted
Between the Covers
, a variety show at a Penn campus theatre.

“Is this another wonderful part of Ivy League life I’m missing out on?”

Everett shrugged. “Just another strange tradition.” He tossed the paper aside. “It’s actually supposed to be a hoot.”

“So, you’re going?”

“Well, yeah. We’re going. They are my house mates.”

That was just another of the eccentric things that made Penn so different than Temple, calling dorms houses; that, and muscled jocks prancing about in the hallways with inflatable breasts.

Another Saturday that I would have preferred to spend alone with him would become a public affair. Actually, I was curious to see the show.

“Is it accessible?”

“They don’t have a space for my chair. We’ll just fold it up like usual and I can sit in a regular seat.”

“Front row, hopefully,” I half-joked as I wrapped us under the sheets. “If he’s any indication, those gals are gonna be kinda sexy.”

And they were, in a strange way. The next morning, after we’d parted, I headed back to my relatively non-festive dorm, wary on the train as I held my new backpack close, despite the fact that my textbooks and spare clothes weren’t that valuable. I did some studying and laundry, and returned to Everett’s ‘house’ in plenty of time for us to find the theatre.

As we’d predicted, there weren’t any spaces for him to arrange his chair, so after he hoisted himself into an aisle seat, I folded his wheelchair and set it aside against a wall.

As we perused the program, Everett pointed out the names of housemates whom he knew, including Harris, who had abruptly greeted us at his door the night before.

Everett had become friends with several of the guys. With only a few weeks of living apart left, I let it go. There would always be others who wanted to be close to him, brag that they were his friends.

And as we saw some of those friends strut about onstage in various inane yet hilarious sketches, the giddy appreciation from the audience built in anticipation toward the finale, when the jocks would appear in makeshift drag.

Throughout the show, Everett had kept his hand either on my thigh or in my hand. I’d casually hung my arm over his shoulder, resting it on the back of his seat for a while. At one point, I’d casually grazed the back of his neck, and felt him shiver from my touch. But then he shrugged it off, what I took as a silent rejection of that small gesture of affection.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

“I’ll tell you later.”

His response was to creep his hand closer to my inner thigh. It was a semi-public yet secretive form of affection, a silent understanding we had, with no Connors or other guys in between us. We couldn’t as easily engage in the reckless public sex of our furtive pre-college days. But just the slightest bit of public display, I knew, meant more to us. So I was concerned that he had brushed off my hand.

After congratulating his friends on their performance, he thankfully declined an invitation to the cast party on my behalf.

His joked suggestion in his room that I don a T-shirt as a skirt made me bold. Stripping down to nothing else, once again I danced for him, this time to some old soul cassette mix he’d made. He clapped his hands, pretended to toss me tips. I shimmied and swayed, until the feeling of being a young man pretending to be a woman felt a little strange.

“You’re much sexier than any of those guys,” he beamed.

“But I don’t have any knockers,” I joked, squeezing my lean pectorals together.

“Well, you’re my knockout.”

As I dropped the shirt/skirt and got into bed with him, I hesitated to ask, but did anyway.

“So, what was it you were going to tell me?”

“You didn’t hear about it?”

“About what?”

“Did Reagan die?”