My Most Excellent Year (30 page)

Dear Jutes,

I’ve been through a broken heart, I’ve survived the grieving process, and I reclaimed the fragmented pieces of my life better than Fanny Brice did after Nicky dumped her. But then he sends me a forgive-me e-mail quoting Barbra Streisand—and instead of melting again, all I want to do is kick his ass. What’s up with
that
? I’m
so
not cut out for love. The rules are too complicated. No wonder Romeo and Juliet killed themselves after one night together.

I used to think I was a pushover, but you’re the one who taught me the ground rules. Remember how you stood up to John Truitt when you thought he was a bully, even though you loved him? I probably should have made you my guardian diva right from the beginning, but somehow it seemed so retro. These days gay kids are a lot more worldly. We don’t get points for knowing the date of your Carnegie Hall concert (April 23, 1961), when you were born (June 10, 1922), or what you said to Betty Hutton when she replaced you in
Annie Get Your Gun
(“You goddamn son of a bitch”). And we need to rewrite some of the rules together, because
Meet Me in St. Louis
doesn’t play the way it used to.

Andy came over on Sunday to check out a Patriots game from 1999 that Dad had taped but never seen. This is how my father gets through the off-season without going into withdrawal. He has a whole library of unwatched videos that go back to the ’80s. At the rate of one every two weeks from February through July, he’s okay until the spring of 2012. Then he needs to start worrying.

It was the first time Andy and I were going to be together since that harrowing Thursday at The Word Shop Café, and because it was supposed to begin snowing later in the afternoon, Dad lit a fire while Mom made popcorn. Normally I’d have made sure to squeeze myself into the love seat next to Andy, but he wasn’t getting off
that
easy. (When Dad saw me considering an armchair next to the front door, he said, “Why don’t you just sit in the chimney? I can pipe a speaker up there if you want.”) Coming over to our house was always a special occasion for Andy, but this wasn’t going to be one of those days.

On the other hand, finding something new to be pathological about is what keeps me in business, and I’d been worrying ever since Sunday when I watched him and my father test each other—from the tat soi right up through Mom’s orange cakes—on statistics like 1993 yardage and 1998 point spreads and players with long names that didn’t have any vowels in them.
Maybe Andy was right after all. Look how much fun Dad is having. Does he wish he had a son who understood football? Sure he does, you gink. Watch the way they’re challenging each other about pass protection—whatever the hell
that
is. Did Dad ever have a conversation like that with
you
? Oh yeah, right. I can practically hear it. “Hey, Dad—whose idea was Bette Davis’s party dress in
All About Eve?”
“Edith Head, you dope!” No wonder he’s so animated. He’s finally got a kid he can talk to on his own terms. I’m like SO useless!!

I made it through the rest of the week on the snake-pit side of gloomy, wondering whether or not they let gay kids in the Peace Corps.
(“Why do you want to join, son?” “Because I embarrass my father, sir. I don’t know what a down is.” “Then why the hell would
we
want you either??”)
By Saturday night I was about as well put together as Shirley MacLaine at the end of
The Children’s Hour
, lying in my bed and staring at the walls like one of those cable ads for Paxil. Of course, it helps to have a dad who can read you like a
book, even if it gets a little irritating once in a while. A guy’s got to have
some
secrets.

“Aug,” he asked, tucking me in. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I shrugged, so obviously not fine.
Why are you wasting your time with me? Your son wouldn’t know a lateral pass if he was sitting on one.

“You sure nothing’s the matter?” he repeated. The sigh that shook my whole body was actually a little much—even for me.

“I’m positive.” That was when he knew it was time to sit down on the edge of my bed and think for a really long minute. Which is what he did. And suddenly his eyes arched up like he had it all figured out, so he kind of half smiled and leaned in to kiss me good night.

“Don’t worry,” he promised confidently, reaching for the lamp on my night table to switch it off. “Boyfriends and girlfriends fight all the time. It’s part of being in love.”

“That’s not it,” I blurted. Dad’s hand froze in midair and the lamp stayed on.

“Oh. Uh, well—” He sat up straight again and tried another road. “‘Stage fright is normal when you’ve got a big part’?”

“Nope.” Well, by now he knew he was really stuck between a rock and a hard place. Usually he gets it on the first whack, and once in a while it takes two. But this was a whole other solar system. So he stood up and began pacing back and forth in front of my
All About Eve
action figures. The way his eyes were lowered and his forehead was concentrating, you could tell that he was replaying everything that had happened since just before I started acting weird. Meanwhile, I was getting sleepy. Being neurotic takes a lot of hard work. I really needed him to wrap up his performance so I
wouldn’t zonk out in the middle of my finale. Then on the third lap he stopped dead in his tracks and frowned.

“Oh, no,” he mumbled, more to himself than to me. He sat back down in a hurry and ran his hand across the top of my hair. “Augie, listen to me. If I’d had a kid who liked football, we’d have driven Mom crazy eight years ago. I got
exactly
who I wanted.”

“Even if—Even if I never heard of a play-action pass before?” I stammered.

“You dopey rock-head. That’s what son-in-laws are for! Now, is there anything
else
that’s not bothering you?”

“No,” I admitted sort of sheepishly. “That was all.” When he switched off the lamp and kissed me good night for real, I turned over on my side—just the way Hucky does with Shut-the-Door—so he wouldn’t see how relieved I was.

“I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too.”

So just before Andy showed up a week later to watch the Pats and the Colts with us, Mom and Dad decided they were going to teach me the basics once and for all—but in a language I understood.

Why didn’t someone tell me that football was such a no-brainer?! The Colts went for the extra curtain call but then Crawford sang for them and Marvin Harrison got in the way of the Merm. Friesz’s kick held the high C for six seconds and forty-three yards, Ellison was waiting on the chorus line, and the Pats won 21–17.

But I still owe him a kick in the ass. Just like you owed Mickey Rooney a couple of your own. Any ideas?

Love,

Augie