Michael Tolliver Lives (23 page)
Read Michael Tolliver Lives Online
Authors: Armistead Maupin
Poor Mama, I thought, living with this gothic shit for almost twenty years, protecting Irwin’s heart at any cost, while Papa got off scot-free and Lenore grew more and more sanctimonious with guilt. No wonder Lenore had been so solicitous of Mama. And no wonder my unapologetic homosexuality became their mutual obsession; it was something they could fix together, a sin that, unlike Papa’s, could still be eradicated.
“So why did she change her mind?”
“Who?”
“Mama. Why did she spill the beans now?”
“Her and Lenore were at each other’s throats all week, so I went out to the Gospel Palms and told Mama she owed Lenore some respect since Lenore only wanted the best for her. And Mama went ballistic, said she didn’t wanna die lookin’ at that evil woman’s face, and I asked her why on earth she would say such a thing, and…she told me.”
“In front of Lenore?”
“No. I went to Lenore myself. She was doin’ a puppet show up in Eustis.”
I could almost see the felt flying. “What did she say?”
“She said it happened only once or twice, and she did it to keep peace in the family.”
“What?”
“Papa had been at her for years, she said. She just wanted to put it to rest.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I don’t know what I believe,” said Irwin.
M
y brother’s second drink arrived with the food. He polished it off before the waitress left and ordered another.
“You sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure,” he said, sawing ferociously into his steak.
I felt awful for him. As Papa’s innately unacceptable son, I’d known the sting of the old man’s narcissism for decades, but Irwin had been blindsided in the worst possible way. “He didn’t do it to hurt you,” I told him. “He did it because he could—because everything revolved around him. He didn’t think about anyone else. He took what he wanted.”
He grunted as he chewed on a mouthful of steak.
“I’m really sorry, Irwin.”
Another grunt.
“At least you’ll have the Promise Keepers.”
“Say what?”
“The convention in San Jose. That should be a good boost for your spirits. The fellowship and all.”
Silence.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s no convention,” he said. “I just said that because…I didn’t want you to think I was comin’ out just to see you.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “Too much pressure, I guess.”
“Pressure? On
who
?”
“I dunno—”
“I
like
the pressure, Irwin. I like that you thought of me.”
He stared bleakly at the tabletop. “Who else am I’m gonna think of?”
It wasn’t the declaration one might have hoped for, but it almost warmed my heart. Unless that was the scotch. Whatever the reason, I was grinning over a brand-new irony.
“You
lied
about the Promise Keepers?”
We circled the grotesquerie again and again, making less and less sense of it. When Irwin was done with his third drink, I decided to cut to the chase.
“So what are you gonna do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you gonna…lift the banishment?”
He made a nervous circle on the table with his glass. “How can I live with her now, knowing what happened?”
I shrugged. “How can you not?”
“I could do it…believe you me.”
“Irwin, you can’t make scrambled eggs.”
“Well, that’s not—”
“Has she asked for forgiveness?”
“She said she asks the Lord every day.”
“Has she asked
you
?”
“I s’pose…I was yellin’ a lot.”
“Understandably.”
A long silence.
“Do you still love her?”
“Mikey…she did this in our house! Her and Papa were—”
“I’ve got the picture, Irwin. But it was eighteen years ago, and you’ve got a nice new house and a sweet grandkid, and you and Lenore are each other’s person in the world. The only way to take your life back is to forgive her. It’s obvious she’s tried to atone for this. She’s been atoning us to death for years. Forgive her and stop the damn puppets.”
I caught him suppressing a smile.
“You must love her,” I added. “You bought her a Thomas Kinkade.” (I couldn’t believe I was citing that god-awful “chapel in the dell” as proof of anything, but a desperate situation called for desperate measures.)
“It’s not as simple as that,” said Irwin. “Mama never wants to see her again.”
“Then see that she doesn’t. Tell Lenore to stay away from the Gospel Palms. That shouldn’t be hard. Just be the man—tell her what you want and what Mama wants. Isn’t that what the Promise Keepers would tell you?”
I thought I’d gone too far, but he was still listening.
“And cut yourself some slack. None of this shit is your fault. It’s okay to enjoy yourself, Irwin. Especially right now.” I widened my eyes suggestively. “If you ask me, the Lord owes you one.”
Irwin gazed at me morosely. “What do you mean?”
I picked up the bill holder and slipped my credit card into the slot. Irwin mumbled in protest, but I shooed him away. “You can pay for dinner tonight.”
“I have to get back to work,” he said nonsensically.
“You have to sober up,” I told him. “You have to go back to your room and have a nice hot shower and a nap. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“To town,” I replied.
I called Shawna as soon as I’d pulled off 101 onto Cesar Chavez.
“Hey, babycakes.”
“Oh…hi, Mouse.”
“Listen, sweetie…I need to talk to you about something.”
This must have sounded ominous to her. “Oh, shit, it’s not Dad, is it?”
“No, no. He’s fine. I mean…other than the foot. My brother’s in town, and he’s really depressed, and…I thought I might take him out tonight. I was wondering if you could recommend somebody nice at the Lusty Lady.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No…I’m not.”
“Your born-again brother from Orlando?”
“It’s complicated. He’s had a blow to his self-esteem, and I just wanna make him feel better for a while. Help him let off some steam, you know.”
“What does he want?”
“What do you mean?”
“In a
woman,
Mouse.”
“He doesn’t know about this, actually.”
“Okaay.”
“I just thought if there was someone…you know, really easygoing…that he could talk to…and mess around with maybe…it might make him feel better.”
“And he won’t consider this a sin?”
“Is it a sin if it happens behind Plexiglas?”
Shawna laughed. “Fuck if I know.”
“He can always say no, if he doesn’t want to. I just thought I’d pave the way for him. Make sure he got the right one.”
“What would be the wrong one?”
“Well, Pacifica the Pregnant Lady for one. And
you
for another.”
“I’m way past that story, Mouse. And Pacifica has a beautiful baby boy.”
“I’m thrilled for you both.”
“I take it you haven’t been reading my blog.”
“Maybe not lately.”
“You should. You’re in it.”
“Doing what?”
“Coming to the Lusty Lady. Well, maybe not
coming,
but—”
“Jesus, Shawna—”
“Okay…my bad. I promise you’ll like it, though. I call you my green-collar gay uncle. I didn’t mention your name, if you’re worried about losing your queer clients.”
“Gimme a break.”
“You might wanna think about Lorelei.”
“What?”
“For your brother. She’s blond and hella sweet, and she’s famous for her feet.”
“Her feet?”
“You should see them. They’re perfect.”
“What can you do with feet behind Plexiglas?”
“What can you do with anything behind Plexiglas? Oh, wait…Cressida…that’s the one. She really digs older guys.”
“Do older guys dig her?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Cressida as in
Troilus and Cressida
?”
“She used to work down at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. She listens well, and she, you know…talks them through it.”
“So how do we do this?”
“I’ll just call ahead and tell ’em he’s coming. What’s his name again?”
“Irwin.”
“Will you be with him?”
“Hell, no.”
“You big pussy.”
“Don’t be disrespectful.”
She giggled.
“And don’t put it in your blog, either. This is strictly private therapy. It can’t get back to Florida.”
“You have my word on it, as a pimp.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it’s sweet, actually. What you’re doing. I’ll leave a message for Cressida. Make sure he brings some cash for the slot.”
That evening I took Irwin to Joe DiMaggio’s Chophouse on Washington Square. Back when I was still living on Russian Hill, this corner was occupied by the Fior d’Italia, the city’s oldest Italian restaurant and the birthplace of chicken tetrazzini, a spaghetti dish concocted in 1908 in honor of a visiting opera singer. (Mama used to make a version of this herself, using Velveeta cheese and Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup.) I hadn’t been to the new restaurant, but I figured its blend of baseball memorabilia and oversized Marilyn photographs would keep both of us sufficiently amused.
While Irwin was working on his first scotch, a pianist was tinkling out a dreamy rendition of “I Wanna Be Loved by You.”
“Clever,” I said, smiling. (I wasn’t drinking tonight, but I had vaporized before leaving the house.)
“What?”
“That was Marilyn Monroe’s big number from
Some Like It Hot
.”
“Don’t think I remember that one.”
“Sure you do…blond. Big boobs.”
Irwin shot daggers at me. “The movie, dickwad.”
It felt good to be called that again. It reminded me of the old days—the days of the unsaved Irwin—when his terms of abasement were almost a form of intimacy. We might have been back in that dinghy at Lake Tibet looking for alligators in the dark.
I smiled at him. “They had their wedding photos taken just across the square here.”
“Who?”
“Marilyn and Joe. At Saints Peter and Paul.”
“Oh.”
“They weren’t actually
married
there. They were married at City Hall.”
Irwin nodded slowly. “Like you and Ben.”
I grinned at him. “That wasn’t my point, but…yes…come to think of it. That’s pretty cool, actually.” I was touched that he’d made the connection.
“You’re too old to be saying ‘cool,’ bro.”
“You’re right. And fuck you.”
He took another slug of his drink. “It don’t mean shit, anyway.”
“What?”
“Marriage. You give it all you got, and it blows up in your face. It’s nothing but heartache in the end.”
Mama had said the very same thing when I’d told her about marrying Ben. She and Irwin had come to the same conclusion about the same moment of betrayal by the same two people. It made sense, in a way. Southern families are nothing if not close.
“I can’t forgive her, Mikey. I can’t do it. I wouldn’t know how to start.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you could forgive each other.”
He frowned. “What have
I
got to be forgiven for?”
Recognizing my cue, I reached into the pocket of my sports coat and removed the envelope I’d brought with me. I handed it to Irwin without a word. He hesitated a moment, then opened the envelope and removed the hand-tinted Victorian postcard I’d found in a Noe Valley shop earlier that afternoon. It depicted a naughty lady in a corset vamping on a saloon piano. On the back I’d written: “GOOD FOR ONE NIGHT OF FUN IN OLD FRISCO. Kearny and Broadway. Cressida.”
“Cressida?” said Irwin. “What do I need with a car?”
I
’ve always had a thing for guys who work with wood: carpenters, lumberjacks, driftwood artists—you name it. It’s their hands, more than anything, rough and graceful all at once. I remember a counselor in the crafts hut at Camp Hemlock who could make my pubescent heart turn somersaults just by dragging a plane across a plank. And later, in the seventies (or was it the eighties?), there was that woodworker on Public TV. Remember him? The dude in suspendered jeans and Harry Reems mustache who seemed to be broadcasting from a log cabin in the wilderness? That was some fine craftsmanship.
No wonder I like meeting Ben at work. His studios down on Norfolk Street are part office/part workshop, and more often than not he’ll be hunched over his computer. Sometimes, though, when the planets are properly aligned, I’ll find him in the shop, lit by the pearly light of the translucent fiberglass roof. He’ll be working shirtless in his leather apron, lightly sugared with maple dust, humming as he guides a hand-hewn tenon into a tight mortise.
Anyway, that’s how it was on this particular day. Irwin had been back in Florida for almost a month, and the first signs of winter had arrived. Rain was coursing down the corrugation of the roof, and the shop was piquant with ozone and linseed oil.
Ben looked up and smiled when he saw me.
“Hey, husband.”
“Hey, baby.” I kissed him on the mouth. “That is fucking gorgeous.” He was working on a sideboard—a long, narrow one, slightly Asian-looking.
“Thanks.” He stroked the maple as if it were the flank of a beloved horse.
“I heard from Irwin today.”
“Oh, yeah? How are things with Lenore?”
“Not bad, considering…they’re going to Cancún for Christmas. He arranged it himself.”
“No shit.”
“I don’t know what he said to her. Or what she said to him. But…it’s like it never happened.”
“Maybe she told him your dad was a bum fuck.”
“Eeeeyew.”
“Sorry.”
“I think Irwin needed a secret. And a guy he could share it with…even if it had to be me. Mama and Lenore had their own secret for eighteen years. He just needed to level the playing field.”
“Tit for tat,” said Ben, smiling.
“Or pussy for tat, as the case may be.”
