Sweet Like Sugar (9 page)

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Authors: Wayne Hoffman

Tags: #Fiction, #Literary, #General, #Jewish Men, #Male Friendship, #Rabbis, #Jewish, #Religion, #Jewish Gay Men, #Judaism

BOOK: Sweet Like Sugar
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The first time I rode the subway without my parents was on a Hebrew school field trip to see the new Holocaust Museum on the National Mall.
My parents told me that I couldn't possibly understand what it meant to have such a prominent Jewish presence on the Mall, an acknowledgment that Jews were wholly Americans. The Jewish story had become, at last, part of the American story. I understood all that, I told them, but I didn't understand what the Holocaust, which happened in Europe, had to do with American history—why the museum belonged near the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument.
“The Mall is symbolic,” my father explained. “Being on the Mall is a sign that you are truly part of America.”
I didn't quite buy the argument—why, then, a Holocaust museum instead of a museum of American Jewry?—but my parents insisted (without seeing it themselves) that it would all make sense when I saw it in person. So off I went, on an outing with my Hebrew school class to take a special tour of the museum, an invitation-only sneak peek the day before it officially opened in April 1993. Mr. Bleyer was a survivor of Buchenwald and a member of the museum's advisory committee, and he had pulled a few strings to get tickets for Congregation Beth Shalom's seventh-grade class, the last year before kids get bar and bat mitzvahed and drop out of Hebrew school. We would see just what kinds of horrible things the Nazis had done.
We were eighteen students, plus two teachers and Mr. Bleyer himself. We picked up the Metro at Grosvenor, one of the elevated suburban stations on the red line, not far from the synagogue.
I had been on the subway plenty of times—visits to the zoo, the Smithsonian, Union Station—but I had never seen it so crowded on a Sunday morning. And the crowd was unusually lively, chatting excitedly on the platform, waiting for the train downtown.
Mr. Bleyer herded us in a small group at one end of the station so he could keep track of us more easily.
“What's going on?” I asked my teacher, pointing to the crowd.
“I don't know,” she responded. “The Cherry Blossom Festival is over. Must be some kind of parade.”
The lights blinked on the edge of the platform, signaling an approaching train. Mr. Bleyer gathered us up in a close group so we could all enter through a single door and rush to claim seats. We were quick, throwing our bodies onto the orange and red cushioned seats and pushing one another out of the way to secure spots by the windows. The grown-ups stood next to us in the aisle. Our class staked out a small piece of territory in the rear car, a space big enough for us to tune out the rest of the passengers.
Almost.
The train was filled to capacity by the time we reached Bethesda. People were crammed shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the car, leaning against the metal doors. But this wasn't a grouchy rush-hour scene; people were in high spirits, talking loudly and laughing boisterously, cracking jokes with friends and greeting strangers with outstretched hands, cooing at babies cowering in strollers and kissing each other on the lips—men and women alike. “Are we going in the right direction?” someone asked. “Honey, we're all going to the same place,” came the answer.
Many passengers carried placards. I strained to get a look. I saw “equal” signs, pink triangles, small rainbow flags. But I couldn't read the words. One man standing a few feet away had a sign tucked under his arm at his side; I cocked my head to try to make out the words. He looked down and noticed me. He held the sign up for me: a pink triangle with the slogan “Silence = Death.” I nodded, but didn't understand what it meant.
The teachers looked uneasy, their eyes watchful of the crowd. The other boys were punching one another and whispering dirty jokes. The girls were the only ones chatting with the other passengers, in typically ballsy fashion.
“I totally love your earrings,” Shira Epstein said to a woman standing nearby.
“Thanks, I made them myself,” the woman replied. And the ice was broken.
“So, um, where's everyone going?” Shira asked next.
“Today's the March on Washington,” the woman answered, as the woman next to her turned to see who was asking.
Shira looked back blankly.
“The March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights,” the woman's friend clarified.
“Oh,” said Shira. “Cool.” She flashed a smile, which was returned in kind. The girl next to Shira giggled, but Shira elbowed her and mumbled, “Shut up.”
A gay march. First I'd heard of it. And the first time I'd ever seen so many gay people in person. I started scanning the men to see what they looked like.
My eyes grazed over a cluster of middle-aged men with moustaches and bald heads, half a dozen young black guys in khaki shorts and white tennis shoes, one man in a military uniform, a couple carrying a pair of dachshunds with matching rainbow collars. Then my eyes came to rest on one guy, perhaps twenty, wearing a Cornell T-shirt. His dark hair was short and curly, his face freshly shaven, bushy eyebrows capping the retro sixties glasses balanced on his prominent nose.
He looked happy. He was among friends, seemed at home in his own skin. Another man a few feet away turned around and caught his eye. “Buck!” he called, and the Cornell guy turned to face him. So, his name was Buck. His eyes lit up, his arms reached out, and the two men kissed. On the lips. Not briefly. I was staring. So were my classmates. Even the boys stopped punching one another.
My teacher muttered to herself, “Oh, really, this is too much.”
Mr. Bleyer looked over and cleared his throat loudly: “Ahem!”
The kisser opened his eyes, pulled away from Buck, and said, “We've got an audience.”
Buck looked over at our group, smiled weakly, then whispered loud enough for us to hear: “So let them watch if they want.”
I turned away, pretending to stare out the window, but he caught my eye in the reflection. Revelation was instant, unspoken, traveling on invisible radio waves.
Buck turned back to the kisser and said, “Some of them should be taking notes.”
Some of us were.
We transferred at Metro Center to the orange line, grabbing buddies to stay together. We arrived at the museum to find a completely different crowd waiting: suits instead of T-shirts, solemnly quiet, no signs.
Mr. Bleyer had our tickets ready, and as we walked into the museum, each of us was handed a card representing an actual victim of the Holocaust. We would follow our real-life victim through the events that unfolded for him or her, as the timeline of the Holocaust progressed in the exhibit. I got Ruth, a Jewish woman from Vienna. My classmates followed a Catholic priest from Krakow, a Jewish banker from Paris, a Gypsy grandfather from Czechoslovakia. Two cards drew the most attention: one, a Jewish teenager from Prague, who could have been any of us; the other, an artist from Berlin, who was sent to Dachau for being homosexual. The latter was dealt to Barry Schwartz, a quiet, nerdy boy I'd known since kindergarten who had recently grown obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons.
“Oooh, Barry drew the fag card!” shouted one of the boys.
“Hey, Barry, is that your new boyfriend?” shouted another.
Then came the boys blowing kisses. The girls giggling. The teachers ignoring the whole scene. And me, standing in silence.
 
After pizza, Michelle and Dan headed to a movie; they had plans to spend the night at Dan's apartment. He lived alone, so they had more privacy there than they did at our place. The fact that they
wanted
more privacy meant that things between them were good.
“What was that stuff about the Five Commandments?” Dan asked while he waited for Michelle to get an overnight bag together.
“It's just a running joke between us,” I said. “I tease her because she grew up Reform.”
“So did I,” he said. “What about you?”
“Conservative.”
“Keep kosher?”
“I did,” I said. “Growing up.”
“Not anymore, huh? You scarfed down that pepperoni pizza.”
“Being Jewish is important to me,” I said, “but not important enough to pass up a good pizza. I mean, I'm gay. A little pork is the least of my sins.”
He laughed, but just for a second.
“Seriously, how important is it to you?” he asked.
“I don't know,” I said. “It was important when I was a kid. And then when I left home, it didn't seem so important anymore. I had other things to think about in college, you know?”
“Like what?”
“Coming out.”
“Right,” he said. “But how about now? I've never heard you talk about this stuff before, but now you've got this rabbi in your office, and you're talking about the Holocaust. Sounds like something's going on. So what does it all mean to you now, as a gay grown-up?”
I mulled it over for a minute. “I guess I'm trying to figure that out.”
We stood silently until Michelle interrupted us with a call from her bedroom: “Be right out!”
Dan checked his watch.
“What are you seeing tonight?” I asked.
“Some chick flick,” he said. “Whatever. It doesn't matter.”
Compromise without complaint. Things between them did sound good.
Michelle came out of her bedroom with a knapsack over her shoulder.
“What are you doing tonight, Benji?” she asked.
“I don't know.”
She looked at Dan and gave him a knowing look. “He's got the apartment to himself. Probably gonna go to Dupont Circle and pick up three different guys and have some wild orgy here in the apartment.”
He slung his arm over Michelle's shoulder.
“Gay guys have it made,” he said, half-serious. “I wish I could pick up three different girls.”
Michelle punched him in the ribs, playfully.
“Kidding!
Ouch
—geez, I was only kidding! Good luck, dude,” he said, grabbing Michelle's fists in his much larger hands. He bent down to kiss Michelle. And they were out the door.
I wished my real life were as much fun as the life they thought I had.
Standing in the living room, without any plans, I felt a twinge of jealousy in the back of my mind. It's not that I envied Michelle for having Dan; he was cute and undeniably sweet, but I'd never been one to chase straight men. It was Michelle, who'd been a more constant companion than any guy I'd dated, that I was worried about losing. We'd been inseparable since we first met during orientation week at college, fast friends who crammed for tests together, went to movies together, stayed up late together bitching about our roommates. I'd feared losing her once before, when she'd made a pass at me outside the freshman dance over Homecoming weekend; “It's not you, it's me,” I sputtered—and when that hackneyed excuse didn't seem to quell her embarrassment, I quickly added in a whisper, “I'm gay.” A lonely week of silence followed, before she popped by my dorm room unannounced, ready to simply resume our friendship where we'd left off with a solemn promise that we'd always be honest with each other from that point forward. “It'll be like that new show
Will & Grace,
” she said, half-joking. We'd been best friends ever since.
But now I had that feeling again, that it might not last. Even
Will & Grace
had ended eventually. She'd move on. And I'd be left behind. Alone.
It was Saturday night. I didn't have a date. Nobody to see a movie with, nobody to spend the night with. Not even anyone to stay home and watch
Saturday Night Live
with. Pathetic.
I called Phil, and he agreed to meet me; I knew he'd cheer me up with tales of his latest boyfriend-for-a-day. I showered, got dressed, and got in the car, heading for Dupont Circle.
“What happened to the guy from Paradise?” he asked as we stood in a video bar on P Street.
I shook my head. “Political differences,” I said.
“Gay Republican, huh?”
I didn't feel like going into the details, so I just said, “Something like that.”
“Anyone new?”
“Not really,” I said. “But I have been spending a lot of time with someone. . . .”
I told him about the rabbi. He was a bit confused.
“Sorry, Benji, I just can't imagine what you two have to talk about,” he said. “I mean, if one of the priests from Saint Veronica's popped into my office, I think I'd have a heart attack.”

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